Sennacherib
Though in all probability young when he came to the throne in 705 B.C., Sennacherib had already some experience as a ruler, having been the representative of his father Sargon in Armenia, where he had to receive and transmit the reports of the Assyrian generals, and probably also to administer the country. For the nations over which he was to rule, however, he was practically a new and untried administrator, of whose strength or weakness of character nothing was known. Merodach-baladan therefore took advantage of the death of Sargon and the succession of his son to come forth from his hiding-place, with such of his followers who were available, and an army placed at his disposal by the king of Elam. To all appearance the Chaldean ruler had taken advantage of the occupation of the Assyrian army elsewhere to possess himself of Babylon, which city Sennacherib entered, occupying Merodach-baladan’s palace, and seizing all his treasures. Merodach-baladan fled and took refuge in Nagitu, on the other side of the Persian Gulf, so as to be near his Elamite allies.
After this the Assyrian king records his expedition to the mountainous countries of Kassû (the Cossæans) and the Yasubigalleans, north of Elam, in the course of which he wasted the neighbouring district of Ellipu, taking, on his way, tribute from some of the more inaccessible tribes of the Medes. His third campaign was to the land of Ḫatti (Syria), and as this is of considerable importance, a translation of the whole, from the Taylor Cylinder, which gives a full account, is inserted here—
“In my third expedition I went to the land of Ḫatti. Lulî king of the city of Ṣidunnu (Sidon), fear of the glory of my dominion struck him, and he fled from the midst of Tyre to Yatnana(106) (Cyprus), which is in the middle of the sea, and I subjugated his country. Great Ṣidunnu, little Ṣidunnu, Bît-zitte, Ṣareptu (Zarephath), Maḫalliba, Ûšû (Osah), Akzibi (Achzib), Akkû (Accho), his strong cities, fortresses, where were food and drink, his strongholds, the terror of the weapons of Aššur my lord struck them, and they submitted to my feet. Tu-ba’alu (Ethobaal) on the throne of dominion over them I set, and the tax and tribute of my overlordship yearly without fail I imposed upon him.
“As for Minḫimmu (Menahem) of the city of the Samsimurunâa; Tu-ba’alu of the city of the Ṣidunnâa (Sidonians); Abdi-li’iti of the city of the Arudâa (Arvadites); Uru-milki of the city of the Gublâa (Gebalites); Mitinti of the city of the Asdudâa (Ashdodites); Budu-îlu of the land of the Bît-Ammanâa (Beth-Ammonites); Kammusu-nadbi (Chemosh-nadab) of the land of the Ma’abâa (Moabites); Aa-rammu (Joram) of the land of the Udummâa (Edomites);
kings of the land of Amoria all of them, brought numerous treasures, their valuable presents, as gifts to my presence and kissed my feet. And Ṣidqâ(107) (Zedekiah), king of the city of Isqalluna (Askelon), who was not submissive to my yoke, the gods of his father’s house, himself, his wife, his sons, his daughters, his brothers, (and) the seed of his father’s house, I removed and brought to the land of Aššur. Šarru-lûdâri, son of Rûkibtu, their former king, I placed over the people of the city of Isqalluna, and the payment of tribute as the price of my overlordship I set for him, and he bore my yoke. In the course of my campaign the city Bît-Daganna (Beth-Dagon), Yappû (Joppa), Banâa-barqa (Bene-berak), Azuru (Azor), cities of Ṣidqâ which were not at once submissive to my yoke, I besieged, captured, (and) carried off their spoil.
“The prefects, the princes, and the people of the city Amqarruna (Ekron), who had thrown Padî, their king, who was faithful to the agreement and oath of the land of Aššur, into fetters of iron, and given him to Ḫazaqiau (Hezekiah), of the land of the Yaudâa (Jews)—hostilely in secret they had acted—feared in their hearts. The kings of the land of Muṣuru (Egypt), (and) the soldiers of the bow, the chariots, (and) the horses of the king of the land of Meluḫḫa, gathered to themselves a numberless force, and came to their help. Over against me in sight of Altaqû (Eltekah) their line of battle was set in array, they called for their weapons. In the service of Aššur my lord I fought with them and accomplished their defeat. The charioteers and the sons of the king of the Muṣurâa (Egyptians), with the charioteers of the king of the land of Meluḫḫa, my hands captured alive in the midst of the battle. (As for) the city of Altaqû (Eltekah) (and) the city of Tamnâ (Timnah), I besieged, captured, (and) carried off their spoil.
“I approached to the city of Amqarruna, and the prefects and princes who had caused the wrong to be, I killed, and on stakes around the city I hung their corpses. The sons of the city doing the crime and misdeed I counted as spoil. The rest of them, who did not commit sin and wickedness, whose evil deed was not, I commanded their release. I caused Padî, their king, to come forth from the midst of Ursalimmu (Jerusalem), and to sit on the throne of dominion over them, and the tribute of my overlordship I imposed upon him. And (as for) Hazaqiau (Hezekiah) of the land of the Yaudâa (Jews), who had not submitted to my yoke, 46 of his strong cities, fortresses, and small towns which were around them, which were innumerable, with overthrowing by battering-rams, and advance of towers, infantry-attack, breaching, cutting, and earthworks, I besieged (and) captured. 200,150 people, small and great, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep, which were without number, from their midst I caused to come forth and reckoned as spoil. As for him, like a cage-bird I shut him up within Ursalimmu, the city of his dominion. Redoubts I threw up around him, and I cut off the exit from the great gate of his city—it was (completely) covered. His cities, which I had spoiled, I detached from the midst of his country, and gave (them) to Mitintu, king of Asdudu (Ashdod), Padî, king of Amqarruna (Ekron), and Ṣilli-bêl, king of the city Ḫazitu (Gaza), and (thus) reduced his land. Over the former tribute, their yearly gift, I added a payment as to the due of my overlordship, and imposed it upon them. As for him, Ḫazaqiau (Hezekiah), fear of the magnificence of my lordship struck him, and the urbi and his chosen soldiers, which he had brought in for the defence of Ursalimmu, the city of his kingdom, and (who) had pay, with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious (stones), guḫli, daggassi,(108) great carbuncles (?), couches of ivory, state thrones of ivory, elephant-skin, elephant-tooth (ivory), ebony (?), urkarinnu-wood, all sorts of things,(109) a valuable treasure, and his daughters, the women of his palace, male singers (and) female singers, he(110) caused to be brought after me to the midst of Ninua (Nineveh), the city of my dominion, and he sent his messenger to present the gift and pay homage.”
It is needless to say that the above long account differs considerably from that given in the Bible (2 Kings xviii. 13; Isa. xxxvi. 1 ff.), and it is very difficult to reconcile the two narratives. According to the account in Kings, Sennacherib came and took all the fenced cities of Judah, but there is no statement as to the reason why. The Assyrian king justifies his invasion of the country by stating that Hezekiah had sided with the inhabitants of Ekron in the deposition of their king, whom he had received from them and kept in prison. He even states that he brought him forth from Jerusalem and replaced him on the throne. That this circumstance is not referred to in the Biblical account, cannot be held to indicate that the Assyrian king’s story is wrong, and only shows that the writer of the 2nd Book of the Kings did not think it of sufficient importance to record. In all probability, Hezekiah did not know at the time that Padî was an Assyrian vassal, otherwise he would not have incurred the risk of an invasion of his country by the dreaded Assyrians. The Biblical account then states that Hezekiah sent to the king at Lachish, saying that he had offended, and asking for terms, a fact which indicates that he was aware of having done something at which the king of Assyria might justly take offence. The answer was, the fixing of the amount of tribute which Hezekiah had to pay—300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold, this latter item agreeing with the statement of Sennacherib himself, though the amount of silver which he mentions—800 talents—is much greater. The sacrifice which Hezekiah made on this occasion (he had to strip off the gold from the doors of the Temple, and also from the pillars which he had overlaid, to make up the sum) was considerable. Concerning a siege of Jerusalem at this point, however, there is not a single word in the Biblical account, and the general opinion is, that the Assyrian king has purposely combined two accounts to give an appearance of success to what, in 2 Kings xix. 35-37, appears to have been a serious disaster to the Assyrian arms.
It is worthy of note, however, that Josephus makes the siege of Jerusalem to have taken place when Sennacherib was returning from Egypt, where he had spent a long time besieging Pelusium (Ant. x. i. 4), which was regarded as the key of Egypt. In support of this he quotes Herodotus, who, according to him, made a great mistake “when he called this king not king of the Assyrians, but of the Arabians.” This, however, is not quite correct, as Herodotus really says (book ii. 141), “Sennacherib king of the Arabians and of the Assyrians.” That it took place on his return from Egypt, however, is also stated by Berosus, whom Josephus quotes in full, as follows—
“Now when Sennacherib was returning from his Egyptian war to Jerusalem, he found his army under Rabshakeh in great danger, for God had sent a pestilential distemper upon his army; and on the very first night of the siege, a hundred and eighty-five thousand, with their captains and generals, were destroyed. So the king was in a great dread, and in a terrible agony at this calamity; and being in great fear for his whole army, he fled with the rest of his forces to his own kingdom, and to his city Nineveh, and when he had abode there a little while, he was treacherously assaulted, and died by the hands of his elder sons, Adramelech and Sarasar, and was slain in his own temple which was called Araske. Now these sons of his were driven away on account of the murder of their father, by the citizens, and went into Armenia, whilst Assarachoddas took the kingdom of Sennacherib.”
This would seem to be conclusive, especially as Sennacherib, according to his own records, made no expedition to Egypt before or at the time of that against the land of Ḫatti, which took place in the eponymy of Mitunu, prefect of Isana, i.e. 700 B.C., or the year immediately preceding. Now as Sennacherib died in 681 B.C., nearly twenty years elapsed between the campaign of which the account is above translated and his death. Berosus, however, states that, after the siege of Jerusalem, which ended so disastrously for him, he abode at Nineveh only “a little while” before he was murdered. There is then no doubt that there were two campaigns, and the events referred to in 2 Kings xviii. 13-xix. 37, though they seem to follow each other with little or no break, must have extended over a considerable period, the widest gap being in all probability between the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of ch. xviii. It is noteworthy that, at this point, the Hebrew indicates the end of a paragraph, though not a change of subject.
Affairs in Babylonia now occupied the attention of Sennacherib for many years, in consequence of the many revolutions there, which were largely fomented, aided and abetted by the Elamites. In 703 B.C., two pretenders, Marduk-zakir-šumi and Marduk-âbla-iddina, held the throne in succession for a few months, but Sennacherib put an end to this rule by setting on the throne a Chaldean named Bêl-ibnî (Belibus).(111) This took place when he defeated Merodach-baladan, before the campaign against the West. Evidently, however, he was not satisfied with the rule of his nominee, who had probably been plotting against him, and therefore entered the country again in 699 B.C., carried away Bêl-ibnî prisoner, and set on the throne his own eldest son, Aššur-nadin-šum. After this seems to have occurred his fifth expedition, which was to the mountainous region where lay the cities Tumurru, Šarum or Šarma, Ezema, Kibšu, Ḫalbuda, Qûa, and Qana, in the neighbourhood of Cilicia, his objective being the city Ukku, which was taken and spoiled.
Whilst absent on this expedition, however, the Elamites seem to have been again plotting against the Assyrians in Babylonia. This being the case, Sennacherib went in “ships of the land of Ḫatti” to the place where Merodach-baladan(112) had taken refuge, namely, “Nagitu of Elam.”(113) On this occasion, he claims to have captured Šûzubu (otherwise Nergal-ušêzib), and carried him in chains to Assyria. This led to reprisals on the part of the Elamites, who invaded Babylonia, carried Aššur-nadin-šum, the king, Sennacherib’s son, prisoner, and set on the throne Nergal-ušêzib, who, if he be the Šûzubu referred to by Sennacherib, must have escaped from the custody of the Assyrians. This was in 693 B.C.
Nergal-ušêzib only ruled for a year or eighteen months, and was captured (? again) by the Assyrians. The Assyrian king now ravaged Elam “from Râš to Bît-Burnaki,” but his army would have been better employed in watching over affairs in Babylonia, where another pretender, Mušêzib-Marduk, sat on the throne, and ruled for four years. During this time he, too, found that his seat was not altogether a bed of roses, for Menanu, king of Elam, after a battle with the Assyrians,(114) captured Mušêzib-Marduk with an army composed of Elamites and Babylonians, and delivered him to the Assyrians. Sennacherib now again (688 B.C.) became king of Babylonia, and it is thought that, on taking possession of the capital again, out of revenge for the loss of his son, and on account of the trouble he had had in consequence of the Babylonians running after the many pretenders, with which the land seems to have teemed, he destroyed the city of Babylon, committing such cruelties that they were remembered to the end, and sowed the seeds of that hatred which were to bring forth for Assyria that deadliest of all fruit—her own destruction.
In the eight years which passed between his assuming the reins of power in Babylonia and his death, must be placed that expedition to Egypt spoken of by Berosus and Herodotus. The version of the former, which refers principally to the siege of Jerusalem, is quoted above (p. 378); the following is the account of the latter—
“After this, Sanacharib, king of the Arabians and of the Assyrians, marched a great host against Egypt. Then the warriors of the Egyptians refused to come to the rescue, and the priest (Hephaistos, whose name was Sethos),(115) being driven into a strait, entered into the sanctuary of the temple and bewailed to the image of the god the danger which was impending over him; and as he was thus lamenting, sleep came upon him, and it seemed to him in his vision that the god came out and stood by him and encouraged him, saying that he should suffer no evil if he went forth to meet the army of the Arabians, for he would himself send him helpers. Trusting in these things seen in sleep, he took with him, they say, those of the Egyptians who were willing to follow him, and encamped in Pelusion, for by this way the invasion came; and not one of the warrior class followed him, but shopkeepers and artisans and men of the market. Then after they came, there swarmed by night upon the enemies mice of the fields, and ate up their quivers and their bows, and moreover the handles of their shields, so that on the next day they fled, and being without defence of arms great numbers fell. And at the present time this king stands in the temple of Hephaistos in stone, holding upon his head a mouse, and by letters inscribed he says these words, ‘Let him who looks upon me learn to fear the gods.’ ”
Josephus’s quotation from Herodotus differs somewhat from the above, in that he makes the Egyptian king to pray to God (and not before his image), and omits all reference to the dream. This was doubtless to make the parallel with the case of Hezekiah more striking.
[Plate XI.]
Sennacherib before Lachish. For the translation of the inscription, see the opposite page. British Museum, Assyrian Saloon. The face of the king is mutilated in the original bas-relief, and has been restored.
The precise date of this expedition to Egypt and second siege of Jerusalem is unknown, but it must have taken place between 688 and 680 B.C. It is not by any means improbable that the date may some time or other be fixed, for an account of it will probably be found in the ruins of the cities of Assyria somewhere. That Herodotus calls Sennacherib “king of the Arabians and the Assyrians” is probably due to the fact that he seems to have been in alliance with “the queen of the Aribi”—(šar)rat D.P. Aribi—or Arabians, at the time. Esarhaddon speaks of his father Sennacherib as having captured the Arabian city Adumū, and inscriptions of Aššur-banî-âpli also refer to Sennacherib’s expedition thither, and to his connection with an Arabian king named Ḫaza-îlu (Hazael). With regard to Palestine itself, the reality of the siege of Lachish is testified to by the fact, that a large portion of Sennacherib’s sculptures represent him as being present at the siege of Lachish in person, when the prisoners and the booty taken were passed before him in procession. The inscription accompanying this scene reads as follows—
“Sin-âḫê-iriba, king of the world, king of the land Aššur, sat upon his throne of state, and the spoil of Lakisu passed before him.”
It would be strange indeed if this event, of which he was evidently very proud, were omitted from the history of what he must have regarded as his glorious deeds. As it does not occur in the account of his expedition to the land of Ḫatti, there is hardly any doubt that it belongs to the later campaign there, when he took the city, though he failed, as has been seen, to take Jerusalem. In all probability there were two sieges of Lachish, and it was very possible that the city was taken only on the second occasion. In any case, it was from Lachish that Sennacherib sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh to Hezekiah, with a great army to besiege Jerusalem, and it is noteworthy that the Rabshakeh reproaches him with trusting to Egypt, the power with which Assyria was at that moment in conflict; and in Sennacherib’s second message to Hezekiah (2 Kings xix. 9) the words accompanying it clearly show that the general opinion was, that it was the march of Tirhakah against him which called it forth. It is noteworthy in this connection, that Tirhakah cannot have been on the throne of Egypt so early as 700 B.C., the date of Sennacherib’s first campaign against the West.
There are therefore many arguments in favour of two expeditions of Sennacherib to Palestine, with two sieges of Jerusalem, and also, to all appearance, two sieges of Lachish.
The following is the account of his death given in the Babylonian Chronicle—
“On the 20th day of Tebet, Sin-âḫê-eriba, king of Assyria, his son killed him in a revolt. For (? 25) years Sin-âḫê-eriba had ruled the kingdom of Assyria. From the 20th day of the month Tebet until the 2nd day of the month Adar, the revolt in Assyria continued. Month Adar, day 18th, Aššur-âḫâ-iddina (Esarhaddon), his son, sat upon the throne in Assyria.”
According to Berosus, who agrees with the Biblical account in this, it was two of his sons who killed him, but it may be taken that, though they were both morally responsible, one only actually performed the deed. Shareser is not mentioned, either by Abydenus or Polyhistor, as taking part in the murder; it would seem to be very probable, that Adrammelech was the culprit. From Berosus it is also clear that Esarhaddon had nothing to do with it, and this is to a certain extent confirmed by his inscriptions, which, as will be seen farther on, represent him as warring in Armenia, whither his brothers had fled.
According to the received chronology, the assassination of Sennacherib and the accession of Esarhaddon took place in the year 680 B.C.
Esarhaddon
It is a matter greatly to be regretted that the royal inscriptions of Esarhaddon have not come down to us in a complete state, and also that we do not possess the later portions of the Assyrian Eponym Canon with historical references, which would enable us to fix the date of the campaigns. Of course, there is every probability that they are mentioned in chronological order, but as their dates are not stated, at least some uncertainty must prevail.
[Plate XII.]
Esarhaddon, King of Assyria. The kneeling figure, which has the negro type of features and wears the uraeus ornament, is apparently Tirhakah, his opponent in Egypt. The prisoners here represented are regarded as being treated as the same king treated Manasseh (2 Chr. xxxiii. 11, R.V. marg.). Found at Zenjirli. From Mittheilungen aus den Orientalischen Sammlungen, Part XI., by permission of the publishing-house of Georg Reimer, Berlin.
It is therefore impossible to say with certainty whether the recital, in forcible though apparently well-chosen language, of what took place in Ḫanigalbat, or Mesopotamia, belongs to the account of the conflict with his brothers (who would have liked to overthrow Esarhaddon that one of them might reign in his stead) or not. The wording, however, makes it very probable that the narrative does refer to them, for he overtook them on the Nineveh road, and the disappearance of their resistance was more than gratifying to the new king—
“The Nineveh-road, with difficulty (but) speedily, I traversed— before me, in the land of Ḫani-galbat, the whole of their mighty warriors halted before my expedition, and prepared their weapons. The fear of the great gods, my lords, overwhelmed them, and the attack of my mighty battle they saw, and became as demented. Ištar, lady of war and battle, lover of my priesthood, stood by my side, and broke their bows. She scattered their serried battle(-array), and in their assembled mass they called out thus: “This is our king.” By her supreme command they came over to my side.”
Oracles encouraging Esarhaddon exist, and possibly refer to this expedition.
Unfortunately the mutilation of the record, by which the beginning is wanting, has deprived us of the names of both conspirators, which are, therefore, only preserved by the Bible, Berosus, Abydenus, and Polyhistor. Various have been the conjectures as to what the true Assyrian forms of the names would be, and only one, that of Adrammelech, has been found with any probability of its being the right one. The name in question is that of Aššur-munik, or, perhaps better, Aššur-mulik, for whom Sennacherib built a palace. From its form in Hebrew, Sharezer should be Šar-uṣur in Assyrian, i.e. “protect the king,” the name of the deity called upon being omitted.
Though Esarhaddon’s inscriptions do not give any chronological data, the Babylonian chronicle indicates the dates of his campaigns with sufficient precision. From it we learn that in his first year he had to put down a rebellion in Ur, led by Zēru-kênu-lîšir, whom Esarhaddon calls Nabû-zēr-napišti-lîšir, son of Merodach-baladan. In the year 676 B.C., his expedition to Sidon took place, and Abdi-milkutti, the king, was beheaded in 675. After taking the spoil of the city, he says that he “assembled the kings of Ḫatti and the sea-coast, all of them,” and there is every probability that it was at this time that he “took Menasseh with hooks,” or, as the Revised Version has it, with chains, and bound him with fetters, and brought him to Babylon, where, as sovereign of that land also, he sometimes held court. Though severe, and probably also cruel sometimes, Esarhaddon was more mercifully inclined than his father, and allowed Menasseh to resume the reins of government at Jerusalem. There is no reference to this in the inscriptions of Esarhaddon, though he mentions, in his list of tributaries, Menasseh king of the city of Judah. This list, which is from a cylinder-inscription, is as follows—
“I gathered also the kings of Ḫatti and across the river ... Ba’alu king of Ṣurru (Tyre): Menasê (Menasseh) king of the city of Yaudu: Qauš-gabri, king of the city of Udumu (Edom); Muṣur’i, king of the city Ma’ab (Moab); Ṣilli-bêlu, king of the city of Ḫazitu (Gaza); Mitinti, king of the city of Isqaluna (Askelon); Ikausu, king of the city of Amqarruna (Ekron); Milki-ašapa, king of the city of Gublu (Gebal); Matan-ba’al, king of the city of Aruadu (Arvad); Abi-baal, king of the city of Samsimuruna; Budu-ilu, king of the city Bêt-Ammana (Beth-Ammon); Aḫi-milki, king of the city of Asdudu (Ashdod); 12 kings of the sea-coast. Ekištura, king of the city Edi’al (Idalium); Pilâgurâ, king of the city of Kidrusu; Kîsu, king of the city Sillûa; Itûandar, king of the city Pappa (Paphos); Erêsu, king of the city of Sillu; Damasu, king of the city Kurî (Kurium); Admezu, king of the city Tamesu (Tamessus); Damûsi, king of the city Karti-ḫadasti (the new town, a Phœnician settlement); Unasagusu, king of the city Lidir; Buṣusu, king of the city Nurîa: 10 kings of the land of Yatnana (Cyprus), within the sea— altogether 22 kings of the land of Ḫatti, the sea-coast and the middle of the sea, all of them, I directed, and great beams, enormous poles, trunks of cedar and cypress from the midst of Sirara and Libnana (Lebanon) (etc., etc., etc.), from the midst of the wooded mountains, the place of their growing, for the requirements of my palace, with toil and with difficulty I caused them to be brought to Nineveh.”
