Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/210

 190 BABYLONIA BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY chadnezzar was succeeded by his son Evil- merodach, of whom but a single act is recorded. He released Jehoiachin, the captive king of Judah, from his imprisonment of 37 years, and treated him with distinguished favor, though still detaining him in Babylon. After a reign of two years Evil-merodach was assassinated by his brother-in-law Neriglissar, who died in less than four years, and was succeeded by his son Laborosoarchod, a mere boy, who in nine months was put to death by a conspiracy formed by his relations. He was succeeded (555) by Nabonadius, the sixth and last king of Babylonia. He appears to have belonged, like Neriglissar, to the priestly order; and it has been conjectured that he was married to Nitocris, a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, and that she was queen regnant. This con- jecture, if admitted, would confirm the state- ment of Herodotus that many of the defensive works at Babylon, especially designed to re- pel the Medes, were the work of a queen named Nitocris. It is certain that some of these were constructed during the reign of Nabonadius. If we may assume that his queen was a daughter of the great' Nebuchadnez- zar, and co-sovereign with her husband, it would be quite natural that tradition should give her the credit for these constructions. Moreover, we are told that Nabonadius was not related to the boy Laborosoarchod, and so could not have been a descendant of Neb- uchadnezzar; but in Daniel the queen ad- dresses Belshazzar, the son of Nabonadius, as the son or descendant of Nebuchadnezzar. If now we suppose this queen to have been the queen-mother, and so the wife of Nabonadius, all the accounts, are brought into harmony. She speaks also with a kind of authority natu- ral for a mother in addressing her son, but hardly to be expected from a young oriental queen toward her husband. The queen also is especially distinguished from the wives of Bel- shazzar. At all events, Nabonadius at length perceived the danger which was impending from the direction of Persia. Cyrus was en- gaged in his war against Croesus, king of Lydia. Nabonadius joined in the alliance between Lydia and Egypt against Cyrus ; but it appears that the Babylonian forces did not arrive in time to take part in the campaign which ended with the overthrow of Croesus at Sar- dis. Lydia subjected, Cyrus turned his arms against Babylonia. In 539 the Persian army moved to the Tigris. They wintered on the banks of the Gyndes, and in the spring crossed the Tigris and overran the whole up- per country. Nabonadius, leaving his young son Belshazzar in charge of the capital, gave battle under the walls of the city. The As- syrians were defeated, and the king threw himself into the strong fortress of Borsippa, a few miles distant. Cyrus now formally in- vested the city, and having, after a long siege and bold enterprise (see BABYLON), secured complete possession of it, was about to attack Borsippa ; but Nabonadius surrendered with- out ottering any defence. Thus, in 538, the Babylonian kingdom came to an end. The book of Daniel relates that Darius the Mede, son of Ahasuerus, was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, being then 62 years of age. Attempts have been made to identify this Darius with several princes of Medo-Per- sia. All these attempts involve insuperable chronological difficulties. Possibly he was a Median nobleman, not elsewhere named, whom Cyrus appointed as viceroy over Babylonia. This seems indeed to be implied by the phrase of Daniel, that "he was made" king. His viceroyalty lasted only two years, being most likely ended by his death ; and Cyrus then per- sonally assumed the sovereignty. The captive Jews, who were subject to the direct rule of Darius, naturally spoke of him as king, and usually reckoned the years of Cyrus from the beginning of his personal reign at Babylon, though he had been king of Persia for 20 years. Among the first acts of Cyrus after taking upon himself the government of Baby- lonia, was to issue an edict permitting such Jews as chose to do so to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. The date of the issue of the edict is one of the epochs which have been fixed upon as the close of the 70 years of captivity. (See BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY.) The overthrow of the Babylonian kingdom marks the period when the empire of the East, so long held by the Semitic stock, passed into the hands of the Aryan race, who retained it for 12 centuries, when it was again wrested from them by the Mohammedan conquest. But for 2,400 years Babylonia has ceased to have any special history of its own, being successively under the sway of the Persians, Greeks, Par- thians, Neo-Persians, Saracens, and finally Turks, under whom the country has sunk deeper and deeper into decay. BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY, the period during which the Jewish people who had been carried away from their country to Babylonia, with their descendants or any part of them, were forcibly detained in a foreign land. It is reckoned as beginning at some point in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and ending in the reign of Cyrus or of Darius I. The earliest point thus fixed for the beginning of the cap- tivity is 605 B. 0., when Nebuchadnezzar, com- manding the forces of his father Nabopolassar, first took Jerusalem; the latest 516, when the building of the second temple was finished. But here is an interval of 89 years, whereas the duration of the captivity is several times stated to have been 70 years. There are two periods of this length, either of which might properly be considered as measuring the cap- tivity. Counting 70 years from 605 B. C., when Daniel was carried off, brings us to 535, or, loosely speaking, to 536, the date of the decree of Cyrus permitting the return of the Jews. This would naturally be the term of the captivity in the mind of Daniel, who re-