Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/89

Rh the ninth year of the reign of Nabû-na'id, Cyrus collected his army, crossed the Tigris at Arbela, and invaded a small, independent kingdom, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates, the name of which is unknown owing to a mutilation in the text of the inscription. In the seventeenth year of Nabû-na'id (538) destruction came to Babylon.

Cyrus, after the conquest of Akkad, entered Babylonia. Sippara, the famous city of the God Shamash, was taken without a blow on the fourteenth of the month Tammuz (June–July) after Cyrus had defeated the Babylonian army at Opis (Upê ). This is the battle mentioned by Herodotus. Nabû-na'id fled to Babylon. On the sixteenth day of the month Tammuz Gubaru (Gobryas), the governor of Gutium, entered Babylon without fighting. Nabû-na'id was taken prisoner in Babylon. On the third day of the month Marcheshvan (October–November) the son of the king who led the Babylonian troops was slain, if we can trust a rather mutilated portion of the text of the inscription which seems to warrant this statement. This crown prince is called Bêl-šar-uṣur, as we learn from the inscription on the clay cylinders found in the corners of the Sin ternpie at Ur. In the book of Daniel this prince is called Belshazzar. In another place (Dan. v. 30) it is stated that Belshazzar was slain by the entering Persians on a night which followed a great feast in the royal palace. Herodotus (I., 191) speaks also of the same feast.

From the Biblical narrative we conclude that the Babylonians were surprised by the Persians in the midst of their drunken revel. This unforeseen entry