THALIA. 75

foot, the Babylonians, being very well prepared, re­
volted. During the reign of the magus, and whilst tha
seven were engaged in their conspiracy against him,
they had taken advantage of the confusion of the
times to provide against a siege, and their exertions
had never been discovered. When they had once re­
solved on the recovery of their liberties, they took
this measure :—Excepting their mothers, every man
chose from his family the female whom he liked best,
the remainder were all of them assombled together
and strangled. Their reserve of one woman was to
bake their bread; the rest were destroyed to prevent
a famine.

CLI. On the first intelligence of this event, Darius
assembled his forces, and marched against them : on
his arrival before the city, he besieged it in form.
This, however, made so little impression upon them,
that they assembled upon the ramparts, amused them­
selves with dancing, and treated Darius and his army
with the extremest contempt. One among them ex­
claimed, " Persians, why do you lose your time ? if
you be wise, depart. When mules produce young,
you shall take Babylon." This was the speech of a
Babylonian, not believing such a thing possible.

CLII. A whole year and seven months having been
consumed before the place, Darius and his army be­
gan to be hopeless with respect to the event. They
had applied all the offensive engines, and every strata­
gem, particularly those which CyrusTiad before suc­
cessfully used against the Babylonians; but every
attempt proved ineffectual, from the unremitting vigi­
lance of the besieged.

CLIII. In the twentieth month of the siege, the
following remarkable prodigy happened to Zopyrus,
son of Megabyzus, who was one of the seven that de­
throned the magus: one of the mules employed to
carry his provisions produced a young one; which,
when it was first told him, he disbelieved, and desired
to see it; forbidding those who had witnessed the
fact to disclose it, he revolved it seriously in his mind;
and remembering the words of the Babylonian, who
had said the city should be taken when a mule brought