the name of Zopyrus resounded with praise from every tongue. The third time also, after the number of days agreed on had passed, he led forth his troops, attacked and slaughtered the four thousand. Zopyrus, after this, was every thing with the Babylonians, so that they made him the commander of their army, and guardian of their walls.

CLVIII. At the time appointed Darius advanced with all his forces to the walls. The perfidy of Zopyrus then became apparent; for as soon as the Babylonians mounted the wall to repel the Persian assault, he immediately opened to his countrymen what are called the Belidian and Cissian gates. Those Babylonians who saw this transaction fled for refuge to the temple of Jupiter Belus; they who saw it not continued in their posts, till the circumstance of their being betrayed became notorious to all.

CLIX. Thus was Babylon a second time taken. As soon as Darius became master of the place he levelled the walls, and took away the gates, neither of which things Cyrus had done before. Three thousand of the most distinguished nobility he ordered to be crucified: the rest were suffered to continue where they were. He took care also to provide them with women; for the Babylonians, as we have before remarked, to prevent a famine, had strangled their wives. Darius ordered the neighboring nations to send females to Babylon, each being obliged to furnish a stipulated number. These in all amounted to fifty thousand, from whom the Babylonians of the present day are descended.

CLX. With respect to the merit of Zopyrus, in the opinion of Darius it was exceeded by no Persian of any period, unless by Cyrus; to him, indeed, he thought no one of his countrymen could possibly be compared,

It is affirmed of Darius, that he used frequently to assert, that he would rather Zopyrus had suffered no injury, than have been master of twenty Babylons

more.

He rewarded him magnificently: every year he presented him with the gifts deemed most honorable in Persia; he made him also governor of Babylon for life, free from the payment of any tribute ; and to these he added other marks of liberality. Megabyzus, who commanded in Egypt against the Athenians and their allies, was a son of this Zopyrus; which Megabyzus had a son named Zopyrus, who deserted from the Persians to the Athenians.

BOOK IV.-MELPOMENE.

CHAP. I. DARIUS, after the capture of Babylon, undertook an expedition against Scythia. Asia was now both populous and rich, and he was desirous of avenging on the Scythians the injuries they had formerly committed by entering Media, and defeating those who opposed them. During a period of twenty-eight years the Scythians, as I have before remarked, retained the sovereignty of the Upper Asia; entering into which, when in pursuit of the Cimmerians,' they

ness.

1 From this people came the proverb of Cimmerian darkWe reach'd old ocean's utmost bounds, Where rocks control his waves with ever-during mounds;

expelled the Medes, its ancient possessors. After this long absence from their country, the Scythians were desirous to return; but here as great a labor awaited them as they had experienced in their expedition into Media; for the women, deprived so long of their husbands, had associated with their slaves, and they found a numerous body in arms ready to dispute their progress.

II. It is a custom with the Scythians to deprive all their slaves of sight' on account of the milk,2 which is

There in a lonely land, and gloomy cells,
The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells.
The sun ne'er views th' uncomfortable seats,
When radiant he advances or retreats.
Unhappy race! whom endless night invades,
Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in shades.

Odyss. b. xi.

Of this proverb Ammianus Marcellinus makes a happy use when censuring the luxury and effeminacy of the Roman nobility. If,' says he (I use the version of Mr. Gibbon), a fly should presume to settle in the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded and imperceptible chink, they deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament in affected language that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness.'

Ovid also chooses the vicinity of Cimmeria as the properest place for the palace of the god of sleep.

The region assigned to this people in ancient geography was part of European Scythia, now called Little Tartary.-T.

1 Barbarous as this conduct will appear to every humane reader, although practised amongst an uncivilised race of men, he will be far more shocked when I remind him that in the most refined period of the Roman empire those who were deemed the wisest and most virtuous of mankind did not scruple to use their slaves with yet more atrocious cruelty. It was customary at Rome to expose slaves who were sick, old, and useless, to perish miserably in an island of the Tiber. Plutarch tells us in his Life of Cato, that it was his custom to sell his old slaves for any price, to get rid of the burden. They were employed, and frequently in chains, in the most laborious offices, and for trivial offences,

their customary drink. They have a particular kind of bone, shaped like a flute: this is applied to a mare, and blown into from the mouth. It is one man's office to blow, another's to milk the mare. Their idea is,

that the veins of the animal being thus inflated, the dugs are proportionably filled. When the milk is thus obtained they place it in deep wooden vessels, and the slaves are directed to keep it in continual agitation. Of this, that which remains at the top' is most esteemed; what subsides is of inferior value. This it is which induces the Scythians to deprive all their cap

and not seldom on mere suspicion, were made to expire under the most horrid tortures that can be imagined.-T. 2 Of this people Homer speaks in the following lines: And where the far-famed Hippomolgian strays, Renown'd for justice and for length of days, Thrice happy race, that, innocent of blood,

From milk innoxious seek their simple food.-Il. xii. We learn from some lines of Antiphanes, preserved in Athenæus, that the Scythians gave this milk to their children as soon as they were born :

Do not those Scythians appear to you remarkably wise who give to their children as soon as ever they are born the milk of mares and cows?'-T.

1 Is it not surprising, asks M. Larcher in this place, that neither the Greeks nor the Latins had any term in their language to express cream?

Butter also was unknown to the Greeks and Romans till a late period. Pliny speaks of it as a common article of food among barbarous nations, and used by them as an unction. The very name of butter, which signifies cheese, or coagulum of cows' milk, implies an imperfect notion of the thing. It is clear that Herodotus here describes the making of butter, though he knew no name for the product. Pliny remarks that the barbarous nations were as peculiar in neglecting cheese, as in making butter. Spuma lactis, which that author uses in describing what butter is, seems a very proper phrase for cream. Butter is often mentioned in Scripture; see Harmer's curious accounts of the modes of making it in the East, vol. i. and iii.-T.

HER.

VOL. II.

1

tives of sight; for they do not cultivate the ground, but lead a pastoral life.'

III. From the union of these slaves with the Scythian women a numerous progeny was born; who, when informed of their origin, readily advanced to oppose those who were returning from Media. Their first exertion was to intersect the country by a large and deep trench, which extended from the mountains of Tauris to the Palus Mootis. They then encamped opposite to the Scythians, who were endeavoring to effect their passage. Various engagements ensued, in which the Scythians obtained no advantage. 'My countrymen,' at length one of them exclaimed, 'what are we doing? In this contest with our slaves every action diminishes our number; and by killing those who oppose us the value of victory decreases: let us throw aside our darts and our arrows, and rush on them only with the whips which we use for our horses. Whilst they see us with arms, they think themselves our equals in birth and importance; but as soon as they shall perceive the whip in our hands, they will be impressed with the sense of their servile condition, and resist no longer.'

IV. The Scythians approved the advice; their opponents forgot their former exertions and fled so did the Scythians obtain the sovereignty of Asia; and thus, after having been expelled by the Medes, they

1 The influence of food or climate, which in a more improved state of society is suspended or subdued by so many moral causes, most powerfully contributes to form and to maintain the national character of barbarians. In every age, the immense plains of Scythia or Tartary have been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life.-Gibbon.