24
THE KING’S BUSINESS
Euphrates*:—But the main portion of Babylon, containing the royal palace and the great temples were on the Eastern shore of the river. What therefore occurred at the taking of Babylon by Cyrus would seem to have been this;—Sippar lying north of Babylon was taken;—and King Na- bonidos who would appear to have been in it—fled. He probably crossed the river in escaping from the Per sians and flying from the enemy took refuge in that part of the city of Baby lon which was on the Western side of the Euphrates. Gobryas and the Per sians pursued him, and the citizens opening the gates to the enemy, the. king was captured. Thus in the words of the inscription, ‘on the 16th day Gobryas . . . and the soldiers of Gy rus entered Babylon without fighting. After Nabonidos they pursued;—he was captured in Babylon.” On this view Gobryas had, ’tis true, “entered Babylon,” but he was very far indeed from having really gained possession of the mighty city. He would find himself confronted by the river Euphrates, in breadth not much short of 200 yards-—about the width of the Thames at Chelsea—its further shore lined with immense embank ments—behind which was the real Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar some 70 years before in one of his inscriptions seems to have described the position by anti cipation. Boasting of the fortifica tions which he had thrown up to de fend Babylon, he says:—“Great waters like the might of the sea I brought near in abundance, and their flowing by was like the sweeping past of the great billows of the Western ocean;—pass ages through them there were-none; but mounds of earth I heaped, and em bankments of brickwork I caused to * This outlying portion of the city would seem to have been regarded by Nebuchad nezzar as an outwork of Babylon. In the Indian House Inscription he refers to it in these words: “And to the city for protec-
be constructed” (India House Inscrip tion of Nebuchadnezzar). There in that Eastern part of the city, secure for the moment from the enemy, Belshazzar, son of the king, reigned;—and there the merchants of Babylon carried on their business transactions, and dated their tablets on which those transactions were record ed—safe from any interference of Gobryas—on such a day of the month “in the 17th year of Nabonidos king of Babylon.” Three months then elapsed before Cyrus descended to Babylon;— and these three months afforded time for the siege recorded by the classical writers, during which the soldiers of Cyrus round Babylon were digging the trenches—no very great task for a large army in the alluvial soil of Baby lonia—whilst he himself—as recog nized in the Annalistic Tablet—was absent;—employing (so Herodotus says) the inefficient part of his army in further reducing the waters of the Euphrates at another part by turning them into a marshy lake. Then on the 3rd of the month Mar- chesvan—the tablet says—Cyrus de scended to Babylon;—and after this occur the words, “On the 11th day of Marchesvan during the night Gubaru made an assault (?) and slew the king’s son ( ?).” That was the night, no doubt, when the trenches were opened—the Per sian troops under the shadow of the mighty mounds defending the eastern bank of the river, stealthily advanced through the shallower waters, entered the city by the river gates—Babylon was taken—and Belshazzar slain. This is shown to demonstration by the fact that all the contract tablets dated previous to the 11th Marchesvan are dated in “the 17th year of Naboni dos King of Babylon”—-whilst all those dated later than the 11th of that (Concluded on page 81) tion I brought near an embankment of en closure beyond the river westward” (col. v.. lines 31-35).
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