Cyrus Takes Babylon

Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, spent much of his reign at the oasis of Tayma in Arabia. The Babylonian chronicle notes year after year that the king was in Tayma while the crown prince and the army were in Babylonia, and that the New Year festival was not held. It also records that Astyages marched against Cyrus the Great, king of Anshan, that his army mutinied and handed him over, and that Cyrus carried the treasure of Ecbatana, the royal city, home (Nabonidus Chronicle ii.1–25). The crown prince was Belshazzar, whom Nabonidus names in an inscription as his eldest son (Nabonidus Cylinder from Ur col. ii, closing prayer).

In the autumn of Nabonidus’s seventeenth year Cyrus defeated the Babylonian army at Opis on the Tigris. Sippar was taken without a battle and Nabonidus fled. Two days later Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, led the army of Cyrus into Babylon, again without a battle, and Nabonidus was afterwards captured in the city. The temple rites went on without interruption. Cyrus entered Babylon seventeen days after his army. The chronicle says that there was peace in the city, and that his governor appointed officials there (Nabonidus Chronicle iii.12–20).

Cyrus’s own inscription tells it as the will of Marduk, the god of Babylon, who chose Cyrus, walked beside him, brought him into the city without fighting and handed Nabonidus over to him (Cyrus Cylinder lines 12–17).

Greek writers tell a different story. Herodotus, about a century later, says that the Babylonians were beaten in the field and shut themselves in, and that Cyrus lowered the Euphrates by a canal so that his men could wade in along the riverbed while the city was keeping a festival (Herodotus, Histories 1.190–191). Xenophon adds that the king was killed in his palace that night (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.5.15–33). The Babylonian historian Berossus, as quoted by Josephus, says that Nabonidus was besieged in Borsippa, gave himself up and was sent to live in Carmania (Josephus, Against Apion 1.150–153).

The book of Daniel sets a feast of King Belshazzar on the city’s last night: a hand writes on the wall, Daniel reads it as the end of the kingdom, and “in that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain” (Daniel 5:1–30). Isaiah 40–55 names Cyrus as the Lord’s anointed, before whom doors are opened (Isaiah 45:1). The exiles from Judah now lived under Persian rule. Ezra dates the decree that let them go home to Cyrus’s first year (Ezra 1:1); see the Edict of Cyrus and the First Return.