The position of Darius before Babylon was hopeless. The danger increased every day, and there was still no prospect of winning the city. We may certainly believe the narrative of Herodotus that Darius left no means untried to reduce it, that he repeated the device of drawing off the water of the Euphrates into the basin of Sepharvaim, by which Cyrus had attained his object twenty years previously; the Babylonians had been taught by that siege to be on their guard in this direction. The account of Darius does not tell us how the city was finally taken; he does not mention the name of Zopyrus. The pressure of the surrounding dangers was so great, the hope of taking the city by force so small, that the son of a tribal king might feel himself called upon to sacrifice himself for the king and the kingdom, to adopt desperate measures. That Zopyrus did take a prominent part in the capture of Babylon is clear from the fact, which we do not learn from Herodotus only, that the satrapy of Babylon was given to him, and remained in his hands during the whole reign of Darius and afterwards. He is said to have lost his life in a rebellion of the Babylonians in the reign of Xerxes.[236] We cannot doubt that after the capture Darius proceeded with greater severity against Babylon than Cyrus had done, that the gates were broken and large spaces of the walls thrown down (p. 234). The inscription of Behistun merely mentions the execution of the third Nebuchadnezzar.