e Ionians." Of the reign of
the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, however, and the conquest of Babylonia
by Cyrus, we now have a fair amount of information.[4] This is chiefly
derived from a chronological tablet containing the annals of Nabonidus,
which is supplemented by an inscription of Nabonidus, in which he recounts
his restoration of the temple of the Moon-god at Harran, as well as by a
proclamation of Cyrus issued shortly after his formal recognition as king
of Babylonia. It was in the sixth year of Nabonidus (549 B.C.)--or perhaps
in 553--that Cyrus, "king of Anshan" in Elam, revolted against his suzerain
Astyages, king of "the Manda" or Scythians, at Ecbatana. The army of
Astyages betrayed him to his enemy, and Cyrus (_q.v._) established himself
at Ecbatana, thus putting an end to the empire of the Scythians, [v.03
p.0106] which the Greek writers called that of the Medes, through a
confusion of Mad[=a] or "Medes" with Manda. [Sidenote: Invasion by Cyrus.]
Three years later we find that Cyrus has become king of Persia and is
engaged in a campaign in the north of Mesopotamia. Meanwhile Nabonidus has
established a camp at Sippara, near the northern frontier of his kingdom,
his son--probably the Belshazzar of other inscriptions--being in command of
the army. In 538 B.C. Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis
in the month of June, in which the Babylonians were defeated, and
immediately afterwards Sippara surrendered to the invader. Nabonidus fled
to Babylon, whither he was pursued by Gobryas, the governor of Kurdistan,
and on the 16th of Tammuz, two days after the capture of Sippara, "the
soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting." Nabonidus was dragged
out of his hiding-place, and Kurdish guards were placed at the gates of the
great temple of Bel, where the services continued without intermission.
Cyrus did not arrive till the 3rd of Marchesvan (October), Gobryas having
acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province
of Babylon, and a few days afterwards the son of Nabonidus, according to
the most probable reading, died. A public mourning followed, which lasted
six days, and Cambyses accompanied the corpse to the tomb. Cyrus now
claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and
the avenger of Bel-Merodach, who was wrathful at the impiety of Nabonidus
in removing the images of the local gods from their ancestral shrines to
his capital Babylon. N