Chapter XV: Nebuchadnezzar and His Successors (2)

In the very comprehensive inscription, preserved on a stone of black basalt found at Babylon--a stone more than three feet in height and breadth--Nebuchadnezzar begins with stating that Merodach and Nebo, the gods which he, like his father and his descendants and successors, worshipped most zealously, had given him the dominion. He points out the extent of his kingdom, speaks of his victories and his buildings, and then passes on to the temples which he has built. After this come the fortresses, the buildings at Bit Saggatu and at Bit Zida: the building of the palace completes the list. The chief passages, so far as they are understood with any certainty, are as follows: "I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, great, mighty, submissive to Merodach, supreme Patis (II. 31), suppliant of Nebo, day and night taking thought for the restoration of Bit Saggatu and Bit Zida, who increase the glory of Babylon and Borsippa, the eldest son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon: I. The god Bel created me, and the god Merodach placed the germ of my life in my mother. I have restored the shrines of the supreme deity, extended the worship of the god, and spread abroad the worship of the high divinity of Nebo. Merodach, the great god, has raised my head to the dignity of king; he has given me the dominion over the hosts of men. Nebo, who sits on the throne in heaven and upon the earth, has put into my hands the sceptre of justice. The lands from the upper to the lower sea (_i.e._, no doubt, from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean) I have kept in obedience; the impassable roads I have made passable. The evil I have punished. I have discovered the plans of the enemies of the land, and made many prisoners: rich booty of silver, gold, and precious metals, costly things in abundance, I have collected in Babylon. Bit Saggatu, the great temple of the might of Merodach, I restored and covered with gold, so that it shone like the day: I have dedicated an altar to the god Ilu (El). The largest trees from the tops of Lebanon I brought down for the portico of Merodach. I have been able to complete Bit Saggatu; to obtain this end I invoked the king of the gods, the lord of lords. Bit Zida I have set up, and covered the shrine of Nebo with gold. I have restored the temple of the seven lamps at Borsippa (I. 291). In the midst of Babylon I have erected a great temple in honour of Bilit, the supreme lady, the mother, who created me; I have built a temple in Babylon to Nebo, who has given me the sceptre of justice, to rule the nations." Nebuchadnezzar then enumerates the rest of the gods to whom he has built temples at Babylon; the moon-god Sin; Bin, who gives fruitfulness to his land; the great goddess Nana; and, finally, the lady of Bit Ana. At Borsippa he also built temples to the great goddess Nana, and to Bin; he erected a shrine in Bit Zida to Sin. "Imgur Bel and Nivit Bel, the two great walls of Babylon, Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, the father who begot me, had commenced, but he had not completed their beauty. The outer trenches he excavated, and enclosed them with bricks and bitumen, and the banks of the river Euphrates he cased with bricks: but he did not complete this and other works. I, his eldest son, the chosen of his heart, have completed Imgur Bel and Nivit Bel, the great walls of Babylon." Nebuchadnezzar further informs us that he set up two mighty casing walls, and united them with the trenches of his father; that he enclosed the water of Bursabu with walls for the inhabitants of Babylon, and carried the line of these walls to Imgur Bel and Nivit Bel. Then he mentions the building of great gates in the wall Imgur Bel and their adornment; then observes that he measured a circuit of 4000 _Ammat gagar_ (land-cubits), and mentions the building of the mighty wall of the rising sun, _i.e._ the outer wall of the new city on the eastern bank: this wall he surrounded with water: thus had he strengthened the city and protected the land of Babylon. Next follows an account of two trenches and fortifications, which he erected, in order to render more difficult the attack of the enemy on the wall of Imgur Bel 490 _Ammat_ in length.[723] Finally, Nebuchadnezzar tells us that he founded the Tabisubur-su, _i.e._ the outer wall of Borsippa, and excavated the trenches. "Bit Saggatu and Bit Zida, I made to shine as the sun, the temples of the great gods I made to shine as the day. Merodach, who raised me to dominion, and Nebo, who entrusted me with dominion,--their dwellings have I exalted at Babylon and Borsippa. Nabopolassar, the father who begot me, had begun to build a palace of bricks. I laid the foundations, and made use of great beams of cedar-wood, and collected treasures here. In Babylon alone, and in no other city, I exalted the abode of my dominion." "For the admiration of mankind I set up this house; the fear of the power and the presence of my kingdom surround its walls. With thy help, Merodach, sublime god, I have erected this dwelling. May I receive in it the rich tribute of the kings of all lands of the world, from the West to the East. May the enemy never triumph, and may men (?) of Babylon reign here for my sake down to the most distant days."[724]

