The Babylonians stood on the battlements of their wall, dancing and jeering at the Persian army below.

One of them called down: "Persians, why do you sit there? Why not go home? You will take us when mules give birth."

He said it because he was sure that a mule would never bear a foal.

I. First They Killed the Women

At that time the Persian fleet was far away at Samos, winning the island back for Syloson. In that gap, Babylon revolted.

They had prepared well. All through the time when the Magus ruled and the seven rose against him, while Persia was in confusion, the Babylonians had quietly laid in food for a siege. Somehow no one noticed.

When they revolted openly, they did this. Each man kept his own mother, and chose one other woman of his household, whichever he liked, to bake his bread. All the other women were gathered together and strangled.

It was so that they would not eat the city's grain.

II. A Year and Seven Months

When Darius heard, he gathered his whole strength, marched to Babylon, and laid siege to it.

The Babylonians did not care in the least. They climbed onto the battlements, danced, and mocked Darius and his army. That was when the line about the mules was shouted.

A year and seven months went by, and the city was still in Babylonian hands. Darius and his whole army were sick with frustration.

He had tried every trick and every engine he could think of. He even tried the method by which Cyrus had once taken Babylon. Nothing worked. The Babylonians kept a fierce watch, and he could find no way in.

III. The Twentieth Month

In the twentieth month of the siege, a strange thing happened to Zopyrus.

Zopyrus was the son of Megabyzus, and Megabyzus was one of the seven men who brought down the Magus.

Zopyrus had mules that carried his grain, and one of them gave birth to a foal.

When the news came, he did not believe it, and went to see for himself. Once he had seen the foal, he ordered everyone who had seen it to tell no one. Then he sat down to think.

He remembered what the Babylonian had shouted at the start of the siege: when mules give birth, the wall will fall. The man had said it, and now his own mule had foaled. He judged that the two things came together by the will of heaven. Babylon's time to fall had come.

IV. He Turned the Knife on Himself

He went to Darius and asked whether taking Babylon mattered very much to him.

The king said that it did.

So Zopyrus began to plan how the city could be taken by him alone, so that the deed would be his. Among the Persians, great service is rewarded with very great honor.

He could find only one way: to maim himself and then go over to the Babylonians as a deserter.

He made light of it, and did himself an injury that could never be undone. He cut off his own nose and ears, cropped his hair to disfigure himself, and flogged himself. Then, just as he was, he went in to Darius.

V. The King Leapt from His Throne

Darius was deeply shaken to see so distinguished a man mutilated. He sprang from his throne with a cry and asked who had done this to him, and why.

Zopyrus said: "There is no one but you with power enough to do this to me. But no stranger did it, my king. I did it myself. I could not bear to have the Assyrians laughing at the Persians."

Darius said: "You hard-hearted man! You have destroyed yourself, and you give the ugliest deed the finest name, saying you did it because of the people under siege. You fool, will the enemy surrender any sooner because you have maimed yourself? You must have been out of your mind to ruin yourself like this."

Zopyrus said: "If I had told you what I meant to do, you would never have let me. So I did it on my own. Now, if you do your part, we will take Babylon."

VI. Seven Thousand Men to Spare

He laid out the whole plan for the king.

He would go into the city just as he was and tell the Babylonians that Darius had done this to him. He believed they would trust him and give him troops.

On the tenth day after he entered the city, Darius was to take a thousand men from his army, men whose loss he would least regret, and post them before the gate called the gate of Semiramis. Seven days later, two thousand more before the gate of the Ninevites. Twenty days after that, four thousand more before the Chaldean gate. None of them was to carry any weapon but a dagger.

As soon as those twenty days were over, Darius was to order the whole army to attack all around the wall, and to post Persians before the gate of Belus and the Cissian gate.

Zopyrus said: once I have done great things, the Babylonians will trust me with everything, even the bars and keys of their gates. After that, the rest will be up to me and the Persians.

A thousand, two thousand, four thousand. Seven thousand soldiers of the Persian army were, in this plan, meant to die from the start.

VII. He Looked Back Over His Shoulder

With that settled, he walked to the city gates, turning and looking back as he went, just like a man running for his life.

