reet which led down to the river at right
angles so that if the population had not been disqualified by the
influences of the moment, they would have caught the assailants in the
bed of the river "as in a trap," and overwhelmed them from the walls
alongside. Within a square of fifteen miles to each side, we are not
surprised to hear that both the extremities were already in the power of
the besiegers before the central population heard of it, and while they
were yet absorbed in unconscious festivity.

Such is the account given by Herodotus of the circumstances which placed
Babylon--the greatest city of Western Asia--in the power of the
Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was
incorrect or exaggerated, we cannot now decide. The way in which the
city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition cannot
have cost the conqueror either much time or much loss. Cyrus comes into
the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with their whole
territory become tributary to the Persians, forming the richest satrapy
in the empire; but we do not hear that the people were otherwise
ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and gates were left
untouched. This was very different from the way in which the Medes had
treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined and for a long time
absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a reduced scale under the
Parthian empire; and very different also from the way in which Babylon
itself was treated twenty years afterward by Darius, when reconquered
after a revolt.

The importance of Babylon, marking as it does one of the peculiar forms
of civilization belonging to the ancient world in a state of full
development, gives an interest even to the half-authenticated stories
respecting its capture. The other exploits ascribed to Cyrus--his
invasion of India, across the desert of Arachosia--and his attack upon
the Massagetae, Nomads ruled by Queen Tomyris and greatly resembling the
Scythians, across the mysterious river which Herodotus calls
Araxes--are too little known to be at all dwelt upon. In the latter he
is said to have perished, his army being defeated in a bloody battle. He
was buried at Pasargadae, in his native province of Persis proper, where
his tomb was honored and watched until the breaking up of the empire,
while his memory was held in profound veneration among the Persians. Of
his real exploits we know little or nothing, but in what we read