In a reign of forty-three years, of which the first three decades, though not each year of them, were occupied by the Egyptian, Arabian, and Syrian wars, Nebuchadnezzar succeeded in restoring almost entirely the buildings of the old kings of Babylon, the ancient temples of the land. In Babylon he completed the great temple of Merodach, and built temples there to Bilit, Nebo, Sin, Bin, and Nana. Four cylinders concur in mentioning that he also built a temple there to the goddess Zarpanit.[725] He adorned the temples of Babylon, as Berosus tells us, and the inscriptions confirm his account, in a costly manner with the booty of his victories.[726] It is certainly no exaggeration if the Hebrews speak of Babylon as "the beauty of the kingdoms, the pride and glory of the Chaldæans."[727] From the temple tower of Merodach now completed, the lofty signal of the city, the eye must have ranged far over the surrounding walls to the palm groves,[728] the canals and corn-fields. From the towers of the new citadel, the terrace of the hanging gardens, it must have been possible to survey the city with all its temples, the broad mirror of the Euphrates, the busy life in the streets and on the bridge. Here, without doubt, Nebuchadnezzar might have uttered the saying which a Hebrew puts in his mouth: "This is Babylon the great, which I have built for myself as a royal habitation, as a sign of my glory."

It was not the metropolis only which was restored and exalted to greater splendour than before; the rest of the cities were not forgotten. At Borsippa Nebuchadnezzar completed the great temple of Nebo, restored and completed the temple of the seven planets (of Birs Nimrud), and also built temples to Nana and Bin. At Sippara he built a temple to the gods Samas and Bin; the same gods, as he assures us, received a temple at Senkereh; and this is confirmed by a cylinder discovered there: he restored the temple of the moon-god at Ur, as he tells us, and the bricks of Ur confirm his statement;[729] Istar of Erech received back her treasures, and the god Anu received a temple at Nipur. More extensive than the temples are the works of fortification which he erected on a magnificent and well-considered system, the Median wall, and the walls of Babylon itself. We saw how closely these fortifications were connected with his great hydraulic works for the regulation of the inundation, for the connection of the Euphrates and the Tigris, for the drainage of the land at the mouth of the Euphrates. The same care which he showed in these connections by water, and in planting those harbours on the Persian Gulf, for the advancement of trade and intercourse, he also showed in making roads by land. He laid almost indestructible foundations for the agriculture of Babylonia, the welfare of the native land. After a triple subjection of Babylonia the Achæmenid kings could still collect 1000 talents (more than £300,000) in land-tax from the country; and impose on it for four months in the year the maintenance of the king's table in addition to the support of the satrap, his court, his officers, and the garrisons. The value of the products required each day for this table was rated at from 30 to 40 talents. The Babylonians preserved the most grateful memory of Nebuchadnezzar. Even after the fall of the kingdom the recurrence of his name was enough to bring them twice into arms against the Persian dominion.