The watchmen on the towers saw him, ran down, opened the gate a crack, and asked who he was and why he had come.

He said he was Zopyrus, and he was deserting to them.

The gatekeepers brought him before the assembly of the Babylonians. He stood there, a pitiful sight, and said that Darius had done this to him because he had advised the king to withdraw, since the city could not be taken.

"Men of Babylon," he said, "I come to you as a great blessing, and to Darius, his army and the Persians as a great curse. He will not get away with maiming me. I know every one of his plans."

The Babylonians looked at him: the most honored man in Persia, with no nose and no ears, covered in blood from the whip. They were completely convinced. They believed he was telling the truth and had come as their ally, and they were ready to give him whatever he asked.

What he asked for was a command.

VIII. Once, Twice, Three Times

Once he had it, he did exactly what he had agreed with Darius.

On the tenth day he led the Babylonian army out, surrounded the thousand men, and killed them all. Seeing his deeds match his words, the Babylonians were overjoyed and ready to obey him in everything.

When the agreed days had passed, he led out a picked force of Babylonians and killed Darius' two thousand. When the Babylonians saw this too, everyone was praising Zopyrus.

When the agreed days passed once more, he led his men to the appointed place, surrounded the four thousand, and killed them as well.

After that, Zopyrus was everything to Babylon. They made him commander of their armies and guardian of the walls.

IX. Two Gates

When the twenty days were up, Darius ordered the attack all around the wall, as agreed.

The Babylonians all climbed onto the wall to fight off the Persians. At that moment Zopyrus opened the Cissian gate and the gate of Belus, and let the Persians in.

Only then was his whole trick revealed.

Those Babylonians who saw what he had done fled to the temple of the Zeus they call Belus. Those who had not seen it stayed at their posts, until they too learned that they had been betrayed.

So Babylon was taken for the second time.

X. Fifty Thousand Women

When Darius was master of the Babylonians, he pulled down their walls and tore away all their gates. Cyrus, when he first took Babylon, had done neither.

He impaled about three thousand of the city's leading men. To the rest of the Babylonians he gave back their city to live in.

The Babylonians, to save their grain, had strangled their own women, as I said at the start. Darius saw that they would need wives if they were to have children, so he ordered the surrounding peoples each to send a set number of women to Babylon. Altogether fifty thousand women were gathered.

The people who live in Babylon now are descended from those women.

XI. Twenty Babylons

In Darius' judgment no Persian, before or after, did greater service than Zopyrus, except Cyrus alone, with whom no Persian has ever thought to compare himself.

Darius is said to have often declared that he would rather Zopyrus had been spared that disfigurement than gain twenty more Babylons on top of the one he had.

He honored him greatly. Every year he sent him the gifts Persians value most, gave him Babylon to govern free of tribute for the rest of his life, and gave him much else besides.

This Zopyrus had a son, Megabyzus, who later commanded an army in Egypt against the Athenians and their allies. Megabyzus' son, another Zopyrus, later deserted from the Persians to Athens.

When the Babylonian shouted from the wall, he thought he was naming something that would never happen.

No mule ever bore a second foal. The gates were opened by a man who had first cut his own face apart, and by seven thousand soldiers who were meant to die from the start.

Sources, versions, and editorial boundaries

1. Core narrative: Herodotus, Histories 3.150 (Babylon revolts while the fleet is at Samos; food stored during the rule of the Magus and the rising of the seven; mothers and one bread-maker per man kept, the other women strangled); 3.151–152 (the siege; the jeering from the wall and the line about mules; a year and seven months without success; Cyrus' method tried); 3.153–154 (in the twentieth month Zopyrus' grain mule foals; he takes it as heaven's will; asks Darius; cuts off his nose and ears, crops his hair, flogs himself); 3.155 (Darius leaps from his throne; their exchange; the plan of one, two and four thousand men at the gates of Semiramis, the Ninevites and the Chaldeans, the gates of Belus and the Cissian gate; daggers only; the gate bars and keys); 3.156–157 (looking back as he walks; the gate opened a crack; his speech to the assembly; three sorties; made commander and guardian of the walls); 3.158 (the Cissian and Belian gates opened; flight to the temple of Belus); 3.159 (Babylon taken a second time; walls and gates torn down; about three thousand impaled; fifty thousand women); 3.160 (the "twenty Babylons" saying; tribute-free rule of Babylon for life; his son Megabyzus and grandson Zopyrus). Read in A. D. Godley's public-domain 1920 translation (PerseusDL canonical-greekLit TEI file tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng2), with the Greek of 3.150–155 and 3.158–160 checked in the same repository (tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-grc2).

