The History of Antiquity, Vol. 6 (of 6). Duncker Max

63

      The eager and impatient expectation of the Jews could not but perceive the change which had been made in the relation of the states of Asia by the victory of Cyrus over Astyages and the Medes three years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar. When Cyrus afterwards subjugated the nations to the east and west of Media, and the mighty kingdom of Lydia was shattered by him, so that the fame of his victories filled the East – when it might be expected that his arms would turn against Babylon, the Jews considered their rescue certain. With redoubled zeal they called down the punishment of Jehovah on Babylon, and delighted themselves in advance with the coming vengeance. Cyrus was the instrument which Jehovah had chosen to punish Babylon. As the old prophets had seen in the kings of Assyria, and Jeremiah in Nebuchadnezzar, the servants of Jehovah, who were to carry out his will on the nations, and hold the judgment day of the Lord, so did the Jews now see in Cyrus a man called to a similar mission, their saviour and liberator; he seemed to them the anointed of Jehovah. If the absence of images in the rites of the Persians, the worship of Auramazda, the creator of heaven and earth, were nearer the religion of the Jews than the sacrifices which the Babylonians offered before the images of Bel and Bilit-Istar, Adar, Samas and Sin, Merodach and Nebo, and the worship which they devoted to the ruling powers of the stars, they did not overlook the gulf which divided them; but they were convinced that Jehovah chose Cyrus as the rod of his anger, and the goad of his wrath, to punish the pride and wickedness of Babylon. In this spirit we find a prophet saying, with a definite reference to the announcements of Jeremiah: "Who called him from the East, whom victory meets at every step? Who gives him the nations and subjugates kings to him, and makes their swords as dust, and their bows as chaff? He pursues them and follows safely in the path which his feet have never trodden. I, Jehovah, aroused him from the North (midnight), and he came from the rising sun, who calls upon my name. He passes over the mighty ones as over clay, as a potter breaks a vessel. I summoned him for salvation, and his ways will I make smooth; he shall build my city and release my captives, without ransom and without price. I will speak to Koresh (Cyrus), my shepherd; all my business he shall perform, so that he will say of Jerusalem, It shall be built, and of the temple, It shall be established. And I will speak to Koresh, mine anointed, whom I hold by his right hand to throw down the nations before him, and strip the loins of the kings, and open the gates and doors: I called thee, though thou knewest me not;64 I will go before thee and make plain the ramparts; I will break in pieces the brazen gates, and the cross bars will I loosen" (the gates of Babylon were of brass);65 "I will say to the deep, Dry up, and thy streams I will cause to be parched. Hear this, O wanton one, O daughter of the Chaldæans, thou that didst lay thy yoke heavily on my people, on the aged one, saying, I will be a lady for ever; but suddenly on one day thou shalt be childless and widowed. Keep to thy incantations, to the multitude of the charms wherewith thou hast comforted thyself from thy youth up. May the quarters of the sky arise and help thee, which look to the stars, which on the new moons announce what will come upon thee. Bel boweth down, Nebo falleth. No more shalt thou be called mistress of the kingdoms, daughter of the Chaldæans. I will place thee on the earth without a throne, I will plant thee in the dust, and make thee crawl in the darkness, O virgin, daughter of Babylon. Take the mill and grind meal, remove thy veil, lift up thy garment, lay bare the thigh, and pass through the rivers; no more shalt thou be called delicate and tender66. Zion said, Jehovah has left me, and my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, and have no pity on the fruit of her womb? Yet though she may forget, yet will not I, Jehovah, forget thee. I have graven thee upon my hands, and thy walls were ever before my eyes67. Loose the fetters from thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. Shake off the dust, Jerusalem; rise up, thou that hast drunk the cup of wrath from the hand of Jehovah68. Behold, I take from thy hand the cup of my wrath, that thou mayest drink it no more. I put it into the hand of those who have prepared sorrow for thee. Break forth into singing, ye ruins of Jerusalem; cry aloud, O heaven; rejoice, O earth, for Jehovah has mercy on his people69. He called the eagle from the east" (the eagle was the standard of the Achæmenids), "the man of his counsel from the distant land. Jehovah spake and called him; he leads him forth, and he shall accomplish it; he brings to pass the will of Jehovah on Babylon, and his might on the Chaldæans."70

