The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [112]
10. He exhorted them ‘to join in one body, set sail for Sardinia, and there found a single Pan-Ionic city; so they would escape from slavery and rise to great fortune,
11. ‘Being masters of the largest island in the world, exercising dominion even beyond its bounds; whereas if they stayed in Ionia, he saw no prospect of their ever recovering their freedom.’
12. Such was the counsel Bias gave the Ionians in their affliction. Before their misfortunes began, Thales, a man of Miletus, of Phoenician descent, had recommended a different plan.
He counselled them to establish a single seat of government, and nominated Teos as the fittest place for it; ‘for that,’ he said, ‘was the centre of Ionia.
13. ‘Their other cities might still continue to enjoy their own laws, just as if they were independent states.’ This also was good advice.
14. The fall of Ionia was the harbinger of Harpagus’ conquest of the rest of the independent people in the lower parts of Asia, among them the Carians, the Caunians and the Lycians.
15. Of these nations, the Carians submitted to Harpagus without performing any brilliant exploits. Nor did the Greeks who dwelt in Caria behave with any greater gallantry.
16. Above Halicarnassus, and further from the coast, were the Pedasians. They alone, of all the dwellers in Caria, resisted Harpagus for a while, and gave him much trouble,
17. Maintaining themselves in a certain mountain called Lida, which they had fortified; but in course of time they also were forced to submit.
18. When Harpagus, after these successes, led his forces into the Xanthian plain, the Lycians of Xanthus went out to fight him:
19. And though but a small band against a numerous host, they engaged in battle, and performed many glorious exploits.
20. Overpowered at last, and forced within their walls, they collected into the citadel their wives and children, all their treasures, and their slaves;
21. And having so done, set fire to the building, and burnt it to the ground with all in it.
22. After this, they bound themselves together by a bond of brotherhood, and sallying forth against the enemy, died sword in hand, not one escaping.
23. Now these were the auguries of the future: that the best of the Greeks would rather die in freedom than live in servitude; and the Persians should have taken warning from this.
Chapter 18
1. While the lower parts of Asia were brought under by Harpagus, Cyrus in person subjected the upper regions, conquering every nation, and not suffering one to escape.
2. When he had brought the rest of the continent under his control, he turned his attention to the Assyrians, and made war on them.
3. Assyria possessed a vast number of great cities, of which the most renowned and strongest at this time was Babylon, which had been made the seat of government after the fall of Nineveh.
4. The city stood on a broad plain, and was an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so that the entire circuit was four hundred and eighty furlongs.
5. While such was its size, in magnificence there was no other city that approached it.
6. It was surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water,
7. Behind which rose a wall fifty royal cubits in width, and two hundred in height.
8. The wall was built from the spoil of the moat, made directly into bricks in kilns beside the excavation.
9. The cement for the wall was hot bitumen, with a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of bricks.
10. On the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another,
11. Leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the wall were a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen lintels and side-posts.
12. The city was divided into two by the river which runs through the middle: the Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift stream which rises in Armenia, and empties itself