When this answer was reported to Croesus, it is said that he was satisfied with the explanations, and admitted that the oracle was right, and that he himself had been unreasonable and wrong. However this may be, it is certain that, among mankind at large, since Croesus's day, there has been a great disposition to overlook whatever of criminality there may have been in the falsehood and imposture of the oracle, through admiration of the adroitness and dexterity which its ministers evinced in saving themselves from exposure.
Babylon.--The River Euphrates.--Canals.--Curious boats.--Their mode of construction.--Primitive navigation.--Return of the boatmen.--Extent of Babylon.--Parks, gardens, palaces, etc.--The walls of Babylon.--Marvelous accounts.--The ditches.--Streets and gates.--Palace of the king.--Temple of Belus.--The bridge.--Sculptures.--The hanging gardens.--Construction of the gardens.--The platform and terraces.--Engine for raising water.--Floral beauties.--The works of Nitocris.--Her canals and levees.--The bridge over the Euphrates.--The tomb of the queen.--Cyrus plans an attack upon Babylon.--Government of Lydia.--Cyrus returns eastward.--Revolt of the Lydians.--Detachment of Mazares.--Flight of Pactyas.--Pactyas at Cyme.--The people consult the oracle.--Reply of the oracle.--Aristodicus and the birds' nests.--Capture of Pactyas.--Situation of Belshazzar.--Belshazzar's feeling of security.--Approach of Cyrus.--Cyrus draws off the water from the river.--The city captured.
In his advance toward the dominions of Croesus in Asia Minor, Cyrus had passed to the northward of the great and celebrated city of Babylon. Babylon was on the Euphrates, toward the southern part of Asia. It was the capital of a large and very fertile region, which extended on both sides of the Euphrates toward the Persian Gulf. The limits of the country, however, which was subject to Babylon, varied very much at different times, as they were extended or contracted by revolutions and wars.
The River Euphrates was the great source of fertility for the whole region through which it flowed. The country watered by this river was very densely populated, and the inhabitants were industrious and peaceable, cultivating their land, and living quietly and happily on its fruits. The surface was intersected with canals, which the people had made for conveying the water of the river over the land for the purpose of irrigating it. Some of these canals were navigable. There was one great trunk which passed from the Euphrates to the Tigris, supplying many minor canals by the way, that was navigable for vessels of considerable burden.