Histories

Darius answered, “Unfeeling man, you give a pretty name to an ugly act if you say that it was on account of those besieged that you did for yourself past cure. Why, you poor fool, will the enemy surrender sooner because you mutilated yourself? How could you not have been out of your mind to disfigure yourself?”

“Had I told you,” said Zopyrus, “what I intended to do, you would not have let me; but now I have done it on my own. Now, then, if you do your part we shall take Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon. I shall desert to the city as I am, and I shall say to them that I suffered this at your hands; and I think that I shall persuade them, and thus gain a command.

Now, on the tenth day after I enter the city, take a thousand men from the part of your army about which you will least care if it is lost, and post them before the gate called the gate of Semiramis; on the seventh day after that, post two thousand more before the gate called the gate of the Ninevites; and when twenty days are past after that seventh, lead out four thousand more and post them before the Chaldean gate, as they call it; allow neither these, nor the others that go before them, to carry any weapons except daggers; leave them these.

But immediately after the twentieth day command the rest of your army to assault the whole circuit of the walls, and post the Persians before the gate of Belus and the gate called Cissian. For I think that once I have done conspicuous things the Babylonians will give me, among other things, the keys of their gates; then it will depend on me and on the Persians to do what is necessary.”