Histories

“Why loiter there, Persians, and not go away? You will take us when mules give birth.” One of the Babylonians said this, by no means expecting that a mule would give birth.

A year and seven months passed, and Darius and his whole army were bitter because they could not take Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon. Yet Darius had used every trick and every device against it. He tried the stratagem by which Cyrus took it, and every other stratagem and device, yet with no success; for the Babylonians kept a vigilant watch, and he could not take them.

But in the twentieth month of the siege a marvellous thing befell Zopyrus, son of that Megabyzus who was one of the seven destroyers of the Magus: one of his food-carrying mules gave birth. Zopyrus would not believe the news; but when he saw the foal for himself, he told those who had seen it to tell no one;

then reflecting he recalled the Babylonian's word at the beginning of the siege—that the city would be taken when mules gave birth—and having this utterance in mind he conceived that Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon might be taken; for the hand of heaven, he supposed, was in the man's word and the birth from his own mule.

As soon as he thought that it was Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon's fate to fall, he came and inquired of Darius if taking Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon were very important to him; and when he was assured that it was, he then cast about for a plan by which the city's fall would be accomplished by him alone; for good service among the Persians is very much esteemed, and rewarded by high preferment.

He could think of no other way to bring the city down than to mutilate himself and then desert to the Babylonians; so, making light of it, he mutilated himself beyond repair, and after cutting off his nose and ears and cropping his hair as a disfigurement and scourging himself, he came before Darius.