The tribute which he exacted was not, therefore, a tribute of gold, silver, and other precious things, but simply the building materials which Esarhaddon required for his palace, and the kings of Heth, including Menasseh, contributed to this together with the kings of Cyprus—and to all appearance they had to transport these things to Nineveh! It was the labour and expense of transport rather than the material itself, which rendered this tribute so precious.
Judging from his records, Esarhaddon was fully as active as the other kings of Assyria in making conquests. He attacked the people of Armenia (the Mannâa), the rebellious land of Barnaku—“those who dwell in the land of Til-Ašurri,”(116)—the Medes, the Chaldeans, the Arabians (see p. 382), and Egypt, in the direction of which he had already made a little expedition (to the cities of Arzâ and Aaki (?) of the brook of Egypt—probably the river of Egypt of Gen. xv. 18, and other passages). His first real expedition to Egypt, however, was in the tenth year of his reign (670 B.C.). Three battles were fought there, and Memphis was captured by the Assyrians on the 22nd of Tammuz. Whether he really and effectually subjugated the country or not, is not known, but he again marched to the same place in the last year of his reign, and falling ill on the road, died on the 10th day of Marcheswan. He was succeeded by Aššur-banî-âpli (Asshur-bani-pal) in Assyria, and Šamaš-šum-ukîn (Saosduchinos) in Babylonia, and the two kingdoms, united by so much bloodshed, became once more separated (668 B.C.).
Aššur-Banî-Âpli
Thus it happened, that Aššur-banî-âpli, on coming to the throne, found himself involved in a war with Egypt. To such a ruler, it must have seemed a hard thing to relinquish what his father had fought, and perhaps died, to acquire and retain. This being the case, he sent forth his army to reduce the country again to subjection, Tirhakah having taken advantage of the death of Esarhaddon to revolt. In the course of this campaign his representative (there is every probability that Aššur-banî-âpli never went westwards, or, indeed, made any warlike expedition in person whatever) received the tribute of the kings of the sea-coast and “the middle of the sea,” i.e. Phœnicia and Cyprus. This list is, with few exceptions, the same as that given by Esarhaddon, and includes Minsê (= Minasê, i.e. Menasseh) of the land of Yaudi or Judah. In some cases, however, changes had taken place and these are duly registered—Yakinlû instead of Matan-ba’al, king of the land of Aruada (Arvad); Ammi-nadbi (Amminadab), king of the land of Bît-Ammana (Beth-Ammon), instead of Budu-ilu. For the kings of Cyprus, however, no change is indicated, a circumstance which leads one to look upon the list with some suspicion, it being not impossible that the names of certain rulers are inserted to make a seeming addition to the Assyrian king’s glory. They are all represented, however, as supporting, with their troops and their ships, on land and on sea, the army of Aššur-banî-âpli. The result was the defeat of Tirhakah, and the restoration of the kings, prefects, and governors whom Esarhaddon had appointed as rulers of the country.(117)
No sooner had the Assyrians departed, than Tirhakah won over all the princes they had installed to his side, and the work had to be done over again. The Assyrian generals, however, returned promptly, and the rebellion was at once put down. Of the princes who were captured, Necho alone was spared, and, with his son, set as ruler in Ḫatḫariba (Athribis). About this time Tirhakah died, and Urdamanê, son of Sabaco, mounted the throne, and made Thebes and On (Heliopolis) his principal strongholds, besieging the Assyrian army of occupation in Memphis. Another expedition on the part of the Assyrians therefore became necessary, and was at once undertaken, and with complete success, except that Urdamanê remained, to all appearance, still at large. Practically, however, the greater part of Egypt became at this time an Assyrian province.
But many were the conquests of this really remarkable king, which his generals accomplished for him. Soon came the turn of Ba’al, king of Tyre, whose subjection brought about that of Yakinlû, king of Arvad, Mugallu, king of Tubal, and Sandasarme of the land of the Ḫilakkâa (Cilicians). Aššur-banî-âpli also speaks of the mission of Yakinlû, king of Arvad, who sent his sons to him with presents, and made obeisance. These princes bore the interesting names Azi-ba’al, Abi-ba’al, Aduni-ba’al, Sapati-baal, Pudi-baal, Ba’al-yašupu, Ba’al-ḫanunu, Ba’al-maluku, Abi-milki, and Aḫi-milki, showing the popularity of the element baal in the names of the people of Arvad. Azi-ba’al was designated as the next king, and all the brothers were sent back with rich gifts. He also tells the story of the dream of Guggu šar Luddi (Gyges, king of Lydia), to whom the god Aššur is said to have appeared, exhorting him to submit to Aššur-banî-âpli, and overcome his enemies by invoking his name. Following this advice, he succeeded in conquering the Gimmirrâa (people of Gomer), capturing their chiefs, of whom he sent two in fetters to the Assyrian king, with valuable gifts.
Gyges did not send any more embassies, however, and allied himself with Tušamilki, king of the land of Muṣur (generally regarded as Psammeticus of Egypt, but to all appearance another Muṣur—probably that to the north—is meant), and for this he received the curse of the Assyrian king. The result was, that the Gimmirrâa came and ravaged his country. This being the case, his son, who succeeded him, thought best to renew the Assyrian alliance, and therefore sent an embassy with a message to the following effect—“The king whom god hath chosen art thou; thou cursedst my father, and evil was wrought before him. As for me, the servant fearing thee, be gracious to me and let me bear thy yoke.”
[Plate XIII.]
Assur-banî-âpli (Assurbanipal), "The Great and Noble Asnapper," Hunting Lions. British Museum. Assyrian Saloon.
Gyges, in Assyrian Gug(g)u, is regarded as the original of the mystic Gog of Ezekiel xxxviii. 39, and his country, Lydia (Luddu), is generally explained as the Biblical Lud, though a certain amount of doubt regarding it exists.
Aššur-banî-âpli’s other campaigns were against the Vannites, the Elamites, the Babylonians (on account of his brother Saosduchinos, king of that country, refusing to acknowledge his suzerainty), after that twice more against Elam, then against the Arabians, and finally against Ummanaldaš, king of Elam, whom he seized as a hawk does his prey. In all, however, he captured four Elamite princes, whom he caused to be attached to his carriage (ina marri šadadi, rukub šarruti-ia(118)), and as for the Arabian princes whom he had taken as prisoners, he caused them to wear chains and badges of service, and to work at the building of his palace, as was the custom in those days.
We can easily imagine him—the great and noble Aššur-banî-âpli, called by Ezra (iv. 10) Asnapper (better Asenappar), who transferred the Dinaites, Apharsathchites, Tarpelites, Apharsites, Archevites, Babylonians, Susanchites (Susanians), Dehavites, and Elamites, to swell the mixed multitudes in the cities of Samaria. Many a time is he represented in the beautiful bas-reliefs which he caused to be carved as the adornments of his palace at Nineveh, and we there see him, the patron of art, as the bold sportsman and hunter, just as his tablets show him as the greatest patron of literature of his time, one who knew the literature of his race, who took a pride in learning, and himself copied out tablets “in the assembly of the experts.”
The “great and noble Asnapper” is worthy of a statue in every land where the languages of Assyria and Babylonia are studied.
How the sudden downfall of the Assyrian empire really came about we do not know. In all probability it remained intact until the death of Aššur-banî-âpli, which took place in 626 B.C. His son, Aššur-êtil-îlāni-ukinni, has left no historical records, though it is not by any means impossible that some light may ultimately be thrown on his reign. One of the enigmas of his time is: What was the circumstance which called forth the following communication?—
“The message of the daughter of the king to Aššurâaitu the queen. As yet thou writest not thy tablet, and dictatest not thy letter? Shall they say thus: ‘Is this the sister of Šerû-êṭerat, the eldest daughter of the Harem-house of Aššur-êtil-îlāni-ukinni, the great king, the mighty king, the king of the world, the king of Assyria?’ And thou art the daughter of the bride, the lady of the house of Aššur-banî-âpli, the son of the great king of the Harem-house, who was Aššur-âḫa-iddina (Esarhaddon), king of Assyria.”
Some of the expressions in this letter seem obscure, but the probable explanation is, that the daughter of one of the last Assyrian kings—perhaps Sin-šarra-iškun (Saracos)—writes to the chief wife of Aššur-banî-âpli urging her to take action by exhorting the chiefs of the nation at a crisis in the history of the country, which crisis was probably that which led to the downfall of the mighty kingdom which had reached its zenith of power during the reign of Aššur-banî-âpli. At this time, according to Nabonidus, a king of the Umman-manda or Medes, whose name is doubtful, but which may be Iriba-tuktê, entered into alliance with a ruler who must be Nabopolassar of Babylon, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, and accomplished the vengeance of Merodach, the god of the Babylonians, who willed that the destruction wrought upon his city by Sennacherib should be amply avenged. This vengeance was apparently the downfall of the Assyrian empire and the destruction of Nineveh, in accordance with statements of Alexander Polyhistor, Abydenus, and Syncellus. It is Diodorus Siculus, however, who gives the fullest account. He relates that there was a legend (according to an oracle) that the city could not be taken until the river became its enemy. Arbaces, the Scythian, was besieging it, but was unable to make any great impression on it for two years. In the third year, however, the river(119) was swollen by rains, and being very rapid in its current, a portion of the wall was carried away, by which the besiegers gained an entrance. The king, recognizing in this the fulfilment of the oracle, raised a funeral pyre, and gathering together his concubines and eunuchs, mounted it, and perished in the flames. Thus came the great Assyrian empire to an end.
“The oracle concerning Nineveh: The Lord is a jealous God and avengeth. Who can stand before His indignation? With an overrunning flood He will make a full end of the place thereof, and will pursue His enemies into darkness. The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved. Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria, thy worthies are at rest; thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather them.”
And there is much more in the same strain that the Hebrew Oracle of Nahum concerning the fall of Nineveh gives.
But it was not simply the capture of an important city—it was the enslavement and ultimate annihilation of a whole nation. Who can imagine their despair? Less than fifty years earlier, Assyria had been the most powerful nation of the then known world, and the people suddenly saw themselves deprived of that proud position which they had enjoyed for so many centuries. Their national existence had, in fact, been brought to an abrupt end, but the few Assyrian names which appear in Babylonian contracts many years after their downfall show that theirs was a proud indomitable spirit, which could not give way to misfortune, and which probably hoped for better things and more prosperous times. Their descendants are still to be found among the Chaldean Roman Catholic Christians of the country which was the scene of their forefathers’ dominion when they ruled the land of their inheritance. Their most worthy representatives in modern times are the family of the Rassams, one of whom was for many years British Consul at Mossoul (a post which his nephew now fills), and another is the well-known veteran, Hormuzd Rassam, Layard’s helper, for some time Resident at Aden, and later a prisoner with that mad ruler, King Theodore of Abyssinia. To him we owe the discovery of Aššur-banî-âpli’s palace, the ruins of Sippara and Cuthah, and many thousand cylinders and tablets bearing upon the manners, customs, history, religion, etc., of the Babylonians and Assyrians, which have been used freely in the compilation of this book.
XI. CONTACT OF THE HEBREWS WITH THE LATER BABYLONIANS
Nabopolassar and the restoration of the power of Babylonia—Nebuchadnezzar—Evil-Merodach—Neriglissar and his son—Nabonidus—The Fall of Babylon—Nabonidus and Belshazzar—Cyrus and Cambyses—Darius and his successors.
How great the change which came over the Eastern world with the disappearance from the political horizon of the power of Assyria can hardly be estimated. In the time of Merodach-baladan, the Chaldean who had mounted the Babylonian throne, an embassy was sent to the Jewish king Hezekiah with a present and kind inquiries as to his health, apparently to see whether it was worth while making an alliance with him. Merodach-baladan felt that he would need all the outside help that he could get against the Assyrians, with whom he was in constant conflict. With the downfall of Assyria, however, all was changed. The Jews’ whilom friend became their enemy, and, as indicated in 2 Kings xx. 17 ff., the Israelites were to lose their independence at the hands of the descendants of those who were then seeking their friendship.
There is hardly any doubt that the later Assyrian kings regarded Babylonia as an integral part of the Assyrian empire, and had perfect faith in the fidelity of the inhabitants. It may reasonably be doubted, however, whether the Babylonians had really forgotten the cruel treatment they had received at the hands of Sennacherib. In addition to this, there must have existed for a considerable period the feeling that they, the Babylonians, were the more ancient people of the two, and that the Assyrians were but a later offshoot of their own stock, owing to them all their civilization, manners, customs, laws, and literature. It will thus be seen that they were sufficiently of the same origin to be regarded as one people, and for this reason, many of the cities of Babylonia were satisfied and happy under Assyrian rule, which they preferred, to all appearance, to that of the Chaldeans, a nation which, though inhabiting their own borders, was in reality more alien to them than the Assyrians in language, manners, and customs, and whom they probably regarded as being only half civilized.
The general opinion is, that Nabû-âbla-uṣur (Nabopolassar), the general whom Sin-šarra-iškun (Saracos), the last king of Assyria, sent against his enemies (who seem to have invaded Babylonia by sea at the northern end of the Persian Gulf), was a Chaldean, and this is, in fact, confirmed by the quotation in Eusebius’s Armenian Chronicle (p. 44) from Polyhistor, where it is stated that after Samuges (Šamaš-šum-ukîn, the brother of Aššur-banî-âpli), Sardanapallus (this is a mistake for Nabopollasarus), the Chaldean, reigned for twenty-one years. If this be the case, it is a matter of surprise that Sin-šarra-iškun should have given into the hands of one belonging to a tribe of old hostile to Assyria, the command of his army at such a critical time. In any case, the result was most disastrous for Assyria, as the foregoing chapter has shown.
In the opinion of Friedrich Delitzsch, Nabopolassar was not the general of Sin-šarra-iškun, but in all probability a viceroy installed by Aššur-êtil-îlāni-ukinni, and retained by Sin-šarra-iškun, in which case it is to be supposed that he made an alliance with the Medes (as related by Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus), and cemented it by marrying his son Nebuchadrezzar to Amunhean, Amuhean, or Amytis, daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes; and according to the latter author, it was after this that he marched against Nineveh. Fried. Delitzsch may therefore be regarded as most probably right, for the king of the Medes would hardly have consented to bestow his daughter upon the son of one whom he could not otherwise have regarded as being of royal race.
Though Nabopolassar had close connection with Syria, his name is not mentioned in the Bible narrative. For our information concerning him we are indebted to Josephus, who, quoting the Babylonian writer Berosus, relates what was recorded in the Babylonian chronicles of that period. After the division of the territory of Assyria, of which Egypt took a part, the former allies began to quarrel among themselves, the result being that Nabopolassar, wishing to regain possession of Syria, which at this time acknowledged the suzerainty of Egypt, decided to attack that country. According to Berosus, he not only regarded himself as master of Coele-Syria and Phœnicia, but also of Egypt. Hearing, therefore, “that the governor which he had set over Egypt and over the parts of Coele-Syria and Phœnicia had revolted from him, he was not able to bear it any longer, but committing certain parts of his army to his son Nabuchodonosor, who was then but young, he sent him against the rebel.” This is regarded as having taken place in 605 B.C. The governor attacked by the young Nebuchadnezzar was apparently Necho, who was completely defeated at Carchemish, and expelled from Syria.
Whilst upon this expedition, Nebuchadnezzar heard of the death of his father at Babylon, in the twenty-first year of his reign, as Josephus, quoting Berosus, has it. This accords with the statement concerning him in the Canon of Ptolemy, and also with native Babylonian chronology, as may be seen from a tablet in the Museum of Edinburgh, of which the following is a translation—
“The 21st year of Nabopolassar a profit was made. The 1st year of Nebuchadnezzar a profit was made. The 2nd year of Nebuchadnezzar a profit was made. The 3rd year the same. The fourth year the same.”
Returning to Babylon, the young prince found that his supporters there had looked after his interests, and no pretender having appeared to dispute with him the throne, he was at once acknowledged king. The death of Nabopolassar and the accession of his son Nebuchadnezzar took place in the year 604 B.C.
Unfortunately, but few inscriptions of Nabopolassar have been found, and of them some are duplicates, and all refer to his architectural or engineering works. The principal treats of his restoration of the temple Ê-temen-ana-kia, the shrine at Ê-sagila, which the Babylonians regarded as the Tower of Babel. It is written in the archaic style of writing much affected by his son Nebuchadnezzar, and has certain peculiarities of spelling. Like most of the pious architectural inscriptions of Babylonia, there is no reference to historical events, but the king speaks of Nabium-kudurra-uṣur (Nebuchadrezzar), “the eldest, firstborn, and beloved of my heart,” and his younger brother, Nabû-šumam-lìšir. Both the king and his two sons took part in the restoration of the temple, bringing with their own hands material for the work, the younger son also assisting by pulling the cord of the cart which carried it. The receptacles which they used to carry the material were made of gold and silver. Other inscriptions of this king refer to the digging out of the canal of the Euphrates near the city Sippara, and to Nabopolassar’s restoration of the temple of “the Lady of Sippar,” called Ê-edinna, “the house (temple) of the plain,” or “of Edina,” i.e. Eden.
When Nebuchadnezzar (in Babylonian Nabû-kudurri-uṣur—he was the second of the name) came to the throne, he found himself in possession of a mighty kingdom, consolidated by his father’s talent, and he could himself boast of having had a hand in its enlargement and greater security. Everything was, to all appearance, at peace, and the new king had no reason to fear either a pretender to the throne, or the advent of enemies from without. One of his tributaries, namely, Jehoiakim, king of Judah, after paying tribute three years (604-602 B.C.), rebelled, but was again reduced to subjection (2 Kings xxiv. 1 ff.).
Later, however, uprisings of a more earnest nature came to the ears of the Babylonian king, constraining him to act. Apparently in consequence of the promises of Egypt, Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, brought against himself the hostility of the king of Babylon, who sent an army to besiege Jerusalem, afterwards journeying thither himself, the result being, that the city was taken, and the Jewish king, with his court, yielded, and were carried away to Babylon (598 B.C.). The number of captives on this occasion exceeded 10,000, and the treasures of the palace and the Temple formed part of the spoils sent to Babylon. The country was not annexed, however, for Nebuchadnezzar made Mattaniah king of Judah instead of Jehoiachin, changing his name to Zedekiah.
Gratitude to the power which had raised him, however, became weakened with years, and, encouraged by Pharaoh Hophra, he rebelled in the ninth year of his reign, the result being that Jerusalem was once more besieged. Pharaoh Hophra now marched with an army across the Egyptian border to the help of his ally, whereupon the Babylonians raised the siege of Jerusalem for a time to get rid of the invader (Jer. xxxvii. 5-7). According to Josephus, the Egyptians were totally defeated, and returned to their own land (Jer. xxxvii. 7). The siege of Jerusalem was then resumed, and the city was taken at the end of a year and a half, notwithstanding a very courageous resistance. The date set down for this event is July 586 B.C.
Zedekiah with his army fled, but was pursued by the Chaldeans, and captured in the plains of Jericho. Nebuchadnezzar was then at Riblah, where, to all appearance, a court was held (see 2 Kings xxv. 6), and sentence pronounced against the faithless vassal, whose sons were then slain before his eyes, his sight destroyed, and he himself carried captive to Babylon. It was a barbarous sentence, and was quite in accordance with the customs of the age, just as the legal formalities were to all appearance in conformity with Babylonian tradition. The destruction of the Temple and all the principal houses of the city by fire, followed, this destruction being wrought by Nebu-zar-adan (Nabû-zēr-iddina), the captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s guard, who also carried captive all who remained in the city. Only the lowest class of the people remained to carry on the cultivation of the land. Others were sent to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, and by his orders put to death. Those of the Jews who remained, however, were not placed, as might reasonably have been expected, under a Babylonian governor, but under Gedeliah the son of Ahikam, who was made governor. His death at the hands of his own countrymen took place shortly after, thus putting an end to the last vestige of native Jewish rule in Palestine.
Next came the turn of Tyre, which the Babylonian king blockaded for no less than thirteen years (585-573 B.C.), but was apparently successful in the end, when the inhabitants acknowledged Babylonian overlordship. That its capture cost him great pains is testified by Ezekiel (xxix. 18), who states that, to take the city, “every head was bald, and every shoulder was peeled” in consequence of the carrying of material for the operations against the city, yet neither he nor his army reaped any material advantage from this conquest, “for the service that he had served against it.” The name of a city Ṣûru, which is probably Tyre, occurs on a tablet dated in Nebuchadnezzar’s thirty-fifth year (569 B.C.—four years after the city was taken). It refers to a transaction in which sesame is sold, an official of the city being a party to the contract. Later on, in the fortieth year of Nebuchadnezzar, a contract was entered into between Milki-idiri, governor of Kidis (Kedesh), with regard to some cattle. This document is dated at Tyre (Ṣurru) on the 22nd of the month Tammuz. Not only Tyre, therefore, but the whole district, owned the dominion of Nebuchadnezzar at this time.
Just as successful were Nebuchadnezzar’s operations against Egypt. According to an Egyptian inscription, the Babylonian king attacked Egypt in the year 572 B.C., penetrating as far as Syene and the borders of Ethiopia. Hophra, who still reigned, was defeated and deposed, the general Amasis being raised to the throne in his place to rule the land as a vassal of the Babylonian king. According to the only historical fragment of the reign of this king known, Nebuchadnezzar made an expedition to Egypt in his thirty-seventh year. This was to all appearance against his vassal Amasis, who, like Zedekiah, had revolted against the power which had raised him to the throne. The rebellion was suppressed, but the ultimate fate of Amasis is not stated.
