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The Revolt of Babylon and its capture by Darius. I. The general outline of the events is told by Darius in the B. I. (cf. Maspero, iii. 675 seq. for a brilliant sketch). Susiana and Babylon (B. I. i. 16) revolted within a fortnight of the death of Smerdis; the leader of the latter pretended to be the son of Nabonidus, and took the name Nebuchadnezzar. While Darius was besieging Babylon, nine other provinces revolted (ii. 2), including Persia, Media, and Parthia. After Darius had captured Babylon (ii. 1), how he does not say, though he mentions two great victories over the Babylonians, he proceeded against the other rebels. While he was reducing them, another pretender rose and seized Babylon (iii. 13), but was reduced, apparently without difficulty, by Intaphrenes (iii. 14). There are thus two revolts and two captures of Babylon. II. There is, however, some uncertainty whether the story of H. refers to either. Ctesias (22, p. 69) says that the stratagem of Zopyrus belongs to his son Megabyzus, and to the capture of Babylon by Xerxes (478 B. C.). The view that this is the siege referred to is very generally adopted, e. g. by Sayce, ad loc., Nöldeke, E. B.9 18. 572 (doubtfully), Lehmann, W. für K. P. 1900, p. 963. The reasons are: (a) It is impossible to fit a siege of twenty months (153. 1) into the record of the B. I. (But the chronology of that record is most uncertain, and in ii. 2 it seems to imply a long resistance.) (b) Lehmann (u. s.) tries to fit in H.'s ‘nineteen months’ (c. 152) with dates given by the Babylonian tablets for Xerxes (but there are at least two uncertain quantities in his equation). (c) The cruelty of the victor (159. 2) is more like the character of Xerxes. Duncker, however, and Maspero accept the narrative of H., and the latter (iii. 677 n.) supports his view also from the Babylonian tablets. It seems safer to follow H., for (a) he had good evidence; Zopyrus, the grandson of the chief actor in the events, deserted to Athens about 440 B. C. (160. 2 n.); (b) the elder Zopyrus was certainly made satrap of Babylon. III. (1) In the details of H. there is certainly exaggeration and Greek colouring (v. i.). His chronology too is impossible (150. 1 n.). (2) The story of the self-devotion of Zopyrus is generally rejected; Sayce (ad loc., who accepts the mutilation itself as a fact) and Sir H. Rawlinson (ad c. 155) argue that no mutilated person could have held rule; but (a) the scars of Zopyrus would have been offensive to no one but the Babylonians; (b) the position of Darius needed desperate measures, and some explanation must be found for his capture of an impregnable city; (c) the silence of Darius in the B. I. proves nothing; it certainly would have been inconsistent with the whole tone of the inscription to describe how desperate his position had been; (d) Polyaenus (vii. 11. 8) confirms H., and says the stratagem was borrowed from a Sacian chief, Risaces (for the war to which this story belongs cf. App. V. 9); he, after proving his loyalty by self-mutilation, led Darius into the desert. This story, which is told in great detail, whether it be true or not, shows that Polyaenus is not simply reproducing the narrative of H.; (e） the fact that the story is told by Persian poets of native heroes (Sir H. Rawlinson), and by Livy (i. 53) of Sextus Tarquinius, proves nothing against its having really happened once long before. It seems safer, therefore, to accept the story as having, at any rate, a basis of fact.
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