THE FALL OF BABYLON.
When the kingdom of the Lydians had succumbed to the arms of Cyrus,
Babylonia alone was left of the three states which had joined in the
overthrow of Assyria. It was a region of very considerable extent,
reaching from the Tigris to the coasts of Syria, and from the foot of
the Armenian and Cilician mountains to the deserts of Arabia; the
population was united, and a strong centre was not wanting. As we saw,
Nebuchadnezzar had not only greatly increased the agriculture and trade
of his kingdom, but had also erected the strongest barriers for the
protection of his native land and the metropolis. In this he had only
the Median power in view, but owing to the victory of Cyrus over
Astyages a stronger power had taken the place of Media, and neither his
wisdom nor his energy had descended to his successors. After a reign of
two years his son Evilmerodach fell by the hand of his own
brother-in-law, Neriglissar, who sat but four years on the throne which
he had thus acquired. The boy whom Neriglissar left behind was murdered
by the conspirators who in the year 555 B.C. elevated Nabonetus to the
throne. Of this king we only know that he did not belong to the race of
Nabopolassar. Neriglissar had continued the fortification of the
metropolis, and Nabonetus completed the walls which were intended to
enclose the two parts of the city of Babylon on the east and west of the
Euphrates towards the river. He continued the buildings of
Nebuchadnezzar at the temples at Ur (Mugheir), and restored the ancient
temple of Bilit (Mylitta) at that place. His inscriptions entreat the
god Sin that his works may continue as the heavens, and commend his
first-born son Belshazzar (Bil-sarussur) to the favour of the moon-god.
To the city of Tyre he gave a new king, Hiram of the race of Ethbaal, in
the year 551 B.C.[53]
We cannot ascertain what position Nabonetus took up towards the growing
power of Cyrus. According to the statement of Trogus Pompeius, Babylon
was at war with Cyrus, when Croesus went to her aid. Cyrus repelled this
attack, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried on war against Asia
Minor. Xenophon represents Croesus as beginning the war against Cyrus at
the request of the king of Babylon (p. 17). Herodotus, as has been
mentioned above, repeatedly assures us that Croesus was in league with
the king of Babylon, whom he calls Labynetus (p. 20). As we saw, Cyrus
left Sardis and Asia Minor in the spring of 548 B.C., before the nations
of the western coast, the Carians and Lycians, had been subjugated; and
Herodotus remarks that he intended to march against Babylon. For
Babylonia there could certainly be no more favourable moment for
carrying on the war with the Persians than the time at which Cyrus lay
opposite the army of Croesus at Pteria in Cappadocia, before he advanced
upon Sardis. A march of the Babylonian army up the river Euphrates would
have cut off the communications of the Persian army with their own home,
and compelled Cyrus to abandon the Lydians and to turn upon Babylon. We
do not know whether Nabonetus looked idly on at the fall of Croesus in
spite of the league, or whether a second Persian army compelled him to
leave events to take their course in Asia Minor, or whether Cyrus, on
his return to Ecbatana, after the overthrow of Croesus, as Herodotus
tells us, marched against Nabonetus. All that we know from Herodotus is
that Harpagus subdued lower Asia, _i.e._ Asia Minor, and Cyrus himself
upper Asia, passing from one nation to another without any exception.
"The greater part of their achievements," Herodotus continues, "I will
omit; I will only narrate that feat which cost the most trouble and is
the most worthy of notice. When Cyrus had reduced the whole of the
continent he attacked the Assyrians. Now Assyria had many other large
cities, but the most famous and strongest of them was Babylon, where
their kings dwelt after the destruction of Nineveh. Labynetus was ruler
of the Assyrians, and against him Cyrus marched." According to this more
exact statement, Cyrus did not march against Babylon directly after the
Lydian war, but only "when the whole of upper Asia had been reduced to
subjection." That Elam and the land between the lower Tigris and the
mountains of Persia was subject to Cyrus before he attacked Babylonia,
follows from the statements of a prophet of the Jews.[54] Berosus says
quite distinctly: "When Cyrus had subjugated the whole of Asia, he set
out with a great power from Persia against Babylon in the seventeenth
year of the reign of Nabonetus."[55] We can establish the correctness of
this date from other sources, and prove that the war between Babylon and
Persia, which Herodotus sets himself to describe in the words quoted,
took place ten years after the Lydian war. Yet it remains doubtful
whether Babylonia and Persia had already met in arms, before, during, or
immediately after the Lydian war. So much only is certain, that if a
collision of this kind had previously taken place, it was indecisive.
Nor can we make it clear what motives caused Nabonetus to allow Cyrus to
attack Babylonia at a time most convenient to himself; whether this
attitude was due to the experience of previous failures, or to a feeling
of confidence that the natural and artificial barriers of the Babylonian
land offered a better prospect of success under any circumstances, than
an attack on Persia.
We have already seen how faithfully the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar had
transported to Mesopotamia and Babylonia in the year 597 B.C., and again
in 586 B.C. when he conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, clung to their
God and their religion (III. 395). They cherished the firm hope that the
judgment which had fallen on Judah and Jerusalem would come to an end,
and Jehovah's anger would turn, when the purification was completed;
that the kingdom of David would be restored, and Babylon punished for
all that it had done to Jerusalem. Since the times of Hosea and Isaiah,
the prophets of the Israelites had always pointed beyond the
punishments which Jehovah would send upon the sins of his people to
their restoration in a happy future. Thus in the first year of the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah had announced that Jehovah would allow the
King of Babel to come upon Judah and Jerusalem, but that the servitude
of Judah would only continue for a definite period--for seventy years
(III. 326); and Ezekiel had definitely and solemnly announced the
restoration of the national sanctuary to his people in Mesopotamia (III.
395). Zealously devoted to the worship of the God whose strong hand
alone could break their yoke asunder and lead back their weak numbers to
their home, the exiles impatiently awaited the fall of Babylon. It was
their firm hope that as Assyria had fallen, which had annihilated Israel
and brought the severest blows upon Judah, so would the line of
destruction reach Babylon also, and vengeance would not be delayed. "By
the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee, O
Zion. We hung up our harps on the willows that are in the land; our
conquerors asked us for a melody, and those that troubled us for songs
of joy. How can we sing Jehovah's song in a strange land? O daughter of
Babylon, thou that makest desolate, blessings be upon him who taketh thy
children and throweth them against the rocks."[56] "Why go I sorrowing
under the oppression of the enemy? It was not by their sword that they
took the land, nor did their arms win the victory, but thou, O Jehovah,
wert gracious to them. All this came upon us, and yet we were not
faithless, our steps strayed not from thy path. Tears are my food day
and night, while they say to me, Where is thy God? I thought how I went
with the multitude into the house of God with songs and thanksgiving.