According to Megasthenes, who lived in the time of Seleucus Nicator, Nebuchadnezzar conquered North Africa, crossing afterwards into Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar, returning to Babylonia through Europe and Asia Minor. Such an expedition, however, it is hardly likely that he ever undertook, and the account of this exploit may therefore be relegated to the domain of the fables with which the ancient historians sometimes ornamented their work.
Concerning the relations of Nebuchadnezzar with Daniel, the wedge-inscriptions of Babylonia give no indication whatever. Four hundred and fifty or more contract-tablets dated in his reign are known, but in none of them is there any reference to Daniel, at least in a form that can be recognized. The Babylonian name given to him, Belteshazzar, is apparently an abbreviated form, which would be, in Babylonian, Balaṭ-su-ûṣur, “Protect thou (O God), his life.” If this be the explanation, a better transcription of the Hebrew form would be Beletshazzar (making the first sheva vocal and the second silent instead of the reverse). The name of the deity has, in accordance with custom, been suppressed in the Hebrew form, but it is probable that either the patron-deity of Babylon, Bêl, or else the favourite deity of the Babylonians in general, Nebo, the god of learning, may have preceded the first element as the name now stands. In the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria, many examples of abbreviated names occur, on account of what we should consider their inordinate length, and to such an extent was this customary, that one element only, out of three or four, might alone be used. Thus, in the contracts of the time of Nebuchadnezzar, at least fourteen persons of the name of Balaṭu, and seven of the name of Balaṭ-su occur, and it may be safely taken that they are all abbreviations of names similar to that bestowed upon Daniel. Apart from the question whether the Book of Daniel is to be regarded as a part of the Hagiographa or not, the fact that his descent is not given there would make it impossible to recognize him, if his name was still further abbreviated by the Babylonians, among so many bearing names possibly the same as his. Even though his book be regarded as a romance, there is always the question, whether the personages mentioned therein may not really have existed.
With regard to the other names in Daniel, it is to be noted that Shadrach and Meshach, the names given to Hananiah and Mishael, are doubtful in Babylonian, the corresponding forms not having been found. Abednego, on the other hand, the Babylonian name of Azariah, has long been recognized as being written for Abed-Nebo, “servant of Nebo,” either by a scribal error, or (as seems more probable) in order to deface the name of a heathen deity. The name of Ashpenaz, the master of the eunuchs, is still more doubtful, if anything; but that of Arioch, the “king’s captain,” is one which has been well known for some time, being none other than the ancient name (cf. Genesis xiv.) corresponding with the Akkadian Êri-Aku or Êri-Eaku, “servant of the Moon-god,” a rare name in later times (see pp. 222 ff.).
Naturally nothing concerning Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams occurs in the inscriptions of Babylonia, though dreams which were regarded as having a signification are sometimes recorded. This being the case, it might be supposed that something upon the subject would in all probability be sooner or later found. But what we should expect to find in the extant inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar is a reference to the golden image, threescore cubits high and six cubits wide, which he is said to have set up in the plain of Dura. Had he erected such an enormous thing, even if it had been merely gilt, and not of solid gold, one would expect that he would at least have made a slight reference to it. That he may have set up images of his gods is not only possible, but probable—indeed, he must have dedicated at least a few during his long reign, but it is evident that none of them was of sufficient importance to cause him specially to refer to it in his inscriptions. It is therefore not impossible that there is some exaggeration in the dimensions of the figure referred to in Daniel. There is also considerable uncertainty as to the position of the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. The most probable explanation is that of Prof. J. Oppert, the veteran Assyriologist, who found what appeared to be the base of a great statue near a mound known as Dúair,(120) east of Babylon. It is not improbable, however, that “the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon,” means simply an extensive open space near one of the great fortifications (dûru) of the city. That all the principal officials of the kingdom should be expected to come to the dedication of such an image is exceedingly probable.
[Plate XIV.]
Bas-relief supposed to depict the triple wall of Babylon, with a portion of the palace within. In the original, water flows at the base of the lowest wall. The above is the upper part of slab No. 89 in the Assyrian Saloon of the British Museum, and apparently illustrates Assur-bani-âpli’s campaign against his brother, Samas-sum-ukin (Saosduchinos), King of Babylon (cf. p. 391). (Two at least of the walls of Babylon were much older than the time of Nebuchadnezzar.)
The portion of Daniel referring to Nebuchadnezzar which receives the best illustration from the inscriptions is that referred to after the relation of his second dream, where he is represented as walking in or upon his palace, and one may imagine that he had gone up to enjoy the view of the city, and whilst doing so, with almost justifiable pride the words, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and the glory of my majesty?” escaped him. From his inscriptions (and they are fairly numerous) we learn, with regard to Babylon, that it owed most of its glories as they then existed to this, the greatest of its kings. That the king did not always distinguish between what he built and what he rebuilt—indeed, none of his predecessors seem to have done so either, a circumstance probably due to the poverty of the Akkadian and Semitic Babylonian languages in that respect—would explain the words attributed to him.
According to the great India-House inscription, which was carved by order of Nebuchadnezzar, Nabopolassar had built (= rebuilt) the two great walls of Babylon, called Imgur-Bêl and Nemitti-Bêl. He had dug the great city-moat, and raised two strong walls on its banks, similar, in all probability, to what other kings had done before him. To all appearance also he lined the banks of the Euphrates with embankments (probably the quays of which Herodotus speaks), and constructed, within the city, a road leading from Du-azaga, “the holy seat,” where the oracles were declared, to Aa-ibur-sabû, Babylon’s “festival-street,” close to the gate of Beltis, for the yearly procession of the god Merodach.
[Plate XV.]
Bas-relief, supposed to represent the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, about 645 B.C. On the slope is a temple, a stele with the figure of a king, and an altar on the path in front. On the right pointed arches support a terrace planted with trees. Streams water the sides of the wooded hill. British Museum, Assyrian Saloon, No. 92 (upper part). The above, with Plate XIV., apparently illustrate Assur-bani-âpli’s campaign against his brother Samas-sum-ukin (cf. page 391).
All these erections Nebuchadnezzar completed or altered and improved. He added to the defences which his father had built, and raised the level of the street Aa-ibur-sabû from the “glorious gate” to the gate of Istar. The raising of the “festival-street” necessitated the raising of the gateways through which it ran. Gates were made of cedar covered with copper, probably after the style of the great gate found by Mr. Rassam at Balawat in Assyria, which was adorned with bands of bronze chased with scenes of Shalmaneser II.’s warlike exploits in relief. In all probability there were but few gates in Babylon of solid metal, notwithstanding that there is no mention in Herodotus of their having been constructed merely of wood covered with ornamented strips of bronze. The thresholds of these gates were of bronze, probably similar to that of which a part was found by Mr. Rassam at Borsippa (evidently the doorstep of one of the entrances to the temple called Ê-zida), and which may now be seen at the British Museum. These and other portals at Babylon were guarded by images of bulls and serpents, also of bronze. In addition to this, Nebuchadnezzar built a wall on the east side of the city, high like a mountain, so that no enemy could approach. Access to the city was gained by gates, the doors of which were likewise of cedar ornamented with bronze. For further protection, he “caused great waters like the volume of the sea to surround the land,” and to cross them was “like the crossing of the broad sea, the Salt Stream” (the Persian Gulf). He then rebuilt the palace of his father, its walls having been undermined by the waters of the Euphrates, which ran near. Advantage of the changes made in this building was taken to raise the gateways, which had become too low in consequence of the raising of the festival-street of Merodach. In addition to this, he built another palace, adjoining that of his father, decorating it with cedar, cypress, and other precious woods; gold, silver, and precious stones; and adorning it with sculptures and with gates overlaid with bronze. According to the India-House inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, the fabric of this building was completed in fifteen days, a fact so remarkable that it is specially mentioned by Berosus (see Josephus, Antiquities, x., xi. 1), whose word may be taken as proving the translation of the passage in question. Besides restoring the temples of the cities, or at least the principal ones, he restored all the chief temples of Babylonia, notably that at Sippar, the chief centre of the Sun-god worship, and the great temple-tower dedicated to Nebo at Borsippa. This last, indeed, was one of the works upon which he prided himself most, as is proved by the fact that it is mentioned in all his inscriptions, including those on his bricks, along with the temple known as Ê-sagila (later pronounced Ê-sangil), the “temple of Belus,” which he calls “the tower of Babylon,” the principal shrine of which seems to have been called “the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth,” indicating clearly the estimation in which the Babylonians held it (see p. 138). It was there that the god Merodach, the principal deity of the Babylonians, and the founder of the temple in question, was worshipped.
But one might go on for a long time describing what Nebuchadnezzar did for the city which, more than any other, he loved, and to which he brought the spoils of his many expeditions. There is no doubt that this, the last great king of Babylon, was a most successful ruler, of whom his people were proud. He was pious, and an intense lover of his country—two characteristics which endeared him, the one to the priesthood, the other to the people at large. Could we but find the real history of his reign, it would undoubtedly prove to be full of interest, and also of enormous importance, not only on account of the light that it would throw upon Jewish history during his period, but also on account of its bearing upon a most important epoch in the life of the Babylonian nation.
It is noteworthy that, in Herodotus, many of the great architectural works of his reign are attributed to Nitocris, who, he states, was the mother of Labynetus (Book I. 185-188). Now, who this Labynetus was, is clear from the statement that it was he against whom Cyrus marched—namely the Nabonidus of other Greek historians, and the Nabû-na’id of the inscriptions. Nitocris would therefore seem to have been the name of the queen of Nebuchadnezzar, and if so, it shows upon what grounds Nabonidus claimed the throne, and how Belshazzar, in the Book of Daniel, could be described as the son or descendant of Nebuchadnezzar. But in this case Nitocris must have been another wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and not the Median princess whom he had married when young. If she supplanted Amytis, Nebuchadnezzar’s Median wife, in the affections of her husband, it is easy to see how she could have feared a Median invasion, as indicated by Herodotus.
Nebuchadnezzar died in the year 561 B.C., leaving his crown to Awēl-Maruduk, the Evil-Merodach of 2 Kings xxv. 27, and the Abilamarōdachos of Josephus, who, however, also gives, in his book against Apion (i. 20), the genuine Babylonian form as transcribed by Berosus, namely, Eueilmaradouchos. Two other sons of Nebuchadnezzar are also mentioned in the contract-tablets of his reign, namely, Marduk-šum-uṣur (in his fortieth year) and Marduk-nadin-âḫi (forty-first year). (See pp. 434, 435.)
The substitution of the mild rule of Evil-Merodach for the vigorous government of his father must have been witnessed by the Babylonians with considerable misgiving, for in the East, especially at that period, the successful ruler was he who was the most energetic. There is every reason to believe, however, that the character of Evil-Merodach was that of a man in every way kind and considerate, as is shown by the fact, that he released Jehoiachin (whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken prisoner), spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above those of the other vassal kings in Babylon. The only thing, according to Josephus, recorded about him by Berosus was, that “he governed public affairs lawlessly and extravagantly”—words which imply that he displeased the priestly class, of which Berosus was one. His name appears in certain contracts (published by Mr. Evetts) as ruler of Babylonia for about two years, from the 26th of Elul of his accession year to the 4th day of Ab of his second year—about two years and five months in all. According to Berosus, he was slain by his sister’s husband, Nēriglissöoros, the Nergal-šar-uṣur of the inscriptions, who then ascended the throne.
The name is the same as that given as Nergal-sharezer in Jer. xxxix. 3, 13, one of the princes of the Babylonians who was present at the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and who at that time bore the title of Rab-mag, which is to all appearance the Rab-mugi of the Assyro-Babylonian inscriptions. It is thought by many, and is not by any means improbable, that the Nergal-sharezer of the passage referred to and the Nergal-šar-uṣur of Babylonian history are one and the same, though there is no evidence that the latter ever bore the title of Rab-mag.
It was in the year 559 B.C. that Evil-Merodach was murdered, and Neriglissar at once seized the throne of his brother-in-law. Berosus (as quoted by Josephus) gives no details as to his reign. In his inscriptions he states that he was (like Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar before him) patron of Ê-sagila and Ê-zida, the temple of Belus at Babylon and that of Nebo at Borsippa, and that the great gods had established his dominion. After speaking of the god Nebo, he makes a reference to Ura, the god of death, which, under the circumstances, one can hardly regard as otherwise than significant—
“Nebo, the faithful son, a just sceptre has caused his hands to hold. To keep the people, preserve the country, Ura, prince of the gods, gave him his weapon.”
He then mentions his father, Bêl-šum-iškun, whom he calls “king of Babylon,” and describes the restoration and decoration of Ê-zida and Ê-sagila, together with the palace which he built for himself at Babylon, and other architectural work.
But to describe his father as “king of Babylon” was a statement somewhat removed from the truth. In the contract-tablets of the time of Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-Merodach, where the name of Neriglissar occurs somewhat frequently as a purchaser of houses, land, etc., he is called simply “son of Bêl-šum-iškun,” without any other title whatever (see p. 438). But perhaps Neriglissar’s statement is due to some historical event of which we are ignorant.
Neriglissar died in the month Nisan or Iyyar of the fourth year of his reign, and was succeeded by his son Labāši-Marduk, the Labarosoarchod of the Greek writers. According to Berosus (Josephus against Apion, i. 20), he was no more than a child, and it may be supposed that he was a younger son of Neriglissar, though concerning this we have no information. He only reigned nine months, a plot having been laid against him by his friends, and he was tormented to death, “by reason of the very ill-temper and ill practices he exhibited to the world” (Berosus). After his death, according to the same historian, the conspirators met, and elected one of their number, Nabonnedus (Nabuna’id), as king. “In his reign it was that the walls of the city of Babylon were curiously built with burnt brick and bitumen,” is all that Berosus has to say with regard to the sixteen years of his reign which preceded his overthrow.
Many inscriptions of the reign of this king exist, and we are able to gain from them an excellent idea of the state of the country and the historical events of this important period. All that Nabonidus tells us concerning his origin is, that he was the son or descendant of Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî, whom he calls rubû êmqu, “the deeply-wise prince.” Who he may have been is not known, but there exist two tablets of the nature of letters written by a certain Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî to Aššur-banî-âpli, whose faithful servant he professed to be, protesting against the treatment which he had received at the hands of certain men who were hostile to him. If both these letters were written by the same person, they must belong to about the year 652 B.C. (the eponymy of Aššur-naṣir, which is mentioned in one of them). As that was about one hundred years before Nabonidus came to the throne, this personage, if related to him, must have been his grandfather or great-grandfather. Other persons of the same name are mentioned in the fifth, eleventh, eighteenth, and thirty-fourth years of Nebuchadnezzar, but it seems very unlikely that the father of Nabonidus should be one of these.
According to the Babylonian Chronicle, Nabonidus was at the beginning of his reign engaged in the west, to all appearance cutting down, among other things, trees on Mount Amanus for building purposes at Babylon. Something also took place by the Mediterranean (tâmtim ša mât Amurrî, “the sea of the land of Amoria”). Apparently he had also troops in this district, and sacrifices were performed there.
After this there is a gap until the sixth year of his reign, the entry for which, however, refers wholly to Astyages’ operations against Cyrus, and its disastrous results, for he was made prisoner, Ecbatana sacked, and the spoil brought to Anšan, Cyrus’s capital.
Previous to this, as Nabonidus informs us in his cylinder-inscription found by Mr. Rassam at Abu-habbah (Sippar), the Medes had been very successful in their warlike operations, and had even besieged Haran, making it impossible for Nabonidus to carry out the instructions of his god Merodach, revealed to him in a dream, to restore the temple of Sin in that city. On the king of Babylon reminding the deity of the state of things in that part, and speaking of the strength of the Median forces, he was told that in three years’ time their power would be destroyed, which happened as predicted. He now caused his “vast army” to come from Gaza and elsewhere to do the needful work, and when completed, the image of the god Sin was brought from Babylon, and placed in the restored shrine with joy and shouting. Naturally the Babylonian king was overjoyed at the release of Haran from the power of the Medes—could he have foreseen that Cyrus, their conqueror, would one day hurl him from his throne, his enthusiasm concerning the success of “the young servant of Merodach” (as he calls him) would have been greatly abated.
In his seventh and eighth years the king was in Temâ, and the crown prince (apparently Belshazzar is meant), with the great men and the army, was in Akkad (the northern part of Babylonia, of which the city of Agad or Agadé was the capital). The king did not go to Babylon, Nebo did not go to Babylon, Bel did not go forth, the festival akitu (new year’s festival) was not performed, though the victims seem to have been offered in Ê-sagila and Ê-zida as usual, and (the king) appointed a priest (uru-gala) of the weapon (?) and the temple. In the ninth year also the same state of things existed, and this year the mother of the king died, to the great grief of the people. It is also recorded for this year that Cyrus, apparently in the course of one of his military expeditions, crossed the Tigris above Arbela.
From the fact that the religious processions and ceremonies are given as being unperformed every year from the seventh to the eleventh of his reign, it is clear that a great deal of discontent was caused thereby, as is, in fact, indicated by the cylinder-inscription of Cyrus detailing under what conditions he himself entered Babylon. It was evidently one of the duties of the Babylonian kings (and, as we have seen, the Assyrian kings conformed to this when they became kings of Babylonia) to perform the usual ceremonies, and the ruler neglecting this was certain to fall into disfavour with the priesthood, and, by their influence, with the people as well.
Whatever may have been the sins of omission of Nabonidus—whether they were trivial or otherwise—there is no doubt that they made a bad impression on the people, and gave rise to all kinds of statements against him when the days of misfortune came. For the scribe who drew up Cyrus’s record after the taking of Babylon, all Nabonidus’s doings with regard to the temples and statues of the gods were to be quoted against him. The temple dues had been allowed to fail, and the gods quitted their shrines, angry at the thought that Nabonidus had brought foreign gods to Šu-anna (a part of Babylon). With regard to this last accusation, it may be remarked that a popular ruler would in all probability have been praised for bringing the gods of other places to Babylon—it would have been either a tribute to the power of Babylonia in war (a power conferred upon her, in their opinion, by her gods); or else the payment of homage by the gods of other cities to those of Babylon, acknowledging at the same time their (and her) supremacy.
The fact is, Nabonidus was either the most intelligent, or one of the most intelligent, men in Babylonia. To all appearance he was not a ruler, but a learned man, full of love for his country and its institutions, and desirous of knowledge, which he obtained at all costs. Whenever he had to restore a temple, he at once excavated in its foundations for the records of early kings which he knew to be there, and he was often successful in finding what he wanted. As he always recorded what he found, his cylinder-inscriptions nearly always possess a value far beyond those of other kings of Babylon. He seems to have delighted in what he saw when engaged in this work—he not only tells you that he read the texts thus discovered, but he refers to their perfect condition, and nearly always says something about the ruler who caused them to be placed in the foundations. He, too, is worthy of a statue in every place where the language of his native land is studied.
Naturally, his antiquarian researches, necessitating, as they did, the destruction of a part of the fabric of the temple under repair at the time, were not looked upon altogether with favour by the priests and the people, hence the dissatisfaction to which the scribes, who were probably of the priestly caste, afterwards gave vent. Besides this, was it not necessary that they should justify themselves for accepting a foreign ruler, of a different religion from their own?
Nabonidus gives no hint in his inscriptions that he was aware of any dissatisfaction at what he was doing. In all probability he was as religious as any of his predecessors had been, and his son Belshazzar was as the second ruler in the kingdom. Records exist showing that Belshazzar sent offerings to the temple at Sippar whilst he was in that neighbourhood, and the king’s own offerings are sometimes mentioned with them. The king had therefore a good deputy performing his work. With regard to the bringing of foreign gods to Šu-anna, Cyrus’s scribe probably refers to the deities of Haran, which were taken thither before the siege of the place by the Medes. When the enemy had departed, Nabonidus restored the temple in that city, and replaced the deities referred to in their shrines. The transport of the idols may have been merely to place them for the time being in a place of greater security.
There is, then, every probability that Belshazzar, son of Nabonidus, was the real ruler. What an excellent understanding existed between him and his father may be gained from the inscription which Nabonidus caused to be composed to place in the foundations of the temple of the Moon (the god Sin) at Ur (identified with Ur of the Chaldees), the concluding lines of which run as follows—
“As for me, Nabonidus, king of Babylon, from sin against thy great divinity save me, and a life of remote days give as a gift; and as for Belshazzar, the eldest son, the offspring of my heart, the fear of thy great divinity cause thou to exist in his heart, and let not sin possess him, let him be satisfied with fulness of life.”
The text being undated, there is no means of ascertaining in what year the restoration of the temple of the Moon at Ur took place.
The story of the downfall of the Babylonian empire and the end of native rule in Babylonia is told by the Babylonian Chronicle as follows—
“(Year 17th), Nebo to go forth (?) from Borsippa ... the king entered the temple E-tur-kalama. In the month (?) ... and the lower sea, revolted ... went (?). Bêl went forth, the festival Akitu (new year’s festival) they held as usual (?). In the month ... the gods (?) of Marad, Zagaga and the gods of the city of Kiš, Beltis and the gods of Ḫursag-kalama, entered Babylon. At the end of the month Elul the gods of the land of Akkad who were above the atmosphere and below the atmosphere entered Babylon, the gods of Borsippa, Cutha, and Sippar did not enter. In the month Tammuz Cyrus made battle at Opis on the Tigris among the soldiers of Akkad. The people of Akkad raised a revolt; people were killed; Sippar was taken on the 14th day without fighting. Nabonidus fled. On the 16th day Ugbaru (Gobryas), governor of the land of Gutium, and the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting—after Nabonidus they pursued (?), he was captured in Babylon. At the end of the month the regiment (?) of the land of Gutium surrounded (?) the gates of Ê-sagila (the temple of Belus). A celebration (?) of anything, in Ê-sagila and the shrines, was not being made, and a (lunar ?) festival was not proceeding. Marcheswan, the third day, Cyrus descended to Babylon; they filled the roads before him. Peace was established to the city—Cyrus promised peace to Babylon, all of it. Gubaru (Gobryas), his governor, appointed governors in Babylonia, and from the month Kisleu to the month Adar the gods of the land of Akkad, whom Nabonidus had sent down to Babylon, returned to their places. The month Marcheswan, the night of the 11th day, Ugbaru (Gobryas) (went?) against ... and the son (?) of the king died. From the 27th of the month Adar to the third of the month Nisan, there was weeping in Akkad, all the people bowed down their heads. On the 4th day Cambyses, son of Cyrus, went to Ê-nig-ḫad-kalama-šummu (‘the house where the sceptre of the world is given,’ the temple of Nebo). The man of the temple of the sceptre of Nebo....”
