Euphrates to such a degree it became not above the height of a man’s thigh.  The period chosen was that of a great Babylonian festival, when the whole population were engaged in amusement and revelry.  The Persian troops left near the town, watching their opportunity, entered from both sides along the bed of the river, and took it by surprise with scarcely any resistance.  At no other time, except during a festival, could they have done this (says Herodotus) had the river been ever so low, for both banks throughout the whole length of the town were provided with quays, with continuous walls, and with gates at the end of every street 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