The buildings begun by Nebuchadnezzar were not all finished when he died, in the year 561 B.C. None of his successors came near him in military skill, in circumspection and enterprise. The active acquisition and fortification of the empire were followed by supine enjoyment. This was quickly succeeded by neglect of government and obedience, conspiracies of relations and court officers. Evilmerodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, reigned, according to Berosus, with caprice and want of intelligence.[730] Towards Jechoniah of Judah, the son of Josiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried captive thirty-six years previously to Babylon--he had only sat on the throne three months--Evilmerodach showed kindness. He released him from his long imprisonment, invited him to his table, and treated him like the other conquered princes, for whom Babylon was a compulsory place of residence.[731] After a reign of two years the son of the great king came to an end by assassination. It was the husband of his sister, his brother-in-law, Neriglissar, who removed him out of his way (559 B.C.). In the buttresses on the Euphrates at Babylon we find bricks which show that walls on the river commenced by Nabopolassar, and continued but not completed by Nebuchadnezzar, were carried on by Neriglissar. The stamp of the bricks runs thus: "Neriglissar, king of Babylon, maintainer of Bit Saggatu and Bit Zida."[732] On a cylinder found at Babylon, Neriglissar calls himself son of Bel-labar-iskun, and speaks of his buildings at Bit Saggatu, of a water-basin "of the rising sun," of the erection of moats round the royal citadel.[733] Neriglissar died after sitting on the throne for four years: the son whom he left behind, Labaessoarach by name, was still a boy. But the great kingdom of the Medes had already succumbed to the Persians, and Babylonia was in need of a man. The chiefs of the court conspired together; Labaessoarach was murdered after bearing the title of king for nine months; and the throne was conferred by the common resolution of the conspirators on one of themselves, by name Nabonetus (555 B.C.).[734]

Berosus tells us that Nabonetus (Nabunahid) built the walls of Babylon on the river of burnt bricks and bitumen. A number of these bricks, found in the remains of the bulwarks, confirm the statement: Nabonetus as a fact completed the walls of the river. Red or gray, and entirely covered with bitumen, they display the stamp: "Nabunahid, king of Babylon, maintainer of Bit Saggatu, and Bit Zida, worshipper of Nebo, son of Nabubalatirib."[735] Nabonetus did not only build at Babylon; bricks at Senkereh and Ur prove that there also he continued the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar.[736] On an injured cylinder, discovered at Ur (Mugheir) he tells us that Nebuchadnezzar had begun to erect there the temple of Samas and Sin, his lords; that he, Nabonetus, completed the work.[737] We are acquainted with the heaps of this temple in the north-west of the ruins (I. 289). The tiles of the lower story bear the stamp of Urukh, those of the upper the stamp of his son Dungi; others show the stamp of Ismidagon, king of Ur, and Kurigalzu of Babylon, who restored this temple at the end of the fifteenth century.[738] On four clay cylinders found in these ruins, which repeat the same inscription, Nabonetus tells us that the building of the ancient kings, Urukh and Dungi, in honour of the great goddess (of Ur), lay in ruins. This temple he restored on the old foundations, as it had been before, in bricks and bitumen. He had completed this structure in honour of the god Sin; might the god grant continuance to his work. At the same time he entreats Sin to implant reverence for his great divinity in the heart of his first-born son, Bel-sar-ussur (Belshazzar).[739] Beyond this we only know of Nabonetus that in the year 551 B.C. he made Hiram, of the race of Ethbaal, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylonia after the blockade of Tyre, king of that city, and sent him there.[740] The most difficult of all tasks was already awaiting Nabonetus: he had to meet the storm which convulsed Asia. Nebuchadnezzar had been ever intent on making the power of his kingdom equal to the power of the Medes. Media and Lydia too were now subject to Cyrus. A mightier power than Nebuchadnezzar had ever looked forward to had set foot in Babylonia, in the East, the North, and the West.

