Given the tonnage of missiles launched at Iran, it seems remarkable how relatively few Iranians have been killed. But the Americans have no interest in wasting multi-million-dollar ordnance on pain-in-the-ass innocent bystanders. However, Donald Trump is now considering a land invasion. That would have been unwise, as the ancients knew.
Understanding all about the problems of land assaults against defended cities, the ancients often preferred to lay siege. That could be a long and wearisome business and did not necessarily guarantee success. Troy was besieged for ten years, but it took the trick of the wooden horse to take it. So when the Persian king Darius (c. 514 bc) had laid siege to the Assyrian-controlled city of Babylon for nearly two years without result, his faithful lieutenant Zopyrus decided to take matters in hand.
Slicing off his nose and ears, and flogging himself into a bloody mess, he presented himself to Darius. Aghast, Darius asked him what on earth he thought he was doing: had he lost control of his senses? How on earth would this persuade the enemy to surrender? Zopyrus explained: he was going to desert to the enemy, say that Darius had done this to him, and he wanted revenge. They would surely accept him and ask about Darius’s plans. He would tell them that Darius would attack Babylonian gate one in ten days’ time with 1,000 troops, gate two with 2,000 troops seven days later, and gate three 20 days after that with 4,000 troops (the Babylonians not knowing that all the Persian troops would be very lightly armed and not put up anything like a fight). But 20 days after that, Zopyrus said, Darius was to launch his finest troops, fully armed, at gates four and five. The Babylonians welcomed Zopyrus, and when events turned out as he had said, with the Persians driven back on each of the first three attacks, the Babylonians made him general of the army and guardian of the wall. Twenty days later Darius launched the pick of his troops at gates four and five. Zopyrus opened them, the Persian troops flooded in and Babylon was captured. Just the sort of scheme that would appeal to Trump.
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