The historian Herodotus, writing in Greek in the mid-fifth century B.C.E., recalled that when the Babylonians learned of the preparations by the Persian king Cyrus II to march on Babylon, they took to the field, attacked him, were defeated, and were forced to retire behind their defenses. However, they had taken the precaution of accumulating in Babylon a stock of provisions sufficient to last many years, and, in light of the city's massive defenses, they regarded the prospect of siege with indifference. But the Persians devised and executed a plan to take advantage of the city's fortifications, taking into account the fact that the Euphrates ran directly through the heart of the inner city:

Then somebody suggested or he (Cyrus) himself thought up the following plan: he stationed part of his force at the point where the Euphrates...