Part 37 (2/2)
Necho, the second Pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Egyptian Dynasty, did not hesitate to take advantage of a.s.syria's fall. In 609 B.C. he proceeded to recover the long-lost Asiatic possessions of Egypt, and operated with an army and fleet. Gaza and Askalon were captured.
Josiah, the grandson of Mana.s.seh, was King of Judah. ”In his days Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of a.s.syria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he (Necho) slew him at Megiddo.”[552] His son, Jehoahaz, succeeded him, but was deposed three months later by Necho, who placed another son of Josiah, named Eliakim, on the throne, ”and turned his name to Jehoiakim”.[553]
The people were heavily taxed to pay tribute to the Pharaoh.
When Necho pushed northward towards the Euphrates he was met by a Babylonian army under command of Prince Nebuchadrezzar.[554] The Egyptians were routed at Carchemish in 605 B.C. (_Jeremiah,_ xvi, 2).
In 604 B.C. Nabopola.s.sar died, and the famous Nebuchadrezzar II ascended the throne of Babylon. He lived to be one of its greatest kings, and reigned for over forty years. It was he who built the city described by Herodotus (pp. 219 _et seq._), and constructed its outer wall, which enclosed so large an area that no army could invest it.
Merodach's temple was decorated with greater magnificence than ever before. The great palace and hanging gardens were erected by this mighty monarch, who no doubt attracted to the city large numbers of the skilled artisans who had fled from Nineveh. He also restored temples at other cities, and made generous gifts to the priests.
Captives were drafted into Babylonia from various lands, and employed cleaning out the ca.n.a.ls and as farm labourers.
The trade and industries of Babylon flourished greatly, and Nebuchadrezzar's soldiers took speedy vengeance on roving bands which infested the caravan roads. ”The king of Egypt”, after his crus.h.i.+ng defeat at Carchemish, ”came not again any more out of his land: for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.”[555] Jehoiakim of Judah remained faithful to Necho until he was made a prisoner by Nebuchadrezzar, who ”bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon”.[556] He was afterwards sent back to Jerusalem. ”And Jehoiakim became his (Nebuchadrezzar's) servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him.”[557]
Bands of Chaldaeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites were hara.s.sing the frontiers of Judah, and it seemed to the king as if the Babylonian power had collapsed. Nebuchadrezzar hastened westward and scattered the raiders before him. Jehoiakim died, and his son Jehoiachan, a youth of eighteen years, succeeded him. Nebuchadrezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, and the young king submitted to him and was carried off to Babylon, with ”all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained save the poorest sort of the people of the land”.[558] Nebuchadrezzar had need of warriors and workmen.
Zedekiah was placed on the throne of Judah as an a.s.syrian va.s.sal. He remained faithful for a few years, but at length began to conspire with Tyre and Sidon, Moab, Edom, and Ammon in favour of Egyptian suzerainty. Pharaoh Hophra (Apries), the fourth king of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, took active steps to a.s.sist the conspirators, and ”Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon[559]”.
Nebuchadrezzar led a strong army through Mesopotamia, and divided it at Riblah, on the Orontes River. One part of it descended upon Judah and captured Lachish and Azekah. Jerusalem was able to hold out for about eighteen months. Then ”the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden.” Zedekiah attempted to escape, but was captured and carried before Nebuchadrezzar, who was at Riblah, in the land of Hamath.
And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes.... Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains and carried him to Babylon and put him in prison till the day of his death[560].
The majority of the Jews were deported to Babylonia, where they were employed as farm labourers. Some rose to occupy important official positions. A remnant escaped to Egypt with Jeremiah.
Jerusalem was plundered and desolated. The a.s.syrians ”burned the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem”, and ”brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about”. Jeremiah lamented:
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.... Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old....[561]
Tyre was besieged, but was not captured. Its king, however, arranged terms of peace with Nebuchadrezzar.
Amel-Marduk, the ”Evil Merodach” of the Bible, the next king of Babylon, reigned for a little over two years. He released Jehoiachin from prison, and allowed him to live in the royal palace.[562] Berosus relates that Amel-Marduk lived a dissipated life, and was slain by his brother-in-law, Nergal-shar-utsur, who reigned two years (559-6 B.C.).