"By the waters of Babylon sat" the Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried from their homes. They were men of distinction, the first in rank and culture, and the priests: it was the intellectual nucleus of the people that had been transplanted to Babylonia. The danger that this nucleus, in despair of the protection of their own god, should turn to the gods of the conquerors as being more mighty, was not great. Jehovah was no longer merely the tribal God of Israel, who had been unable to protect his tribe against all other nations: the prophets had announced him as the Almighty God of the world, who ruled over the kingdoms of the earth, who would raise up and throw down at his pleasure, who exercises justice. Moreover, the captives possessed in the Book of the Law (Deuteronomy) a plain rule of life, which had been wanting to the Israelites when transplanted by the Assyrian kings. Among them were earnest spirits and mighty hearts, who preserved their courage and hope unbroken. Opportunities for these qualities were not wanting in their dealings with their countrymen, for the exiles in their differences with each other repaired much more readily to their own countrymen who were skilled in the law, than to the magistrates of the Babylonians. Among those who were first carried away in the year 597 B.C. (p. 332), was the priest Ezekiel, who had his dwelling on the Chaboras, in Mesopotamia. The rulers often came to consult Ezekiel, and the elders gathered in his house, "that he might ask Jehovah for them."[741] His announcements are strongly coloured by the priestly point of view on which he takes his stand. He maintains strictly the rubrics and customs of worship, the correct offering of sacrifice. It is a comfort to him in his sorrow to imagine, in minute detail, how the temple is to be restored with all its buildings, the land divided among the tribes, what was to be allotted to the priests, and what duties would devolve upon them, if Jehovah should restore Israel again out of the captivity.[742] Hence with the firmer conviction could Ezekiel say to his people, that they were a people of "an impudent face and hardened heart,"[743] but that Jehovah had no pleasure in the death of the evil-doer, but only in his conversion and improvement;[744] that Jehovah would assemble them out of the lands into which they were scattered. "I will bring you," so Jehovah speaks in Ezekiel, "into the wilderness of the nations; and there will I plead with you face to face, as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt. I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. And I will purge out from among you the rebels and them that transgress against me. They shall not return to Israel. I will sprinkle pure water over you that ye may be clean. I will put a new heart and a new spirit within you, and will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh out of my spirit, that ye may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances. Then shall ye loathe yourselves for the evils which ye have committed in all your abominations; and the ruins of the cities shall be built up and inhabited, and the wilderness shall be as the garden of Eden. Israel and Judah shall no more be two nations; they shall both be my people, and I will be their God, and my servant David shall be king over them, their only shepherd. I will conclude with them an eternal covenant of peace, and establish them in the land wherein their fathers dwelt, and multiply them, and let my sanctuary and my dwelling be for ever among them."

Prophecies uttered with such conviction and certainty, supported and strengthened the hope of the people in the coming restoration of the kingdom. It was possible by the help of Jehovah. It might be expected all the sooner, the more zealously and heartily the exiles worshipped Jehovah. The more melancholy the present state of affairs, the greater was the yearning with which the eye was directed upwards. Under their foreign rulers the Jews became accustomed more and more to think of Jehovah as the one and only king of Judah who would rescue his faithful people out of their slavery in Babylon, even as he had once led them forth with a strong hand and an outstretched arm out of Egypt. In the strange land and among strangers, where the Jews were kept together by nothing more than their common religion, where besides their religion nothing was left to them, adherence to the old faith struck deeper roots, and the increasing strength of religious conviction saved the nationality.

FOOTNOTES:

[679] Herod. 2, 178.

[680] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19.

[681] Alcæi fragm. 35, ed. Bergk.

[682] Tassie, "Catalogue Raisonné," p. 64; Raspe, "Planches," 11, 653.

[683] Cp. Strabo, p. 739.

[684] Vol. I. p. 300. Herod. 1, 185. Arrian, "Anab." 7, 21. Polybius, 9, 43. Strabo, p. 754. Ammian. Marcell. 23, 6. Ptolem. 5, 20.

[685] Vol. I. p. 301. Abyden. fragm. 8, 9, ed. Müller. The position of the [Greek: Basileios potamos] is fixed by Ptolemy, 5, 17. That Nebuchadnezzar caused the Nahr Malka to be excavated follows from the words of Abydenus in Eusebius ("Chron." I. p. 37, ed. Schöne): Armacalen fluvium ex Arazane (Euphrate) derivavit: cp. "Præp. Evang." 9, 41. Armacale must obviously be the same name as Nahr Malka. Cp. Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 26 (30). On the position of the Nahr Malka, Xen. "Anab." 2-4. Ammian. Marcell. 26, 6; and that it was navigable, Herod. 1, 193.

