At length, either at the suggestion of some one else or from a thought of his own, he resorted to the following means: He disposed the whole of his army, by placing one part above the city, where the river enters it, and another part below, where it makes its exit, commanding them as soon as they should perceive the river to be sufficiently shallow to enter by that way. This order being given, he himself went off with the inferior troops of the army. Arriving at the lake, he did what had been done before by the queen of Babylon in the marsh; for, by making a trench from the river to the empty reservoir, he diverted the water from the ancient channel, till it so far subsided as to become fordable. As soon as this happened, the Persians who had been appointed for this purpose entered Babylon by the bed of the river, the water of which was little more than knee-deep. If the Babylonians had been before apprized of the intentions of Cyrus, or if they had learned at the moment what he was doing, they would not have suffered the Persians to enter the city, nor would the Babylonians have perished so shamefully; for if they had closed all the gates by the river's side, and ascended the walls which ran along it, they might have taken the Persians as in a net. But the Persians came upon their opponents quite unexpectedly; and from the great extent of the city--as it has been affirmed by some of the inhabitants--those who dwelt in the outskirts of the city were made prisoners before the people in the center of Babylon knew that the place was taken. But, as it happened, they were celebrating a festival, and were dancing and feasting when they learned what had happened. Thus was Babylon the first time taken. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 5: From Book I of the "History." Translated by Isaac Taylor. Cyrus, after capturing Babylon, did not destroy it; it was Darius Hystaspes who razed its walls and towers. Darius Hystaspes was the father of that Darius who succeeded to the Persian throne after the failure of male heirs to Cyrus. Xerxes carried further the work of destruction at Babylon. Its permanent decay was accelerated still more by the founding, in its neighborhood, of Seleucia in 300 B.C. In the time of Pliny it had become a dismal and silent place.] [Footnote 6: Equivalents in English feet for these measurements have been estimated as eighty-five feet for the width and three hundred and thirty-five feet for the height.] [Footnote 7: Now called the Persian Gulf.] [Footnote 8: Semiramis is regarded by modern antiquarians as a fabulous personage. By some of them she has been identified with the goddess Astarte.] [Footnote 9: Antiquarians have great doubts as to the identity of this queen. By some she is thought to have been the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, who began to reign in 604 B.C., and the mother or grandmother of Belshazzar, the last of the kings of Babylon.] [Footnote 10: That is, from the sea which encircled Greece.]