It does not appear to have occurred to him that it was possible to protect his territory.

With a broad, deep, and rapid river directly interposed between him and his foe, with a network of canals spread far and wide over his country, with an almost inexhaustible supply of human labor at his command for the construction of such dikes, walls, or cuttings as he should deem advisable, Nabonadius might, one would have thought, have aspired to save his land from invasion, or have disputed inch by inch his enemy's advance towards the capital.

But such considerations have seldom had much force with Orientals, whose notions of war and strategy are even now of the rudest and most primitive description.

To measure one's strength as quickly as possible with that of one's foe, to fight one great pitched battle in order to decide the question of superiority in the field, and then, if defeated, either to surrender or to retire behind walls, has been the ordinary conception of a commander's duties in the East from the time of the Ramesside kings to our own day.

No special blame therefore attaches to Nabonadius for his neglect.