The Good Book

by A. C. Grayling

  11. ‘Being masters of the largest island in the world, exercising dominion even beyond its bounds; whereas if they stayed in Ionia, he saw no prospect of their ever recovering their freedom.’

  12. Such was the counsel Bias gave the Ionians in their affliction. Before their misfortunes began, Thales, a man of Miletus, of Phoenician descent, had recommended a different plan.

  He counselled them to establish a single seat of government, and nominated Teos as the fittest place for it; ‘for that,’ he said, ‘was the centre of Ionia.

  13. ‘Their other cities might still continue to enjoy their own laws, just as if they were independent states.’ This also was good advice.

  14. The fall of Ionia was the harbinger of Harpagus’ conquest of the rest of the independent people in the lower parts of Asia, among them the Carians, the Caunians and the Lycians.

  15. Of these nations, the Carians submitted to Harpagus without performing any brilliant exploits. Nor did the Greeks who dwelt in Caria behave with any greater gallantry.

  16. Above Halicarnassus, and further from the coast, were the Pedasians. They alone, of all the dwellers in Caria, resisted Harpagus for a while, and gave him much trouble,

  17. Maintaining themselves in a certain mountain called Lida, which they had fortified; but in course of time they also were forced to submit.

  18. When Harpagus, after these successes, led his forces into the Xanthian plain, the Lycians of Xanthus went out to fight him:

  19. And though but a small band against a numerous host, they engaged in battle, and performed many glorious exploits.

  20. Overpowered at last, and forced within their walls, they collected into the citadel their wives and children, all their treasures, and their slaves;

  21. And having so done, set fire to the building, and burnt it to the ground with all in it.

  22. After this, they bound themselves together by a bond of brotherhood, and sallying forth against the enemy, died sword in hand, not one escaping.

  23. Now these were the auguries of the future: that the best of the Greeks would rather die in freedom than live in servitude; and the Persians should have taken warning from this.

  Chapter 18

  1. While the lower parts of Asia were brought under by Harpagus, Cyrus in person subjected the upper regions, conquering every nation, and not suffering one to escape.

  2. When he had brought the rest of the continent under his control, he turned his attention to the Assyrians, and made war on them.

  3. Assyria possessed a vast number of great cities, of which the most renowned and strongest at this time was Babylon, which had been made the seat of government after the fall of Nineveh.

  4. The city stood on a broad plain, and was an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so that the entire circuit was four hundred and eighty furlongs.

  5. While such was its size, in magnificence there was no other city that approached it.

  6. It was surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water,

  7. Behind which rose a wall fifty royal cubits in width, and two hundred in height.

  8. The wall was built from the spoil of the moat, made directly into bricks in kilns beside the excavation.

  9. The cement for the wall was hot bitumen, with a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of bricks.

  10. On the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another,

  11. Leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the wall were a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen lintels and side-posts.

  12. The city was divided into two by the river which runs through the middle: the Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift stream which rises in Armenia, and empties itself into the Erythraean Sea.

  13. The city wall was brought down on both sides to the edge of the stream: thence, from the corners of the wall, there was carried along each bank of the river a fence of burnt bricks.

  14. The houses were mostly three and four stories high; the streets all ran in straight lines, not only those parallel to the river, but also the cross streets which led down to the waterside.

  15. At the river end of these cross streets were low gates in the fence that skirted the stream, which were, like the great gates in the outer wall, of brass, and opened on the water.

  16. The outer wall was the main defence of the city. There was, however, a second, inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in strength.

  17. The palace of the kings was surrounded by a wall of great strength and size, with gates of solid brass.

  18. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which stood a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight.

  19. The ascent to the top was on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. About halfway up one found seats, so that one could rest on one’s way to the summit.

  20. Many sovereigns have ruled over Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its walls and the adornment of its beauties.

  21. Among them two were women. Of these, the earlier, called Semiramis, held the throne five generations before the later princess.

  22. She raised embankments in the plain near Babylon to control the river, which till then used to overflow and flood the whole country round about.

  23. The later of the two queens, whose name was Nitocris, a wiser princess than her predecessor, not only left behind her great works of building which enhanced the city, but also a cunning defence against interference from the Medes.

  24. Observing the great power and restless enterprise of the Medes, who had taken so large a number of cities, and among them Nineveh,

  25. And expecting to be attacked in her turn, Nitocris made all possible exertions to increase the defences of her empire.

  26. And first, whereas the River Euphrates, which traverses the city, formerly ran with a straight course to Babylon,

  27. She, by certain excavations at a distance upstream, rendered it so winding that it comes three times within view of the same village in Assyria called Ardericea;

  28. And to this day those who go from the Mediterranean coast to Babylon, having reached the Euphrates to sail down it, touch three times on three different days at this very place.