[686] Abydenus in Eusebius, _loc. cit._ "Præp. Evang." 9, 41. Diod. (2, 9) ascribes this basin, as he does all the buildings of Babylon, with the exception of the hanging gardens, to Semiramis. Herodotus describes the basin, and considers the maker of it to be, not Semiramis, but Nitocris, who lived five generations later. To the same queen he ascribes the works in the bed of the Euphrates, the embankment of the river, and the bridge over the Euphrates, 1, 184-188. He fixes the date of Nitocris more precisely when he states that Cyrus marched against her son, who like his father was called Labynetus, and took Babylon. We know for certain that no woman reigned over Babylon from Nabopolassar to the overthrow of the kingdom. Herodotus' knowledge about the kingdom of Babylon is extremely scanty; he obtained his information, it would seem, chiefly through the Persians; and it is restricted chiefly to these two names, Nitocris and Labynetus, for he denotes by the same name the Babylonian, who arranged the peace between the Medes and the Lydians (supr. p. 260). In the one case Nabopolassar is meant by Labynetus, in the other Nabonetus; and so Nitocris can only be Amyite, the daughter of Cyaxares, the consort of Nebuchadnezzar (p. 285). The statement of Berosus in Abydenus, putting the extent of the basin at 40 parasangs (it is also found in Diodorus, 2, 9, viz. 1200 stades), is so exaggerated that in this particular the statement of Herodotus, who allows an extent of 420 stades to the lake, deserves the preference. Diodorus, _loc. cit._, gives the depth as stated in the text; according to the Armenian Eusebius it was 20 cubits; according to the "Præp. Evang.," which also quote Abydenus, it was 20 fathoms, _i.e._ 120 feet.

[687] Herod. 1, 185. It is clear from the account of Herodotus that the artificial bends in the river-bed lay above Sippara. The object which Herodotus ascribes to these works in the river--that the long and winding navigation and the large lake were intended to hinder the Medes from coming to Babylon and seeing what took place there--is naïve enough. The Ardericca of Herodotus is, no doubt, identical with the Idikara of Ptolemy, which he places more than three-fourths of a degree higher up the Euphrates than Sippara. Ptolem. 5, 17, 19.

[688] Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 766. Eusebius, "Chron." 1, p. 40, ed. Schöne; "Præp. Evang." 9, 41. Dionys. "Perieg." v. 982. Ptolem. 5, 19. Movers' somewhat different view on Gerrha is given, "Phoenizier," 2, 3, 308.

[689] Isaiah xliii. 14. Æsch. "Pers." v. 52-55. Arrian, "Ind." 32. Strabo, p. 766.

[690] Strabo, _loc. cit._ Diodorus, 14, 21, 81. Vol. II. p. 297.

[691] Movers, "Phoenizier," 2, 3, 306. This road certainly cannot be carried back to the Phenicians; the nearest way, from Nineveh to Syria, often traversed by the Assyrian kings on their campaigns, passed by Karchemish on the lower Orontes.

[692] Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 26 (30).

[693] Eratosthenes in Strabo puts the length of the wall at 200 stades (25 miles) only, Xenophon at 20 parasangs (75 miles), "as it is said:" in his time a part of the wall was still standing, "Anab." 2, 4; cp. Joseph, "c. Apion." 1, 20. But it is at the same time clear from the whole narrative of Xenophon that the Median wall was not situated at the narrowest point, but far higher up, where the distance between the rivers is far wider, _i.e._ above Sittace. We have no definite evidence that this wall was built by Nebuchadnezzar. If Strabo ascribes it to Semiramis, that means no more than the fact that the modern inhabitants give the name Sidd Nimrud to the remains. A wall against attacks from the North, against attacks of the Medes, would have no meaning before the rise of the power of the Medes; its origin and importance are entirely due to anxiety in regard to the Medes, and that such anxiety did exist, was due to the experience which Babylonia had had of Assyria, and the relative power of the two kingdoms; and it is also shown in the statements of Herodotus about the object of the windings in the river and the lake. The successors of Nebuchadnezzar were hardly in a position to undertake such works. This could be done at most by Nabonetus; but as Josephus ("c. Apion." 1, 20) quotes from Berosus a comparatively unimportant building of this king, the Median wall would not have been forgotten if it had arisen from him. On the direction of the wall, cp. Grote, "Hist. of Greece," 9, 89.

[694] Beros. fragm. 14, ed. Müller.

[695] Herod. 1, 186.

[696] Herod. 1, 178, 179.

[697] Herod. 3, 159.

[698] Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 2, 6. "Inst. Cyr." 7, 5, 7, 21.