Thou art my King, Jehovah (III. 396); send help to Jacob; with thy name
we shall tread down our enemies. I put not my trust in my bow, but thou
givest us victory over the oppressor. Send thy light and thy truth, that
they may bring me to thy holy hill, to the God of my joy, that I may
praise thee on the lute. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake. Cast us not
away for ever. Our soul is bowed down to the dust, our body pressed to
the ground. Save us for thy mercy's sake. I will yet praise him, who is
my Saviour and my God."[57]
Even in the last years of Nebuchadnezzar, as they looked on the mighty
works with which the destroyer of Jerusalem surrounded his city, the
hopes of the Jews rose. From these enormous structures they might
conclude how insecure Babylon felt herself against the Medes.
Immediately after the death of the great and dreaded prince the Jews
began to dream of an attack of the Medes on Babylonia. "Israel was a
stray sheep," such are the words of a prophet of this period, "which was
in terror of lions. The king of Assyria ate it, and Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon, gnawed the bones." "But the God of Israel says, 'I will have
vengeance on the king of Babel, as I had vengeance on the king of
Assyria, and I will lead Israel back, that he may pasture on Carmel and
Bashan, and satisfy himself on Mount Ephraim and Gilead.'"[58] "Bel
shall be put to shame, and I will take out of his mouth that which he
has swallowed, and Merodach shall be overthrown, their images and
idols."[59] "Thou who dwellest on the great waters, thine end is
approaching. Though Babylon exalted herself to heaven, and made the
height of her fortification so that no one could pass over, the broad
walls shall be cast down and the high gates shall be consumed with
fire."[60] "Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, summon
against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni (Armenia), and Ashenas; arm
against her all the governors of the kings of the Medes, and all the
lands of their dominion. Summon against her all who draw the bow; stand
round Babylon, ye archers, and spare not the arrows."[61] Similar views
gave rise to another prophecy which deduces the imminent fall of Babylon
from her pride. "Babylon said in her heart, I will climb up to heaven, I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and dwell on the hill of
assembly in the uttermost north. I will climb to the heights of the
clouds, and make myself equal to the Highest. But against them Jehovah
arouses the Medes, who regard not silver and have no pleasure in
gold.[62] Call aloud to them, wave the hand, that they may enter into
the gates of the tyrants. Their bows will destroy her young men, and she
laments not for her children. And thus Babylon, the delight of the
kingdoms, shall be as Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall be no more inhabited
for ever; the Arab shall not pitch his tent there, nor the shepherd feed
his flock. Beasts of the field shall dwell there; owls shall inhabit the
houses, ostriches shall make their home there, and the satyrs shall
dance. Jackals shall howl in her palaces, and foxes in her
pleasure-houses. I will make Babylon a dwelling for the hedge-hog, saith
Jehovah, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction. The time is
at hand, it will come quickly. Thy glory is gone down into hell, and the
noise of thy harps. Thy bed is with the worm, and thy covering is
corruption. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning! how art thou beaten to the ground that didst lay low the
nations!"[63]
The eager and impatient expectation of the Jews could not but perceive
the change which had been made in the relation of the states of Asia by
the victory of Cyrus over Astyages and the Medes three years after the
death of Nebuchadnezzar. When Cyrus afterwards subjugated the nations to
the east and west of Media, and the mighty kingdom of Lydia was
shattered by him, so that the fame of his victories filled the
East--when it might be expected that his arms would turn against
Babylon, the Jews considered their rescue certain. With redoubled zeal
they called down the punishment of Jehovah on Babylon, and delighted
themselves in advance with the coming vengeance. Cyrus was the
instrument which Jehovah had chosen to punish Babylon. As the old
prophets had seen in the kings of Assyria, and Jeremiah in
Nebuchadnezzar, the servants of Jehovah, who were to carry out his will
on the nations, and hold the judgment day of the Lord, so did the Jews
now see in Cyrus a man called to a similar mission, their saviour and
liberator; he seemed to them the anointed of Jehovah. If the absence of
images in the rites of the Persians, the worship of Auramazda, the
creator of heaven and earth, were nearer the religion of the Jews than
the sacrifices which the Babylonians offered before the images of Bel
and Bilit-Istar, Adar, Samas and Sin, Merodach and Nebo, and the worship
which they devoted to the ruling powers of the stars, they did not
overlook the gulf which divided them; but they were convinced that
Jehovah chose Cyrus as the rod of his anger, and the goad of his wrath,
to punish the pride and wickedness of Babylon. In this spirit we find a
prophet saying, with a definite reference to the announcements of
Jeremiah: "Who called him from the East, whom victory meets at every
step? Who gives him the nations and subjugates kings to him, and makes
their swords as dust, and their bows as chaff? He pursues them and
follows safely in the path which his feet have never trodden. I,
Jehovah, aroused him from the North (midnight), and he came from the
rising sun, who calls upon my name. He passes over the mighty ones as
over clay, as a potter breaks a vessel. I summoned him for salvation,
and his ways will I make smooth; he shall build my city and release my
captives, without ransom and without price. I will speak to Koresh
(Cyrus), my shepherd; all my business he shall perform, so that he will
say of Jerusalem, It shall be built, and of the temple, It shall be
established. And I will speak to Koresh, mine anointed, whom I hold by
his right hand to throw down the nations before him, and strip the loins
of the kings, and open the gates and doors: I called thee, though thou
knewest me not;[64] I will go before thee and make plain the ramparts; I
will break in pieces the brazen gates, and the cross bars will I loosen"
(the gates of Babylon were of brass);[65] "I will say to the deep, Dry
up, and thy streams I will cause to be parched. Hear this, O wanton one,
O daughter of the Chaldaeans, thou that didst lay thy yoke heavily on my
people, on the aged one, saying, I will be a lady for ever; but suddenly
on one day thou shalt be childless and widowed. Keep to thy
incantations, to the multitude of the charms wherewith thou hast
comforted thyself from thy youth up. May the quarters of the sky arise
and help thee, which look to the stars, which on the new moons announce
what will come upon thee. Bel boweth down, Nebo falleth. No more shalt
thou be called mistress of the kingdoms, daughter of the Chaldaeans. I
will place thee on the earth without a throne, I will plant thee in the
dust, and make thee crawl in the darkness, O virgin, daughter of
Babylon. Take the mill and grind meal, remove thy veil, lift up thy
garment, lay bare the thigh, and pass through the rivers; no more shalt
thou be called delicate and tender[66]. Zion said, Jehovah has left me,
and my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, and
have no pity on the fruit of her womb? Yet though she may forget, yet
will not I, Jehovah, forget thee. I have graven thee upon my hands, and
thy walls were ever before my eyes[67]. Loose the fetters from thy neck,
O captive daughter of Zion. Shake off the dust, Jerusalem; rise up, thou
that hast drunk the cup of wrath from the hand of Jehovah[68]. Behold, I
take from thy hand the cup of my wrath, that thou mayest drink it no
more. I put it into the hand of those who have prepared sorrow for thee.
