they placed in his hands the care of the principal gates. At the critical moment these gates were thrown open, and the Persians became masters of the city.[416] [415] Herodot. iii, 155. δεινόν τι ποιεύμενος, Ἀσσυρίους Πέρσῃσι καταγελᾷν. Compare the speech of Mardonius, vii, 9. The horror of Darius, at the first sight of Zopyrus in this condition, is strongly dramatized by Herodotus. [416] Herodot. iii, 154-158. Thus was the impregnable Babylon a second time reduced,[417] and Darius took precautions on this occasion to put it out of condition for resisting a third time. He caused the walls and gates to be demolished, and three thousand of the principal citizens to be crucified: the remaining inhabitants were left in the dismantled city, fifty thousand women being levied by assessment upon the neighboring provinces, to supply the place of the women strangled when it first revolted.[418] Zopyrus was appointed satrap of the territory for life, with enjoyment of its entire revenues, receiving besides every additional reward which it was in the power of Darius to bestow, and generous assurances from the latter that he would rather have Zopyrus without wounds than the possession of Babylon. I have already intimated in a former chapter that the demolition of the walls here mentioned is not to be regarded as complete and continuous, nor was there any necessity that it should be so. Partial demolition would be quite sufficient to leave the city without defence; and the description given by Herodotus of the state of things as they stood at the time of his visit, proves that portions of the walls yet subsisted. One circumstance is yet to be added in reference to the subsequent condition of Babylon under the Persian empire. The city with the territory belonging to it constituted a satrapy, which not only paid a larger tribute (one thousand Euboic talents of silver) and contributed a much larger amount of provisions in kind for the maintenance of the Persian court, than any other among the twenty satrapies of the empire, but furnished besides an annual supply of five hundred eunuch youths.[419] We may presume that this was intended in part as a punishment for the past revolt, since the like obligation was not imposed upon any other satrapy. [417] Ktêsias represents the revolt and recapture of Babylon to have taken place, not under Darius, but under his son and successor Xerxês. He says that the Babylonians, revolting, slew their satrap Zopyrus; that they were besieged by Xerxês, and that Megabyzus son of Zopyrus caused the city to be taken by practising that very stratagem which Herodotus ascribes to Zopyrus himself (Persica, c. 20-22).