(The remainder is mutilated, and the sense not clear—to all appearance it refers to religious ceremonies and sacrifices in which Cambyses took part.)
Here, again, the suggestion seems to be, that because the king thought fit to send the statues of the various gods of the land to other cities than their own “on a visit,” as it were, the priesthood was justified in renouncing allegiance to him (and in this the people naturally followed them), and in delivering the kingdom to a foreigner. It has been said that the success of Cyrus was in part due to the aid given to him by the Jews, who, sympathizing with him on account of his monotheism, helped him in various ways; but in all probability he could never have achieved success had not the Babylonian priests (as indicated by their own records) spread discontent among the people.
More important, however, are the details of the conquest by Cyrus. He must have entered Babylonia on the north-east, and met the Babylonian army at Opis. That the conflict went against the Babylonians may be taken for granted, though it is not stated. Apparently the country was divided into two parties—those for resistance, and those who were probably discontented on account of the king’s reputed unorthodoxy. A conflict between these took place, and there was bloodshed, the result being that no resistance could be offered to the army of Cyrus, who entered Sippar, the seat of the worship of the Sun-god, without fighting. To all appearance Nabonidus was at his post, but recognizing that all was lost, fled. Two days later Gobryas (not Cyrus, be it observed) entered Babylon with the army of Cyrus without fighting, and apparently captured Nabonidus there. This took place about the end of June, and it was October before Cyrus entered the city. Judging from the text, he was well received, and the result of the conference between him and Gobryas was, that the latter “appointed governors in Babylon,” or “in Babylonia,” as the words may be also read. Another stroke of policy was the return to their habitations of the images of the gods which Nabonidus had transferred to other places, thus appeasing the priests.
At this point come some very important and difficult phrases. On the night of the 11th of Marcheswan, Gobryas descended (or went) upon or against something, and the king, or the son of the king, died. The combination of these two statements, taken in connection with the record in Daniel v. 30, suggests that the latter reading is the correct one, though the first, which would make it to mean that the king was slain, is not excluded, and would make very little difference in the record, it being possible that Belshazzar, as the successor of Nabonidus, might be meant. An earlier explanation was, that the doubtful group stood for “the wife” of the king, but in this case it would be difficult to explain how it is that the verbal form (which is ideographically written, and may be read either imât, “he dies,” tamât, “she dies,” or mêtat, “she died”) should differ from that used in the case of the king’s mother, where imtût, the historical tense of the secondary form of the kal, is the form used. The use of imât for imût, “he died,” would be paralleled by the use of irab or irub, “he entered,” in other parts of the inscription.
Naturally, in a case of doubt, the seeker after truth in the matter of Babylonian history consults the record of the Babylonian historian Berosus. In the case of the taking of Babylon, however, there are such noteworthy differences, that one may well be excused for doubting his statements, notwithstanding his trustworthiness in other matters. He says that when Nabonnedus saw that Cyrus was coming to attack him, he met him with his forces, was beaten, and fled with a few of his troops to Borsippa. Cyrus then took Babylon, and gave order that the outer walls should be demolished, the city having proved very troublesome to him, and cost him much pains to capture. He then proceeded to besiege Nabonnedus in Borsippa, but the Babylonian king decided not to attempt to resist, and yielded. Cyrus therefore treated him kindly, and though he would not allow him to remain in Babylonia, he gave him Carmania as a place where he might dwell. “Accordingly Nabonnedus spent the rest of his time in that country, and there died.”
The Babylonian Chronicle, however, says nothing about Nabonidus having taken refuge in Borsippa, nor of his being besieged there, nor of his having submitted at that place. On the contrary, he was taken in Babylon, which city had been captured without fighting, and there was on that account no immediate excuse for demolishing the walls, which, as native records tell us, were dismantled in the time of the Seleucidæ. The fact is, Berosus did not wish it to be thought that the Babylonians had allowed their country to pass into the hands of a foreign ruler without resistance, hence this statement as to the capital holding out. To all appearance, Berosus is truthful where it is not to his interest to be otherwise.
The probability is, therefore, that “the son of the king,” Belshazzar, held out against the Persians in some part of the capital, and kept during that time a festival on the 11th of Marcheswan, when Gobryas pounced upon the place, and he, the rightful Chaldean king, was slain, as recorded in Daniel. In this case, Darius the Mede ought to be “Gobryas of Gutium,” who, like the former, appointed governors in Babylonia, and “received the kingdom” for Cyrus. If this be the case, Daniel would seem to have been in Belshazzar’s power, though his knowledge of what was going on on the Persian side gave him courage to reject that prince’s favours with scorn.
Officially, Belshazzar is never mentioned as king, though the Jewish captives must have regarded him as such, and probably spoke of him humorously as being the true ruler. This alone can account for his being called “king of the Chaldeans,” and for his appointing Daniel to be the “third ruler in the kingdom,” as has been already suggested. That he was also confused with his father is shown by the statement in Josephus, where he is spoken of (Antiq. x. xi. 2) as being called Nabonidus by the Babylonians (“Baltasaros, who by the Babylonians was called Naboandelos”), though Josephus’s transcription of the names is as incorrect as a Greek’s.
Cyrus now found himself master of Babylonia, without any pretender to molest him; and being the acknowledged ruler of the land, he made himself as popular as he could by protecting the various religions which were to be found in his new dominions. The Jews are said to have sympathized with him on account of his being a monotheist, but to the Babylonians he seemed to be of the same religion as themselves, and his inscriptions show that, whether with his consent or not, the gods of the Babylonians were spoken of and invoked on his behalf just as if this were the case, and we know that he allowed his son to take part in the Babylonian religious ceremonies.
But to show clearly the way in which Cyrus ruled, a portion of his cylinder-inscription, found by Mr. Rassam at Babylon, is given here—
(To all appearance Nabonidus had tried to make various religious changes and reforms, the words “in the likeness of Ê-sagila” suggesting that he had at least thought of building another temple similar to that venerable fane.)
“The gods, who dwelt in the midst of them (i.e. the temples), forsook their dwellings in anger that he (Nabonidus) had made (them) enter within Šu-anna.(121) Marduk in the presence of ... was going round to all the states whose seat had been founded, and the people of Šumer and Akkad, who had been like the dead,(122) became active(123) ... he had mercy upon the whole of the lands—all of them found (and) looked upon him. He sought also a just king, the desire of his heart, whose hand he might hold, Cyrus, king of the city Anšan, he called his title, to all the kingdoms together (his) na(me) was proclaimed.
“The land of Qutû, the whole of the troops of the Manda, he (Merodach) placed under his feet, he caused his hands to capture the people of the dark head,(124) in righteousness and justice he cared for them. Merodach, the great lord, the protector of his people, looked with joy upon his fortunate work and his just heart. He commanded that he should go to his city Babylon, he caused him to take the road to Tindir,(125) like a friend and a companion he walked by his side. His vast people, which, like the waters of a river, cannot be numbered,(126) had their weapons girded, and marched by his side. Without fighting and battle he caused him to enter into Šu-anna. His city Babylon he protected in (its) trouble. Nabonidus, who did not fear him (i.e. Merodach), he delivered into his hand. The people of Tindir, all of them, the whole of the land of Šumer and Akkad, princes and high-warden, bowed down beneath him, and kissed his feet—they rejoiced for his sovereignty, their countenances were bright.
“The lord who, in trust that he (Merodach) gives life to the dead, spared on every side from destruction and injury. Well did they do him homage—they held in honour his name. I am Cyrus, king of the host, the great king, the powerful king, king of Tindir, king of the land of Šumer and Akkad, king of the four regions, son of Cambyses, the great king, king of the city of Anšan, grandson of Cyrus, the great king, king of the city of Anšan, great-grandson of Šišpiš (Teispes), the great king, king of the city of Anšan, the all-enduring royal seed whose reign Bêl and Nebo love, for the contenting of their heart they desired his rule.
“When I entered in peace into (the midst) of Babylon, I founded in the king’s palace a seat of dominion with pleasure and joy. Merodach, the great lord, broad-hearted for ... the sons ... Tindir and ... me, and daily I looked upon his image (?). My vast army marches in the midst of Babylon peacefully, the whole of (the people of Šumer and) Akkad I made to have no opposition. Within Babylon and all its districts in peace I had care for the sons of Tindir ... as without heart (?) ... and a yoke (which was) unseemliness for them was imposed (?). I comforted their sighing, I did away with their distress. For the work Merodach, the great lord, established the command—to me, Cyrus, the king his worshipper, and Cambyses, the son (who is) the offspring of my heart ... all of my army graciously he approached, and in peace before it kindly did he lead (?). (By his) supreme (command) the whole of the kings dwelling in the royal abodes of every region from the upper sea to the lower sea, (those) dwelling ... the kings of the Amorites(127) (and) the dwellers in tents, all of them, brought their valuable tribute and kissed my feet within Šu-anna. From ... -a, the city of Aššur,(128) and Susa, Agadé, the land of Ešnunak (Umliaš), Zamban, Mê-Turnu, (and) Dûr-îlu to the border of Qutû, the districts (on the banks) of the Tigris—from old time had their seats been founded—the gods dwelling within them I returned to their places, and caused eternal seats to be founded, all their people I collected and returned to their dwellings. And the gods of Šumer and Akkad, which Nabonidus, to the anger of the lord of the gods, had caused to enter within Šu-anna, by the command of Merodach, the great lord, I set in peace in their shrines—seats of joy of heart. May the whole of the gods whom I caused to enter into their places pray daily before Bêl and Nebo for the lengthening of my days, may they announce the commands for my happiness, and may they say to Merodach that ‘Cyrus, thy worshipper, and Cambyses, his son, ... (in) the countries (?), all of them, he has founded a seat of rest’....”
(Here follow the ends of nine more lines, from which, however, no certain sense can be gained.)
It will be seen, that this interesting and valuable inscription is in substantial agreement with the Chronicle. The grievance concerning the transference of the statues of the divinities is repeated and amplified, and the fact that Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting is confirmed (against Berosus, Xenophon, and the other Greek authors who describe the taking of Babylon).
Cyrus, however, here appears before us in quite a new character, namely, as the champion of Babylonian religious orthodoxy against Nabonidus’s heterodoxy! That Cyrus was ignorant of the contents of this inscription (which must have been written by his orders) is in the highest degree improbable. That he may have been affected by Zoroastrian monotheism is likely, but if so, it was but a thin varnish, for he was to all appearance a polytheist at heart, as his Anzanian fathers (who, as we know from recent discoveries at Susa, were largely influenced by the religion of Babylonia) had been from the earliest times. He had chosen well the time of his invasion, as is shown by the revolt (apparently against Nabonidus) which is referred to in the Chronicle. It is strange how the Babylonians were in the main ready to accept a new ruler. In the earliest times we have mention of the Arabic dynasty which the native records call the dynasty of Babylon; later on came Cassites, Elamites and Assyrians, and now the country received an Elamite king who ruled over Persia. In the course of time other aliens would come and rule over them, but their acceptance of these was much less a matter of choice, or, rather, of apathetic acquiescence than on the occasion when they accepted Cyrus king of Anšan.
We see, moreover, from this inscription, that Cyrus did restore the various exiles to their homes, thus securing as far as possible the fidelity of those whom he wished to secure as his supporters. Among these were the Jews, and it is on account of this that his name is so favourably mentioned in the Old Testament. Cyrus himself says, that he caused all the gods whose statues had been brought to Babylon to be returned to the places whence they had come, and it is clear that, as the Jews had no divine statues, Cyrus did what he could for them, and sent back to Jerusalem the sacred vessels (Ezra i. 7), and also gave a grant for the rebuilding of the Temple (Ezra iii. 7). In the decree quoted in Ezra (i. 2 ff.), where he is represented as saying that “the Lord God of heaven” had given him all the kingdoms of the earth, it is best to see in that, as in his Babylonian cylinder-inscription, a desire, for policy’s sake, to be “all things to all men.” His success must have been largely due to the fact, that he had learned the art of ruling men.
It is to be supposed that he continued as he had begun, and that his rule was tolerated by the people. According to the contract-tablets, he associated his son with him on the throne during part of his first year, Cambyses becoming king of Babylon, whilst Cyrus retained the wider title of “king of countries.” Probably Gobryas had died, hence this change. Cyrus died in 529 B.C., and Cambyses took the throne. During his reign the Babylonians seem to have become discontented, desiring, perhaps, to have a ruler elected by themselves. Whilst, therefore, Cambyses was absent in Egypt, which country he conquered in the year 527 B.C., a Median, who was a Magian named Gomates, taking advantage of the dissatisfaction which prevailed, gave out that he was Bardes or Smerdis (called by the Babylonians Barzia), declared himself the son of Cyrus, whom Cambyses had murdered, and mounted the throne. Media, Persia, and Babylonia at once went over to him, and Cambyses hastened from Egypt to meet the pretender. Whilst in Syria, on the way home, he killed himself (521), perhaps by accident, though it is not impossible that it was a case of suicide, and the pretender retained for a very short period possession of the throne.
Another prince of the same family, Darius son of Hystaspes, now came forward, and after defeating Bardes and a number of other pretenders, among them Nidintu-Bêl, son of Aniru, who claimed to be Nebuchadnezzar the son of Nabonidus, mounted the throne. In fact, almost every province of the Persian empire had a pretender of its own, so that Darius found plenty of work ready to his hand. One by one, however, they were defeated, and “the lie” was put down in all the countries acknowledging Persian rule—Darius was sole and undisputed king.
It is unfortunate that no historical records referring to the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses exist, except the Chronicle, which, however, ends with the accession year of the former. We have, therefore, no independent records of what took place in Syria, though it must be confessed, that there is great doubt whether the composer of the Chronicle at the time would have considered the return of the Jews and the rebuilding of the Temple as of sufficient importance to place on record there. The Bible and Josephus give circumstantial accounts of what occurred, but the official view of the circumstances of the granting of the permission to rebuild the Temple and the city by Cyrus, and its countermanding, at the instance of the Samaritans, during the reign of Cambyses, would be interesting in the extreme.
To find something about Zerubbabel, who is said to have been the friend of Darius (Jos., Ant. xi. iii. 1), would also be welcome, but this we can hardly dare to hope for. Zerubbabel (better Zeru-Babel, without the doubling of the b) is a name which is far from uncommon in the contracts of Babylonia. One, for instance, lived during the time of Nabonidus, and dwelt at Sippara. He was to all appearance of Assyrian origin. Another, the descendant of a smith, was the father of a man named Nabû-âḫê-bulliṭ, who lived in the third year of Darius. A third bearing the same name is he who is recorded as having acquired some ewes in the eleventh year of Darius. His father bore the unusual name of Mutêriṣu. For yet another example, see p. 441. It will thus be seen that the name was far from rare in ancient Babylonia.
And in the published contract-tables of Darius’s reign, of which nearly 600 have been made available for study, there is little bearing upon Old Testament history. The same may also be said of his historical inscriptions, of which that engraved on the great rock at Behistun in Persia is the most important. It is in his historical inscriptions, however, that the character of the man may be read. In the first lines, where he tells of his origin, you read of his pride of descent, just as, farther on, he tells the story of his conflicts—how, with the help of his father, Hystaspes, who seconded him loyally and (there is hardly any doubt) affectionately, he overcame all the rebels, and having annihilated the lie which he hated so intensely, he could say, after his successes, that “the land was his.”
And through it all shines at every point, as it were, his adoration of the god whom he worshipped, Ahuramazda, by whose grace and favour he had been successful. There is no doubt about his religious faith—in his inscriptions he appears as a monotheist of the severest type, and for this reason he must have had but little sympathy with the polytheism of the Babylonians, and the other nationalities over which he ruled, whose faith was in a plurality of gods. It is true that offerings seem to have been made in his name in the temples of Babylonia, but these must have been due to old grants which had not been rescinded, and which the king and his advisers probably would have regarded as bad policy to abolish.
Naturally there is every probability that such a ruler as Darius would have sympathies with the Jews, on account of their monotheism, and it may be supposed that such a feeling towards them would have led him to consent to the upholding of Cyrus’s decree that the Temple at Jerusalem should be finished, as detailed in Ezra vi. 1 ff. Darius relates in the Behistun inscription, that he restored the temples of the gods (Bab. bêtê ša îlāni, Median ziyan nappana, “temples of the gods,” Pers. āyadāna, “shrines”) which Gomates the Magian, the pseudo-Bardes or Smerdis, had destroyed. That a single word (āyadāna) is used in Persian, whilst the phrase “temples of the gods,” in the plural, is used in Babylonian and Median, shows merely the desire to speak to the latter nations in the language to which they were accustomed, and at the same time indicates that neither the one nor the other, unlike the Persians, were monotheists. Gomates was therefore not a monotheist, otherwise he would not have destroyed the temples, which would seem to have been those of Darius’s own faith; for this king would hardly have thought it worth while to mention the fact of their destruction, had they been the sacred places of a creed which he despised, and it is only natural to suppose, from his very frequent mention of Ahuramazda, the god whom he worshipped, that he was proud of being a monotheist.
It may therefore be taken, that if Darius Hystaspis ordered the completion of the Temple at Jerusalem, and the giving of funds in aid of the work, it was out of sympathy with the Jews. As his reign was one of tolerance, he did not interfere with the religion of either the Babylonians or the Medians, but in all probability he did not imitate Cyrus by grants on his own account, and under a royal decree, to the temples of those, to him, heathen countries. There is considerable doubt, however, whether it is this king who is referred to in Ezra and Esdras, as Sir Henry Howorth has shown (Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, 1901, pp. 147 ff., 305 ff., 1902, pp. 16 ff.), the ruler intended being in all probability Darius Nothus, whose position agrees with the chronology of these books, and does away with much difficulty as to their acceptance as historical authorities.
According to Darius, twenty-three countries owned his sway: Persia, Elam, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, “by the sea,” Sarpada, Ionia, Media, Armenia, Cappadocia, Parthia, Drangiana, Aria, Chorasmia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Paruparaesana, Scythia, Sattagydia, Arachosia, and Maka. Palestine was evidently included in the district designated “by the sea.” After a most active reign, Darius died in the year 486 B.C., having appointed his son Xerxes as his successor.
The reign of this ruler, and his attempt to reduce Greece to submission, are well known. It was probably after his disastrous failure, when he had returned to Persia, that he took as one of his wives the Jewess Esther, as related in the book bearing her name. His inscriptions are short ones, referring to the buildings erected by his father and himself. In all probability he thought that his warlike exploits, overwhelmed as they were by misfortune, were not of a nature to bear recording. In his own inscriptions, his name is given as Ḫiši’arši or Ḫiši’arša’i in Babylonian, and Khshayarsha in Old Persian. In the contract-tablets, however, it appears as Aḫšiaršu, Aḫšiwaršu, Akšiaršu, Akkašiaršu, and Ḫišiarši. It is from one of the forms with prefixed a that the Hebrew Aḫashwērôs (A.V. Ahasuerus) has apparently come, the most probable original being one similar to the Aḫšuwaršu of a contract-tablet in the Museum at Edinburgh.
Xerxes died in the year 464 B.C., and was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes, the Artakhshatra of the Old Persian inscriptions, and the Artakšatsu or Artakšassu of Babylonian inscriptions. Though it was not without bloodshed that he reached the throne, he proved to be a successful ruler—more so, in fact, than his predecessor, whose expedition against the Greeks had ended only in disgrace and the loss of an enormous number of troops taken from all the nations over which he ruled. It is therefore not to be wondered at that his reign should have been regarded as wise and temperate. In any case, he was well disposed towards the Jews, and gave permission, in his seventh year, to Ezra, to go up to Jerusalem with a royal grant, to settle affairs there, and sacrifice to the God of the Jews (Ezra vii., viii.). Later on, he gave permission to Nehemiah to return to the land of his fathers to restore and rebuild the walls of the city. As Nehemiah was his cupbearer, it is easily conceivable that he did this to please him, and to reward one who had evidently been a faithful servant, but it is not improbable that the king at the same time had in his mind the rebellion of his general Megabysus, who had risen against him in protest against the treatment meted out by his royal master to his captive Inarus. To have a well-fortified city defended by those who had benefited greatly by his rule, must have seemed to the Persian ruler good policy.
Artaxerxes died in the year 425 B.C., and was succeeded by his son, Xerxes II., who reigned only two months, at the end of which time he was murdered by Sogdianus, a bastard son of Artaxerxes, who then became king. Seven months only, however, was the length of this new ruler’s reign, he being, in his turn, put to death by another of the bastard sons of Artaxerxes, Darius Ochus, after he had surrendered to him. This ruler is the Darius Nothus of history, who mounted the throne in 424 B.C. His reign was noted for the numerous insurrections against his dominion which took place, but is of special interest because of the resumption of the work of rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem, which had been stopped by the decree of Artaxerxes, as recorded in Ezra iv. 21-24. (See Sir H. Howorth in the P. S. B. A., 1901, pp. 307, 308.)