Break forth into singing, ye ruins of Jerusalem; cry aloud, O heaven;
rejoice, O earth, for Jehovah has mercy on his people[69]. He called the
eagle from the east" (the eagle was the standard of the Achaemenids),
"the man of his counsel from the distant land. Jehovah spake and called
him; he leads him forth, and he shall accomplish it; he brings to pass
the will of Jehovah on Babylon, and his might on the Chaldaeans."[70]
Herodotus describes the approach of Cyrus and his war against Babylon in
the following manner: "When on his march against Babylon he came to the
Gyndes (now the Diala), which falls into the Tigris, and crossed it, one
of the sacred white horses was carried away by the stream. Cyrus was
angry, and threatened that he would make the river so insignificant that
a woman should cross it without wetting her knee. With this view he drew
180 lines on each side of the river, and bade his army dig a channel on
every line; and as a great multitude was employed, the work was
finished, but it occupied the whole summer, so that Cyrus did not lead
his army against Babylon till the second spring. The Babylonians marched
out of the city and awaited his attack. When Cyrus came up the
Babylonians joined battle; they were defeated, and driven into the
walls. They had known for a long time that Cyrus would not remain at
rest, for they had seen how he had reduced all nations alike, and
therefore they had collected provisions for many years in the city. The
siege, therefore, caused them no alarm; but Cyrus was in difficulties,
for time passed away, and he made no advance. Afterwards he did as
follows, whether it was that some one suggested the plan to him, or
whether he discovered it for himself. He placed part of his army where
the river flows into the city, and part where it flows out, and bade
them enter the city by the river as soon as it could be forded. After he
had given them orders, he went with the bulk of his army to the basin,
which the queen of the Babylonians had caused to be excavated, and did
what she had done with the basin and the river. By leading the river
through the opening into this basin, which was a marsh, he made the old
bed so that it could be forded. When this had been done, and the water
of the river had fallen to such an extent that it reached the middle of
a man's thigh, the Persians who had been placed near the city forced
their way into Babylon along the bed of the river. Had the Babylonians
previously known or suspected what Cyrus intended, the Persians would
not have passed unnoticed into the walls; had they closed the gates
leading from the city to the river, and mounted the walls which line the
banks, they would have caught the Persians in a trap as it were, and
they would have perished miserably. But the Persians came quite
unexpectedly. The outer parts of the city had been already taken while
those in the centre, who, as the Babylonians say, knew nothing of the
matter, owing to the extent of the city, were dancing and making
merry--for it so happened that a festival was being celebrated--until
they at length discovered their misfortune."
Xenophon relates that the inhabitants of Babylon laughed at the siege,
because the strong and lofty walls could not be taken by storm, and the
siege would not hurt them, for they had provisions for more than twenty
years. Cyrus also soon convinced himself that the city could not be
taken by the means which he was employing, and resolved to draw off the
Euphrates, which traverses the city in a stream two stadia (1200 feet)
in breadth, and twice the height of a man in depth. For this object he
threw a rampart round the whole city, with a very broad and deep trench
before it on the side towards the city. This great work was apportioned
to the different parts of the army, and the time occupied in it was
calculated at a year. Where the trenches approached the river the earth
was not excavated, so that the water would not flow into the trenches.
When Cyrus perceived that the Babylonians celebrated a festival at a
fixed time, at which they feasted for the whole night, he caused the
earth which separated the river from the trenches above the city to be
cut through by a multitude of men as soon as it was dark; the water at
once ran into the trenches, and the river sank so low that it could be
forded. The river now opened a way into the city, and Cyrus bade his
troops enter by its bed. They would find the inhabitants drunk and
asleep, without any organization for resistance, and when they found the
enemy in the city they would lose all their courage. If the Babylonians,
nevertheless, attempted to hurl down missiles from the roofs, the houses
could be burned, and they would take fire readily, as the doors were of
palm-wood covered with bitumen. A separate troop of the Persian army,
which Gobryas led, had orders to make their way to the palace of the
king as quickly as possible. The Persians entered, and cut down the
inhabitants whom they found; others saved themselves by flight. The
watch of the palace were drinking by a bright fire before the gates,
which were closed. They were surprised and cut down. When the noise of
the fight was heard inside the palace, the king sent to inquire what was
the meaning of the tumult. But as soon as the gate was opened the
Persians forced their way into the palace; the king and those around him
drew their swords, but succumbed to numbers, and were killed. Meanwhile
Cyrus had despatched his cavalry along the streets, sending with them
men skilled in the Syrian language, who proclaimed that every one who
remained in his house would be uninjured; all who showed themselves in
the streets would be put to death. Thus the city quickly passed into the
hands of the Persians. The gates of the citadel were opened the next
morning, when the dawn of light showed them the Persians in possession
of the city.[71]
Polyaenus gives two versions of the taking of Babylon. The Babylonians
laughed at the siege, as they had provisions for many years. But Cyrus
drew off the Euphrates, which flows through the middle of the city, and
turned it into a neighbouring swamp. As the Babylonians were thus cut
off from drinking-water, they soon opened their gates to Cyrus. The
second version is different. When, in order to take Babylon, Cyrus had
made a trench to receive the water of the Euphrates, which flows through
the city, he led away the army from the walls. The Babylonians believed
that Cyrus had abandoned the siege, and they became negligent in keeping
watch on the walls. But after drawing off the water, Cyrus led the
Persians through the old bed, and unexpectedly made himself master of
the city.
Besides these accounts of the Greeks, proclamations of the Hebrews,
which are joined on to the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, give
indications on the fall of Babel. "Behold, saith Jehovah, I will dry up
their sea and parch their fountains. When they are heated I will prepare
a drink for them, and intoxicate them, so that they make merry, that
they may sleep an everlasting sleep, and awake no more. And behold!
there came mounted men. The night of my pleasure was turned to horror.
