ng when his armies were
away. If they had risen when his armies were around him, he would
have been equally indignant with them for having dared to brave his
power.

He assembled all the forces at his disposal, and advanced to Babylon.
The people of the city shut their gates against him, and derided him.
They danced and capered on the walls, making all sorts of gestures
expressive of contempt and defiance, accompanied with shouts and
outcries of ridicule and scorn. They had great confidence in the
strength of their defenses, and then, besides this, they probably
regarded Darius as a sort of usurper, who had no legitimate title to
the throne, and who would never be able to subdue any serious
resistance which might be offered to the establishment of his power.
It was from these considerations that they were emboldened to be
guilty of the folly of taunting and insulting their foes from the city
walls.

Such incidents as this, of personal communications between masses of
enemies on the eve of a battle, were very common in ancient warfare,
though impossible in modern times. In those days, when the missiles
employed were thrown chiefly by the strength of the human arm alone,
the combatants could safely draw near enough together for each side to
hear the voices and to see the gesticulations of the other. Besiegers
could advance sufficiently close to a castle or citadel to parley
insultingly with the garrison upon the walls, and yet be safe from the
showers of darts and arrows which were projected toward them in
return. But all this is now changed. The reach of cannon, and even of
musketry, is so long, that combatants, approaching a conflict, are
kept at a very respectful distance apart, until the time arrives in
which the actual engagement is to begin. They reconnoiter each other
with spy-glasses from watch-towers on the walls, or from eminences in
the field, but they can hold no communication except by a formal
embassy, protected by a flag of truce, which, with its white and
distant fluttering, as it slowly advances over the green fields, warns
the gunners at the battery or on the bastion to point their artillery
another way.

The Babylonians, on the walls of their city, reproached and taunted
their foes incessantly. "Take our advice," said they, "and go back
where you came from. You will only lose your time in besieging
Babylon. When mules have foals, you will take the city, and not till
then."

The expression "when m