Labas.h.i.+-Marduk, son of Nergal-shar-utsur, followed with a reign of nine months. He was deposed by the priests. Then a Babylonian prince named Nabu-na'id (Nabonidus) was set on the throne. He was the last independent king of Babylonia. His son Belshazzar appears to have acted as regent during the latter part of the reign.
Nabonidus engaged himself actively during his reign (556-540 B.C.) in restoring temples. He entirely reconstructed the house of Shamash, the sun G.o.d, at Sippar, and, towards the end of his reign, the house of Sin, the moon G.o.d, at Haran. The latter building had been destroyed by the Medes.
The religious innovations of Nabonidus made him exceedingly unpopular throughout Babylonia, for he carried away the G.o.ds of Ur, Erech, Larsa, and Eridu, and had them placed in E-sagila. Merodach and his priests were displeased: the prestige of the great G.o.d was threatened by the policy adopted by Nabonidus. As an inscription composed after the fall of Babylon sets forth; Merodach ”gazed over the surrounding lands ... looking for a righteous prince, one after his own heart, who should take his hands.... He called by name Cyrus.”
Cyrus was a petty king of the shrunken Elamite province of Anshan, which had been conquered by the Persians. He claimed to be an Achaemenian--that is a descendant of the semi-mythical Akhamanish (the Achaemenes of the Greeks), a Persian patriarch who resembled the Aryo-Indian Manu and the Germanic Mannus. Akhamanish was reputed to have been fed and protected in childhood by an eagle--the sacred eagle which cast its shadow on born rulers. Probably this eagle was remotely Totemic, and the Achaemenians were descendants of an ancient eagle tribe. Gilgamesh was protected by an eagle, as we have seen, as the Aryo-Indian Shakuntala was by vultures and Semiramis by doves. The legends regarding the birth and boyhood of Cyrus resemble those related regarding Sargon of Akkad and the Indian Karna and Krishna.
Cyrus acknowledged as his overlord Astyages, king of the Medes. He revolted against Astyages, whom he defeated and took prisoner.
Thereafter he was proclaimed King of the Medes and Persians, who were kindred peoples of Indo-European speech. The father of Astyages was Cyaxares, the ally of Nabopola.s.sar of Babylon. When this powerful king captured Nineveh he entered into possession of the northern part of the a.s.syrian Empire, which extended westward into Asia Minor to the frontier of the Lydian kingdom; he also possessed himself of Urartu (Armenia). Lydia had, after the collapse of the Cimmerian power, absorbed Phrygia, and its ambitious king, Alyattes, waged war against the Medes. At length, owing to the good offices of Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and Syennesis of Cilicia, the Medes and Lydians made peace in 585 B.C. Astyages then married a daughter of the Lydian ruler.
When Cyrus overthrew Cyaxares, king of the Medes, Croesus, king of Lydia, formed an alliance against him with Amasis, king of Egypt, and Nabonidus, king of Babylon. The latter was at first friendly to Cyrus, who had attacked Cyaxares when he was advancing on Babylon to dispute Nabonidus's claim to the throne, and perhaps to win it for a descendant of Nebuchadrezzar, his father's ally. It was after the fall of the Median Dynasty that Nabonidus undertook the restoration of the moon G.o.d's temple at Haran.
Cyrus advanced westward against Croesus of Lydia before that monarch could receive a.s.sistance from the intriguing but pleasure-loving Amasis of Egypt; he defeated and overthrew him, and seized his kingdom (547-546 B.C.). Then, having established himself as supreme ruler in Asia Minor, he began to operate against Babylonia. In 539 B.C.
Belshazzar was defeated near Opis. Sippar fell soon afterwards.
Cyrus's general, Gobryas, then advanced upon Babylon, where Belshazzar deemed himself safe. One night, in the month of Tammuz--
Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.... They drank wine, and praised the G.o.ds of gold, and of silver, of bra.s.s, of iron, of wood, and of stone.... In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.[563]
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