2. Versions: at 3.150 the electronic English text reads "sending away all the mothers," which can be misread as sending the mothers away; the Greek "τὰς μητέρας ἐξελόντες" means setting the mothers aside, so this story says each man kept his own mother. "He made light of it" follows "ἐν ἐλαφρῷ ποιησάμενος" (3.154); "sprang from his throne with a cry" follows "ἔκ τε τοῦ θρόνου ἀναπηδήσας ἀνέβωσε" (3.155); "the bars and keys of their gates" follows "τῶν πυλέων τὰς βαλανάγρας" (3.155). The "Assyrians" in Zopyrus' mouth are the Babylonians; the Greek has "Ἀσσυρίους." Herodotus marks the "twenty Babylons" saying with "it is said" (λέγεται), and this story keeps that. The rest is paraphrase and abridgement from the English, not word-for-word translation.

3. The Behistun inscription: Darius records two Babylonian revolts there. First, Nidintu-Bel, claiming to be "Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus," whom Darius defeated in person after crossing the Tigris and again at Zazana, then took Babylon and killed him (§§16, 18–20; the adapted King/Thompson translation on Livius dates the rising to October 522 BCE and the battles to December). Second, Arakha the Armenian, also claiming to be Nebuchadnezzar, put down by an army under Intaphernes; Arakha and his chief followers were impaled in Babylon (§§49–50; Livius gives 27 November, usually placed in 521 BCE). Neither passage mentions Zopyrus, self-mutilation, a feigned desertion or a twenty-month siege. Godley's note also observes that Herodotus' order makes the revolt seem long after Darius' accession, while Behistun makes it one of the earliest events of the reign. This story therefore treats Zopyrus' stratagem as a tale Herodotus heard and recorded, not as established fact, and does not match it to either revolt.

4. Time: the map uses "c. 522–521 BCE" only as the frame of the two Babylonian revolts suppressed early in Darius' reign according to Behistun; it is not a date for the Zopyrus story. "A year and seven months," "the twentieth month," and the intervals of ten, seven and twenty days come from the Histories alone and are not confirmed elsewhere.

5. Places: Babylon uses the coordinates of the English Wikipedia article "Babylon" (32.5425 N, 44.4211 E), standing for the ancient site near present-day Hillah, Iraq. The gates of Semiramis, the Ninevites, the Chaldeans, Belus and the Cissian gate are Herodotus' names; this story does not try to match them to gates known from excavation, such as the Ishtar Gate. Samos, Athens and Egypt are not mapped.

6. Fact and literary boundaries: all speech has a matching passage in the Histories and is paraphrased from the English (in a few places from the Greek). No weather, facial expressions, unsupported thoughts or new dialogue are added. Zopyrus sitting down to think and judging the foal a sign from heaven follow 3.153; his wish to keep the deed for himself and the note on Persian rewards follow 3.154, as Herodotus' explanation. "Seven thousand soldiers meant to die from the start," "no mule ever bore a second foal," and "Zopyrus was everything to Babylon" (from Godley's "the one man for Babylon," 3.157) are the narrator's comment or summary. The Samos expedition for Syloson is told at 3.139–149 and has no separate story in this series. The grandson's desertion to Athens is a single line in Herodotus, and this story adds nothing to it.

7. Rights: the ancient work and Godley's 1920 translation are in the public domain; the Behistun inscription was checked against the adapted King/Thompson (1907) translation published by Livius, used only for fact-checking without long quotation. The Chinese and English stories are original contemporary retellings by Clio Walker. Wikipedia is used only for coordinates.