The Persian on his throne.”—Byron’s “Vision of Belshazzar.”
Nowhere is there a more striking illustration of national regeneration than is furnished by the story of the new Babylonian Empire. Freed from Assyrian thraldom, Babylon, the old, old city, came forward to take the place of the fallen Nineveh as the world-metropolis.
It has been customary to think and speak of the new Babylonian Empire as evidencing the rejuvenation of an old people. In one sense this view has full validity. But it must not be supposed that the new Babylonians who came to power when Nineveh fell were the bona fide descendants of the rulers of old Babylonia. New blood had made itself felt in the old race; indeed, without its influence it is highly improbable that the rejuvenation could have been effected. The outsiders who made their influence felt with such potency to restore and rejuvenate the old empire, are known as the Chaldeans. The precise origin of this people is in doubt. It is held to be established, however, that they were Semitic, and hence could claim cousinship with the Babylonians and Assyrians. They inhabited the Sea Lands to the south of Mesopotamia at an early date, and have been supposed to come originally from Arabia. They are heard of from time to time in Babylonian and Assyrian annals as a half-barbaric and often troublesome people, divided into various tribes or clans or petty principalities, bearing such unfamiliar names as Bit-Silani, Bit-Sa’alli, and Bit-Sala.
It is supposed by modern orientalists that the Chaldeans long had their eyes upon the fertile regions of the North, and even, from time to time, been presumptuous enough to cross swords with the Babylonians and Assyrians in the hope of dethroning them. Certain it is that the rulers of the North had at various times waged war against their less civilised cousins of the Sea Lands. Yet the evidence does not seem to be very clear as to the precise share which the Chaldeans took in the new movement inaugurated in Babylon with the death of the last really powerful Assyrian king, Asshurbanapal. The name of the new ruler who now came to power in Babylon was Nabopolassar; but it cannot be asserted with confidence that he was of Chaldean origin. It is held, however, that the influences that dominated the kingdom under his reign were clearly Chaldean; though considering the vagueness that surrounds the entire subject, it must be admitted that this assertion is much easier to make than to prove. Still, all that we know about the degeneration of old nations elsewhere, and the extreme difficulty of resuscitating a senescent people, except by a mixture of races, tends to confirm the theory that a race relatively new to civilisation was chiefly instrumental in working the miracle of Babylonian regeneration.
In any event, the people who for something less than a century made Babylon a great centre of world-influence were known to their contemporaries and to succeeding generations as Chaldeans rather than as Babylonians. Just to what extent the old Babylonian people shared in the new work, can perhaps never be known; but the question is relatively unimportant, because in any event it was a people of the same old Semitic stock that carried on the historic story.
The most brilliant period of the new Babylonian Empire came soon after the fall of Nineveh, in the reign of the world-famous king, Nebuchadrezzar, the monarch who built the marvellous wall about the city and the fabulous hanging gardens; the conqueror who overthrew the Phœnicians and carried the Israelites into captivity.
A peculiar interest attaches to the period of the immediate successors of Nebuchadrezzar because the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites still continued, to which the Hebrew writers made such extended references. The famous account in the Book of Daniel of the feast of Belshazzar, with its brief but graphic reference to the alleged tragic end of the Babylonian king, and the overthrow of Babylon itself at the hands of “Darius the Mede,” have furnished never-to-be-forgotten pictures to all subsequent generations. The modern archæologist has rudely shattered some of these treasured images. Thus the Book of Daniel makes allusion to the overthrow of Babylon in these words: “Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.… In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.” (Daniel v. 1, 2, 30, 31.)
[555 B.C.]
But within the past generation inscriptions have come to light proving, to the amazement of a keenly interested world, that no king named Belshazzar ever reigned in Babylon; and that the name of the monarch overthrown by Cyrus the Persian or Elamite—not by “Darius the Mede”—was Nabonidus. Nabonidus had a son, Belshazzar, but he never ruled. This Nabonidus was not the son of Nebuchadrezzar or his immediate successor, three successive rulers after Nebuchadrezzar having reigned before he came to the throne. It is clear from inscriptions of Nabonidus and of Cyrus his conqueror that Babylon was overthrown without a struggle. A cylinder inscription by Cyrus tells the story: the first part of which, translated by the Rev. C. J. Ball, is as follows: “The continual offering he made to cease … he (es)tablished in the cities the worship of Merodach, the King of the Gods, he exalted (?) His name … by a yoke unrelaxing he ruined them all. At their lamentation the Lord of the Gods waxed very wroth … the Gods who dwelt among them forsook Their abode. In wrath because he brought them into Shu-anna (i.e. Babylon), Merodach … He turned towards all the districts whose dwellings were thrown down. And (to) the people of Shinar and Accad, who were become as dead, He turned (His regard?): He showed compassion upon all the lands together. He looked for, He found him, yea, He sought out an upright Prince, after His own heart, whom He took by his hand, Cyrus, king of the city of Anshan; He named his name; to the kingdom of the whole world He called him by na(me). The land of Qutû (and) all the Umman-Manda he humbled to his feet; the Blackheaded folk, whom his hands subdued,—in faithfulness and righteousness he looked after them. Merodach, the great Lord, the guardian of His people, joyfully beheld his good deeds and his upright heart. To His own city Babylon his march He commanded; He put them on the road to Tin-tir (i.e. Babylon); like a comrade and helper He marched at his side. His great hosts, whose number like the waters of a river could not be known, with their weapons girded on, advanced beside him. Without skirmish or battle He made him enter Shu-anna. His own city Babylon He spared from distress; Nabonidus the king, who feared him not, He delivered up to him. The people of Tin-tir in a body, the entire land of Shinar and Accad, the nobles and grandees, bowed down before Him, kissed His feet, rejoiced at His accession; their faces brightened.”
The accounts given by Nabonidus himself confirm this record of Cyrus. It would appear, then, that the Hebrew chroniclers, gifted rather with the poetical imagination than with the calm historical sense, confused the Babylonian conquest of Cyrus with a later campaign of his successor, Darius. But no mere substitution of the cold facts of history can ever rob the world of the beautiful traditional picture of the feast of Belshazzar. Here, as elsewhere, myth must be allowed to hold its own as the embodiment of the spirit of history. Myth and history coincide as to the fact that the old dynasty in new Babylonia was overthrown. And with that overthrow the sceptre of world-influence passed from the hands of the Semitic race forever.