XII. LIFE AT BABYLON DURING THE CAPTIVITY, WITH SOME REFERENCE TO THE JEWS
The reign of Nebuchadnezzar—The earliest mention of Nabonidus—Neriglissar and his relations with his fellow-citizens before his accession—He marries his daughter Gigîtum to the director of Ê-zida—Prince Laborosoarchod—Nabonidus and the temples at Sippar—Prince Belshazzar’s transactions—His offerings at Sippar—His sister’s gift to her god (or goddess)—Princess Ukabu’sama’s transaction—The Jews at Babylon—Babylonian business and other letters—Širku’s slave—A loan at Erech—Work upon a plantation—Sale of an ass—Jews and Babylonians—The dead slave—A right of way—The story of Abil-Addu-nathānu and Bunanitum—The outcast slave—The Egyptian slave and her infant—Širku’s transactions—Babylon as the Jewish captives saw it.
I.
If trade-activity be a test of prosperity, then the Babylonians of the period extending from the end of the reign of Nabopolassar to the end of that of Darius could have had but little to complain of on the whole, notwithstanding the changes of dynasty which took place. Over three thousand inscriptions covering this period have been published, and there is every reason to believe that, if all the texts in the various museums were made known, twice this number might be reached. There is, therefore, an abundance of material with which to reconstruct the life of that period. Naturally, many of this enormous number of inscriptions are comparatively uninteresting, and some of the texts are of little or no value, even to specialists. This being the case, it will easily be understood that, as they are mostly of the nature of contracts, with a certain number of legal documents, the information which many of them give is comparatively meagre, and there is a great deal of repetition. That some of them, notwithstanding these disadvantages, are sufficiently interesting, will be seen from the examples which this chapter contains.
Among all these documents we find repeated, with some differences which the course of centuries had brought about, the same transactions, and the same daily life as has already been treated of in the fifth chapter, pp. 159-191. There are purchases and sales of land, property, and slaves, loans at interest and without interest, and all the various kinds of contracts which the daily needs of a large population call forth. Marriage-contracts and contracts of apprenticeship are also not uncommon, wills and divisions of property—generally in greater detail than of old—are also to be found. To these must be added the leasing and hire of houses, the purchase and hire of ships, divisions of property, inventories of the same, receipts of different kinds, etc. etc.
For the most part, the people who pass before us are slaves, servants, money-lenders, merchants, and other of the common folk, with a sprinkling of scribes, priests, both of the higher and the lower classes (generally the latter), palace officials, now and then a judge, or a governor, or one of the subordinate officials. Did we know them all, perhaps we should think more of them, and estimate them at their true worth; but in the appearance and reappearance of their names we see only the plaintiff or the defendant, the buyer or the seller, and it is but rarely that we can recognize them as men of note, though in many cases it is to be conjectured that they were so. It is only seldom that the crown prince or one of his brothers, appears, or a relative of the ruling king comes within our range—as for the king himself, except in the date of a document, his name is rare in the extreme, and when he appears actively, it is in the character of patron of the temples, or something of a similar nature.
Naturally the king was hedged about with a considerable amount of reverence, which must have manifested itself in many ways which we shall probably never know. This consideration for the name of the king would lead to his being represented by an agent, doing away with the necessity of his appearing in person, when dealing with his subjects. Though he prudently keeps out of sight, it is hardly a dignified thing that the great Nebuchadnezzar should appear as a moneylender, even by proxy, as he seems to do in the following document. But we do not know the whole history of the transaction, so must not hastily accuse him of an unkingly action—his appearance may be unauthorized, or the loan may be capable of a perfectly natural explanation.
“Ten shekels (in) ingots (?), the silver of Ina-êši-êṭir, son of Nadin, the king’s agent. The king’s silver, which was given for gold (? = as capital) to Ina-êši-êṭir, (is) due from Nabû-êṭir, son of Šulâ, descendant of the mead-dealer. At the end of the month Tisri he will give (it) back. His property, as much as there is, (is) the security, until Ina-êši-êṭir receives the king’s silver. Witnesses: Nadin, son of Marduk, descendant of Irani; Nergal-iddina, son of Nabû-kaṣir, descendant of Êpeš-îli; and the scribe, Ana-Bêl-upâqu, son of Bêl-šum-iškun, descendant of the mead-dealer. Babylon, month Tammuz, day 28th, year 21st, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
Though security is referred to, there is no mention of interest, but Ina-êši-êṭir probably expected something of the kind. The question also arises, whether the sum may not have been advanced without the authority of his royal master. The original of the expression translated “ingots” suggests that the pieces may have been in the form of a sword-blade.
Among the tablets referring to Nebuchadnezzar’s offerings, 84-2-11, 23, and its duplicate 270 of the same collection, are probably the most interesting. This inscription is to the effect that Izkur-Marduk had given up with willingness the office of naš-paṭrūtu to Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî. His duty was to perform the king’s sacrifices every year before the goddess Išḫara, “dwelling in Ê-ša-turra, which is within Šu-anna,” and before Pap-sukal, of “the temple Ê-kidur-kani, the house of the Lady of heaven, of the bank of the water-channel of âlu-eššu (the new city) which is within Babylon.” The animals sacrificed were oxen and sheep, and the parts offered before the two deities are fully specified. The contract ends with a longer curse than usual in tablets of this class: “Whoever the words and this gift changes, as much as has been conferred (?) on Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî, may Merodach, Zēr-panitum, Išḫara, and Pap-sukal bespeak his destruction; may Nebo, the scribe of Ê-sagila, shorten his long days. The spirit of Marduk, Zēr-panitum, (and) his gods, and Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, the king their lord, they have invoked.” The names of three witnesses and the scribe follow this, after which is the date, 29th day of Tammuz, 32nd year of Nebuchadnezzar. A portion of the sacrifices were to be made on the 8th day of Nisan, i.e. at the beginning of the second week of the new year.
As stated in his long inscriptions referring to the restoration of the temples at Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar looked upon that city as the one whose temples he especially delighted to honour, and this text referring to his offerings seems to bear out that statement. As, however, his inscribed cylinders from other places show that he did not neglect the shrines of his provincial capitals altogether, so certain inscriptions referring to his offerings elsewhere show that he did not withhold what was considered as due from him to the other shrines of his realm. Thus, in his thirty-fifth year he is recorded to have made a gift or offering of an object, made or set with some kind of stone, to the goddess of Sippar, Aa, the consort of the Sun-god, and another object of gold to the god himself. In all probability, the text referred to is only one of a number of inscriptions referring to the king’s offerings, for even this great and popular ruler would hardly have dared to risk the hostility of the priests merely to gratify his desire to enrich and embellish his capital city. In addition to the king, the officials of his court sometimes made offerings at Sippar, as is indicated by the following short inscription—
“One ass, tithe which Nabû-šarra-uṣur, the king’s captain, has given to the temple Ê-babbara. Month Iyyar, day 20 less 1, year 42nd, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
To all appearance, Nabû-šarra-uṣur was a man sufficiently well off, if, as may well be supposed, he possessed nine other asses besides the one which he was giving as tithe. From the nature of the offering, this could not have been made on account of the king, though he must from time to time have commissioned others to act on his behalf, as the following inscriptions inform us that his sons did—
“..., tithe of (Marduk)-šum-uṣur, the son of the king, Zubuduru, messenger of Marduk-šum-uṣur, the son of the king, has given to Ê-babbara. The sheep (is) in the cattle-house in the care of Šamaš-êreš. Month Adar, day 17th, year 40th, (Nabû-kud)urri-uṣur, (king of Babylon).”
The word to be restored at the beginning is probably “1 sheep,” this being the number implied farther on. If so, it cannot be said that he was by any means a large owner of these animals. The following refers to tithe in silver paid by the same prince—
“1/3 and 5 shekels (= 25 shekels) of silver (is) the tithe which Marduk-šum-uṣur, son of the king, has given by the hands of Šamaš-kain-âḫi and Aqabi-îlu to Ê-babbara. Month Iyyar, day 14th, year 42nd, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
Another inscription, dated in the forty-first year of Nebuchadnezzar, refers to another son, named Marduk-nadin-aḫi, whose servant, Sin-mâr-šarri-uṣur, had paid half a mana for fruit (dates). The name of the servant, which means “Moon-god, protect the son of the king,” is interesting, and testifies to the devotion of the family of its owner to the royal house.
These references to the sons of Nebuchadnezzar naturally raise the question of the parentage of Nabonidus, whose son, Belshazzar, is called, in Daniel, the son—i.e. descendant—of Nebuchadnezzar. As this is a historical point of some importance, even the most uncertain light, when thrown upon it, may turn out to be of considerable value. In all probability, therefore, this is the most appropriate place to introduce what may be called
The Earliest Mention Of Nabonidus.
This document is preserved on two tablets, the most correct being very much crowded in one part, and the other very neatly and clearly, but at the same time very incorrectly, written. Both are, therefore, in all probability, copies, made at dates some time after the original document was drawn up.
Though the more clearly-written copy is rather incorrect, it furnishes in some cases interesting variants, which will be noticed in their place. The value of the text as a historical document depends, in part, as will easily be recognized, upon the trustworthiness of a statement which the incorrect copyist has read into it.
Both these documents belong to the collection obtained by the late George Smith on his last ill-fated journey to the East. They are numbered S +, 769 and 734.
“Adi’îlu, son of Nabû-zēr-iddina, and Ḫulîti, his wife (the divine Ḫulîtum!(129)) have sold Marduka (Mordecai), their son, for the price agreed upon, to Šulâ, son of Zēr-ukîn. The liability to defeasor (?) and pre-emptor (?), which is upon Marduka, Adi’îlu and Akkadu respond for.”
“Witnesses: Nabû-na’id (Nabonidus), who is over the city(130); Agar’u; Mušêzib-Bêl, son of Marduka(131); Zērîa, son of Bâbîlâa; Ukîn-zēra, son of Yadi’-îlu(132); Rêmut, son of Marduka; and the scribe Nabû-zēr-ikîša, son of Marduk- ... Ḫuṣṣiti-ša-Mušallim-Marduk, month Sebat, day 16th, year 8th, Nabû-kudurrî-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
It will probably seem strange to most readers that Babylonian parents, who were as a rule fond of children, should sell their son; but it is impossible to pronounce judgment against them without knowing more, so as to be able to take into consideration the circumstances in which the thing was done. Though the document resembles those recording the sale of slaves, certain phrases are left out (compare the inscriptions referred to on pp. 465 ff.).
The exclamatory addition of the scribe in one case, where he writes the name of the mother, Ḫulîtum, with the prefix for divinity, shows that he regarded her as being with the gods—to all appearance she had, at the time of making the copy, departed this life. It may be taken as implying respect, reverence, and something more.
Naturally there is no suggestion that the Nabonidus who is given as the first witness, with the title “he who is over the city,” was the son of Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî, afterwards king of Babylon. The scribe of the second tablet calls him “the son of the king,” but there is no indication, from Babylonian sources, that he was one of the sons of Nebuchadnezzar. It is true that, in Daniel, Belshazzar is spoken of as if Nebuchadnezzar was his father (or, better, grandfather), but this is the first indication that the Babylonians ever thought of Nabonidus, his father, as one of the sons of the great Nebuchadnezzar. The question is, whether the scribe who made the second and more incorrect copy would have read into the doubtful characters which his original evidently contained, a statement which he must have known to be untrue, incorrect, or impossible. In view of the fact that the copy in question must have been made sufficiently near to the time of Nabonidus for the facts to be still known, a wilful error is to all appearance excluded, though, on the other hand, the incorrectness of other parts of the tablet obliges us to take the statement for what it is worth. The traces of a character after the words “son of the king” are doubtful—they look like the remains of three horizontal wedges, the two lower ones being fairly clear. As the topmost wedge is the most doubtful, it is possible that the traces which remain are really part of the sign for “city,” in which case the scribe wrote “son of the king of the city,” placing the determinative prefix for “man” before the character for “king”—a most unusual way of writing the word. It enables us to surmise, however, that the reading of his original was really ša muḫḫi âli, instead of ša êli âli (both phrases have the same meaning), that he regarded ša as a, that he thought muḫ-ḫi to be the characters for “man” and “king,” and that he read the last of the phrase, the character for “city,” correctly.
They are a couple of as interesting, but, at the same time, as unsatisfactory, tablets, as could well be imagined.
It is to be noted that the name of Nabonidus is not altogether uncommon in the inscriptions. In most cases, however, we know that it is either not the well-known king of that name, or that his identity with him is doubtful. That the person here referred to was a man of some consequence is indicated by his title, “he who is over the city,” and it often happens in that case (as here) that the name of his father and other remoter ancestor is omitted. This is sometimes the case with Neriglissar, who is very often named in the contract-tablets of Babylonia, and his name is then either given without any indication of his parentage, or else with the simple addition “son of Bêl-šum-iškun.”
Another figure which appears at this time is that same Neriglissar who was to play so important a part in the affairs of Babylonia at a later date. In the case of this prince (unlike the Nabonidus of the inscription translated above) we are not tormented by any doubts whatever. It is really and truly Neriglissar, and none other. He first appears in Nebuchadnezzar’s thirty-fourth year, in the following legal document—
“100 sheep of Kili(gug?), servant of Nergal-šarra-uṣur, concerning which Abî-nadib, son of Ya-ḫata, said to Nergal-šarra-uṣur, son of Bêl-šum-iškun, thus—
“ ‘Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ, servant of Nergal-šarra-uṣur, brought them by my hand.’
“If Abî-nadib (and) Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ prove (this), Abî-nadib is free; if he prove it (not), Abî-nadib will give to Nergal-šarra-uṣur 100 sheep, (with) wool (?) and young (?).
“Witnesses: Ṣilli-Bêl, son of Abî-yadiša; Kabtia, son of Marduk-zēr-ibnî, descendant of the potter; Nabû-naṣir, son of Zillâ; and the scribe, (Nabû)-âḫê-iddina, son of Šulâ, descendant of Êgibi. Takrētain (?), month Elul, day 2nd, year 34th, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
Neriglissar must therefore have been an extensive cattle-owner, and had many servants, some of whom at least must have been men of substance, like Abî-nadib, who engages to restore to his master the 100 sheep, if it could be proved that they had been lost by his fault. Judging from the name, Abî-nadib (= Abinadab) must have come from the west, his Biblical namesakes being Israelites. Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ elsewhere appears as the major-domo of the crown prince (? Laborosoarchod = Labâši-Marduk) during the reign of Neriglissar, and of Belshazzar during the reign of his father Nabonidus. The reader will meet his name again in the translations which follow.
A similar transaction to the above is one in which two servants of Neriglissar were concerned, but in which the prince himself seems not to have been directly interested. It is as follows—
“(At the end?) of the month Sivan, Šarru-îlûa, servant of Nergal-šarra-uṣur, will bring his witness and will prove to Ḫatānu, servant of Nergal-šarra-uṣur, that Šarru-îlūa gave to Ḫatānu the iron raqundu. If he prove it, Ḫatānu will give to Šarru-îlūa a raqundu.
“Witnesses: Mušêzib-Bêl, son of Nabû-iltama’, and the scribe, Nabû-âḫê-iddina, descendant of Êgibi. Upia (Opis), month Nisan, day 29th, (year ...)th, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
During the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the “chief of the house” or major-domo of Neriglissar was Bêl-êṭiranni, who is mentioned as having borrowed money, whether on his own or his master’s behalf is not known. This took place in the forty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar. The following is an order for the delivery of goods to the prince—
“Cause ... iron implements (and) 80 kudutum to be taken to Nergal-šarra-uṣur by the hands of Nabû-šum-iddina, secretary of Nergal-šarra-uṣur. Month Iyyar, day 12th, year 43rd, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
To all appearance prince Neriglissar was a very busy man, who sought to add to his worldly goods by every means in his power, and did not disdain to engage in trade in the attainment of wealth. What he had apparently begun in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he continued in the time of Evil-Merodach, during whose reign there are several inscriptions referring to his transactions with regard to houses. In the first of these inscriptions he hires a house for 11 mana of silver from Nabû-âbla-iddina, by his agent, Nabû-kain-âbli (first year of Evil-Merodach, month and day lost).
In another contract he acquires 4 canes, 1 cubit, 8 fingers (of land) from Marduk-šakin-šumi, and 2 canes, 6-2/3 cubits from Kurbanni-Marduk, for a total of 4 mana 19 shekels of silver. (Babylon, month Tebet, day 9th, 1st year of Evil-Merodach.)
In the third contract it would seem that the property in land of Nabû-âbla-iddina had been given over to his creditors, of whom Nabû-banî-âḫi was one, the amount due to him being, in all, 53 shekels of silver, due to him from Nabû-âbla-iddina in the name of a third party. By the authority of Neriglissar it would seem that 42-1/3 shekels of silver were paid to Nabû-banî-âḫi, who then gave to Neriglissar a contract for 53 shekels of silver, promising, at the same time, to speak to the king’s scribes, and draw up and deliver to Neriglissar a sealed document. If he did not do this, he was to be liable for the silver and its interest.
By advancing the money to this creditor, Neriglissar became himself a creditor of the estate of Nabû-âbla-iddina (15th of Adar, 1st year of Evil-Merodach), and it seems to have been his intention to get the whole of the land and the houses thereon into his own hands. He therefore acquired further interest in the property a few weeks later (26th of Nisan, 2nd year of Evil-Merodach), and again after a further interval of three months (14th of Tammuz, 2nd year of Evil-Merodach). To all appearance, the amounts advanced by Neriglissar to the creditors of the estate were less than the sums due to them from Nabû-âbla-iddina on account of their claims. He seems, however, to have got them to give him receipts in full, and they had to promise to deliver sealed documents. He must have made a considerable profit out of this species of bill-discounting.
The last tablet referring to the estate of Nabû-âbla-iddina is dated in the accession year of Neriglissar’s own reign (9th of the 2nd Adar), and in this Nabû-âḫê-iddina secures an interest by paying 26-¼ shekels of silver on account of a sum of 52-½ shekels—just half. The land is stated to have been “sold for silver for a palace,” and the money was paid by the intermediary of Nabû-âḫê-iddina, Neriglissar’s representative in such matters before he ascended the throne. The following is a translation of this interesting document—
“52-½ shekels of silver due to Ikîšâ, son of Gilûa, descendant of Sin-šadûnu, which is upon (i.e. due from) Nabû-âbla-iddina, son of Balaṭu, descendant of the butler (?), in (part payment) of the price of the house of Nabû-âbla-iddina, which has been sold for silver for the palace. In agreement with the creditors, Ikîša, son of Gilûa, descendant of Sin-šadûnu, has received 26-¼ shekels of silver from the hands of Nabû-âḫê-iddina, son of Šulâ, descendant of Êgibi, and has given the contract for 52-½ shekels of silver, which is upon (i.e. due from) Nabû-âbla-iddina, to Nabû-âḫê-iddina.
“Witnesses: Dâanu-šum-iddina, son of Zēru-Bâbîli, descendant of the dagger-bearer; Nabû-nadin-šumi, son of Ablâ, descendant of Sin-nadin-šumi; Bêl-šunu, son of Uššâa, descendant of Âḫi-banî;
“and the scribe, Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî, son of Ikîšâ, descendant of Sin-šadûnu. Babylon, month of the later Adar, day 9th, year of the beginning of dominion of Nergal-šarra-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
But Neriglissar was now king, and had no need and but little desire to appear before his subjects as a purchaser of houses, or as a trader in any way (it is probably on this account that his name does not occur in the above document). When he engaged in anything of the kind, it was henceforth through agents. The only exception known is the marriage-contract of his daughter Gigîtum, who espoused the high priest of Nebo at Borsippa. The following is a translation of this document, as far as it is preserved—
“Nabû-šum-ukîn, priest of Nebo, director of Ê-zida, son of Širiktum-Marduk, descendant of Išdē-îlāni-dannu, said to Nergal-šarra-uṣur, king of Babylon: ‘Give Gigîtum, thy virgin daughter, to wifehood, and let her be my wife.’ Nergal-šarra-uṣur (said) to Nabû-šum-ukîn, priest of Nebo, director of Ê-zida....”
(About twenty-eight lines are wanting here, the text becoming again legible at the end of the list of witnesses on the reverse.)
“..., son of Nabû-šum-lišir, ...; ...-ri, son of Nabû-šarra-uṣur, the judge (??);
“Nabû-šum-uṣur, the scribe, son of Aššur ... Babylon, month Nisan, day 1st, year 1st, (Nergal-šarra)-uṣur, king of Babylon. Copy of Ê-zida.”
The mutilation of the record is unfortunate, as the conclusion of the matter cannot be ascertained, but it may be regarded as fairly certain that Neriglissar really did give his daughter Gigîtum in marriage to Nabû-šum-ukîn, for had it been otherwise, there would have been but little need to draw up the document of which the fragment here translated has been preserved to us. The remainder of the tablet was probably taken up with the usual conditions—the penalty Nabû-šum-ukîn would have to pay should he divorce or abandon his wife; the penalty Gigîtum would have to suffer if she disowned or forsook her husband; directions with regard to the amount and disposal of her dowry, etc. This and similar inscriptions seem to suggest that Herodotus was probably wrongly informed with regard to the compulsory nature of the public prostitution of unmarried women which, he says, was practised in Babylonia, the expressions found in these inscriptions often pointing, as in the present case, to a belief, on the part of the bridegroom, in the chastity of the woman chosen by him to be his wife.
The date corresponds with the Babylonian New Year’s Day, 559 B.C.
With this inscription we take leave of Neriglissar except as the ruler whose name the scribes used to date by.
Though, according to Berosus, Laborosoarchod (Labāši-Marduk) was a mere child when he came to the throne, there is no doubt, from the inscription which follows, that he was old enough to have an establishment of his own, and also to carry on the business of money-lender, Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ (see p. 439) being his representative in the transactions in which he engaged. As it is an inscription typical of its class, it is given here in full—
“12 mana of silver of the son of the king, which (has been advanced through) the hand of Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ, chief of the house of the son of the king, is upon (i.e. due from) Šum-ukîn, son of Mušallim-îlu. In the month Nisan the silver, 12 mana, in its full amount, he will repay. Everything of his, in town and country, all there is, is the security of the king’s son—another creditor shall not have power over it until Nabû-sabit-qâtâ receives the money. Nabû-âḫê-iddina, son of Šulâ, descendant of Êgibi, takes responsibility for the receipt of the money.