The watchman wakes, the table is prepared, there is eating and
drinking. Rise up, ye princes, anoint the shield. Their dwellings are
set on fire, the bars are broken. One runs to meet another, and
messenger to meet messenger, bringing news to the king of Babylon that
his city is captured on every side; the channels are taken, the lakes
they have burned with fire. Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all her
idols are trampled underfoot. The whole earth rests, and is at peace,
the lands break forth into joy. The cypresses are glad over thee, the
cedars of Lebanon; now that thou art fallen, no one will come to cut us
down."[72] The kings of Babylon, like those of Asshur, used the cedars
of Lebanon for their palaces; Nebuchadnezzar himself tells us that he
caused cedars to be felled in Lebanon for his palace (III. 386). A later
book of the Hebrews, the Book of Daniel, which was written in the first
century B.C., under Antiochus Epiphanes (176-164 B.C.), about the year
167 B.C., represents Babylon as taken by the Persians during the night
of a festival, but Darius, not Cyrus, is the Persian king. Belshazzar,
the son of Nebuchadnezzar, is king of Babylon. He gives a great banquet
to his thousand mighty men, and, heated by wine, causes the gold and
silver vessels to be brought which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from
the temple at Jerusalem; and his mighty men, their wives and concubines,
drink out of them, and sing songs of praise to their gods of gold and
silver, brass, iron, stone, and wood. Then suddenly a hand writes
letters on the wall of the palace. The king changes colour; the wise men
of Babylon, the Chaldaeans, the magicians, and prophets were brought, but
they cannot read the writing. Then Daniel was summoned, one of the Jews
whom Nebuchadnezzar brought from Babylon, who had already interpreted
dreams for Nebuchadnezzar which the wise men of Babylon could not
expound, and had remained true to the religion of Jehovah under all
temptations. He read the words, which were Hebrew,--Mene, Tekel,
Peres,--and explained them: Thy kingdom is "numbered"; thou hast been
"weighed" in the balance and found wanting, because thy heart is not
humbled, and thou honourest not the God in whose hand is thy breath and
all thy fortunes; thy kingdom has been "divided" among the Medes and
Persians. Then the king commanded to put the purple robe on Daniel, and
the golden chain upon his neck, and proclaim him third in the kingdom.
"But in that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldaeans slain, and
Darius the Mede received the kingdom."[73]
Only a short excerpt has come down to us of the account which Berosus
gave of the capture of Babylon. "Cyrus set out from Persia with a strong
force against Babylon. When Nabonetus heard of his approach, he went to
meet him with his army, and they joined battle. He was defeated, and
fled with a few companions into the city of the Borsippeans, where he
was besieged. Cyrus took Babylon, and as he had found the city difficult
to reduce, and stubborn, he gave orders to throw down the walls outside
the city, and then set out against Borsippa in order to get Nabonetus
into his power, by bringing the siege to an end. But Nabonetus did not
wait for the city to be taken by storm; he surrendered. Cyrus treated
him with kindness, and sent him from Babylon to Carmania, which he
appointed to be his dwelling-place. There Nabonetus lived for the
remainder of his life, and there he died." According to Eusebius, Cyrus
gave the vice-royalty of Carmania to Nabonetus, and Darius took it away
again.[74]
After all that has been observed above, the attack of Cyrus could not be
unexpected by Nabonetus, and we also see from Herodotus that it had been
long foreseen, and provisions for many years had been collected in
Babylon--according to Xenophon there was sufficient for twenty years. We
find, moreover, that the fortifications of the city had been completed;
the great extent which Nebuchadnezzar had allowed for the wall of the
city must have enclosed a wide breadth of country, or at any rate
pastures large enough to maintain numerous herds of cattle. And
Nebuchadnezzar had not merely made the metropolis the fortress and
strong camp of the kingdom, which could both receive and protect the
military forces, he had covered the northern edge of the Babylonian land
by a fortification of a hundred feet in height and twenty in thickness,
which extended from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Behind this wall were
the four great canals which connected the Euphrates and Tigris; and,
protected by the great wall, there lay on the Euphrates at Sepharvaim,
the reservoirs by which the level of the Euphrates could be raised or
lowered, and the canals fed--the basin of which Nebuchadnezzar had
availed himself in building his bridge over the Euphrates,--works which
Herodotus, we do not know on what authority, but very erroneously
ascribes to Nitocris, a queen of Babylon. By this wall, and the canals,
which it would be necessary to dam up, any attack on the heart of
Babylonia from the direction of Mesopotamia would be rendered almost
impossible. The Tigris after leaving the mountains of Armenia, above the
ruins of Nineveh, is not difficult to cross in the summer, yet an
attack from this side would encounter almost insuperable difficulties,
and even if they were overcome the attacking army would be involved in a
labyrinth of canals, in which the cavalry of the Persians could be of
little use. Hence Babylonia could only be reached by crossing the Tigris
and Euphrates below that fortification and the canals,--a difficult
task. If Cyrus attempted to cross both rivers above this point, and then
march down the western shore till he was below the "Median wall," he
would sacrifice altogether his communication with Persia, he would have
to march southwards through the Syrian desert, and then force the
passage of the Euphrates, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, _i.e._
in the face of the enemy's power, while he at the same time would find
himself in the midst of an extensive system of canals, and of the swamps
which lie along the Euphrates between Babylon and the sea (I. 300, III.
359).
Under these circumstances Cyrus could only cross the Tigris from the
east, and attempt an attack below the wall which united the two rivers.
