y months the siege seemed no nearer to its
close than at the outset, and the besiegers were on the point of losing
heart, when at length Zopyrus, one of the seven, sacrificed himself
for the success of the blockading army. Slitting his nose and ears, and
lacerating his back with the lash of a whip, he made his way into the
city as a deserter, and persuaded the garrison to assign him a post of
danger under pretence of avenging the ill-treatment he had received
from his former master. He directed some successful sallies on points
previously agreed upon, and having thus lulled to rest any remaining
feelings of distrust on the part of the garrison, he treacherously
opened to the Persians the two gates of which he was in charge; three
thousand Babylonians were impaled, the walls were razed to the ground,
and the survivors of the struggle were exiled and replaced by strange
colonists.* The only authentic fact about this story is the length of
the siege. Nebuchadrezzar was put to death, and Darius, at length
free to act, hastened to despatch one of his lieutenants, the Persian
Artavardiya, against Vahyazdata, while he himself marched upon the Medes
with the main body of the royal army.**

* Ctesias places the siege of Babylon forty years later,
under Xerxes I.; according to him, it was Megabysus, son of
Zopyrus, who betrayed the city. Polysenus asserts that the
stratagem of Zopyrus was adopted in imitation of a Sakian
who dwelt beyond the Oxus. Latin writers transferred the
story to Italy, and localised it at Gabii: but the Roman
hero, Sextus Tarquinius, did not carry his devotion to the
point of mutilating himself.

** _Beldstun Inscr_.: "Then I sent the army of the Persians
and Medes which was with me. One named Artavardiya, a
Persian, my servant, I made their general; the rest of the
Persian army went to Media with me."

The rebels had hitherto been confronted by the local militia, brave
but inexperienced troops, with whom they had been able to contend on a
fairly equal footing: the entry into the field of the veteran regiments
of Cyrus and Cambyses changed the aspect of affairs, and promptly
brought the campaign to a successful issue. Darius entered Media by
the defiles of Kerend, reinforced Vidarna in Kambadcne, and crushed the
enemy near the town of Kundurush, on the 20th of Adukanish, 519 B.C.
Khshatrita fled towards the north with some few horsemen, doubtle