[224] Justin repeats the narrative of Herodotus in a rhetorical form; he incorrectly regards Zopyrus as one of the seven. Diodorus attempts to unite the statements of Herodotus and Ctesias, by maintaining that Zopyrus was also called Megabyzus; the "twenty Babylons" are reduced to ten. (Exc. Vat. p. 34, 35 = 10, 19.) In Herod. (4, 143) Darius wishes when he opens the finest pomegranate that he had as many Megabyzuses (the father of Zopyrus is meant) as the fruit had seeds. Plutarch transfers this to Zopyrus, and represents Darius as saying that he would rather have Zopyrus uninjured than 100 Babylons; "Reg. Apophthegm." 3. In Polyaenus (7, 12), Zopyrus imitates the device which Sirakes, a Sacian, had previously employed against Darius, and opens the gates of Babylon to the Persians by night. [225] Thucyd. 1, 104, 109, 110; Diod. 11, 71, 74, 75, 77; 12, 3; Isocr. "De Pace," 82. [226] Ctes. "Pers." 44. The paidagogos of Alcibiades was no doubt named after this Zopyrus. Plutarch, "Lycurg." c. 16; Alcib. c. 1; Kirchhoff, "Enstehungszeit," s. 15. [227] _E.g._ Ménant, "Babylon," p. 204; Oppert. "Expéd." 1, 187, 223. [228] So according to the Babylonian text in Schrader, "Keilinschriften," s. 345. [229] Oppert after the Turanian text: "I slew much people from the army of Nidintabel, and drove others to the river; they were drowned in the river." [230] The Turanian version mentions Egypt after Assyria. In the inscription nothing is said of this country; no Egyptians are found in the rows of the conquered rebels. [231] The two Egibi-tablets quoted by Boscawen in "Trans. Bibl. Arch." 6, 68, on Nebuchadnezzar III. have been rightly ascribed by Oppert, relying on the names of the witnesses, to the later rebellion of Arakha. [232] Cf. Schrader, "Keilinschriften," s. 346. [233] Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 346. The day of the month belongs to the corresponding Babylonian month Tebet. [234] Mordtmann, _loc. cit._ s. 75; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 347. [235] Above, Vol. V. 323. The district of Otene belongs no doubt to Armenia. Steph. Byz. _sub voce_. [236] What Herodotus relates of Zopyras, Ctesias relates of his son Megabyzus II. in regard to this new rising, of which we have no more accurate knowledge in any other source, but which must not be called in question. Herodotus himself indicates a rebellion under Xerxes, in which the golden image of Belus was taken away from the lower chamber in the great temple (1, 183), and we have Strabo's statement of the destruction of Belus by Xerxes, p. 738. If Darius, as Herodotus tells us, 3, 159, "destroyed the gates of Babylon," it does not follow that he opened the supposed tomb of Nitocris over the main gateway, because it made it impassable, as Herodotus thinks (1, 187). [237] Vol. V. p. 10, _n._ [238] Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 133. [239] Mordtmann, _loc. cit._ s. 76, 77; Spiegel, "Altpers. Keilinschriften," Bag. 3, 3; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 351.