  29. Nitocris also made an embankment along each side of the river, wonderful both for breadth and height,

  30. And dug a basin for a lake a great way above Babylon, close alongside the stream, which was sunk everywhere to the point where they came to water,

  31. And was of such breadth that the whole circuit measured four hundred and twenty furlongs.

  32. When the excavation was finished, Nitocris had stones brought, and bordered the entire margin of the reservoir with them.

  33. These two things were done, the river made to wind and the lake excavated, so that the stream might be slacker by reason of the number of curves,

  34. And the voyage be rendered circuitous, and that at the end of the voyage it might be necessary to skirt the lake and so make a long round.

  35. All these works were on that side of Babylon where the passes lay, and the roads into Media were the straightest,

  36. And the aim of the queen in making them was to prevent the Medes from holding intercourse with the Babylonians, and so to keep them ignorant of her affairs.

  Chapter 19

  1. The expedition of Cyrus was undertaken against the son of this princess, who bore the same name as his father, Labynetus, and was king of the Assyrians.

  2. Cyrus introduced the policy whereby the Persian kings, when they go to war, are always supplied with provisions carefully prepared at home, and with cattle of their own.

  3. Water too from the River Choaspes, which flows by Susa, is taken with them for their drink, as that is the only water that the kings of Persia taste.

  4. Wherever the king travels, h
e is attended by a number of four-wheeled cars drawn by mules,

  5. In which the Choaspes water, ready boiled for use, and stored in flagons of silver, is moved with him from place to place.

  6. Cyrus on his way to Babylon came to the banks of the Gyndes, a stream which, rising in the Matienian mountains, runs through the country of the Dardanians, and empties itself into the River Tigris.

  7. The Tigris, after receiving the Gyndes, flows on by the city of Opis, and discharges its waters into the Erythraean Sea.

  8. When Cyrus reached the Gyndes, which could only be passed in boats, one of the prized white horses accompanying his march, full of boldness and high mettle, walked into the water, and tried to cross by himself;

  9. But the current seized him, swept him along with it, and drowned him in its depths.

  10. Cyrus, enraged by this, resolved to break the river’s strength so that in future even children should cross it easily without wetting their tunics.

  11. Accordingly he delayed his attack on Babylon for a time, and dividing his army into two parts, marked out by ropes one hundred and eighty trenches on each side of the Gyndes, leading off from it in all directions.

  12. Setting his army to dig, some on one side of the river, some on the other, he accomplished his intention by the aid of so many hands, but not without thereby losing the whole summer season.

  13. Having thus wreaked his vengeance on the Gyndes by dispersing it through three hundred and sixty channels, Cyrus, with the first approach of the ensuing spring, marched forward against Babylon.

  14. The Babylonians, camped outside their walls, awaited his coming. A battle was fought at a short distance from the city, in which the Babylonians were defeated, whereupon they withdrew within their defences.

  15. Here they shut themselves up, and made light of his siege, having laid in a store of provisions for many years in preparation against this attack;

  16. For when they saw Cyrus conquering nation after nation, they were convinced that he would never stop, and that their turn would come.

  17. Cyrus was now reduced to great perplexity, as time went on and he made no progress against the place.

  18. But then he devised a plan. He placed a portion of his army at the point where the river enters the city, and another where it flows out,

  19. With orders to march into the town by the bed of the stream, as soon as the water became shallow enough.

  20. He then drew himself off with the unwarlike portion of his host, and made for the place where Nitocris had dug the basin for the river, where he did exactly what she had done formerly:

  21. He turned the Euphrates by a canal into the basin, which was then a marsh; as a result of which the river sank so low that the bed of the stream became fordable.

  22. When this happened the Persian warriors who had been left where the river entered the city, finding that the water now reached only about midway up a man’s thigh, waded into the town.

  23. Had the Babylonians known what Cyrus was about, or had they noticed their danger, they would have destroyed the Persians utterly;

  24. For they would have made fast all the street-gates giving onto the river, and mounting on the walls along both sides would have had their enemy trapped.

  25. But as it was the Persians took them by surprise and captured the city. Owing to the vast size of the place, the inhabitants of the central parts knew nothing of what had chanced until long after the outer portions of the town were taken,

  26. But as they were engaged in a festival, they continued dancing and revelling until far too late.

  Chapter 20

  1. Such, then, were the circumstances of the first taking of Babylon. With its territory it proved to be the richest and most fruitful of the satrapies of the Persian empire.

  2. It alone provided a third of the empire’s annual food and supplies, all the rest of Asia together providing two-thirds.

  3. When Tritantaechmes, son of Artabazus, held the satrapy of Babylon on behalf of the Persian king, it brought him an artaba of silver every day.

  4. He also had, belonging to his own private stud, besides war horses, eight hundred stallions and sixteen thousand mares, twenty to each stallion.

  5. Besides which he kept so great a number of Indian hounds, that four large villages of the plain were exempted from all other charges on condition of keeping them in food.

