herodotus

when he came to the lake, Cyrus also did the same things which thequeen of the Babylonians had done as regards the river and the lake;that is to say, he conducted the river by a channel into the lake,which was at that time a swamp, and so made the former course of theriver passable by the sinking of the stream. When this had been donein such a manner, the Persians who had been posted for this verypurpose entered by the bed of the river Euphrates into Babylon, thestream having sunk so far that it reached about to the middle of aman's thigh. Now if the Babylonians had had knowledge of it beforehandor had perceived that which was being done by Cyrus, they would haveallowed[196] the Persians to enter the city and then destroyed themmiserably; for if they had closed all the gates that led to the riverand mounted themselves upon the ramparts which were carried along thebanks of the stream, they would have caught them as it were in a fishwheal:but as it was, the Persians came upon them unexpectedly; andowing to the size of the city (so it is said by those who dwell there)after those about the extremities of the city had suffered capture,those Babylonians who dwelt in the middle did not know that they hadbeen captured; but as they chanced to be holding a festival, they wenton dancing and rejoicing during this time until they learnt the truthonly too well.Babylon then had thus been taken for the first time: 192, and as tothe resources of the Babylonians how great they are, I shall show bymany other proofs and among them also by this:--For the support of thegreat king and his army, apart from the regular tribute the whole landof which he is ruler has been distributed into portions. Now whereastwelve months go to make up the year, for four of these he has hissupport from the territory of Babylon, and for the remaining eightmonths from the whole of the rest of Asia; thus the Assyrian land isin regard to resources the third part of all Asia: and the government,or satrapy as it is called by the Persians, of this territory is ofall the governments by far the best; seeing that when Tritantaichmesson of Artabazos had this province from the king, there came in to himevery day an /artab/ full of silver coin (now the /artab/ is a Persianmeasure and holds more than the /medimnos/ of Attica[197] by threeAttic /choinikes/); and of horses he had in this province as hisprivate property, apart from the horses for use in war, eight hundredstallions and sixteen thousand mares, for each of these stallionsserved twenty mares: of Indian hounds moreover such a vast number werekept that four large villages in the plain, being free from othercontributions, had been appointed to provide food for the hounds. 193.Such was the wealth which belonged to the ruler of Babylon. Now theland of the Assyrians has but little rain; and this little givesnourishment to the root of the corn, but the crop is ripened and theear comes on by the help of watering from the river, not as in Egypt