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All this time they were dancing and celebrating a holiday which happened to fall then, until they learned the truth only too well.
And Babylon, then for the first time, was taken in this way. (1.191)
HERODOTUS, HISTORIES; BOOK 1.191; A. D. GODLEY TRANSLATION
Summary
After focusing on Harpagus’ conquest of the Greek Ionian colonies, Herodotus switches his focus back to Cyrus and his conquest of the Babylonians.
He first describes Babylon. It is a square city surrounded by high, thick walls, with a deep moat surrounding the walls. The Euphrates river runs right through the middle of the city. Before a notable queen, Nitocris, the only way to get from one side of Babylon to the other was with boats.
When the Medes attacked Assyria and Ninus (Nineveh) fell, the royal family moved to Babylon. Nitocris took precautions to further protect Babylon, most notably: changing the course of the Euphrates to make it more like an obstacle course, digging a lake to serve as an obstacle, and building a bridge across the Euphrates within the city.
When Cyrus marched against the Babylonians, the Babylonians lost and were driven back within Babylon. The Babylonians felt secure within the city for two reasons: 1) They had enough provisions to last them for years; and, 2) They believed Cyrus would give up and go somewhere else for the time being since he had ambitions to conquer all of Asia.
However, Cyrus was fixated on capturing Babylon and a plan was formed. He post part of his army at one end of Babylon where the Euphrates flowed into it and the other part at the other end of Babylon. He then took the part of his army that couldn’t fight up to the lake Nitocris had dug. They dug a canal that caused the part of the Euphrates that flowed into the city to lower enough so Cyrus’ army could march into the city through it. The Babylonians, due to the sheer size of the city, and the fact they let their guard down because they thought they were safe and because they were celebrating a festival, were then conquered. The mighty and impenetrable Babylon fell to the might and ambitions of Cyrus.
Herodotus then takes some time describing some of the customs and practices of the Babylonians—most notably how they handled marriage and what they did with their sick since they didn’t have physicians.
Cyrus Takes Revenge on a River
There’s a somewhat humorous side story that Herodotus records about Cyrus involving a river. When he tried to cross the Gyndes1, one of his sacred white horses got ahead of itself and ended up getting swept away. Angry, Cyrus “threatened to make it so feeble that women could ever after cross it easily without wetting their knees” (1.189) and ordered his army to dig 360 canals coming out of the river (180 on each side). This took the entire summer to do and Cyrus didn’t resume his march against Babylon until the following spring.
Cyrus wasted an entire summer attacking a river for taking his horse away. And then, he had to wait even longer before he could resume his ambitions of conquering Babylon.
I guess a charismatic, tactical genius is allowed to have an eccentricity or two.
By the way, what is it with larger-than-life warriors pitting themselves against large bodies of water? First Achilles, then Odysseus, then Heracles, and now Cyrus.
I wonder if there is something to investigate here.
How the Babylonians Solved the Marriage Problem
Just to be sure, the title is a bit of my dark humor coming out. I’m going to get in trouble for this post someday, so I might as well have fun with it.
When Herodotus talks about the customs and practices of the Babylonians, he mentions that there was one he considered to be the wisest. That being: marriage auctions.
All women of marriageable age, around all of the villages, were gathered together and put up for auction. Men would come to this spot and bid on the women they wanted as wives. The most attractive and able women were put up first and the richest of the men would get their pick. Commoners would end up with the least attractive and able women (if they wanted to bid on them). Fathers couldn’t pick husbands for their daughters, but men couldn’t purchase a woman unless they agreed to marry her.
I suppose that’s one way to prevent a marriage and birthrate crisis from occurring. It might also motivate men to work harder to be successful, preventing that crisis as well.
Okay, I’ll stop with the jokes.
In all seriousness, it’s possible that the Babylonians (and the other ancients, for that matter) sensed what has been pointed out by modern thinkers: 1) Marriage and building a family calms men down; and, 2) The selectiveness of women when it comes to mates is understandable, but creates problems. Things like marriage auctions and arranged marriages were ways the ancients might have tried to navigate these problems. The big issue, of course, is it eliminates freedom of choice—especially for women. The choice of a marriage partner ceases to be an individual choice and becomes a familial or communal choice. Rather than allowing the wisdom and goals of the individual to guide their choice in a mate, the wisdom and goals of the family (particularly the father) or the community becomes the guide. Who knows who is the best mate for someone: the individual themselves? Or, the family? Or, the community?