  6. Very little rain falls in Assyria, just enough to make the corn sprout, after which the plant is nourished and the ears formed by irrigation from the river.

  7. For the river does not, as in Egypt, overflow the corn-lands of its own accord, but is spread over them by hand or the help of engines.

  8. The whole of Babylonia is, like Egypt, intersected with canals.

  9. The largest of them, which runs towards the winter sun, and is impassable except in boats, is carried from the Euphrates into the Tigris, the river on which the town of Nineveh formerly stood.

  10. Of all countries none is so fruitful in grain. It cannot grow the fig, the olive, the vine, or any other tree of the kind; but in grain it is wonderfully fruitful.

  11. The blades of the wheat and barley are often four fingers in breadth. As for millet and sesame, what heights they reach! The fruitfulness of Babylonia must seem incredible to those who have never visited the country.

  12. The only oil they use is made from the sesame plant. Palm trees grow in great numbers over the whole of the flat country, and their fruit supplies them with bread, wine and honey.

  13. Palms are cultivated like fig trees; for example, Babylonians tie the fruit of the male palms to the branches of the date-bearing palm,

  14. To let the gallfly enter the dates and ripen them, and to prevent the fruit from falling off.

  15. When Cyrus had conquered the Babylonians, he conceived the desire of bringing the Massagetae under his dominion.

  16. Now the Massagetae are said to be a great and warlike nation, dwelling eastward beyond the River Araxes, and opposite the Issedonians. Many regarded them as a Scythian race.

  17. The Araxes is said by some to be a greater river than the Ister (Danube). It has forty mouths, all but one of which disappear into marshes. The other mouth flows with a clear course into the Caspian Sea.

  18. Now, the sea frequented by the Greeks, the Mediterranean; the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, called the Atlantic; and the Erythraean Sea into which the Tigris and Euphrates flow, are all the same sea.

  19. But the Caspian is a distinct sea, lying by itself, in length fifteen days’ voyage with a rowboat, in breadth, at the broadest part, eight days’ voyage.

  20. Many and various are the tribes inhabiting its environs, most living on the wild fruits of the forest.

  21. In these forests certain trees grow, from whose leaves, pounded and mixed with water, the inhabitants make a dye, with which they paint pictures of animals on their clothes;

  22. And the pictures never wash out, but last as though they had been woven into the cloth.

  23. On the west the Caspian Sea is bounded by the Caucasus, the most extensive and loftiest of all mountain ranges.

  24. To its east is a vast plain, stretching out interminably before the eye, possessed by those Massagetae whom Cyrus now wished to subdue.

  Chapter 21

  1. At this time the Massagetae were ruled by a queen named Tomyris, who at the death of her husband, the late king, had mounted the throne.

  2. To her Cyrus sent ambassadors, with instructions to court her on his part, pretending that he wished to marry her.

  3. Tomyris, however, aware that it was her kingdom, and not herself, that he courted, forbade the men to approach.

  4. Cyrus, therefore, finding that he did not advance his designs by this deceit, marched towards the River Araxes, openly displaying his hostile intentions.

  5. He set to work to construct a bridge, and began building towers on the boats to be used in the passage.

  6. While Cyrus was occupied in these labours, Tomy
ris sent a herald to him, who said, ‘King, cease to press this enterprise, for you cannot know if what you are doing will be of advantage to you.

  7. ‘Be content to rule your own kingdom in peace, and bear to see us reign over the countries that are ours to govern.

  8. ‘As, however, I know you will not choose to listen to this counsel, since there is nothing you less desire than peace and quietness,

  9. ‘Come now, if you are so desirous of meeting the Massagetae in arms, leave your useless toil of bridge-making;

  10. ‘We will retire three days’ march from the river bank, and you can come across with your soldiers;

  11. ‘Or, if you prefer to give us battle on your side of the stream, retire an equal distance and we will come over.’

  12. Cyrus, on hearing this, called together the Persian chiefs, asking them to advise what he should do.

  13. All the votes were in favour of letting Tomyris cross the stream, and giving battle on Persian ground.

  14. But Croesus the Lydian, who was present at the meeting, disagreed with this advice; he therefore rose and said,

  15. ‘O king! I promised that I would, to the best of my ability, avert impending danger from your house.

  16. ‘Alas! my own sufferings, by their very bitterness, have taught me to be keen-sighted of dangers.

  17. ‘My judgement runs counter to that of your other counsellors. If you agree to let the enemy into your country, consider the risk!

  18. ‘Lose the battle, and with it your whole kingdom is lost. For assuredly, if the Massagetae win they will not return to their homes, but will push forward against the states of your empire.

  19. ‘Or if you win, why, then you gain far less than if you were across the stream, where you might follow up your victory.

  20. ‘Rout their army on the other side of the river, and you can push at once into the heart of their country.

  21. ‘My counsel, therefore, is that we cross the river, push forward as far as they fall back, then get the better of them by stratagem.