This was the line which, in fact, he followed. Berosus told us that
Cyrus "marched from Persia against Nabonetus," and Herodotus exhibits
him as occupied for a whole summer on the Diala. His occupation there,
as Herodotus describes it, is very unintelligible; the Diala was
punished by being divided into 360 canals, and so made fordable. That
Cyrus should punish a river is both unlikely in itself and opposed to
the religious conceptions of Iran, which as we know required the
greatest respect to be paid to rivers; more improbable still and indeed
impossible is it in the midst of the war against Babylon. If we do not
assume that the source from which Herodotus drew has wrongly brought a
great work of irrigation which Cyrus undertook for the land of the Diala
at some other time into connection with this war against Babylon, it
must be the passage of the Tigris which is in question. What we know of
the military achievements of Cyrus does not allow us to suppose that
when once in the field he would give his opponents the respite of a
whole summer. If we could assume that the army of Nabonetus had
contested the crossing with Cyrus at this point, above the mouth of the
Diala, where at a later time the Babylonians attempted to check
Darius--and that they had ships of war in the Tigris then, as at the
time of Darius--we might then suppose that Cyrus reached the Tigris
above the mouth of the Diala, and not being able to force the crossing,
attempted to carry off the water of the river into the Diala, above and
behind his camp, and at length succeeded in his attempt. Even then the
number of the canals is very remarkable. But whether the supposition is
right or wrong, in any case we may assume on the basis of the narrative
of Herodotus that Cyrus began the war against Babylon in the spring of
the year 539 B.C., that he crossed the Tigris in the neighbourhood of
the Diala, and that the only result of his first campaign was to effect
the passage of the Tigris and retain command of the river. From this
point, in the next spring, he led his army, as Herodotus states, in a
diagonal across Babylonia towards the city. Nabonetus lost the battle,
which, as Herodotus says, was fought in the neighbourhood of Babylon. Of
Nabonetus and his fate the historian says not a word; we have therefore
no reason to doubt the statement of Berosus, that Nabonetus did not
again return to Babylon, but took refuge in Borsippa with a few
companions, and was there besieged. It was obviously of great advantage
to Cyrus to prevent the Babylonians from entering into their city, to
drive away the army or part of it from the city in order to diminish the
number of those who could defend the walls. He might accomplish this
object by strengthening his right wing and advancing with it. If
Nabonetus and a part of the fugitives were thus cut off from Babylon, he
could only retire southwards beyond the Euphrates into the city nearest
Babylon, _i.e._ into Borsippa, to seek protection at the great temple of
Nebo (I. 291), the god whose name he bore.[75] The command in Babylon
then devolved on his eldest son Bil-sar-ussur (p. 67). It follows from
the narrative of Berosus that Cyrus quickly followed up the defeated
army of the Babylonians, that a part of the Persians, treading on the
heels of the fugitives, crossed the Euphrates below the city, to invest
Borsippa and the metropolis on the western side. Berosus has told us
that Cyrus marched against Babylon with a great force. His army must
indeed have been strong enough to enclose the second circuit of the
city, 35 or 40 miles (III. 372), to meet the attack of the whole force
of the besieged on both sides of the river, and blockade Borsippa.
But the inhabitants "ridiculed the siege," and Cyrus could make no
progress--such is the account in Herodotus and Xenophon. Owing to the
amount of provisions at the command of the city, an investment could not
promise any result, and there was little prospect of storming the city.
The broad and deep trenches in front of the walls made it impossible to
undermine them; even if these could be filled up under the missiles of
the enemy in a few places for the battering-rams to be brought forward,
the strength of the walls was so great that they could not be broken.
Still less possible was it to mount them. They were so high that the
arrows of the besiegers could not reach them with force, and even if the
attack was carried successfully over the trenches, no towers or ladders
would be at once strong and high enough to bring the storming party to
the turrets. According to Herodotus, a long time had elapsed before
Cyrus formed his plan. He bethought himself of the basin which
Nebuchadnezzar had excavated at Sepharvaim, for the regulation of the
inundations of the Euphrates, for feeding and damming up the canals;
this work constructed for the benefit and protection of the land he used
for the destruction of the capital. The Euphrates was to be led off into
this basin till its bed could be forded at Babylon. Then the storming of
the city was to be attempted from the river, the walls on the banks
being less high and strong. For this object it was necessary to obtain
possession of the fortress of Sepharvaim, which guarded the sluices of
the basin, to deepen or enlarge the basin itself, so that for a certain
period it could receive the whole mass of water; it was also requisite
that the canal which led into it should be widened and deepened; and
lastly the course of the river beneath the basin, or rather beneath the
great canals which led into the Tigris, must be barred by a dam, if the
Euphrates was to flow into it. The army of Cyrus must have been so
strong, that after leaving behind a sufficient number of men on both
sides of the Euphrates to continue the blockade of the city and of
Borsippa, it could detach an adequate force of troops and workmen to
Sepharvaim. Before these works could be begun, the inundation which in
June and July the Euphrates pours over the plain of Babylon must have
been over; and before the return of the inundation in the autumn, which
would imperil the whole undertaking, Sepharvaim must be captured, the
Euphrates drawn off, and Babylon conquered. When Sepharvaim was in the
hand of Cyrus, the stream, which had previously been dammed up with the
exception of a small passage, must have been rapidly closed, that the
Babylonians might not have their suspicions roused by the fall of the
water, and guard the walls on the river with redoubled vigilance. The
time was short. Pliny has preserved for us the statement that the large
city of Agranis, which lay on the Euphrates, where the canal Nahr Malka
(III. 359) flowed out of the river, was destroyed by the Persians; the
walls of the city of Sepharvaim which had been rendered famous by the
wisdom of the Chaldaeans (Sippara, I. 245), were also destroyed by the
Persians, and Gobares (Gobryas), as some say, had drawn off the
Euphrates.[76] To Gobryas Xenophon also allots an important share in the
capture of Babylon (p. 78). Even without these statements of Pliny,
which support the account of Herodotus, and inform us of the battles
which the Persians had to fight on the Euphrates above Babylon in order
to establish themselves at the entrance of the Nahr Malka, and get the
mouth of the basin into their power--even without the hints of the
prophets of the Hebrews about the "drying up of the springs," and
"parching of the channels," and the remark of Polyaenus about the
drawing off of the Euphrates at a marsh (the basin of Sepharvaim was,
when not filled, a marsh), we must reject Xenophon's account of the
drawing off of the Euphrates. Conceding the extent of the walls of
Babylon, even if limited to one bank of the river, the work could not
have been done in a year; and every day the execution of the work under
the eyes of the besieged would have made its object more plain.
The plan of Cyrus succeeded. The removal of Agranis and Sepharvaim made
the execution possible; the number of hands at his disposal caused all
the works to be carried out at the right time, _i.e._ before the
inundation of the autumn. The storming of the city could be attempted by
the river-bed both above and below the city.[77] That it took place and
was accomplished on the night of a festival, is stated in the narratives
of Herodotus and Xenophon, and indicated by the Hebrew prophet in the
words "the night of my pleasure was turned to horror," and other phrases
(p. 80); and the book of Daniel makes the same assertion. Aristotle is
of opinion that even three days after, a third part of the population
did not know that the city had been taken.[78] Xenophon represents the
division of Gobryas as the first to reach the palace; the king falls
when defending himself against their attack. By the palace is here meant
one of the two royal citadels, either the older on the western bank, or
the more recent on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, the palace of
Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar (III. 375), and the king whom he
represents as slain there, must have been Bil-sarussur, the son and
heir of Nabonetus. As we have observed, the book of Daniel calls the
king who lost his throne and life on the night of the festival,
Belshazzar. In addition to him, Nabonetus had a second son, named
Nebuchadnezzar (see below, chap, xiv.). Besides the palace of the king,
Xenophon speaks of citadels of Babylon which surrendered to the
conqueror on the following morning.
