He told how the combined army, consisting of Persians and Arabs as well as of Medes and Babylonians, and amounting to four hundred thousand men, was twice defeated with great loss by the Assyrian monarch, and compelled to take refuge in the Zagros chain--how after losing a third battle it retreated to Babylonia--how it was there joined by strong reinforcements from Bactria, surprised the Assyrian camp by night, and drove the whole host in confusion to Nineveh--how then, after two more victories, it advanced and invested the city, which was well provisioned for a siege and strongly fortified.

The siege, Ctesias said, had lasted two full years, and the third year had commenced--success seemed still far off--when an unusually rainy season so swelled the waters of the Tigris that they burst into the city, sweeping away more than two miles of the wall.
This vast breach it was impossible to repair; and the Assyrian monarch, seeing that further resistance was vain, brought the struggle to an end by burning himself, with his concubines and eunuchs and all his chief wealth, in his palace.
Such, in outline, was the story of Ctesias.

If we except the extent of the breach which the river is declared to have made, it contains no glaring improbabilities.

On the contrary, it is a narrative that hangs well together, and that suits both the relations of the parties and the localities.

Moreover, it is confirmed in one or two points by authorities of the highest order.