Myths of Babylonia and Assyria Part 38

On the 16th of Tammuz the investing army under Gobryas entered Babylon, the gates having been opened by friends within the city. Some think that the Jews favoured the cause of Cyrus. It is quite as possible, however, that the priests of Merodach had a secret understanding with the great Achaemenian, the "King of kings".

A few days afterwards Cyrus arrived at Babylon. Belshazzar had been slain, but Nabonidus still lived, and he was deported to Carmania.

Perfect order prevailed throughout the city, which was firmly policed by the Persian soldiers, and there was no looting. Cyrus was welcomed as a deliverer by the priesthood. He "took the hands" of Bel Merodach at E-sagila, and was proclaimed "King of the world, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, and King of the Four Quarters".

Cyrus appointed his son Cambyses as governor of Babylon. Although a worshipper of Ahura-Mazda and Mithra, Cambyses appears to have conciliated the priesthood. When he became king, and swept through Egypt, he was remembered as the madman who in a fit of pa.s.sion slew a sacred Apis bull. It is possible, however, that he performed what he considered to be a pious act: he may have sacrificed the bull to Mithra.

The Jews also welcomed Cyrus. They yearned for their native land.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.[564]

Cyrus heard with compa.s.sion the cry of the captives.

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord G.o.d of heaven hath given me all kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

Who is there among you of all his people? his G.o.d be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord G.o.d of Israel (he is the G.o.d) which is in Jerusalem.[565]

In 538 B.C. the first party of Jews who were set free saw through tears the hills of home, and hastened their steps to reach Mount Zion.

Fifty years later Ezra led back another party of the faithful. The work of restoring Jerusalem was undertaken by Nehemiah in 445 B.C.

The trade of Babylon flourished under the Persians, and the influence of its culture spread far and wide. Persian religion was infused with new doctrines, and their deities were given stellar attributes.

Ahura-Mazda became identified with Bel Merodach, as, perhaps, he had previously been with Ashur, and the G.o.ddess Anahita absorbed the attributes of Nina, Ishtar, Zerpanitu?, and other Babylonian "mother deities".

Another "Semiramis" came into prominence. This was the wife and sister of Cambyses. After Cambyses died she married Darius I, who, like Cyrus, claimed to be an Achaemenian. He had to overthrow a pretender, but submitted to the demands of the orthodox Persian party to purify the Ahura-Mazda religion of its Babylonian innovations. Frequent revolts in Babylon had afterwards to be suppressed. The Merodach priesthood apparently suffered loss of prestige at Court. According to Herodotus, Darius plotted to carry away from E-sagila a great statue of Bel "twelve cubits high and entirely of solid gold". He, however, was afraid "to lay his hands upon it". Xerxes, son of Darius (485-465 B.C.), punished Babylon for revolting, when intelligence reached them of his disasters in Greece, by pillaging and partly destroying the temple. "He killed the priest who forbade him to move the statue, and took it away."[566] The city lost its va.s.sal king, and was put under the control of a governor. It, however, regained some of its ancient glory after the burning of Susa palace, for the later Persian monarchs resided in it. Darius II died at Babylon, and Artaxerxes II promoted in the city the worship of Anaitis.

When Darius III, the last Persian emperor, was overthrown by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., Babylon welcomed the Macedonian conqueror as it had welcomed Cyrus. Alexander was impressed by the wisdom and accomplishments of the astrologers and priests, who had become known as "Chaldaeans", and added Bel Merodach to his extraordinary pantheon, which already included Amon of Egypt, Melkarth, and Jehovah. Impressed by the antiquity and magnificence of Babylon, he resolved to make it the capital of his world-wide empire, and there he received amba.s.sadors from countries as far east as India and as far west as Gaul.

The ca.n.a.ls of Babylonia were surveyed, and building operations on a vast scale planned out. No fewer than ten thousand men were engaged working for two months reconstructing and decorating the temple of Merodach, which towered to a height of 607 feet. It looked as if Babylon were about to rise to a position of splendour unequalled in its history, when Alexander fell sick, after attending a banquet, and died on an evening of golden splendour sometime in June of 323 B.C.

One can imagine the feelings of the Babylonian priests and astrologers as they spent the last few nights of the emperor's life reading "the omens of the air"--taking note of wind and shadow, moon and stars and planets, seeking for a sign, but unable to discover one favourable.

Their hopes of Babylonian glory were suspended in the balance, and they perished completely when the young emperor pa.s.sed away in the thirty-third year of his life. For four days and four nights the citizens mourned in silence for Alexander and for Babylon.

The ancient city fell into decay under the empire of the Seleucidae.

Seleucus I had been governor of Babylon, and after the break-up of Alexander's empire he returned to the ancient metropolis as a conqueror. "None of the persons who succeeded Alexander", Strabo wrote, "attended to the undertaking at Babylon"--the reconstruction of Merodach's temple. "Other works were neglected, and the city was dilapidated partly by the Persians and partly by time and through the indifference of the Greeks, particularly after Seleucus Nicator fortified Seleukeia on the Tigris."[567]

Seleucus drafted to the city which bore his name the great bulk of the inhabitants of Babylon. The remnant which was left behind continued to worship Merodach and other G.o.ds after the walls had crumbled and the great temple began to tumble down. Babylon died slowly, but at length the words of the Hebrew prophet were fulfilled:

The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it.... They shall call the n.o.bles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow: the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.[568]