“Witnesses: Šamaš-uballiṭ, son of Ikîšâ; Kalbâ, son of Bêl-êreš; the scribe Bêl-âḫê-ikîšâ, son of Bêl-êṭeru. Babylon, month Elul, day 10th, year 2nd, Nergal-šarra-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
What the crown prince did, it goes without saying that all the court officials sought to do. An instance of this is Bêl-âḫê-iddina, the king’s captain, who is recorded as having lent 2/3 of a mana of silver to Ardîa and Šulâ, at an interest of one shekel upon every mana monthly—twenty per cent. yearly—a sufficiently high interest, though it was the usual rate in Babylonia. This inscription is dated at Babylon, 7th day of Kisleu, 2nd year of Neriglissar. It is noteworthy, however, that there is no mention of interest in the document drawn up for Labāši-Marduk’s major-domo.
Interesting is the inscription in which two partners engage to meet two other men, also partners, at the gate of the house of the king’s son to come to an arrangement concerning profits which they had made ša zallānu u dusê, i.e. with regard to two “lines” of leather goods (9th day of Tammuz, 3rd year of Neriglissar). It also furnishes further testimony to the fact that this prince had a separate establishment.
After Laborosoarchod’s nine months came the reign of Nabonidus, whom, as will be remembered, the Babylonians and Cyrus, his conqueror, accused of neglecting the gods, and sending them forth from their shrines to the cities around. Perhaps his crime consisted in his preference for the gods of other cities than Babylon, the city which Nebuchadnezzar’s lavish favours had somewhat spoilt, and who resented her neglect at the hands of the antiquarian king. However that may be, contemporary records show that he gave to the benefit of Sippar, the city of the Sun-god, not unfrequently. A mutilated inscription refers to full-grown oxen and sheep from the son of the king, for the king’s sacrifices, divided between two temples at Sippar, one of them being that of Anunitu[m] (7th of Adar, 9th year of Nabonidus); and things from the bît makkur nidinit šarri (“warehouse of the king’s gifts”) are often mentioned. Naturally he had to make gifts to many shrines in Babylonia.
Whether the following refers to oxen for sacrifice or not is doubtful—
“20 shekels of silver have been given to Nabû-šarra-uṣur, the sec(retary) of the king, for oxen for the husbandmen who are in the city Ḫa(buru). He has not given the oxen. Month Nisan, day 16th, year 7th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
The above inscription comes from Sippar, near which the city referred to must have stood.
Several inscriptions refer to the storehouse into which the king’s gift was delivered. The following is a specimen of these texts—
“Fruit, the amount of the 10th year, Ana-âmat-Bêl-atkal has given into the storehouse of the gift of the king. Month Kisleu, day 14th, year 10th, Nabû-na’id, (king) of Êridu.
“35 gur, Šamaš-killi-anni. “12 gur 90 qa, Šum-ukîn and Rêmut. “65 gur 144 qa, Ikîšâ. “45 gur 72 qa, Kinâ. “62 gur, Niqu(du). “17 gur 72 qa, ... “Altogether 23(8 gur 18 qa).”
This and other inscriptions, especially one referring to 250 gur of grain, shows that Nabonidus was fairly liberal to the temples at Sippar. It is also very probable that he provided for the needful repairs of this and other temples from time to time, one of the inscriptions (dated in his third year) recording a contribution of half a talent and 7 mana of silver for work done on the great temple-tower of Sippar, Ê-babbara, besides 8 mana 20 shekels of silver as tithe, seemingly for grain for the city Ḫaburu, where, it is to be conjectured, an agricultural farm belonging to one of the temples of Sippar was situated.(133)
It is not by any means improbable that Nabonidus had a residence at Sippar, and if so, this would explain the reason of his favouring that city, and at the same time add to the causes of the discontent of the “sons of Babylon.” This is implied by a small tablet apparently inscribed with an account of the receipts and expenditure of the temple Ê-babbara at Sippar, which occupied the position of purveyor of water, and took the place of the water-company of the cities of modern Europe—
“2 mana 13 shekels of silver, the price of the king’s water, which is from Bêl-âbla-iddina, the overseer of(134) Kî-Bêl, the chief man of the king’s water, has been brought by the hands of Šamaš-kain-âbli, son of Balatu.
“From the amount, 2 mana of silver have been given for 80 measures (?) of oil to Nabû-uṣur-šu, son of Dummuq, descendant of Gaḫal, in the presence of Kalbâ, the secretary. 13 shekels of silver are in the treasury.
“Silver, 2 mana, is with Nabû-dûr-pâniâ. Of the amount, 4 shekels of silver have been paid for 2 parrum(135)-stones, which were given to Aššur-rîmananni, son of Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî.
“Month later Adar, day 27th, year 6th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
Another tablet, dated in Nabonidus’s accession year, indicates that the temple supplied water, for a fixed sum, to a part of Sippar called “the city of the Sun.”
From other tablets we obtain also information about the family of Nabonidus. Most of them, as is to be expected, refer to Belshazzar, the heir to the throne, who is conjectured to have been the second ruler in the kingdom, thus explaining how it was that the position of “third ruler in the kingdom” could be offered to the Prophet Daniel. Like the other rulers of Babylonia, Nabonidus had granted to Belshazzar, or at least permitted him to occupy, a separate house, which was situated within Babylon, beside the house of Marduk-îriba, son of Rêmut, descendant of Miṣrâa. From the inscription referring to this which has come down to us, it may be conjectured that Marduk-îriba was a minor, and his sister, Bau-êṭirat, therefore acted for him. Bêl-rêṣūa, servant of Belshazzar, approached her and succeeded in acquiring her brother’s land for 45 shekels of silver, which was duly paid to Marduk-îriba. Though it is not stated, this transaction probably took place on behalf of Belshazzar, who wished to add to his possessions, and as it is dated in the month Adar, in the 1st year of Nabonidus, it would seem that he decided to enlarge the domain he was entitled to as crown prince shortly after he found himself occupying that position.
Another tablet referring to Belshazzar is a contract drawn up for one of his secretaries (on the one hand), by which he obtained the occupation of a house in exchange for a loan of silver—a common arrangement in those days in Babylonia. The following translation will enable the reader to see the terms of this, the type of a numerous series of documents—
“The house of Nabû-âḫê-iddina, son of Šulá, descendant of Êgibi, which is beside the house of Bêl-iddina, son of Rêmut, descendant of the dikû, (is granted) for 3 years to Nabû-kain-âḫî, secretary of Bêl-šarra-uṣur, the son of the king, for 1-½ mana of silver. He has let (it) upon (the condition that) ‘there is no rent for the house, and no interest for the money.’ He shall repair the woodwork and renew the dilapidation of the house. After 3 years, the silver, 1-½ mana, Nabû-âḫê-iddina shall (re)pay to Nabû-kain-âḫi, and Nabû-kain-âḫi shall leave the house in the possession of Nabû-âḫê-iddina.”
Here follow the names of three witnesses and the scribe, after which comes the date: “Babylon, month Nisan, day 21st, year 5th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
As the 1-½ mana of silver would have brought in 18 shekels at the usual rate of interest, that sum may be taken as representing the rent of the house in question.
Another inscription, dated two years later, shows that Nabû-kain-âḫi, Belshazzar’s secretary, borrowed 35 shekels of silver from Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ, that prince’s major-domo, to purchase a slave, and that the loan was duly repaid. The curious thing in connection with this transaction is, that the money advanced is stated to be “tithe of Bêl, Nebo, Nergal, and the lady (i.e. Ištar) of Erech,” implying that Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ was entitled to certain sums from this source, or else that he had control of them, and could advance money to others therefrom. Information concerning all the items of income and expenditure of the temples would probably furnish interesting reading, showing, as it should, who were the people who benefited from the funds available, and upon what grounds.
It is noteworthy that, in these inscriptions referring to transactions between the members of Belshazzar’s household, no interest seems to have been charged on the loans granted; and if this was really so, it indicates a considerable amount of loyalty among these men towards each other—indeed, it is doubtful if it could be surpassed at the present day.
Strangest of all these contracts in which Belshazzar is mentioned, is probably that in which the prince himself seems to appear as one of the contracting parties—as a dealer in clothes. As it is the only one referring to him thus, a translation of the inscription in question is here given in full—
“20 mana of silver, the price of the garments(136) (which were) the property of Bêl-šarra-uṣur, the son of the king, which (are due), through Nabû-ṣabit-qâtâ, chief of the house of Bêl-šarra-uṣur, the son of the king, and the secretaries of the son of the king, from Iddina-Marduk, son of Ikîšā, descendant of Nûr-Sin. In the month Adar of the 1(1th) year, the silver, 20 mana, he shall pay. His house, which is beside the (plantation?), his slave, and his property in town and country, all there is, is the security of Bêl-šarra-uṣur, the son of the king, until Bêl-šarra-uṣur receives his money. (For) the silver, as much as (from the sum) is withheld, interest he shall pay.
“Witnesses: Bêl-iddina, son of Rêmut, descendant of the dikû; Êtel-pî, son of ..., descendant of ‘the father of the house’; Nadin, son of Narduk-šum-uṣur, descendant of the master-builder; Nergal-ušallim, son of Marduk-..., descendant of Gaḫal; Marduk-naṣir, son of Kur-..., descendant of Dabibu; and the scribe, Bêl-âḫê-ikîša, son of Nabû-balat-su-iqbî. Babylon, month ..., day 20th, year 11th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
But Belshazzar did not confine himself to dealing in woollen stuffs or clothes, as many another inscription indicates. This was but an unimportant incident in his life which chance has preserved to us, and how far the transaction may have taken place with (or without) his own knowledge, it is impossible to say. For a considerable time, however, he was with the army in Akkad, and whilst there, he interested himself greatly in the welfare of the temples at Sippar, making donations to them, not only on his own behalf, but also for his father. Thus, on the 11th of Iyyar, in the 9th year of his father’s reign, he gave to the god Šamaš a tongue of gold weighing one mana; and on the 7th of Adar of the same year he gave two full-grown oxen for sacrifice (his father gave one on that occasion), together with fourteen sheep, and in addition other sacrifices were made on his and his father’s behalf in the temple of the goddess Annunitum. The following little inscription, being rather out of the common, is probably above the average in the matter of interest—
“1 shekel and a quarter of silver for the hire of a ship for 3 oxen and 24 sheep, the sacrifices of the king’s son, which went in the month Nisan for Šamaš and the gods of Sippar.
“In the presence of Bêl-šarra-bulliṭ, who has given the offerings of the king to Šamaš-iddina and Dannu-Âddu. He has given 60 qa of fruit as their offerings. Month Nisan, day 9th, year 10th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
Seemingly Belshazzar sent the sheep and oxen from his estate to Sippar by water.
Interesting to an equal degree is likewise the inscription recording a gift made by his sister—
“27 shekels of silver is the weight of one cup, tithe of Ina-Ê-sagila-rêmat, the daughter of the king. By the hands of Bêl-šarra-(bulliṭ), as a king’s offering, she has given (it) to the god.... The cup is in the treasure-house.
“Month Ab, day 5th, year 17th, (Nabû-na’id) king of Babylon.”
Though this inscription is defective in places, there is every probability that little or nothing more than the name of the god is wanting. The name of Bêl-šarra-(bulliṭ) shows that the inscription must belong to the time of Nabonidus, and, in fact, the initial wedges of his name are visible.
The name of a second daughter of Nabonidus seems to appear in another inscription from Sippar, though, as it is rather carelessly written, this is doubtful. Notwithstanding the uncertainty attending the name, however, the inscription is worth quoting in full—
“3 gur 75 qa of sesame Ukabu’sama (?), daughter of the king, has sold, through Tattanu, for silver, to Ê-babbara. The silver has not been received.
“Month Ab, day 7th, year 16th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
With this we take leave of Nabonidus and his family, as revealed by the contracts and temple accounts from Babylon and Sippar. The picture these and the historical inscriptions give of the Babylonian royal family is not altogether unpleasing, and that this king, with his son, were the last rulers of their race, is greatly to be regretted. But, alas, they had offended the priesthood of Babylon, and all the people accepted, without a murmur, the alien ruler, of a differing faith from theirs, who presented himself, in hostile array, at their doors. It was the beginning of the end of their life as a nation, and who shall say that they did not deserve it? If they had made even a show of resistance, the world could hold them excused, but this was not the case, as their own records show, and whatever Nabonidus’s faults may have been, they do not attain to the culpability of the nation, which, instead of protecting him—if for no other reason, it ought to have done this for his son’s sake—practically betrayed him to the enemy.
II.
So far, in depicting the life which the Jews, during the Captivity, must daily have seen around them, we have given the tablets whereon the court and its officials are referred to, and though these reveal certain phases of life in Babylonia among the people, typical of the time, they can hardly be held to show the life of the people—those engaged in the life-struggle of which every great city is the battlefield, and has been the battlefield since the first gathering of large bodies of men in one place.
Who among us can estimate the misery caused by the tearing away of the slave from the home of the master with whom he had for many years dwelt in content?—it must have far outweighed the few cases in which a slave in those days benefited by such a change. That the loss of his slaves was sometimes also a wrench to the owner is indicated by the fact that he is generally—if not always—made to say, that he parts with them cheerfully. He had to admit this for the satisfaction of the buyer, who naturally feared that the old master would return and ask for the contract to be annulled, saying that it was all a mistake on his part—he did not really wish to get rid of them, and would like to have them back again.
Naturally the tablets do not reveal to us all this, nor the joys and sorrows, the successes and the failures, which those great cities of the ancient East must have contained. But they allow us to guess a great deal. Did the man ever get the money back which he had lent? Did he receive the money for the things he had sold and given credit for? These and other similar questions are always occurring to the student of these documents, which reveal always the grave side of life in that ancient land—never the gay side—even a wedding, being a contract, was a thing much too serious to allow its joyful nature to shine through at any point.
As the documents which best represent the character of the Babylonians are the letters, it has been thought well to begin (as in the case of the chapter upon the earlier Babylonians) with a few specimens of these, and in the forefront the following may be cited as not unworthy of a prominent place—
“Tablet of Nabû-zēr-ibnî to Ugarâ, Balaṭu, Nabû-bêl-šumāti, and Šamaš-udammiq, his brothers.
“Now to Bêl and Nebo for the preservation of the life of my brothers I pray.
“Bêl-epuš, who is along with you, is my brother. Whoever speaks his evil words, as my brothers wish, let him be silent. As for him, from the beginning to the end, brothers of each other are we. As warning to my brothers I send this. Let my brothers do what is right. I should like to see an answer (to this) letter from my brothers.”
Whether we are to substitute “friend” and “friends” for “brother” and “brothers” is uncertain, but is very probable. In any case, the writer would seem to show considerable courage in the course he was taking, as well as confidence in the righteousness of his cause.
The following is apparently the letter of a father in poverty to his more successful son—
“(Letter of) Iddina-âḫâ (to) Rêmūt, his son.
“May (Bêl) and Nebo bespeak peace and life for my son.
“He, my son, knoweth that there is no corn in the house. Let my son cause 2 or 3 gur of corn to be brought by the hands of some one whom thou knowest. Wilt thou not send by the hands of the boatman whom thou indicatedst? As for him, (he is coming?) to me—send a gift, cause it to go forth to (thy) father. To-day I pray Bêl and Nebo for the preservation of the life of my son. Rêmat asks after the peace of Rêmūt, her son.”
The change from the third person to the second is noteworthy, and may have been caused by the necessity of distinguishing between the son and the messenger to whom the writer referred. Rêmat was evidently the writer’s wife.
The following is a letter of a different nature, and leads to speculations as to the state of things—
“Letter of Marduk-zēr-ibnî to Šulâ his brother.
“May Bêl and Nebo bespeak the peace of my brother.
“Why dost thou destroy my house? thou goest before the destruction of thine (own) house. When thou hadst taken the responsibility of holding the field, my field was sold, and the date-palms which I grow have been destroyed. And thou (remainest) contented in thy house!(137) Now (as for) the corn which I have planted in my field, thou (always) takest the whole. I am now sending to my lord: Come, enter my field, and give me my harvests. Behold, the corn which has been got ready thou (always) deliverest: Ikîšā and Nabû-âḫa-iddina, if they wish, can take it. Speak to the judges about it.”
Apparently the writer of the letter was vexed because his friend (and lord) had not fulfilled his undertaking to look after his interests.
Letters of a business nature are not unfrequent, and are generally dry and uninteresting. The character of the inscriptions of this class which least exhibit these defects may be gathered from the following text, which also has an interest because the sender was a slave. The original belongs to the collection of tablets acquired by the late Sir Cuthbert Peek for his father, the late Sir Henry Peek:—
“Letter from Dâan-bêl-uṣur to Širku, my lord. I pray to-day to Bêl and Nebo for the preservation of the life of my lord.
“Concerning the lambs which my lord sent, Bêl and Nebo indeed know that there is a lamb (for them) from thee. I have made the irrigation-channel and the wall. Behold, send thy servant with the sheep and thy servant with the lambs, and a command that they may cause a sheep to be brought up as an offering (?) to Nebo (?), for I have not acquired a single lamb for money. (On) the 20th day I worked for Šamaš; lo, (there were) 56—I caused 20 head to be bought for my lord from his hand. (As for) the garlic for the governor, which my lord bought, the lord of the fields (? the chief overseer), when he came, took possession of (it), and it was sold to the governor of the district of our fields for silver, but enough (?) thereof I have retained (?); and as my lord said thus: ‘Why hast thou not sent the messenger? the ground is suitable (?)—I sent thee a number (?) of (them).’ Let one messenger take thy message (?), and depart.”
Portions of this inscription, especially towards the end, being very obscure, the translation is not so sure as could be wished. Nevertheless, it may be taken as indicating fairly well the drift of the whole, and thus answer the purpose for which it is given, namely, to show what texts of this class generally refer to, and how excellently they reveal to us the conditions of Babylonian life at the time when they were written.
This tablet belongs to the reign of Darius Hystaspis, and is addressed to one of the most prominent men of Babylon at the time, Širku, otherwise “Marduk-naṣir-âblu, son of Iddinā, descendant of Êgibi.”(138) He was an active man, and his business transactions, which begin, as far as we have record of them, in the third year of the king named, consist of the usual loans, exchanges, purchases, sales, agreements, etc., which exist in large numbers during this period. In the third year of Darius he seems to have been in Elam, perhaps upon business of state, the name of a high Babylonian official being mentioned on the tablet which records this fact. Later on, he comes before us as a large owner and dealer in ships, some of which, of small size, he seems to have used for the construction of a bridge of boats. He owned Dâan-bêl-uṣur, the writer of the tablet translated above, Nanaa-bêl-uṣri, his wife, and their six children, who dwelt on his property in the city of Šuppatum. On one occasion, as recorded on a tablet in the Louvre, they formed part of the security for a sum of 45 mana of silver, advanced by Širku to Šarru-dûri, “the king’s captain, son of Idra’.” Further references to both master and slave will be found farther on.
As the tablets referring to life at Babylon are exceedingly numerous, and many of them have special interesting points of their own, a few selected specimens are here translated, and may be regarded as characteristic and typical in their class and subject.
A Loan Granted On Security At Erech.
“One mana of silver of Nabû-banî-âḫi, son of Ablaa, son of the gatekeeper, unto Bâbîa, son of Marduk-êreš, and Ša-Nanaa-šî, his wife. The door of the gatekeepers of the Salimu-gate, and his property, of (both) town and country, all there is, are the security of Nabû-banî-âḫi.
“Witnesses: Bêl-âḫê-iddina, son of Gudadū; Nabû-zēr-ukin, son of Sumâ; Nabû-zēr-ikîša, son of Ginnâ; and the scribe Mušêzib-Bêl, son of Nanaa-têreš. Erech, month Tisri, day 15th, year 21st, Nabû-kudurri-usur, king of Babylon.”
In all probability, the possession of the door carried with it the right of receiving any toll or dues connected therewith. As Nabû-banî-âhi, the lender, belonged to the family or clan of gatekeepers, he would not be regarded altogether as an interloper. The name of one of the borrowers, Bâbîa, “my gate,” is suggestive, and shows the enthusiasm of his parents for their profession.
The Work Upon A Plantation.
“144 qa (is the amount needed for) the seeding of the plantation of Nabû-šum-lîšir, which Nabû-šar-îlāni has taken for cultivation.(139) (During) 4 years, everything, whatever grows on the date-palms and in the earth, belongs to Nabû-šar-îlāni; (during the succeeding 4 ?) years a third, and 4 years (after that) a fourth. Nabû-šum-lîšir with Nabû-šar-îlāni (?) ... 10 years Nabû-šar-îlāni ... gardener of Nabû-šum-lîšir ... everything, whatever (gro)ws in the earth, belongs to Nabû-šar-îlāni.
“(The duty) of doing the work, digging (the irrigation-channels), raising (?) embankments (?), protecting the plantation, restoring what is wanting of the date-palms, raising water, Nabû-šar-îlāni undertakes. (If) he contravene (this contract), he shall compensate (to the extent of) 1 mana of silver.”
Here follow the names of three witnesses and the scribe, the date being—
“City of Sûqâain, month Elul, day 26th, year 11th, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
Sale Of An Ass.
“The ass of Ârad-Meme, son of Gimillu, descendant of Êpeš-ili, he (the owner) has sold to Šubabu-sara’, son of Temišâa, for half a mana six and a half shekels of silver. Êtillu, son of Rêmut, descendant of Dabibi (and) Nergal-iddina, son of Dâanu-Marduk, descendant of Lugal-arazū, guarantee the serviceableness of the ass. It is a branded ass, upon whose front is a mark.”
Here come the names of three witnesses and the scribe, followed by the date—
“City of the land of Ṣuma’, (or Ṣuba’), month Tammuz, day 16th, year 40th, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
From a tablet in the Edinburgh Museum it would seem that asses were branded to distinguish them, and that, in place of a mere mark, the name of the owner was somehow impressed. Cattle were marked with the letters of the Aramaic alphabet.
Jews And Babylonians During The Captivity.