After the capture of the metropolis, which was followed by the surrender
of Borsippa, and the capture of Nabonetus (538 B.C.), Cyrus, so far as
we can tell, showed clemency both towards the king, whom he caused to be
taken to Carmania, and to the city of Babylon. The kings of Asshur
treated besieged princes and conquered cities in a manner very different
from that in which Cyrus treated Astyages, Croesus and Sardis, Nabonetus
and Babylon. Babylonia was not oppressed; the city was not destroyed.
Cyrus stepped into the place of the native king. The Babylonian tablets
after the capture of the city and the fall of the kingdom, date from the
years of the reign of Cyrus over Babylonia, the years "of Kurus, king of
Babylon, king of the lands."[79] The city of Babylon retained her
temples and palaces and her mighty walls. Herodotus tells us expressly
that Cyrus did no injury to the walls or the gates of Babylon,[80] and
twenty years afterwards we find the city in possession of her
impregnable works. Xenophon remarks that Cyrus placed troops in the
citadels, set captains over them, left behind a sufficient garrison in
the city and charged the inhabitants with the maintenance of it; the
arrangements then made for keeping guard were in existence still.[81]
If, therefore, the excerpt of Josephus from Berosus tells us that Cyrus
destroyed the walls "outside the city," this can only refer to the great
wall which Nebuchadnezzar had built from the Euphrates to the Tigris
above Sepharvaim, as a protection against an attack from the north. It
would have been a heavy task to level with the ground this fortification
throughout its entire length of from 60 to 75 miles, the Persians
therefore contented themselves with making large breaches in it. The
wall was in this condition when Xenophon came with the ten thousand to
Babylon.[82]
The fall of the metropolis had decided the fortune of the Babylonian
kingdom, and the provinces. The most important of these was Syria, with
the great trading places of the Phenicians on the Mediterranean; we
remember how many and what severe struggles the subjection of Syria had
cost Nebuchadnezzar. At the present moment the approach of the Persians
was enough to cause Syria to recognise the supremacy of Cyrus almost
without a blow. Herodotus tells us that the Phenicians voluntarily
submitted to the Persians; Xenophon mentions that Cyrus had subjugated
the Phenicians; Polybius observes that Gaza alone among all the cities
of Syria offered resistance; the rest, terrified at the approach of the
Persians and the greatness of their power, had surrendered themselves
and their lands to them. With the capture of Gaza Cyrus stood on the
borders of Egypt. As we have seen, Nebuchadnezzar allowed the states and
cities of Syria to retain their native princes, so long as these
preserved their fidelity to him; even over the Phenician cities he and
his successors placed men of their own royal or priestly families to be
at once judges or princes of the cities and viceroys of Babylon. That
Tyre surrendered without a struggle, as Herodotus and Polybius tell us
of Syria, that Cyrus, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, left the princes
who submitted in command, follows from the fact that Hiram, whom
Nabonetus had made king of Tyre, continued to reign over the city under
Cyrus.[83] If Cyrus felt himself compelled to establish princes in the
Greek cities of the coast for the first time, who owed their position to
him, and could not maintain it without his aid, the cities of Phoenicia
had long been accustomed to receive these princes from distant
sovereigns. Cyrus and his successors confined themselves in their choice
to the old royal families of the Phenician cities; at any rate we find,
even under the Achaemenids, men with the hereditary names at the head of
Tyre and Sidon. Yet the relations of the Phenician cities did not remain
without change. Cyrus, as it seems, availed himself of the old rivalry
between Tyre and Sidon to win a further support for his power. Ever
since the foundation of Gades, and the times of the first Hiram of Tyre,
the contemporary of Solomon, Sidon had been gradually forced by Tyre
into the second place; under the Persian kingdom Sidon again appears as
the first city of Phoenicia, and her kings have the precedence of those
of Tyre and the other cities.[84] To the population on the whole the
change to the Persian dominion would be regarded with indifference if
not with pleasure; a connection with the Persian empire opened a far
more extensive market for trade, and secured and protected intercourse
over a far greater extent of country than the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar.
The ancient kingdom of Babylon, in which the civilisation of the Semitic
stock had taken root some fifteen centuries previously, and had attained
to such peculiar development, which had struggled so long and stubbornly
against the younger kingdom of Assyria, and when it finally succumbed,
had been raised to yet greater power than it had ever attained
to in old times, under the brilliant reigns of Nabopolassar and
Nebuchadnezzar--which had united the branches of the Semitic stem from
the Tigris to the Mediterranean, from the foot of the Armenian mountains
to the deserts of Arabia--had succumbed to the attack of Cyrus after a
brief existence, sixty-nine years after the fall of Nineveh. The
predominance exercised for so many centuries by Semitic culture and
Semitic arms through the old Babylonian, the Assyrian, and the second
Babylonian kingdom, passed to a tribe of different character, language,
and culture--to the Arians of Iran.
It was this violent change, which brought to a Semitic tribe liberation
for its fellow Semites. The hopes of the Jews were at last fulfilled.
