The US army could learn from history if they are looking for ideas on how to capture Baghdad, writes Peter Jones
Assaults on ancient Babylon offer lessons to the western forces massed today around Baghdad, which was built to the north in 762 AD as a sort of clone-Babylon, and with equal magnificence.
Babylon, or Babel, was constructed in the third millennium BC in the "fertile crescent" watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. Thanks to the building programme of Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BC, it was said by the Greek historian Herodotus to "surpass in splendour any city in the known world".
Straddling the Euphrates, protected by its moat and 56 miles of 350-foot-high walls, wide enough at the top to accommodate houses and a road for four-horse chariots, it presented a formidable obstacle to any enemy.
But it was a prize of unsurpassed richness when, in 539 BC, the Persian king Cyrus besieged the city.
Herodotus tells us that Cyrus was on the point of giving up when a soldier suggested diverting the Euphrates north of the city until it became so shallow that the Persians could enter Babylon along the river bed under its mighty walls.
That was the first capture of Babylon - an example of lateral thinking that the Americans could take heed of as they attack Baghdad. But in 523 BC, when Darius was king of Persia, Babylon revolted. For nearly two years Darius failed to take it back. Then his faithful lieutenant Zopyrus took matters in hand.
Herodotus tells us that he mutilated himself in the most dreadful fashion, slicing off his nose and ears, and flogging himself into a bloody mess, and presented himself before an appalled Darius.
Zopyrus proposed he desert to the Babylonians, and urged Darius to attack specific Babylonian gates on specific days - although all the troops were to be useless, armed only with daggers. Twenty days after the third attack, Darius was to launch his finest troops at the Belian and Cissian gates.
Zopyrus duly deserted, told the Babylonians Darius had mutilated him, said he wanted revenge and that he knew all Darius's plans. "Give me the soldiers," he said, "and I'll prove it."
The Babylonians agreed. Zopyrus predicted and brilliantly dealt with the first three assaults. The thrilled Babylonians made him general of the army and guardian of the wall. Twenty days later Darius launched the pick of his men at the Belian and Cissian gates. Zopyrus opened them, the Persian troops flooded in, and that was the second capture of Babylon.
Here is another lesson for today's invaders. They hope for treachery from among Saddam Hussein's inner circle. But an alternative is for them to infiltrate with their own traitor.
Peter Jones is a classicist. He has recently revised
E. V Rieu's 1950 translation of Homer's Iliad for Penguin