“When Nabû-na’id, son of Nabû-gamil, brings his witness, and proves to Aâḫḫa’u, son of Šanîāwa, that Nabû-na’id has given the proceeds of 2-½ mana of silver to Aâḫḫa’u and Baruḫi-îlu, (then) the profit which has been made with them (the 2-½ mana) belongs to Nabû-na’id, and all right to the share which belongs to him remains—one do. (? share) (belongs to) Aâḫḫa’u. If the witness do not prove it, his property, as much as Nabû-na’id has taken, one do. (? share) he will return and will give to Aâḫḫa’u.
“Witnesses: Iddina-Marduk, son of Akkîa, Yašum-ma, son of Âḫê-šu; Balaṭ-su, son of Âḫê-šu, and the scribe, Nabû-âḫê-iddina, son of Êgibi. Upê (Opis), month Tammuz, day 21st, year 40th, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
Apparently it was a dispute about profits, which was to be settled, as was usual in such cases, by producing a witness. Šanîāwa is one of those names ending in iāwa which were certainly not Babylonian, and which are generally regarded as Israelite, like Šubunu-yāwa = Shebaniah; Nathanu-yāwa = Nathaniah, and many others; and its later form would probably be Shaniah. Baruḫi-îlu is probably for Baruchiel, and, if so, would show that the pronunciation of the aspirated k (ch) as ḫ (kh), common among Jews on the Continent and in the East, is of very ancient date.
The Dead Slave.
“On the 5th day of the month Kisleu, Šarru-kînu, son of Ammanu, will bring his witness to the city Piqudu (Pekod), and he will testify to Idiḫi-îli, son of Dînâ, that Idiḫi-îli sent to Šarru-kînu thus: ‘Do not litigate against me concerning thy slave who was killed—I will make up to thee the life of thy slave.’ If he prove it, Idiḫi-îli shall pay to Šarru-kînu 1 mana of silver, the price of his slave. If he do not prove it (he is free).”
After the names of three witnesses and the scribe, is the date—
“Upê, month Marcheswan, day 7th, year 40th, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, king of Babylon.”
A Right Of Way.
“Marduk-iriba, son of Rêmut, descendant of the Miṣirite,(140) and Kalbâ, son of Balaṭu, descendant of the chief of the construction (?), in their going forth, shall go forth over the brook; they have no power over the exit of the wall of the house of Nabû-âḫê-iddina, son of Šulâ, descendant of Êgibi; the exit of the wall of the house of Nabû-âḫê-iddina belongs to Nabû-âḫê-iddina.”
Here come the names of five witnesses, including the scribe, and then the date—
“Babylon, month of the later Adar, day 24th, year 1st, Nabû-na’id,(141) king of Babylon.”
The Story Of Abil-Addu-Nathanu And Bunanitum.
This is contained, as far as it is preserved, on a series of five tablets, four of which are in the British Museum, and the fifth in the Museum of Art at New York. Abil-Addu-nathānu would seem, from his name, which would be the West-Semitic Ben-Hadad-nathan, to have come from Damascus, and settled at Babylon, and afterwards at Borsippa. His wife Bunanitum (or Bunanith) was to all appearance a Babylonian.
The Purchase Of The House At Borsippa.
“7 canes, 5 cubits, 18 fingers, a built house, the territory of a plantation(142) which is within Borsippa, which Dâan-šum-iddina, son of Zērîa, descendant of Nabâa, has bought from Ibâ, son of Zillâ, descendant of the carpenter, for 11-½ mana of silver, for the price complete, by the authority of Abil-Addu-nathānu, son of Addîa, and Bunanitu, his wife, daughter of Ḫariṣâa. That house he has received, the silver of Abil-Addu-nathānu and Bunanitu as the price of the house has been given. Dâan-šum-iddina has no share in the house or the silver. The tablet which Dâan-šum-iddina has sealed in his name, he has given to Abil-Addu-nathānu and Bunanitu. The day a copy of the sealed document of the purchase or any contract for that house appears in the house of Dâan-šum-iddina or in any other place, it belongs to Abil-Addu-nathānu and Bunanitu.”
Here follow the names of four witnesses and two scribes. The date is—
“Babylon, month Shebat, day 24th, year 2nd, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
The agent through whom the purchase was made has to declare that no part of the property or the money belonged to him, hence the final clause of the contract, which was intended to prevent trouble at any future time.
At the end are the seal-impressions of the two scribes.
The Loan To Make Up The Sum Required To Purchase The Property.
“1-½ mana 8-½ shekels of silver of Iddina-Marduk, son of Ikîšā, descendant of Nûr-Sin, upon (= due from) Abil-Addu-nathānu, son of Addîa, and Bunanitu, his wife. It increases to them monthly at the rate of 1 shekel of silver upon each mana. They shall pay the interest from the month Sivan of the 5th year of Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon. The silver was the balance of the silver for the price of a house, which was paid to Ibâ. They shall pay the interest monthly.”
After the names of two witnesses and the scribe comes the date—
“Barsip (Borsippa), month Iyyar, day 3rd, year 5th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.”
As this tablet was written two years and three months after the house at Borsippa was bought, it is clear that the money had been advanced, but the indebtedness of Abil-Addu-nathānu had not been placed, until the date of the second tablet, on a legal footing. Probably he intended to pay the money, but had not the wherewithal, and this being the case, the lender agreed to allow the debt to remain unpaid, stipulating only that the interest should be paid at the usual rate of one mana upon every mana monthly. As will be seen from the other documents, the principal was not paid for many years after this. There is no record whether any payment of interest had been made in the meanwhile, but, in any case, the rate is far beyond what at the present time is considered fair.
A First Payment Made After The Death Of Abil-Addu-Nathānu.
This is a small tablet similar in shape to the last, and is now preserved in the Museum of Art at New York.
“8 shekels of silver Iddina-Marduk, son of Ikîšā, descendant of Nûr-Sin, has received from the hands of Bunanitu, with the first payment, which (has been made) since the death of Ablada-nathanu, her husband, from the interest of his money. In the presence of Tabnêa, son of Nabū-âḫê-iddina, descendant of the priest of ...; Nabû-kain-âbli, son of Marduk-šum-ibnî, descendant of Dannu-Nabû. Barsip (Borsippa), month Adar, day 18th, year 8th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.
“There is to be no abatement (?).”
As the loan was contracted in the second year of Nabonidus, it cannot be said that Iddina-Marduk had been by any means pressing in the matter. The numerous documents which exist show that the Babylonians were good at making contracts, but they were probably not so strict in keeping them, and certainly not so merciless (to judge from the history here unfolded) as the people of the modern West in enforcing them.
The phonetic spelling of the name of the husband, Ablada-nathānu, is interesting, as it shows the Babylonian pronunciation. Ben-Addu-nathan, however, was a possible form, and may have been even a fairly common one.
The Legal Action After The Death Of Abil-Addu-Nathānu.
“Bunanitu, daughter of Ḫariṣâa, said thus to the judges of Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon—
“ ‘Abil-Addu-nathān, son of Nikmadu’, had me to wife, and he took 3-½ mana of silver as my dowry, and one daughter I bore to him. I and Abil-Addu-nathān, my husband, traded with the silver of my dowry, and we bought 8 canes, a built house, the territory of a large property,(143) which was within Barsip, for 9-2/3 of a mana of silver, with 2-½ mana of silver which was from Iddina-Marduk, son of Ikîšā, descendant of Nûr-Sin, as balance, and we fixed (it) as the price of that house, and we paid and received it together. In the 4th year of Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon, I made an agreement with Abil-Addu-nathān, my husband, concerning my dowry, and Abil-Addu-nathān, in the kindness of his heart, sealed the 8 canes, (and) that house which is within Barsip, and bequeathed it to me for future days, and on my tablet made it known thus: ‘2-½ mana of silver, which Abil-Addu-nathān and Bunanitu took from Iddina-Marduk, and paid as the price of that house, they received together.’ He sealed that tablet, and wrote thereon the curse of the great gods. In the 5th year of Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon, I and Abil-Addu-nathān, my husband, took Abil-Addu-amara as our son, and wrote the tablet of his sonship, and made known 2 mana 10 shekels of silver and the furniture of a house as the dowry of Nûbtâ, my daughter. Fate took my husband, and now Aqabi-îlu, the son of my father-in-law, has laid claim upon the house and everything which had been sealed and bequeathed to me, and upon Nabû-nûr-îli, (the slave) whom we had acquired by the hands of Nabû-âḫê-iddina for silver. I have brought it before you, make a decision.
“The judges heard their words, they read the tablets and contracts which Bunanitu brought before them, and they caused Aqabi-îlu not to have power over the house at Barsip, which had been bequeathed to Bunanitu instead of her dowry, over Nabû-nûr-îli, whom she and her husband had bought for silver, or over anything of Abil-Addu-nathānu; Bunanitu and Abil-Addu-amara, by their tablets, they caused to be confirmed. Iddina-Marduk pleads for (?), and will receive, the 2-½ mana of silver which had been given towards the price of that house. Afterwards Bunanitu will receive the 3-½ mana of silver, her dowry, and her share besides. Nûbtâ will receive Nabû-nûr-îli, according to the contracts of her father.
“By the decision of this judgment.
“Nergal-banû-nu, the judge, son of the builder; “Nabû-âḫê-iddina, the judge, son of Êgibi; “Nabû-šum-ukîn, the judge, son of Irani; “Bêl-âḫê-iddina, the judge, son of ... “Bêl-êṭir, the judge, son of ... “Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî, the judge, son of ... “Nadinu, the scribe, son of ... “Nabû-šum-iškun, the scribe, son of the ... “Babylon, month Elul, day 26th, year 9th, Nabûna’id, king of Babylon.”
Two copies of this document exist, neither of them being the original. They were probably made for persons interested in the result of the judgment.
It has been suggested that the claim of Aqabi-îlu to all his brother’s property was based upon the fact that he was the eldest of the family. This, however, is hardly likely to have been the case, the Babylonian law concerning the wife’s dowry—i.e. that it was her own in any event—being clear and incontrovertible. The probability therefore is, that he claimed the property hoping that she might not be able to prove her right. The clear statements of this document, and the common-sense judgment delivered by Nabonidus’s judges are full of simplicity and dignity, and show well the Babylonian character.
The Final Repayment Of The Loan To Iddina-Marduk.
A tablet recording the payment of interest has already been translated (p. 461), and from that it would seem that no repayment on account of the money lent to Abil-Addu-nathānu and Bunanitu took place until after the former’s death. When the last payment was made is unknown, but it must have been some time after the lawsuit. From the portion of the tablet recording it, it would seem that the amount remaining to be paid was 2 mana and 10 shekels, which was paid jointly by Abil-Addu-amari and “Bunaniti, his mother,” who probably lived on the property with him and her daughter.
Thus ends the life-story of this Babylonian family, as far as at present known.
In addition to the names Abil-addu-nathānu and Abil-Addu-amara (or -amari), both of which contain the name of the deity Abil-Addu or Ben-Hadad, the name of the brother, Aqabi-îlu, is interesting. It is naturally a synonym of a Hebrew name found under the form of Aqabi-yāwa, the Talmudic Aqabiah, with -yāwa or -iāwa for -iah, as in Šanîāwa, which appears on p. 458.
Ê-Sagila-Râmat And Her Father-In-Law’s Slave.
“Ikîšā, son of Kudurru, descendant of Nûr-Sin, sealed a tablet of adoption for Rêmanni-Bêl, his slave, whose name is called Rêmut, for the giving of his food and his clothing. Rêmanni-Bêl, whose name is called Rêmut, after he had sealed the tablet of his adoption, ran away, and he did not give him food, oil, and clothing. Ê-sagila-râmat, daughter of Zērîa, descendant of Nabâa, wife of Iddina-Marduk, son of Ikîšā, descendant of Nûr-Sin, reverenced him, feared him, and befriended him, and gave him food, oil, and clothing. Ikîšā, son of Kudurru, descendant of Nûr-Sin, in the joy of his heart, annulled the tablet of the adoption of Rêmanni-Bêl, and sealed and bequeathed him to Ê-sagila-râmat and Nûbtâ, her daughter, daughter of Iddina-Marduk, descendant of Nûr-Sin. He shall reverence Ê-sagila-râmat and Nûbtâ, her daughter. Afterwards Ê-sagila-râmat shall leave him to Nûbtâ, her daughter. Whoever changes these words, and destroys the contract Ikîšā has drawn up and given to Ê-sagila-râmat and Nûbtâ, her daughter, may Merodach and Zēr-panitum command his destruction.”
The names of four witnesses and the scribe follow. Date: “Babylon, month Iyyar, day 9th, year 13th, Nabû-na’id, king of Babylon.” Postscript: “At the sitting of Bissā, daughter of Ikîšā, descendant of Nûr-Sin.”
From this it would seem that Ikîšā made Rêmanni-Bêl his heir, freeing him from the position of a bondsman, in exchange for his (Ikîšā’s) keep, but that Rêmanni-Bêl, declining the advantage and the responsibility, ran away, whereupon the burden fell upon Ikîšā’s daughter-in-law, Ê-sagila-râmat. This the last-named seems to have undertaken willingly, and in return, Ikîšā annulled Rêmanni-Bêl’s adoption, and bequeathed him, as a slave, to Ê-sagila-râmat and her daughter. Means probably existed for bringing back the runaway, when the news of his return to his old condition would be communicated to him. Ê-sagila-râmat’s husband, Iddina-Marduk, is the one who advanced to Abil-Addu-nathānu and Bunanitu the money to make up the price of their house.
Iddina-Nabû Sells His Egyptian Slave And Her Infant.
“Iddina-Nabû, son of Mušêzib-Bêl, has cheerfully sold Nanaa-ittîa, his slave, and her daughter, a child of three months, Egyptians captured by his bow, for 2 mana of silver, the complete price, to Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, son of Nabû-âḫê-iddina, descendant of Êgibi. Iddina-Nabû has received the money, 2 mana of silver, the price of Nanaa-ittîa and her daughter, from the hands of Itti-Marduk-balaṭu. Iddina-Nabû guarantees against the existence of any liability of defeasor (?), legal claimant, royal service, or freedmanship with regard to Nanaa-ittîa and her daughter.”
Here come the names of four witnesses and the scribe.
“Babylon, month Kisleu, day 23rd, year 6th, Kambuzîa (Cambyses), king of Babylon.
“Besides the contract of 240 gur of fruit, from Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, which was unto (or due from) Iddina-Nabû.”
This document may be held to testify to the reality of Cambyses’ campaign in Egypt, which took place in his 5th year (525 B.C.). It is also a proof that the Babylonians took part in the campaign.
It is noteworthy that three copies of this document exist, one being in the British Museum, another in the Museum of Art at New York, and the third in the museum founded by the late Sir Henry Peek at Lyme Regis. The tablet recording the contract for the 240 gur of fruit also exists, and is preserved in the British Museum.
Among the tablets of the time of Nabonidus, translations of all the records known which refer to the family of Ben-Hadad-nathan or Abil-Addu-nāthanu have been given, and examination of the numerous other tablets of the reigns of his predecessors and his successors down to the time of Darius, and perhaps Xerxes, shows that similar more or less complete family histories could be made. One of the most interesting of these, and the most complete on account of the number of documents (by far the greater number of the contracts from Babylon and its neighbourhood, of the period to which he belongs, contain his name) are those referring to Širku, a tablet from whose slave Dâan-bêl-uṣur has been given above (p. 454). This man’s history has been tentatively dealt with by the present author in Part IV. of the catalogue of tablets belonging to the late Sir Henry Peek. From a tablet in the Louvre, we find that Širku was not his real name, but that he was called Marduk-naṣir-âbli. The curious thing about this double naming of Širku, however, is that the majority of the tablets where he is called Širku say that he was the son of Iddina, and the majority of those calling him Marduk-naṣir-âbli say that he is the son of Itti-Marduk-balaṭu. Fortunately documents exist reversing this parentage, and showing conclusively that Širku and Marduk-naṣir-âbli are one and the same personage. Were it otherwise, we should have to credit his slaves with two masters, and his wife with two husbands, a state of things probably unknown in Babylonia.
From a tablet dated in the first year of Darius, we learn that he bought a field before the great gate of Uraš in the province of Babylon, this field being beside that of his wife Âmat-Bau, which she had brought as her dowry. Other documents record that he made loans of silver and produce, both alone and associated with his brothers. In these his proper name is generally used, but sometimes he was called Širku. The hiring and letting of houses, the buying and selling of slaves, etc., are also recorded of them. In the third year of Darius he and his brothers came into considerable property in Babylon, sharing it among them, and there is also record of Marduk-naṣir-âbli paying his father’s debts. This increase in their resources naturally enabled them to deal in the produce of their fields, and in all probability they managed his wife’s as well, whilst there is at least one record that she lent money on her own account. To enumerate all the interesting points which the tablets reveal to us concerning their various transactions, however, would naturally take too much time and space.
In exchange for the slave Dâan-bêl-uṣur, the slave’s wife, their six children, and a cornfield upon the canal called Ṭupašu, which Marduk-naṣir-âbli gave to his wife Âmat-Bau, he received from her two sums of silver and one of gold, a ring, and two slaves, who had been part of her dowry. The slaves he gave her, though now her property, were in all probability still at his disposition, but Dâan-bêl-uṣur seems to have served him so well when in charge of his affairs, that after having parted with him, though only to his wife, he must have found, to his regret, that he and his family were naturally not so much at his disposition as when he could call them his own.
Under the name of Marduk-naṣir-âbli, he appears before us principally in the character of an agriculturalist and dealer in produce, combining with this money-lending on occasion. As Širku, he dealt largely in ships, and apparently also in boats for pontoon bridges. In the fifth year of Darius he was in Elam, and there is a reference to the sending to him of a messenger, “with the charioteers of Bêl-âbla-iddina, captain of Babylon.” Many years afterwards Širku is said to have received the rent of a house situated “upon the giššu of Borsippa,” and the question naturally arises, whether giššu may not be for gišru, “bridge,” though a house upon a bridge crossing a comparatively narrow canal near Babylon is certainly not what one would expect.
On the 16th of Sivan in the twenty-sixth year of Darius, Širku was the scribe who drew up a contract referring to two ships, one apparently for service on the Euphrates, the other for the bridge. Later on, he borrowed some money upon the security of two of his female slaves, Mušêzibtum and Narû, the wrist of the former being inscribed with the name of one of his relations, the other with his own name, Širku (it is given as Šišku on the tablet). This loan is distinctly stated to be for the purpose of acquiring “a ship for the bridge” (êlippu ša giširi), and this he seems to have bought two months later, unless there was another contract for a vessel which has not come down to us. In the Peek collection is a large tablet referring to the completed bridge, the traffic upon it, and the ships moored to it, suggesting that a portion of it at least was used as a quay or landing-stage. More research is needed, however, ere its precise nature will be clear—perhaps the etymology is misleading, and gišru or giširu means, in Babylonian, “pier” or “landing-stage” simply.
The following is one of the inscriptions which refer to his hiring a ship—
“(Concerning) the ship of Iddina-Bêl which is with Šamaš-iddina, son of Bêl-iddina, for navigation. He has given the ship for hire as far as bištum ša ṣêrûa (= birtum ša ṣêrûa, ‘the fortress of ṣêrûa’) for 1/3 of a mana of white silver, coined, to Širik (Širku), son of Iddinā, descendant of Êgibi. The silver, 1/3 of a mana, the hire of the ship, and its provisions, he has received. The ship shall not cross the great (water), if it pass, he shall pay 5 mana of silver. Each has taken (a copy of this contract).”
The names of three witnesses and the scribe follow this, after which is the date—
“Babylon, month Adar, day 6th, year 26th, Darius, king of Babylon and countries.”
The tablets in which Marduk-naṣir-âbli, alias Širku, are mentioned, prove that Babylonia maintained its character as a maritime nation to a very late date. As, however, voyages on the ocean are not provable, it is doubtful whether their ships sailed to any great distance—in all probability they confined themselves to making coast-voyages only. Judging from the penalty attached to taking the ship across the great (water), the question naturally arises, whether the sea (the Persian Gulf) may not have been intended. The word used in the original is rabbu, which would then correspond with the last word of the poetic expression, “the rolling main.”
Such, as far as space allows, was life at Babylon and the chief cities of Babylonia, where the Israelites dwelt for so many years, and colonies of them existed until a very late date, as the drinking bowls inscribed with charms against sickness and evil spirits in Hebrew and Aramaic show. Some of the Hebrew names contained in the tablets from Babylonia have already been referred to (p. 458), and to these several others may be added, such as Banāwa or Beniah; Gamariāwa or Gemariah; Malakiāwa or Malchiah, who had a son bearing the heathen name of Nergal-êṭir; together with several similarly-formed but otherwise unknown names (as was to be expected). Examples of these are, Azziāwa, Ḫuliāwa, Nirîāwa and Agirîāwa. The Gemariah mentioned above was witness, with his compatriot Barikîa (Berechiah) and others, on the occasion when Ša-Nabû-duppu sold Nanaa-silim, his Bactrian slave-girl. The scribe’s name on this occasion was Marduka (Mordecai), son of Épeš-îli. Mordecai means “the Merodachite,” and is interesting as showing how Babylonian monotheism, such as it was, reconciled the Jews to accept what they would otherwise have regarded as a heathen name.
Interesting in the extreme would it be, if we could know what the Jews thought of the country and the city of their captivity. In that enormous walled tract known as the city of Babylon were large open spaces covered with gardens, and cornfields, and orchards, mostly, perhaps almost exclusively, of date-palms, the fruit of which formed such an important part of the food of the people. These were the trees, in all probability, on which the Jewish captives hung their harps when, in their captivity, they mourned for the city of Sion, from which they were so far away. The rivers of Babylon, of which the well-known psalm speaks, were the Tigris and the Euphrates, with the innumerable canals and watering-channels which the nature of the country rendered so necessary to the fertility and productiveness of the land, and without which it would have been a desert.
