Babylon, and stationed around it supporting armies. But he was able to
avert the fatal blow for only a few years. Risking a battle in the open
field, his army was defeated, and the gates of the capital were thrown
open to the Persians (538 B.C.). [Footnote: The device of turning the
Euphrates, which Herodotus makes an incident of the siege, was not
resorted to by Cyrus; but it seems that a little later (in 521-519 B.C.),
the city, having revolted, was actually taken in this way by the Persian
king Darius. Herodotus confused the two events.]

With the fall of Babylon, the sceptre of dominion, borne for so many years
by Semitic princes, was given into the hands of the Aryan peoples, who
were destined, from this time forward, to shape the course of events, and
control the affairs of civilization.

THE GREAT EDIFICES OF BABYLON.--The deep impression which Babylon produced
upon the early Greek travellers was made chiefly by her vast architectural
works,--her temples, palaces, elevated gardens, and great walls. The
Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar and the walls of the city were reckoned
among the wonders of the world.

[Illustration: BIRS-NIMRUD. (Ruins of the great Temple of the Seven
Spheres, near Babylon.)]

The Babylonians, like their predecessors the Chaldaeans, accorded to the
sacred edifice the place of pre-eminence among their architectural works.
Sacred architecture in the time of Nebuchadnezzar had changed but little
from the early Chaldaean models (see p. 44); save that the temples were now
larger and more splendid, being made, in the language of the inscriptions,
"to shine like the sun." The celebrated Temple of the Seven Spheres, at
Borsippa, a suburb of Babylon, may serve as a representative of the later