A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD BY H. G. WELLS
20.THE LAST BABYLONIAN EMPIRE AND THE EMPIRE OF DARIUS
We have already mentioned how Assyria became a great military power under Tiglath Pileser III and under the usurper Sargon II. Sargon was not this man’s original name; he adopted it to flatter the conquered Babylonians by reminding them of that ancient founder of the Akkadian Empire, Sargon I, two thousand years before his time. Babylon, for all that it was a conquered city, was of greater population and importance than Nineveh, and its great god Bel Marduk and its traders and priests had to be treated politely. In Mesopotamia in the eighth century B.C. A.D. we are already far beyond the barbaric days when the capture of a town meant loot and massacre. Conquerors sought to propitiate and win the conquered. For a century and a half after Sargon the new Assyrian empire endured and, as we have noted, Assurbanipal (Sardanapalus) held at least lower Egypt.
But the power and solidarity of Assyria waned rapidly. Egypt by an
effort threw off the foreigner under a Pharoah Psammetichus I, and
under Necho II attempted a war of conquest in Syria. By that time
Assyria was grappling with foes nearer at hand, and could make but a
poor resistance. A Semitic people from south-east Mesopotamia, the
Chaldeans, combined with Aryan Medes and Persians from the north-east
against Nineveh, and in 606 B.C.—for now we are coming down to exact
chronology—took that city.
There was a division of the spoils of Assyria. A Median Empire was set
up in the north under Cyaxares. It included Nineveh, and its capital
was Ecbatana. Eastward it reached to the borders of India. To the
south of this in a great crescent was a new Chaldean Empire, the Second
Babylonian Empire, which rose to a very great degree of wealth and
power under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar the Great (the Nebuchadnezzar of
the Bible). The last great days, the greatest days of all, for Babylon
began. For a time the two Empires remained at peace, and the daughter
of Nebuchadnezzar was married to Cyaxares.
Meanwhile Necho II was pursuing his easy conquests in Syria. He had
defeated and slain King Josiah of Judah, a small country of which there
is more to tell presently, at the battle of Megiddo in 608 B.C., and he
pushed on to the Euphrates to encounter not a decadent Assyria but a
renascent Babylonia. The Chaldeans dealt very vigorously with the
Egyptians. Necho was routed and driven back to Egypt, and the
Babylonian frontier pushed down to the ancient Egyptian boundaries.
Map showing the relation of the Median and Second Babylonian (Chaldæan)
Empires in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar the Great
From 606 until 589 B.C. the Second Babylonian Empire flourished
insecurely. It flourished so long as it kept the peace with the
stronger, hardier Median Empire to the north. And during these
sixty-seven years not only life but learning flourished in the ancient
city.
Map: The Empire of Darius (tribute-paying countries) at its greatest
extent
Even under the Assyrian monarchs and especially under Sardanapalus,
Babylon had been a scene of great intellectual activity. Sardanapalus,
though an Assyrian, had been quite Babylon-ized. He made a library, a
library not of paper but of the clay tablets that were used for writing
in Mesopotamia since early Sumerian days. His collection has been
unearthed and is perhaps the most precious store of historical material
in the world. The last of the Chaldean line of Babylonian monarchs,
Nabonidus, had even keener literary tastes. He patronized antiquarian
researches, and when a date was worked out by his investigators for the
accession of Sargon I he commemorated the fact by inscriptions. But
there were many signs of disunion in his empire, and he sought to
centralize it by bringing a number of the various local gods to Babylon
and setting up temples to them there. This device was to be practised
quite successfully by the Romans in later times, but in Babylon it
roused the jealousy of the powerful priesthood of Bel Marduk, the
dominant god of the Babylonians. They cast about for a possible
alternative to Nabonidus and found it in Cyrus the Persian, the ruler
of the adjacent Median Empire. Cyrus had already distinguished himself
by conquering Croesus, the rich king of Lydia in Eastern Asia Minor.
He came up against Babylon, there was a battle outside the walls, and
the gates of the city were opened to him (538 B.C.). His soldiers
entered the city without fighting. The crown prince Belshazzar, the
son of Nabonidus, was feasting, the Bible relates, when a hand appeared
and wrote in letters of fire upon the wall these mystical words:
_“Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,”_ which was interpreted by the prophet
Daniel, whom he summoned to read the riddle, as “God has numbered thy
kingdom and finished it; thou art weighed in the balance and found
wanting and thy kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians.” Possibly
the priests of Bel Marduk knew something about that writing on the
wall. Belshazzar was killed that night, says the Bible. Nabonidus was
taken prisoner, and the occupation of the city was so peaceful that the
services of Bel Marduk continued without intermission.
PERSIAN MONARCH
Thus it was the Babylonian and Median empires were united. Cambyses,
the son of Cyrus, subjugated Egypt. Cambyses went mad and was
accidentally killed, and was presently succeeded by Darius the Mede,
Darius I, the son of Hystaspes, one of the chief councillors of Cyrus.
THE RUINS OF PERSEPOLIS
THE GREAT PORCH OF XERXES, AT PERSEPOLIS
The Persian Empire of Darius I, the first of the new Aryan empires in
the seat of the old civilizations, was the greatest empire the world
had hitherto seen. It included all Asia Minor and Syria, all the old
Assyrian and Babylonian empires, Egypt, the Caucasus and Caspian
regions, Media, Persia, and it extended into India as far as the Indus.
Such an empire was possible because the horse and rider and the
chariot and the made-road had now been brought into the world.
Hitherto the ass and ox and the camel for desert use had afforded the
swiftest method of transport. Great arterial roads were made by the
Persian rulers to hold their new empire, and post horses were always in
waiting for the imperial messenger or the traveller with an official
permit. Moreover the world was now beginning to use coined money,
which greatly facilitated trade and intercourse. But the capital of
this vast empire was no longer Babylon. In the long run the priesthood
of Bel Marduk gained nothing by their treason. Babylon though still
important was now a declining city, and the great cities of the new
empire were Persepolis and Susa and Ecbatana. The capital was Susa.
Nineveh was already abandoned and sinking into ruins.