      Herodotus describes the approach of Cyrus and his war against Babylon in the following manner: "When on his march against Babylon he came to the Gyndes (now the Diala), which falls into the Tigris, and crossed it, one of the sacred white horses was carried away by the stream. Cyrus was angry, and threatened that he would make the river so insignificant that a woman should cross it without wetting her knee. With this view he drew 180 lines on each side of the river, and bade his army dig a channel on every line; and as a great multitude was employed, the work was finished, but it occupied the whole summer, so that Cyrus did not lead his army against Babylon till the second spring. The Babylonians marched out of the city and awaited his attack. When Cyrus came up the Babylonians joined battle; they were defeated, and driven into the walls. They had known for a long time that Cyrus would not remain at rest, for they had seen how he had reduced all nations alike, and therefore they had collected provisions for many years in the city. The siege, therefore, caused them no alarm; but Cyrus was in difficulties, for time passed away, and he made no advance. Afterwards he did as follows, whether it was that some one suggested the plan to him, or whether he discovered it for himself. He placed part of his army where the river flows into the city, and part where it flows out, and bade them enter the city by the river as soon as it could be forded. After he had given them orders, he went with the bulk of his army to the basin, which the queen of the Babylonians had caused to be excavated, and did what she had done with the basin and the river. By leading the river through the opening into this basin, which was a marsh, he made the old bed so that it could be forded. When this had been done, and the water of the river had fallen to such an extent that it reached the middle of a man's thigh, the Persians who had been placed near the city forced their way into Babylon along the bed of the river. Had the Babylonians previously known or suspected what Cyrus intended, the Persians would not have passed unnoticed into the walls; had they closed the gates leading from the city to the river, and mounted the walls which line the banks, they would have caught the Persians in a trap as it were, and they would have perished miserably. But the Persians came quite unexpectedly. The outer parts of the city had been already taken while those in the centre, who, as the Babylonians say, knew nothing of the matter, owing to the extent of the city, were dancing and making merry – for it so happened that a festival was being celebrated – until they at length discovered their misfortune."

      Xenophon relates that the inhabitants of Babylon laughed at the siege, because the strong and lofty walls could not be taken by storm, and the siege would not hurt them, for they had provisions for more than twenty years. Cyrus also soon convinced himself that the city could not be taken by the means which he was employing, and resolved to draw off the Euphrates, which traverses the city in a stream two stadia (1200 feet) in breadth, and twice the height of a man in depth. For this object he threw a rampart round the whole city, with a very broad and deep trench before it on the side towards the city. This great work was apportioned to the different parts of the army, and the time occupied in it was calculated at a year. Where the trenches approached the river the earth was not excavated, so that the water would not flow into the trenches. When Cyrus perceived that the Babylonians celebrated a festival at a fixed time, at which they feasted for the whole night, he caused the earth which separated the river from the trenches above the city to be cut through by a multitude of men as soon as it was dark; the water at once ran into the trenches, and the river sank so low that it could be forded. The river now opened a way into the city, and Cyrus bade his troops enter by its bed. They would find the inhabitants drunk and asleep, without any organization for resistance, and when they found the enemy in the city they would lose all their courage. If the Babylonians, nevertheless, attempted to hurl down missiles from the roofs, the houses could be burned, and they would take fire readily, as the doors were of palm-wood covered with bitumen. A separate troop of the Persian army, which Gobryas led, had orders to make their way to the palace of the king as quickly as possible. The Persians entered,

64

Deut. Isa. xli. 2, 3; xli. 25; xliv. 28. Kohut, "Antiparsismus in Deut. Yesaias, Z. D. M. G." 1876, 3, 711 ff.

65

Deut. Isa. xlv. 1, 2, 3. Vol. III. 369.

66

Deut. Isa. xlvii. 1-13.

67

Deut. Isa. xlix. 14-16.

68

Deut. Isa. li. 17. Vol. III. 326.

69

Deut. Isa. xlix. 13.

70

Deut. Isa. xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.