Book 1
In the Babylonian temple there is another shrine below, where there is a great golden image of Zeus, sitting at a great golden table, and the footstool and the chair are also gold; the gold of the whole was said by the Chaldeans to be eight hundred talents' weight.
Outside the temple is a golden altar. There is also another great altar, on which are sacrificed the full-grown of the flocks; only nurslings may be sacrificed on the golden altar, but on the greater altar the Chaldeans even offer a thousand talents' weight of frankincense yearly, when they keep the festival of this god; and in the days of Cyrus there was still in this sacred enclosure a statue of solid gold twenty feet high.
I myself have not seen it, but I relate what is told by the Chaldeans. Darius son of Hystaspes proposed to take this statue but dared not; Xerxes his son took it, and killed the priest who warned him not to move the statue. Such is the furniture of this temple, and there are many private offerings besides.
Now among the many rulers of this city of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon (whom I shall mention in my Assyrian history) who finished the building of the walls and the temples, there were two that were women. The first of these lived five generations earlier than the second, and her name was Semiramis: it was she who built dikes on the plain, a notable work; before that the whole plain used to be flooded by the river.
The second queen, whose name was Nitocris, was a wiser woman than the first. She left such monuments as I shall record; and moreover, seeing that the kingdom of Media was great and restless and Nineveh (deserted settlement), Ninawa, Iraq, Asia Ninus itself among other cities had fallen to it, she took such precautions as she could for her protection.
First she dealt with the river Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), Asia Euphrates , which flows through the middle of her city; this had been straight before; but by digging canals higher up she made the river so crooked that its course now passes one of the Assyrian villages three times; the village which is so approached by the Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), Asia Euphrates is called Ardericca. And now those who travel from our sea to Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon must spend three days as they float down the Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), Asia Euphrates coming three times to the same village.
Such was this work; and she built an embankment along either shore of the river, marvellous for its greatness and height.
Then a long way above Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon she dug the reservoir of a lake, a little way off from the river, always digging deep enough to find water, and making the circumference a distance of fifty two miles; what was dug out of this hole, she used to embank either edge of the river;
and when she had it all dug, she brought stones and made a quay all around the lake.
Her purpose in making the river wind and turning the hole into marsh was this: that the current might be slower because of the many windings that broke its force, and that the passages to Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon might be crooked, and that right after them should come also the long circuit of the lake.
All this work was done in that part of the country where the passes are and the shortest road from Media, so that the Medes might not mix with her people and learn of her affairs.
So she made the deep river her protection; and this work led to another which she added to it. Her city was divided into two parts by the river that flowed through the middle. In the days of the former rulers, when one wanted to go from one part to the other, one had to cross in a boat; and this, I suppose, was a nuisance. But the queen also provided for this; she made another monument of her reign out of this same work when the digging of the basin of the lake was done.
She had very long blocks of stone cut; and when these were ready and the place was dug, she turned the course of the river into it, and while it was filling, the former channel now being dry, she bricked the borders of the river in the city and the descent from the gate leading down to the river with baked bricks, like those of the wall; and near the middle of the city she built a bridge with the stones that had been dug up, binding them together with iron and lead.
Each morning, she laid square-hewn logs across it, on which the Babylonians crossed; but these logs were removed at night, lest folk always be crossing over and stealing from one another.
Then, when the basin she had made for a lake was filled by the river and the bridge was finished, Nitocris brought the Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), Asia Euphrates back to its former channel out of the lake; thus she had served her purpose, as she thought, by making a swamp of the basin, and her citizens had a bridge made for them.
There was a trick, too, that this same queen contrived. She had a tomb made for herself and set high over the very gate of that entrance of the city which was used most, with writing engraved on the tomb, which read:
“If any king of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon in the future is in need of money, let him open this tomb and take as much as he likes: but let him not open it unless he is in need; for it will be the worse for him.”
This tomb remained untouched until the kingship fell to Darius. He thought it a very strange thing that he should never use this gate, or take the money when it lay there and the writing itself invited him to.
The reason he did not use the gate was that the dead body would be over his head as he passed through.
After opening the tomb, he found no money there, only the dead body, with writing which read: “If you were ever satisfied with what you had and did not disgrace yourself seeking more, you would not have opened the coffins of the dead.” Such a woman, it is recorded, was this queen.
Cyrus, then, marched against Nitocris' son, who inherited the name of his father Labynetus and the sovereignty of Assyria. Now when the Great King campaigns, he marches well provided with food and flocks from home; and water from the Choaspes river that flows past Shush [48.333,32.2] (inhabited place), Khuzestan, Iran, Asia Susa is carried with him, the only river from which the king will drink.
This water of the Choaspes Modern Kerkha. is boiled, and very many four-wheeled wagons drawn by mules carry it in silver vessels, following the king wherever he goes at any time.
When Cyrus reached the Gyndes river on his march to Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon ,Modern Diala. which rises in the mountains of the Matieni and flows through the Dardanean country into another river, the Tigris [47.416,31] (river), Asia Tigris , that again passes the city of Opis and empties into the Red Sea [42,15] (sea) Red Sea —when, I say, Cyrus tried to cross the Gyndes, which was navigable there, one of his sacred white horses dashed recklessly into the river trying to get through it, but the current overwhelmed him and swept him under and away.
At this violence of the river Cyrus was very angry, and he threatened to make it so feeble that women could ever after cross it easily without wetting their knees.
After uttering this threat, he paused in his march against Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon , and, dividing his army into two parts, drew lines planning out a hundred and eighty canals running every way from either bank of the Gyndes; then he organized his army along the lines and made them dig.
Since a great multitude was at work, it went quickly; but they spent the whole summer there before it was finished.
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 [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia 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.
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.
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.
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 [47.5,31.83] (river), Asia 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;
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.
When this happened, the Persians who were posted with this objective made their way into Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon by the channel of the Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), Asia Euphrates , which had now sunk to a depth of about the middle of a man's thigh.
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.
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.
And Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon , then for the first time, was taken in this way. I shall show how great the power of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia 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 [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon feeds him for four of the twelve months in the year, the whole of the rest of Asia (continent) Asia providing for the other eight.
Thus the wealth of Assyria is one third of the entire wealth of Asia (continent) 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
(the artaba is a Persian measure, containing more than an Attic medimnus by three Attic choenixes),The Attic medimnus = about 12 gallons; it contained 48χοίνικες. and besides warhorses he had eight hundred stallions in his stables, and sixteen thousand brood mares, each stallion servicing twenty mares.
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 [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon .
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 [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt , the river itself rises and floods the fields; in Assyria, they are watered by hand and by swinging beams.That is, by the “shadoof,” a familiar object to travellers on the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile ; a lever with a bucket attached, revolving on a post.
For the whole land of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, Asia Babylon , like Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt , is cut across by canals. The greatest of these is navigable: it runs towards where the sun rises in winter, from the Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), Asia Euphrates to another river, the Tigris [47.416,31] (river), Asia Tigris , on which stood the city of Nineveh (deserted settlement), Ninawa, Iraq, Asia Ninus . This land is by far the most fertile in grain which we know.