1.190.1
Then at the beginning of the following spring, when Cyrus had punished the Gyndes by dividing it among the three hundred and sixty canals, he marched against Babylon at last. The Babylonians sallied out and awaited him; and when he came near their city in his march, they engaged him, but they were beaten and driven inside the city.
1.190.2
There they had stored provisions enough for very many years, because they knew already that Cyrus was not a man of no ambitition, and saw that he attacked all nations alike; so now they were indifferent to the siege; and Cyrus did not know what to do, being so long delayed and gaining no advantage.
ch. 191
1.191.1
Whether someone advised him in his difficulty, or whether he perceived for himself what to do, I do not know, but he did the following.
1.191.2
He posted his army at the place where the river goes into the city, and another part of it behind the city, where the river comes out of the city, and told his men to enter the city by the channel of the Euphrates when they saw it to be fordable. Having disposed them and given this command, he himself marched away with those of his army who could not fight;
1.191.3
and when he came to the lake, Cyrus dealt with it and with the river just as had the Babylonian queen: drawing off the river by a canal into the lake, which was a marsh, he made the stream sink until its former channel could be forded.
1.191.4
When this happened, the Persians who were posted with this objective made their way into Babylon by the channel of the Euphrates, which had now sunk to a depth of about the middle of a man's thigh.
1.191.5
Now if the Babylonians had known beforehand or learned what Cyrus was up to, they would have let the Persians enter the city and have destroyed them utterly; for then they would have shut all the gates that opened on the river and mounted the walls that ran along the river banks, and so caught their enemies in a trap.
1.191.6
But as it was, the Persians took them unawares, and because of the great size of the city (those who dwell there say) those in the outer parts of it were overcome, but the inhabitants of the middle part knew nothing of it; all this time they were dancing and celebrating a holiday which happened to fall then, until they learned the truth only too well.
ch. 192
1.192.1
And Babylon, then for the first time, was taken in this way. I shall show how great the power of Babylon is by many other means, but particularly by this. All the land that the great King rules is parcelled out to provision him and his army, and pays tribute besides: now the territory of Babylon feeds him for four of the twelve months in the year, the whole of the rest of Asia providing for the other eight.
1.192.2
Thus the wealth of Assyria is one third of the entire wealth of Asia. The governorship of this land, which the Persians call “satrapy,” is by far the most powerful of all the governorships, since the daily income of Tritantaechmes son of Artabazus, who governed this province by the king's will, was an artaba full of silver
1.192.3
(the artaba is a Persian measure, containing more than an Attic medimnus by three Attic choenixes), note and besides warhorses he had eight hundred stallions in his stables, and sixteen thousand brood mares, each stallion servicing twenty mares.
1.192.4
Moreover he kept so great a number of Indian dogs that four great villages of the plain were appointed to provide food for the dogs and exempted from all other burdens. Such were the riches of the governor of Babylon.
ch. 193
1.193.1
There is little rain in Assyria. This nourishes the roots of the grain; but it is irrigation from the river that ripens the crop and brings the grain to fullness. In Egypt, the river itself rises and floods the fields; in Assyria, they are watered by hand and by swinging beams. note
