usalem and destroyed the Temple of Solomon, were
not satisfied with a punishment so inadequate. According to them,
Nebuchadrezzar, after his victorious career, was so intoxicated with
his own glory that he proclaimed himself the equal of God. "Is not
this great Babylon," he cried, "which I have built for the royal
dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my
majesty!" and while he thus spake, there came a voice from heaven,
decreeing his metamorphosis into the form of a beast. "He was driven
from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew
of heaven, till his hair was grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails
like birds' claws." For seven years the king remained in this state,
to resume his former shape at the end of this period, and recover his
kingdom after having magnified the God of Israel.*

* Dan. iv.

The founder of the dynasty which replaced that of Nebuchadrezzar,
Nabonidus, was certainly ill fitted to brave the storms already
threatening to break over his kingdom. It has not been ascertained
whether he had any natural right to the throne, or by what means he
attained supreme power, but the way in which he dwells on the names
of Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur renders it probable that he was
raised to the throne by the military faction. He did not prove, as
events turned turned out, a good general, nor even a soldier of moderate
ability, and it is even possible that he also lacked that fierce courage
of which none of his predecessors was ever destitute. He allowed his
army to dwindle away and his fortresses to fall into ruins; the foreign
alliances existing at his accession, together with those which he
himself had concluded, were not turned to the best advantage;
his provinces were badly administered, and his subjects rendered
discontented: his most salient characteristic was an insatiable
curiosity concerning historical and religious antiquities, which
stimulated him to undertake excavations in all the temples, in order
to bring to light monuments of ages long gone by. He was a monarch
of peaceful disposition, who might have reigned with some measure of
success in a century of unbroken peace, or one troubled only by petty
wars with surrounding inferior states; but, unfortunately, the times
were ill suited to such mild sovereignty. The ancient Eastern world,
worn out by an existence reckoned by thousands of years, as well as by
its incessant conflicts, woul