THE FALL OP BABYLON AND DANIKL V, 30. 



11 



should l)e able to advance througli the water and enter the city 

 by the river gates. The ]3al)ylonians, secure within the walls of 

 Babylon, "took no heed," Herodotus says, "of the siege" — 

 whilst Xenophon says, "They laughed at the Persians, and 

 turned them into ridicule," — so the work of digging the 

 trenches went on without any attempt on the part of the 

 besieged to interfere with it ; — and the siege was consequently 

 carried on " without fighting." This bloodless character of the 

 siege — as described by the classical writers — is an important 

 point to note. 



And Herodotus says, that when Cyrus had set these things in 

 order, he himself went away with the inefficient part of his 

 army, and employed it in diverting the river at another point 

 into a marshy lake. This absence of Cyrus from the principal 

 scene of operations is another point to be particularly noted. 



ljut when the trenches were dug, Xenophon relates, Cyrus 

 selected a night on wdhcli he heard there was to be some great 

 feast held in Babylon, and as soon as darkness fell, taking a 

 number of his troops, he caused the trenches to be opened, the 

 water from the Euphrates poured into them, and soon the river 

 became shallower. Then Cyrus commanded two of his most 

 trusted officers, Gobryas and Gadatas, to lead tlie troops up the 

 river, now rendered shallow at its banks, and to enter the city 

 by the river gates. 



It was a night of festival iu Babylon, the streets were full of 

 revellers. The soldiers of Gobryas, assuming the guise of 

 revellers themselves, mingled in the crowd — pressed on to the 

 palace — burst in through the guards at the palace gates — and 

 reached the hall where the King was. They found him, when 

 they entered, standing up sword in hand — but he was soon 

 overpowered by numbei's, and fell slain by the soldiers of 

 Gobryas. Such would appear to luive been Belshazzar's tragic 

 end. 



Cyrus instantly sent cavalry through the city, and caused it 

 to be proclaimed that, on pain of death, none of the Babylonians 

 should leave their houses. Xext morning all arms and the 

 towers of the city were surrendered; Cyrus held a great 

 reception, at which the Babylonians, Xenophon says, attended in 

 unmanageable numbers — and thus, almost without fighting or 

 bloodshed, Babylon was his. The Cyrus Cylinder, one of the 

 principal inscriptions of that time, in remarkable agreement 

 with this says, "The men of Babylon, all of them, and the 

 whole of Sumer and Accad, the nobles and the high priest, 

 bowed themselves beneath him, they kissed ids feet, they 