There’s another practice that Herodotus mentions the Babylonians did—a practice he considered the foulest. Once in a woman’s lifetime—Herodotus doesn’t specify when, but maybe before she is married?—she had to go to the temple of Mylitta2, sit there, and wait for a man to come by and throw any amount of money into her lap. The two then left the temple, had sex, and only then was the woman allowed to return home. The man couldn’t pursue her any further. The more attractive women were able to leave the temple right away. The least attractive could be at the temple for years. Since any amount of money could be given to the woman, and the woman couldn’t refuse, it implies that unsuccessful and/or unattractive men could hook up with attractive women. It also implies that men could have access to women whenever they wanted.
I wonder if this terrible practice was put in place to solve another problem. I wonder if the ancients were sensitive to the involuntary celibacy problem and eventually this practice sprang up as a response.
We currently have a problem related to declining marriage and birthrates. The reasons for these problems are legion:
Marriage and divorce laws that especially affect men negatively
Freer access to birth control and abortions
The Sexual Revolution which has devolved into the modern hook up culture, which is propelled by dating apps and social media
Philosophies, taught in schools, which have diminished the family and its importance
Policies and practices which force families to be two-income households in order to survive and have children
The increasing difficulty for men to have access to good jobs
The destruction of the boundaries between manhood and womanhood
I could go on.
I just finished going through on audio The End of Woman by Carrie Gress3. She mentions toward the end of the book that the more the Roman Empire loosened its standards on sex, the further it began declining. And guess what rose up in its ashes? Monasteries. Groups full of men forsaking sex and marriage, “going their own way”, holding each other accountable, working hard on different industries and their faith, and changing the world forever in the process. As the West continues to decline, we are seeing something like this in a section of the so-called “manosphere.” Men who are voluntarily giving up on marriage and starting families, working to improve their minds and bodies, and if able, disconnecting from society (or, at least, Western society). To what end? I don’t know. To watch society burn in order to feel its warmth? Recapture some semblance of sanity? Self-preservation? If these groups of men don’t start schools or communities, their legacies are simply going to fade away.
My writing in this section is all over the place, I realize. And yes, it’s one-sided. I’m a man and am primarily concerned about men’s issues as a result. I’ve been watching the relations between men and women break down in real time—thanks to feminism, hook up culture, state and media propaganda…—and it’s concerning. Worse, I don’t know how it will be fixed. Not without drastic ideological changes.
It’s getting harder to convince men into getting married and having children. More and more men are not even caving to the pressure being put on them by vocal groups in society. “Man up,” “Stop being a crybaby,” “You have an obligation,” “Your ancestors are rolling in their graves” are being increasing shrugged off. And quite frankly, I don’t blame them.
You can preach to a man on the virtues of marriage and having children until you’re blue in the face. The laws and the courts are still against him. If he gets taken to the cleaners in the courts after marrying and having children—are those same preachers going to have his back? You can badger a man to stop being a coward and talk to women and ask them out on dates. The culture still exalts the virtue of “believe all women.” If he gets accused of harassment and loses his job, gets kicked out of public spaces, has the police called on him, etc., all because he asked a lady out for coffee when it seemed to him they were getting along—are those badgers going to have his back?
This is probably why there has been a growing call for community level engagement and forsaking the national. Smaller communities can insulate themselves from these issues by not tolerating bad behavior like promiscuity, false accusations, and breaking up families for petty reasons.
That's all for the Histories, Book 1.178-200.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
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Thumbnail: Darius Hystaspis Opens the Tomb of Nitocry by Eustache Le Suer. 1649. Public domain.
1I looked it up because I’m terrible with geography. It’s known now as the Diyala and it’s a tributary of the Tigris river.
2Herodotus initially says Aphrodite, so Mylitta must have been some sort of Near Eastern fertility goddess.
3I highly recommend reading or listening to it (the narrator for the audio version did a great job). It’s about the origins of the feminist movement—and what Gress found was shocking.