There, too, they looked upon the buildings of old time, the fanes which were there when their forefather Abraham was a dweller in the land, changed, doubtless, beyond recognition. Chief among these was the great temple of Belus, joined to the tower called “the temple of the foundation of heaven and earth,” and which Nebuchadnezzar speaks of as “the tower of Babylon.” There, too, were the shrines dedicated to Zēr-panitum, consort of Merodach, the goddess Nin-maḫ; Nebo, the god of wisdom; Sin, the Moon-god; Šamaš, the Sun-god; Gula, the goddess of healing, and many other divinities. Whilst the Jews were there, they must have seen many of this king’s building operations—the strengthening of the fortresses and the walls, and the repair and extension of the moats and ditches; the raising of the level of the great street, Aa-ibûr-sabû (the remains of which have just been found by the German explorers on the site of the city), along which, yearly, at the beginning of the year, processions went, and the images of the gods were in all probability carried. Then there was the rebuilding of the royal palace, with its roof and doors of cedar, the latter being also overlaid with bronze, probably after the manner of the bronze gates of Shalmaneser found by Mr. Rassam at Balawat. The thresholds were also of bronze, and the palace was adorned, in other parts, with gold, silver, precious stones, and various other costly things.
They must have seen, also, the construction, between the two great fortifications called Imgur-Bêl and Nē-mitti-Bêl, of that great building which was to serve as a castle and a royal residence at the same time. This was in connection with the old palace of Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar’s father, built, as already stated, in a fortnight. Chief among the shrines restored by Nebuchadnezzar with great magnificence must be mentioned Ê-kua, the sanctuary of Merodach, in the temple Ê-sagila (the temple of Belus), and that called Du-azaga (“the glorious seat”), otherwise described as “the place of fate,” where yearly, on the new year’s festival (the 8th and 9th of Nisan) the statue of the god Merodach, “the king of the gods of heaven and earth,” was placed, and the king’s future declared on the question being put. Doubtless the glory of the place attracted not a few, causing them to decide to stay there permanently, and these, mingling with the native population, were lost to Israel, like their brethren of the ten tribes, and even as Nergal-êṭir, son of Malakiāwa (see above) seems to have been.
XIII. THE DECLINE OF BABYLON
The Jews who remained at Babylon and other cities of the land—Alexander the Great’s intentions with regard to the city, and the result of their non-fulfilment—A Babylonian lamentation dated in the reign of Seleucus Nicator and his son—The desolation of the city after the foundation of Seleucia—The temples still maintained—Antiochus Epiphanes and the introduction of Greek worship—His invasion of Egypt—The Arsacidæ—A contract of the time of Hyspasines—Materials for history—Further records of the time of the Arsacidæ—The latest date of Babylonian worship—The Christians of Irak or Babylonia.
Notwithstanding the return of large numbers of Jews to Jerusalem, a considerable portion of the nation had become attached to the land of their captivity, and remained in Babylon and the other cities of Chaldea, as well as in Persia. These, no longer captives, but settlers by their own free will, had probably decided to stay in the land either from the desire to continue the businesses which they had started there, the relinquishing of which would have meant, in all probability, ruin to themselves and their families; or because of aged relatives for whom the journey to Jerusalem, however much they might have desired it, would have been an impossibility; or because of official and civil positions which they held either at court or in the employment of rich or influential personages, by whose support they hoped to be able to aid their compatriots; or because of the attractions of a great city, whose origins must for them have possessed a special interest (notwithstanding the horrors of the captivity which their forebears must have experienced there), and whose position for thousands of years as the capital of a large province gave it a preponderating influence, not only in the country of which it was the capital, but in all the civilized world at the time.
This being the case, there numbers of the Jews stayed, and there they witnessed the gradual departure of the sceptre from that city which one of their own writers had described as the glory of kingdoms, and the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency. After the passing of the kingdom into the hands of the alien Persian kings, things went on as usual under their rule for a considerable time—the people lived on their land, and bought and sold, and transacted their ordinary business, and trade seems to have been good (judging from the number of documents which have been preserved) until the end of the reign of Darius Hystaspis. Thereafter there was either a great falling off, or else the documents were deposited in other places, or a more perishable material was used for them. In any case, they become comparatively scarce, and their rarity may be due to the departure of trade from the capital, brought about by the removal of the court from Babylon, and the consequent migration of her merchants to other places.
Things had been going, in fact, from bad to worse for Babylon, and among the clay records left, some of the royal names which we should like to see are to all appearance absent. It was still, however, a place of great importance, when, in the year 331 B.C., it opened its gates to Alexander the Great, surrendering, like Susa and Persepolis, without striking a blow. Doubtless to them it was perfectly indifferent under which foreign potentate they lived, and a change in that respect could not make their condition worse, and might be to their advantage. Had he not died long before the term which nature has fixed, the city might have taken upon it such a renewed lease of life as would have caused it to exist as a great capital to the present day. As it happened, the Babylonians began to see their fondest hopes realized, for it must soon have become noised abroad that the new conqueror of Asia intended to make Babylon his Eastern capital, and they saw the clearing away of the rubbish which was the preliminary to the restoration of the great and renowned temple of Belus, Ê-sagila (or Ê-sangil as they called it at that time), actually proceeding, not only during the reign of Alexander, but also during that of his successor, Philip, as well. The mental calibre of the latter, however, who came to the throne on the death of Alexander in the year 323 B.C., must soon have told the Babylonians that the realization of his great predecessor’s schemes was hopeless, and the downward course of the city’s star, arrested as it were for a moment, soon began again.
The next change of rulers was that following upon the unworthy bearing of Antigonus with regard to Seleucus, Alexander the Great’s favoured general, who had espoused his claims to the throne of the Eastern empire. After aiding Ptolemy of Egypt against Demetrius, son of Antigonus, he set out with a small force, and gathering recruits in his course, especially among the Babylonians, with whom he was popular, he entered their capital without opposition in 312 B.C., from which date the era of the Seleucidæ is regarded as beginning. How the Babylonians took the foundation of Seleucia on the Tigris, which is often mentioned in the numerous astrological tablets of this period, is not recorded, but from the way in which they speak of the migration of the inhabitants of Babylonia to Seleucia implies that they took it greatly to heart.
“Blessed shall he be who serveth thee as thou hast served us,” sang the Psalmist when lamenting the captivity of the Jews at Babylon, and if success in conquest be a sign of blessedness, then Seleucus must have been happy indeed. The Babylonians could not have regarded the continual and increasing desolation of their city with indifference, however, and it is not impossible that their loyalty to their king suffered somewhat in consequence. This, to all appearance, found vent in expressions of regret, and an old lamentation, referring to the depredations of the Qutû at a period so remote that we can hardly, at this distance of time, estimate, and of which a copy was made for a certain Bêl-zēr-lîšir, might well express their feelings at this period:
“For the misfortunes of Erech, for the misfortunes of Agadé, I am stricken. The Erechitess wept, that departed was her might, the Agaditess wept, that departed was her glory (?); The daughter of Erech wept, the daughter of Agadé cried aloud; As for the daughter of Larancha, in her garment her face was hidden. The Ḫursagkalamitess wept, that her husband was in trouble; The Ḫulḫutḫulitess wept, that cast down was her sceptre; The Mašitess wept, that her 7 brothers were slain, that her brother-in-law was stricken. The Agaditess wept, that her elder was slain, the lord of her well-being; The Kešitess wept—they have wrought destruction (?) for the name of her house: ‘My helpers are shattered’; The Dunnaitess wept, ‘Who has a resting-place, who has leave to go forth? Whose is it to defeat (?) the enemy, (with) the exits cut off?’ The daughter of Niffer wept, for the raging (?) Qutû assembled, She bowed down her face on account of the trouble of the husband of her well-being. The Dûr-îlitess wept, for the Qutû collected, For the son of her city destroyed, the overthrow of her father’s house. Weep for Erech, ravaging (and) shame has she received— As for me, in the storm a place of refuge I know not. Weep for Larancha (for the spoiling?) of (my) mantle I am in trouble. My eyes see not my ..., the mothers are cut off from the child. Weep for Niffer, as for me, (with) abundance of affliction (?) Heaven has bound me fast; The throne of my glory has been caused to pass away from me; The bridegroom, the husband of my well-being, Bêl has taken away from me.”
“Like its original written, made clear, and acquired.
Tablet of Bêl-zēr-lîšir, son of Bêl-âba-usur, descendant of the sculptor.
(By) the hands of Bêl-bulliṭ-su, his son. He who fears the king shall not take (?) (this) tablet (?) away.
“Babylon, month Elul, day 15th, year 25th, Siluku and Antiukusu (Seleucus and Antiochus), king of countries.
By those same “rivers of Babylon” where the Israelites had mourned in captivity, thinking of Jerusalem, there the Babylonians themselves came at last to lament the departed glories of their land. Many a time, it is true, they had seen the country which was their fatherland overrun by enemies, but it had always recovered, and risen to a greater height of prosperity. This time, however, there was to be no healing of her wound. The large and well-peopled space within the walls of the great city gradually became uninhabited, and the houses fell into ruin. A time even came at last when the great walls had to be demolished—or at least practically so—in order that they might not afford protection to the lawless bands which infested the country, and were only too ready to make the most of such an advantage.
Notwithstanding the desolation of the city, however, a certain number of people continued to inhabit the site, probably officials of the temples (whose services still continued), and tradesmen who supplied the wants of those whose duty held them attached to the place. Here, year after year, the usual sacrifices were offered to the old gods of the Babylonians, especially “My Lord and Lady,” i.e. Bêl (Merodach) and Beltis (Zēr-panitum, his consort), and prayers were made for the king at the time reigning, and also for his sons (if he had any). That inscriptions may come to light which will show more clearly the state of things in that vast ruined city is exceedingly probable, and a sufficient number of tablets referring to this period are known to exist even now, and show in some measure the state of the city and the kind of people who dwelt in such parts of it as had been reserved for that purpose.
To those who inhabited Babylon’s desolation, the most important thing, in all probability, was the worship, with all the old rites and ceremonies, of the deities whose temples and shrines still existed there. But those old priests and temple scribes occupied their time in another way, namely, the keeping of careful records of every historical event for the purpose of being able to tell the future. These historical notices are preceded by indications of the positions of the moon and the planets, together with the price of grain or other produce, during the period referred to. The positions of the planets, etc., were combined afterwards, by the “monthly prognosticators,” with the historical happenings, for the purpose of foretelling events, which at that late period was probably done much more systematically than during earlier ages, to the great advantage of the modern student of this period.
The following will give an idea of these historical notices:—
(Month Ab, 143rd year, Anti’ukusu, king = 168 B.C., reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.)
“An., the king, marched victoriously among the cities of the land of Meluḫḫa, and ... the people (puliṭē(144) the Greek πολίτης) (constructed?) idols (puppē, evidently a Greek word, probably meaning ‘images of gods’) and works like a shrine (of?) the Greek(s?)....”
The inscription then goes on to speak of the appointment of a zazak (apparently a grade of priests) by the king, the handing to him of the gold in the treasury of Ê-saggil for the great (shrine) of Bêl, the (dedication?) of an unsuitable or an untimely image of the god Uru-gala on the 8th day of the month, and other similar occurrences. From the lines translated above, it will be seen that the Babylonians had not by any means escaped from the influence of Greek civilization, not only Greek words, but also, to all appearance, Greek gods and shrines having made their appearance. The word used in speaking of the image of the god Uru-gala is tamšil, but the things which the citizens made were puppē, possibly used like our word “idol.” It is possibly to this period, or a little later, that the transcriptions into Greek of Babylonian tablets (which promise to be of considerable value for the study of the Assyro-Babylonian language) belong.
If the translation given above be correct, it would confirm the account in the second book of Maccabees (vi. 2), from which it would appear that this ruler tried to habituate the Jews to Greek customs, and also to the Greek religion, going even so far as “to pollute also the temple in Jerusalem, and to call it the temple of Jupiter Olympus; and that in Garizim, of Jupiter the Defender of strangers, as they did desire that dwelt in the place” (vi. 2). “The abomination of desolation” which was set on the altar at Jerusalem (1 Macc. i. 54) is understood by commentators to mean an idol-altar, though almost any heathen image would suit the sense, and a statue of a god, with or without a shrine, might be meant. The reference to Meluḫḫa in all probability refers to one of his expeditions to Egypt, and is generally supposed to indicate Ethiopia.
Another change which the Babylonians experienced was when the rule of their Greek masters was exchanged for that of the Parthians, and the Seleucidæ gave way to the Arsacidæ. Concerning the period of the change, and the way in which it came about, very little is known. The varied fortunes of the Seleucid princes is illustrated by the fact that a satrap of Media named Timarchus, in 161-160 B.C., had succeeded in proclaiming himself king of Babylon; and from 153-139 B.C., Arsaces VI. (Mithridates I.) was in possession of all the district east of the Euphrates—Babylonia, Elam, and Persia. After his death, however, all this portion seems to have returned to the rule of the Seleucidæ, and their era was in all probability restored. After the death of Antiochus Sidetes, in 129 B.C., the province of Kharacene became independent under a ruler named Hyspasines or Spasines, who, two years later, seems to have made himself master of Babylon. An interesting tablet dated in the reign of this king (who used the Seleucian era) shows something of the state of things on the site of the old city, and that somewhat vividly.
(The inscription is preceded by five introductory lines, which are unfortunately imperfect, but do not seem to affect the transaction as a whole.)
“In the month Iyyar, the 24th day, year 185th, Aspāsinē (being) king, Bêl-lûmur, director of Ê-saggil, and the Babylonians, the congregation of Ê-saggil, took counsel together, and said thus—
“’Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, chief of the construction over the artificers (?) of the houses of the gods, scribe of Anu-Bêl, son of Iddin-Bêl, who formerly stood (?) at the side of Aspāsinē, the king, who (relieved?) want in the gate of the king; lo, this is for Bêl-âḫê-uṣur and Nabû-mušêtiq-ûrri, his sons—
“ ‘(As) they find the whole of his keep, a sum (?) has been collected (?) in the presence of the aforesaid Bêl-lûmur and the Babylonians, the congregation of Ê-saggil.
“ ‘From this day of this year we will give 1 mana of silver, the sustenance of Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, for their father, to Bêl-âḫê-uṣur and Nabû-mušêtiq-ûrri, from our (own) necessities. The amount, as much as Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, their father, has taken, they shall keep for (his) keep, and they shall give the grant for this year.’
“(Done along) with Bêl-šunu; Nûr; Muranu; Iddin-Bêl; Bêl-uṣur-šu, the scribe of Anu-Bêl, and the deputy-scribes of Anu-Bêl.”(145)
Though the translation is necessarily, from the mutilation of the text, not altogether satisfactory, certain items of information which it contains will hardly admit of doubt. There were still inhabitants of the city, there were temple-servants, who were probably under a kind of overseer of the works, and these apparently attended to all the temples. Whether this man was too old to work or not is doubtful, but it would seem that it was considered too much that his sons should keep him altogether, hence the drawing up of the document here quoted.
It is noteworthy that, instead of Merodach, or Bêl-Merodach, the god of Babylon, who became the chief deity of all Babylonia, a new deity appears, namely, Anu-Bêl, i.e. Anu the Lord, or, paraphrased, the Lord God of Heaven, probably the god Merodach identified with Anu. The religion of the Babylonians probably underwent many changes during this later period, when those who belonged to it came into contact with foreigners, many of them most intelligent men, whose teaching must have had with them great weight.
Another important inscription, in the British Museum, gives many details of the period of this little-known king, Aspāsinē. From this we learn that the Elamites made incursions in the neighbourhood of the Tigris. Pilinussu, the general in Akkad, apparently carried on operations against another general, and seems to have gone to the cities of the Medes before Bāgā-asā, the brother of the king. A man named Te’udišī also seems to have opposed the general in Akkad. Yet another inscription of the same period states that Ti’imūṭusu, son of Aspāsinē, went from Babylon to Seleucia (on the Tigris), showing that the former renowned place was still regarded as one of the cities of the land. At this time one of the opponents of Aspāsinē’s generals was “Pittit, the enemy, the Elamite.” Elam, to its whole extent, was smitten with the sword, and Pittit (was slain, or captured). Sacrifices were made to Bel, probably on account of this victory.
Similar inscriptions of the time of the Arsacidean rule in Babylonia also exist, and would probably be useful if published. Unfortunately, they are all more or less damaged and mutilated, but of those which I have been able to make notes of, one may be worth quoting. The following extract will show its nature:—
“This month I heard thus: Aršakā the king and his soldiers departed to the city of Arqania.... (I) heard thus: The Elamite and his soldiers departed to battle before the city Apam’a which is upon the river Ṣilḫu....”
The remainder is very mutilated, and requires studying in conjunction with all the other inscriptions of the same class, though even then much must necessarily be doubtful.
In many of these inscriptions each of the long paragraphs ends with a reference to the sacrifices which had been made in the temples of Babylon among the ruins, and sometimes, though rarely, they refer to something of the nature of an omen. The following will serve as an example:—
“... descended to Babylon from Seleucia which is upon the Tigris. Day 10, the governor of Akkad ... the congregation of Ê-saggil, (sacrificed) one ox and 4 lambs in the gate Ka-dumu-nuna of Ê-saggil, (and) made (prayer for the lif)e of the king and his preservation. On the 5., one ox and 3 lambs (they sacrificed). The congregation of Baby]lon came to Ka-dumu-nuna of Ê-saggil, offerings like the former ones were made ... went forth from Sippar. This month a goat brought forth, and the litter was 15.”
Contract-tablets, some of them of a very late date indeed, within a decade or two of the Christian era, show that the temples still existed, and that sacrifices and services still went on, probably uninterruptedly, at the temples of Babylon, and this implies that, though the country had no national existence, the beliefs of the people survived for many centuries the downfall of their power. In all probability, what took place at Babylon had its counterpart in other places in the country—the fanes renowned of old—as well. Indeed, it is known that, at the most perfectly preserved of the temple-towers of Babylonia at the present day—that at Borsippa, now and for many centuries known as the Birs Nimroud, “the tower (as it is explained) of Nimrod,”—the services and worship were continued as late as the fourth century of the Christian era. The worship of Nebo, the god of wisdom, or, rather, letters, had always been extremely popular, hence, in all probability, the continuation of his cult until this late date. But this was to all appearance the last remnant of the powerful and picturesque creed of old Babylon, and details of its slow and gradual disappearance from the religious beliefs of the world would probably be as interesting as the story of its growth and development.
“The Church at Babylon,” mentioned in 1 Peter v. 13, is generally understood allegorically, as of the Church in the world, or that in the great Babylon of the time when the apostle wrote, namely, Rome. Though it is unknown whether a Christian Church existed in his time anywhere in Babylonia, it is probably certain that the native Christians of Baghdad (and ’Irāq in general) are pure descendants of the ancient Babylonians, to whom, in form and stature, as well as in character, and their tendency to progress, they have a great likeness. The same may be said of the native Christians of Assyria.
Could we but know the history of Assyria at this period, it is very probable that we should find it to resemble in certain things—perhaps in the main—that of Babylonia after her downfall. From the religious point of view, also, there must have been similarity. They, too, knew the worship of the “merciful Merodach,” to them a type of Christ, and his father Êa (from whom he obtained the means of helping mankind), in name and position a type of Jah, God the Father, whom the Christians worshipped. But we shall never in all probability know whether they thus analyzed and compared the two faiths, though it is very possible that they did, for it is said that the Egyptians were attracted to Christianity by the comparison of Christ with their Osiris. Such, however, is the tendency of the mind of mankind. Ever unwilling to break with the old, he seeks for some analogy in the new, to form a bridge whereby to pass to higher things. Minor deities have ever tended to become Christian saints, and such may have been—indeed, probably was—the case with the Babylonians and the Assyrians.
APPENDIX. THE STELE INSCRIBED WITH THE LAWS OF ḪAMMURABI
This monument was found at Susa, in the excavations undertaken by the French Government, by MM. de Morgan and Prof. V. Scheil. It is a column of diorite, measuring about 7 feet in height, tapering slightly from the bottom upwards. The circumference of the base is about 2 yards, and at the summit about 5 feet 5-½ inches. As, however, the stone is not square, it may be described as measuring, roughly, 22 inches broad at the base, and 16 inches just above the bas-relief at the top, where it is rounded somewhat irregularly.
The bas-relief, which is in perfect condition, measures about 2 feet 2 inches in height, and represents Ḫammurabi standing, facing to the right, towards the sun-god Šamaš, who sits on a throne of the usual recessed design. The god is bearded, clothed in a flounced robe, and has his hair looped up behind. His hat is pointed, and is adorned with four (eight) horns, rising at the side, and coming forward, where their points are turned up. His right shoulder is bare, and in his right hand he holds a staff and a ring, emblematic of authority and eternity, or his apparent course in the heavens. His right hand is held against his breast, and wavy lines, probably representing his rays, arise from his shoulders.
Ḫammurabi, who stands before the seated god, is clothed in a long robe reaching to his feet, and held up by his left arm. His right shoulder and arm are bare, and the hand is raised as if to emphasize the words he is uttering. Like the god, he is heavily bearded. On his head he wears the globular thick-brimmed hat distinctive of men in authority for many hundred years before his time, and for a considerable period afterwards.
The inscription, which is in horizontal columns, covers all four sides of the stone, and is divided into two parts, called by Prof. Scheil, who first translated it, the “obverse” and the “reverse” respectively. The former is in 16 columns, after which come 5 columns which have been erased, probably, as Prof. Scheil remarks, to insert the name and titles of an Elamite king, Šutruk-Naḫḫunte, who has his inscription placed on several other monuments of Babylonian origin found there. For some reason or other, the space on the stele of Ḫammurabi still remains blank. The “reverse” has 28 columns of inscription. The columns are narrow, and the lines consequently short, but as the latter are no less than 3638 in number, the text is a very extensive one, and when complete, must have consisted of over 4000 lines.
The inscription consists of three portions: the Introduction, consisting of 4 columns and 25 lines, detailing all the benefits which Ḫammurabi had conferred on the cities and temples of the land; the Laws, which occupy the remainder of the obverse, and 23 columns of the reverse (in all, 40 columns less 25 lines); and the Conclusion, occupying the remaining 5 columns, in which he recounts his own virtues, and in a long curse, calls upon the gods whom he worshipped to punish and destroy any of his successors who should abolish or change what he had written, or destroy his bas-relief.
The Laws Of Ḫammurabi.