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 [pg 413] 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 [pg 414] 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,