on of the night a terrible
massacre ensued. The drunken revellers could make no resistance. The
king paralyzed with fear at the awful handwriting upon the wall, which
too late had warned him of his peril, could do nothing even to check
the progress of the assailants, who carried all before them everywhere.
Bursting into the palace, a band of Persians made their way to the
presence of the monarch, and slew him on the scene of his impious
revelry. Other bands carried fire and sword through the town. When
morning came, Cyrus found himself undisputed master of the city, which,
if it had not despised his efforts, might with the greatest ease have
baffled them.

The war, however, was not even yet at an end. Nabonadius still held
Borsippa, and, if allowed to remain unmolested, might have gradually
gathered strength and become once more a formidable foe. Cyrus,
therefore, having first issued his orders that the outer fortifications
of Babylon should be dismantled, proceeded to complete his conquest by
laying siege to the town where he knew that Nabonadius had taken refuge.
That monarch, however, perceiving that resistance would be vain, did
not wait till Borsippa was invested, but on the approach of his enemy
surrendered himself. Cyrus rewarded his submission by kind and liberal
treatment. Not only did he spare his life, but (if we may trust
Abydenus) he conferred on him the government of the important province
of Carmania.

Thus perished the Babylonian empire. If we seek the causes of its fall,
we shall find them partly in its essential military inferiority to
the kingdom that had recently grown up upon its borders, partly in the
accidental circumstance that its ruler at the time of the Persian attack
was a man of no great capacity. Had Nebuchadnezzar himself, or a prince
of his mental calibre, been the contemporary of Cyrus, the issue of the
contest might have been doubtful. Babylonia possessed naturally vast
powers of resistance--powers which, had they been made use of to the
utmost, might have tired out the patience of the Persians. That lively,
active, but not over-persevering people would scarcely have maintained
a siege with the pertinacity of the Babylonians themselves or of
the Egyptians. If the stratagem of Cyrus had failed--and its success
depended wholly on the Babylonians exercising no vigilance--the capture
of the town would have been almost impossible. Babylon was too large to
be blockaded; its walls were too l