Ancient mode of warfare.
Modern warfare.
Such incidents as this, of personal communications between masses of enemies on the eve of a battle, were very common in ancient warfare, though impossible in modern times. In those days, when the missiles employed were thrown chiefly by the strength of the human arm alone, the combatants could safely draw near enough together for each side to hear the voices and to see the gesticulations of the other. Besiegers could advance sufficiently close to a castle or citadel to parley insultingly with the garrison upon the walls, and yet be safe from the showers of darts and arrows which were projected toward them in return. But all this is now changed. The reach of cannon, and even of musketry, is so long, that combatants, approaching a conflict, are kept at a very respectful distance apart, until the time arrives in which the actual engagement is to begin. They reconnoiter each other with spy-glasses from watch-towers on the walls, or from eminences in the field, but they can hold no communication except by a formal embassy, protected by a flag of truce, which, with its white and distant fluttering, as it slowly advances over the green fields, warns the gunners at the battery or on the bastion to point their artillery another way.
Taunt of the Babylonians.
The Babylonians, on the walls of their city, reproached and taunted their foes incessantly. "Take our advice," said they, "and go back where you came from. You will only lose your time in besieging Babylon. When mules have foals, you will take the city, and not till then."
The expression "when mules have foals" was equivalent in those days to our proverbial phrase, "when the sky falls," being used to denote any thing impossible or absurd, inasmuch as mules, like other hybrid animals, do not produce young. It was thought in those times absolutely impossible that they should do so; but it is now well known that the case is not impossible, though very rare.
Fabricating prodigies.
The mule of Zopyrus.
It seems to have added very much to the interest of an historical narrative in the minds of the ancient Greeks, to have some prodigy connected with every great event; and, in order to gratify this feeling, the writers appear in some instances to have fabricated a prodigy for the occasion, and in others to have elevated some unusual, though by no means supernatural circumstance, to the rank and importance of one. The prodigy connected with this siege of Babylon was the foaling of a mule. The mule belonged to a general in the army of Darius, named Zopyrus. It was after Darius had been prosecuting the siege of the city for a year and a half, without any progress whatever toward the accomplishment of his end. The army began to despair of success. Zopyrus, with the rest, was expecting that the siege would be indefinitely prolonged, or, perhaps, absolutely abandoned, when his attention was strongly attracted to the phenomenon which had happened in respect to the mule. He remembered the taunt of the Babylonian on the wall, and it seemed to him that the whole occurrence portended that the time had now arrived when some way might be devised for the capture of the city.
Interview with Darius.
Portents and prophecies are often the causes of their own fulfillment, and this portent led Zopyrus to endeavor to devise some means to accomplish the end in view. He went first, however, to Darius, to converse with him upon the subject, with a view of ascertaining how far he was really desirous of bringing the siege to a termination. He wished to know whether the object was of sufficient importance in Darius's mind to warrant any great sacrifice on his own part to effect it.
He found that it was so. Darius was extremely impatient to end the siege and to capture the city; and Zopyrus saw at once that, if he could in any way be the means of accomplishing the work, he should entitle himself, in the highest possible degree, to the gratitude of the king.