[699] Diod. 2, 7. Cp. Arrian, "Anab." 7, 17, 6. Pseudo-Callisthenes ascribes to Babylon a diameter of no more than 12 stades and 220 or 206 feet: he ascribes to the city of Alexandria in Egypt a diameter of 16-1/2 stades; 1, 31.

[700] Diod. 2, 7.

[701] Eumenes in Æl. "Var. Hist." 3, 23.

[702] So the Ephemerides in Arrian, "Anab." 7, 25, and in Plut. "Alex." c. 75.

[703] "Pol." 3, 1, 12.

[704] Jerem. li. 53, 58.

[705] "Hist. Nat." 6, 26.

[706] Vol. I. p. 295.

[707] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19.

[708] Oppert, "Exped." 1, 140 ff.

[709] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19.

[710] Euseb. "Præp. Evang." 9, 41, 8.

[711] Diod. 2, 10.

[712] Strabo, p. 738.

[713] Oppert, "Exped." 1, 156 ff.

[714] It is the less doubtful that the bridge is the work of Nebuchadnezzar, since the basin of Sepharvaim is vouched for as his work by Berosus.

[715] Diod. 2, 8.

[716] Herod. 1, 186.

[717] "Inst. Cyri," 7, 6.

[718] Ménant, "Babylone," p. 213.

[719] W. A. Inscript. 1, 52. No. 6 in Ménant, "Babylone," p. 215.

[720] Ménant, _loc. cit._, p. 214

[721] Ménant, _loc. cit._, p. 213.

[722] Ménant, _loc. cit._, p. 208.

[723] Colum. 6, 22; 8, 42.

[724] Ménant, "Babylone," p. 200 ff. Rodwell, "Records of the Past," 5, 113 ff. Two private documents of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar are in existence, one from the first part of his reign, 604 B.C.; the second from the twentieth, 584 B.C. Oppert et Ménant, "Doc. Juridiq." p. 257 ff.

[725] Ménant, _loc. cit._, p. 215.

[726] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19.

[727] Isaiah xiii. 19 ff.

[728] Arrian, "Anab." 7, 19, 4.

[729] Ménant, _loc. cit._, p. 218.

[730] Berosi fragm. 14, ed. Müller.

[731] 2 Kings xxv. 27-30.

[732] Oppert, "Exped." 2, 324, cf. 1, 181.

[733] Ménant, _loc. cit._, p. 249.

[734] Berosi fragm. 14, ed. Müller. That Evilmerodach ascended the throne in 561 B.C. is established, not only by the astronomical canon, but also by the statement of the Hebrews that Evilmerodach liberated Jechoniah in the thirty-seventh year of his imprisonment, 2 Kings xxv. 27. Jerem. lii. 31. Between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonetus the astronomical canon only mentions Evilmerodach and Neriglissar, with six years between them. Josephus supplements this by the dates of the years in Berosus ("c. Apion." 1, 20), which in the result agree with the canon. Cf. Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 50, ed. Schöne. "Præp. Evang." 9, 40. The accession of Nabonetus in the year 555 B.C. is also fixed by the document in Oppert et Ménant "Doc. Jurid." p. 262. The statements of Josephus ("Antiq." 10, 11, 2) are entirely false and untenable. The name of the last king Nabonetus is established against the Labynetus of Herodotus (1, 77) by the inscriptions.

[735] Oppert, _loc. cit._, 1, 325, 326.

[736] Oppert, _loc. cit._, 1, 262, 269.

[737] Oppert, _loc. cit._, 1, 272 ff.

[738] Vol. I. 289; II. 33. Ménant, _loc. cit._, pp. 253, 255.

[739] Oppert, _loc. cit._, 1, 262, 263. Schrader, "Keilinschr. und A. T." s. 280.

[740] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 20, 21. Above, p. 354, _n._ In the fourteenth year of the reign of this Hiram Cyrus conquered Babylon; he must, therefore, have been placed on the throne in 551 B.C.

[741] _E. g._ Ezek. xx. 1.

[742] Ezek. xx. 40; chaps. xl.-xlviii.

[743] Ezek. ii. 4.

[744] Ezek. xviii. 21-23.