ofty to be scaled, and too massive to
be battered down by the means possessed by the ancients. Mining in the
soft alluvial soil would have been dangerous work, especially as the
town ditch was deep and supplied with abundant water from the Euphrates.
Cyrus, had he failed in his night attack, would probably have at once
raised the siege; and Babylonian independence might perhaps in that case
have been maintained down to the time of Alexander.

Even thus, however, the "Empire" would not have been continued. So soon
as it became evident that the Babylonians were no match for the Persians
in the field, their authority over the subject nations was at an end.
The Susianians, the tribes of the middle Euphrates, the Syrians, the
Phoenicians, the Jews, the Idumseans, the Ammonites and Moabites, would
have gravitated to the stronger power, even if the attack of Cyrus on
Babylon itself had been repulsed. For the conquests of Cyrus in Asia
Minor, the Oxus region, and Afghanistan, had completely destroyed the
balance of power in Western Asia, and given to Persia a preponderance
both in men and in resources against which the cleverest and most
energetic of Babylonian princes would have struggled in vain. Persia
must in any case have absorbed all the tract between Mount Zagros and
the Mediterranean, except Babylonia Proper; and thus the successful
defence of Babylon would merely have deprived the Persian Empire of a
province.

In its general character the Babylonian Empire was little more than
a reproduction of the Assyrian. The same loose organization of the
provinces under native kings rather than satraps almost universally
prevailed, with the same duties on the part of suzerain and subjects and
the same results of ever-recurring revolt and re-conquest. Similar
means were employed under both empires to check and discourage
rebellion--mutilations and executions of chiefs, pillage of the
rebellious region, and wholesale deportation of its population. Babylon,
equally with Assyria, failed to win the affections of the subject
nations, and, as a natural result, received no help from them in her
hour of need. Her system was to exhaust and oppress the conquered
races for the supposed benefit of the conquerors, and to impoverish the
provinces for the adornment and enrichment of the capital. The wisest of
her monarch's thought it enough to construct works of public utility
in Babylonia Proper, leaving the dependent countries to themselves,