The fall of Babylon had avenged the fall of Jerusalem, and the
subjugation of Syria to the armies of Babylon opened the way for their
return. Cyrus did not belie the confidence which the Jews had so eagerly
offered him; without hesitation he gave the exiles permission to return
and erect again their shrine at Jerusalem. The return of the captives
and the foundation of a new state of the Jews was very much to his
interest; it might contribute to support his empire in Syria. He did not
merely count on the gratitude of the returning exiles, but as any
revival of the Babylonian kingdom, or rebellion of the Syrians against
the Persian empire, imperilled the existence of this community, which
had not only to be established anew, but would never be very strong, it
must necessarily oppose any such attempts. Forty-nine years--seven
Sabbatical years, instead of the ten announced by Jeremiah--had passed
since the destruction of Jerusalem, and more than sixty since Jeremiah
had first announced the seventy years of servitude to Babylon. Cyrus
commissioned Zerubbabel, the son of Salathiel, a grandson of Jechoniah,
the king who had been carried away captive, and therefore a scion of the
ancient royal race, and a descendant of David, to be the leader of the
returning exiles, to establish them in their abode, and be the head of
the community;[85] he bade his treasurer Mithridates give out to him the
sacred vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away as trophies to
Babylon, and placed in the temple of Bel; there are said to have been
more than 5000 utensils of gold and silver, baskets, goblets, cups,
knives, etc. But all the Jews in Babylon did not avail themselves of the
permission. Like the Israelites deported by Sargon into Media and
Assyria some 180 years previously, many of the Jews brought to
Mesopotamia and Babylonia at the time of Jechoniah and Zedekiah, had
found there a new home, which they preferred to the land of their
fathers. But the priests (to the number of more than 3000[86]), many of
the families of the heads of the tribes, all who cared for the sanctuary
and the old country, all in whom Jehovah "awoke the spirit," as the Book
of Ezra says, began the march over the Euphrates. With Zerubbabel was
Joshua, the high priest, the most distinguished among all the Jews, a
grandson of the high priest Zeraiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed
after the capture of Jerusalem. The importance of the priests had
increased in the captivity; they had become the natural heads and judges
of the Jews, and the people following the guidance of the prophets, had
learned to regard Jehovah as their peculiar lord and king. It was a
considerable multitude which left the land "beyond the stream," the
waters of Babylon, to sit once more under the fig-tree in their ancient
home, and build up the city of David and the temple of Jehovah from
their ruins; 42,360 freemen, with 7337 Hebrew men-servants and
maid-servants; their goods were carried by 435 camels, 736 horses, 250
mules, and 6720 asses (537 B.C.)[87] The exodus of the Jews from Babylon
is accompanied by a prophet with cries of joy, and announcements filled
with the wildest hopes. Was not the fall of Babylon and the return home
a sure pledge that the anger of Jehovah was appeased? Must not the dawn
of that brilliant time be come, which the prophets had always pointed
out behind the execution of the punishment? Could not the most joyful
expectation prevail that Jehovah's grace would be greater henceforth
than his anger in the past? Thus, in the spirit, the prophet saw all the
scattered members of the people of Israel, who since the time of
Tiglath-Pilesar II. had been carried away, or fled for refuge, return
from the distant lands, from Egypt and the isles; Jerusalem has put on a
new splendour which far exceeds that of old days; and therefore he gives
expression to the confident expectation that the people of Jehovah will
be the first nation of the earth, and the resurgent Zion will be the
centre and the protector of all nations. "Go forth from Babylon," he
cries; "fly from the land of the Chaldaeans! Proclaim it with shouts
of joy, tell it to the end of the earth and say: 'Jehovah hath redeemed
his servant Jacob.'"[88] "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith
unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.[89] Up, up, go forth, touch no unclean
person; go forth from among them. Cleanse yourselves, ye that bear
Jehovah's vessels.[90] Ye shall go forth in joy and be led in peace; the
mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and
all the trees shall clap their hands.[91] Jehovah goes before you, and
the God of Israel brings up the rear. Was it not Jehovah who made the
depths of the sea to be your pathway, so that His redeemed passed
through? In the desert through which they passed they thirsted not; He
clave the rock and the waters flowed.[92] So shall the ransomed of
Jehovah return, and come with singing to Zion, and everlasting joy shall
be upon their heads; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.[93] O, poor
ones, surrounded with misery and comfortless; for a little time Jehovah
left thee, but He takes thee up again with greater love, and I will have
mercy on thee for ever, saith Jehovah. As I swore that the waters of
Noah should not come again upon the earth, so do I swear to be angry
with thee no more. The mountains may melt and tremble, but my mercy will
leave thee no more. Jehovah calls thee as an outcast sorrowful woman,
and thy God speaks to thee as to a bride who has been put away;[94] thy
ruins, and deserts, and wasted land, which was destroyed from generation
to generation--thy people build up the ruins, and renew the ancient
cities.[95] Behold, I will make thy desert like Eden, and thy wilderness
like the garden of the Lord; I will lay thy stones with bright lead, and
thy foundations with sapphires, and make thy towers of rubies and thy
gates of carbuncles.[96] Joy and delight is in them, thanksgiving and
the sound of strings. The wealth of the sea shall come to thee, and the
treasures of the nations shall be thine;[97] like a stream will I bring
salvation upon Israel, and the treasures of the nations like an
overflowing river.[98] Thy sons hasten onward; those that laid thee
waste go forth from thee.[99] Lift up thine eyes and see; thy sons come
from far, and I will gather them to those that are gathered together.
The islands and the ships of Tarshish wait to bring thy children from
afar, their gold and their silver with them.[100] The land will be too
narrow for the inhabitants; widen the place for thy tent, let the
carpets of thy habitation be spread--delay not. Draw out the rope; to
the right and to the left must thou be widened.[101] I will set up my
banner for the nations, that they bring thy sons in their arm, and thy
daughters shall be carried on the shoulders. Kings shall be thy
guardians, and queens thy nursing-mothers; I will bow them to the earth
before thee, and they shall lick the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt
know that I am Jehovah, and they who wait patiently for me shall not be
put to shame."[102]
Such expectations and hopes were far from being realised. The Edomites
had, in the mean-time, extended their borders, and obtained possession
of the South of Judah, but the land immediately round Jerusalem was free
and no doubt almost depopulated. As the returning exiles contented
themselves with the settlement at Jerusalem, the towns to the North,
Anathoth, Gebah, Michmash, Kirjath-Jearim, and some others--only
Bethlehem is mentioned to the South,[103] they found nothing to impede
them. Their first care was the restoration of the worship, according to
the law and custom of their fathers, for which object an altar of
burnt-offerings was erected on the site of the temple, in order to offer
the appointed sacrifice at morning and evening. The priests, minstrels,
and Levites were separated according to their families, and those who
could not prove their priestly descent were rejected for the sacred
service;[104] the attempt was then made to arrange the rest of the
exiles according to their families, in order to decide their claims and
rights to certain possessions and lands. Then voluntary gifts were
collected from all for the rebuilding of the temple; contributions even
came in from those who had remained in Babylonia, so that 70,000 pieces
of gold and 5000 minae of silver are said to have been amassed. Tyrian
masons were hired, and agreements made with Tyrian carpenters, to fell
cedars in Lebanon, and bring them to Joppa, for which Cyrus had given
his permission. The foundation of the temple was laid in the second year
of the return (536 B.C.). The priests appeared in their robes with
trumpets, and the Levites with cymbals, to praise Jehovah; "that He
might be gracious, and His mercy be upon Israel for ever." Those of the
priests and elders who had seen the old temple are said to have wept
aloud; "but many raised their voices in joy so that the echo was heard
far off."[105] We have evidence of the grateful and elevated tone which
filled the exiles in those days, in songs, where we read: "They pressed
upon me in my youth, but they overpowered me not. The ploughers ploughed
upon my back and made long furrows. Jehovah is just; he broke the bonds
of the wicked. Praised be Jehovah, who did not give us over as prey to
their teeth; our soul escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
When Jehovah turned again the captivity of Zion, our way was filled with
joy; and they said among the nations: Jehovah hath done great things for
them! Jehovah hath chosen Zion, and taken it to be His abode and
resting-place for ever and ever. There He will clothe His priests with
salvation, and exalt the power of David, and clothe his enemies with
shame."[106]
The fortunate beginning of the restoration of the city and temple soon
met with difficulties. The people of Samaria, who were a mixture of the
remnant of the Israelites and the strangers whom Sargon had brought
there after the capture of Samaria (III. 86), and Esarhaddon at a later
date (III. 154), came to meet the exiles in a friendly spirit, and
offered them assistance, from which we must conclude that in spite of
the foreign admixture the Israelitish blood and the worship of Jehovah
were preponderant in Samaria. The new temple would thus have been the
common sanctuary of the united people of Israel. But the "sons of
captivity" were too proud of the sorrows which they had undergone, and
the fidelity which they had preserved to Jehovah, and their pure
descent, to accept this offer. Hence the old quarrel between Israel and
Judah broke out anew, and the exiles soon felt the result. After their
repulse the Samaritans set themselves to hinder the building by force;
"they terrified the exiles that they built no more, and hired
counsellors to make the attempt vain during the whole of the remainder
of the reign of Cyrus."[107] The reasons which these counsellors brought
forward before Cyrus against the continuation of the buildings at
Jerusalem, would be the same which were afterwards brought before
Artaxerxes Longimanus; namely, that when Jerusalem and its walls were
finished the city would become rebellious and disobedient, as it was
previously under the kings of Babylon.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] The reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Evilmerodach, Neriglissar, and the
accession of Nabonetus in 555 B.C., are now fixed not only by the canon
of Ptolemy but also by the Babylonian tablets, which give forty-three
years for Nebuchadnezzar (604-561), two years for Evilmerodach
(561-559), four years for Neriglissar (559-555), seventeen years for
Nabonetus, (555-538); "Transactions Bibl. Society," 6, p. 47-53. Oppert
(_l. c._ p. 262) also mentions a tablet of Labasi-marduk (Labasoarchad),
who sat on the throne for nine months. Boscawen reads Lakhabasi-Kudur,
_l. c._ p. 78. On the elevation of Hiram in Tyre, vol. III. 394.
