e other was composed of the great
priestly families and their adherents, who claimed for the gods or their
representatives the right to control the affairs of the state, and
to impose the will of heaven on the rulers of the kingdom. The latter
faction seems to have prevailed at first at the court of Amil-marduk,
the sole surviving son and successor of Nebuchadrezzar. This prince on
his accession embraced a policy contrary to that pursued by his father:
and one of his first acts was to release Jehoiachin, King of Judah, who
had been languishing in chains for twenty-seven years, and to ameliorate
the condition of the other expatriated Jews. The official history of a
later date represented him as having been an unjust sovereign, but we
have no information as to his misdeeds, and know only that after two
years a conspiracy broke out against him, led by his own brother-in-law,
Nergal-sharuzur, who assassinated him and seized the vacant throne
(560 B.C.). Nergal-sharuzur endeavoured to revive the policy of
Nebuchadrezzar, and was probably supported by the military party, but
his reign was a short one; he died in 556 B.C., leaving as sole heir
a youth of dissipated character named Labashi-marduk, whose name is
stigmatised by the chroniclers as that of a prince who knew not how to
rule. He was murdered at the end of nine months, and his place taken
by a native Babylonian, a certain Nabonaid (Nabonidus), son of
Nabo-balatsu-ikbi, who was not connected by birth with his immediate
predecessors on the throne (556-555 B.C.).

No Oriental empire could escape from the effects of frequent and
abrupt changes in its rulers: like so many previous dynasties, that of
Nabopolassar became enfeebled as if from exhaustion immediately after
the death of its most illustrious scion, and foundered in imbecility and
decrepitude. Popular imagination, awe-struck by such a sudden downfall
from exalted prosperity, recognised the hand of God in the events which
brought about the catastrophe. A Chaldaean legend, current not long
after, related how Nebuchadrezzar, being seized towards the end of his
life with the spirit of prophecy, mounted to the roof of his palace,
and was constrained, as a punishment for his pride, to predict to his
people, with his own lips, the approaching ruin of their city; thereupon
the glory of its monarch suffered an eclipse from which there was no
emerging. The Jews, nourishing undying hatred for conqueror who had
overthrown Jer