[54] Ps. and Isa. xxi. 2.
[55] Fragm. 14, ed. Mueller.
[56] Ps. cxxxvii.
[57] Ps. liii., liv.
[58] Jer. 1. 17-19.
[59] Jer. 1. 2; li. 44.
[60] Jer. li. 13, 53, 58.
[61] Jer. 1. 14, 29; li. 27.
[62] V. 314 _n_.
[63] Deut. Isa. xiii. 17-22; xiv. 4, 11-14. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah," Vol.
II., Essay xi.]
[64] Deut. Isa. xli. 2, 3; xli. 25; xliv. 28. Kohut, "Antiparsismus in
Deut. Yesaias, Z. D. M. G." 1876, 3, 711 ff.
[65] Deut. Isa. xlv. 1, 2, 3. Vol. III. 369.
[66] Deut. Isa. xlvii. 1-13.
[67] Deut. Isa. xlix. 14-16.
[68] Deut. Isa. li. 17. Vol. III. 326.
[69] Deut. Isa. xlix. 13.
[70] Deut. Isa. xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.
[71] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 5.
[72] Jer. li. 31, 32, 39; Deut. Isa. xiv. 7-9; xxi. 4-9.
[73] Dan. v. 1-31.
[74] Beros. fragm. 14; Euseb. "Chron." 1. 42, ed. Schoene.
[75] On the site of Borsippa, Vol. I. 291, and on Nebuchadnezzar's
buildings at the temple of Nebo, at Borsippa, III. 385.
[76] Pliny, "H. N." 6, 30.
[77] Sir Henry Rawlinson spoke in the Asiatic Society on Nov. 17, 1879,
of a Babylonian cylinder brought home by Rassam, which, though broken,
is said to give an account in thirty-seven legible lines of the capture
of Babylon by Cyrus, and to contain a genealogical tree of Cyrus. As yet
I have not been able to learn anything further. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah,"
Vol. II., Essay xi.]
[78] "Pol." 3, 1, 12.
[79] Oppert et Menant, "Docum. Juridiq." p. 266.
[80] Herod. 3, 159.
[81] "Cyri inst." 7, 5, 34, 69, 70.
[82] Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 4. Vol. III. 366.
[83] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 1, 1, 4; 7, 4, 1. On Hiram, above, p. 67;
Joseph. "c. Apion," 1, 21; Polybius, 16, 40. The statement of Polybius
might be referred to the campaign of Cambyses against Egypt, if the
supremacy of Cyrus in Syria were not proved by other evidence, as Ezra
iii. 7, and the return of the Jews. Herodotus also would not have
omitted the siege of Gaza in his detailed description of the march of
Cambyses against Egypt, if it had not taken place until then. The
general expression in Herodotus (3, 34) cannot outweigh all these
proofs; it only says with the exaggerated tone of flattery that Cambyses
first placed a fleet on the sea, and claims the subjugation of Cyprus
for him. As a fact Cyrus left the islands of Anatolia, except Chios and
Lesbos, which voluntarily submitted, uninjured, and did not call on them
for a fleet, for which there were many good reasons from the point of
view of a Persian king.
[84] Herod. 3, 19; 5, 104, 110; 7, 96, 98, 128; Xenoph. "Ages." 2, 30;
Diod. 16, 41. The rebellion of Sidon in 351 B.C. again reversed the
relations.
[85] 1 Chron. iii. 17-19.
[86] Ezra ii. 36-39.
[87] Ezra ch. ii. As Babylon was conquered in the summer of 538, the
first year of Cyrus in Babylon reaches to the summer of 537; Ezra i. 1,
3; Beros. fragm. 15, ed. Mueller.
[88] Deut. Isa. xlviii. 20.
[89] Deut. Isa. lii. 7.
[90] Deut. Isa. lii. 11.
[91] Deut. Isa. lv. 12.
[92] Deut. Isa. xlviii. 21.
[93] Deut. Isa. li. 11.
[94] Deut. Isa. liv. 6-10.
[95] Deut. Isa. xlix. 19; lviii. 12.
[96] Deut. Isa. liv. 11.
[97] Deut. Isa. lx. 5.
[98] Deut. Isa. lxvi. 12.
[99] Deut. Isa. xlix. 17.
[100] Deut. Isa. lx. 4-9.
[101] Deut. Isa. liv. 2.
[102] Deut. Isa. xlix. 22, 23.
[103] Ewald, "Volk. Israel." 3, 91.
[104] Ezra ii. 59-63.
[105] Ezra iii. 8-13.
[106] Ps. cxxix.-cxxxii.
[107] Ezra iv. 1-5, 24. It is obvious that verse 24 must follow on verse
5 in chap. iv. The verses 6-23 treat of things which happened under
Xerxes and Artaxerxes, and they have got into the wrong place.