125 



Akkad whom Nabonids to sliame had put. To the midst of 

 iSuana (the sacred quarter of Babylon) by command of the 

 great lord Mei'odach, in peace in their dwellings he caused to 

 dwell. Each day to Bel and Nebo Avho prolong my days^ 

 perfecting and blessing my happiness ; to Merodach, my 

 lord, I spoke for Cyrus his worshipper, and Cambyses his 

 son. To compare this passage with the words of the 

 prophet, '^ Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth. They stoop, 

 they bow down together ; they could not deliver the burden, 

 but themselves are gone into captivity " (Isaiah xlvi. 1, 2) 

 would seem at first to condemn these chapters ; but when we 

 awake to the fact, now most conclusively shown by the 

 inscriptions, that Cyrus, though a Persian, was not a 

 Zoroastrian, but an idolater, we may yet see the plausibility of 

 the prophet's words, whose vision of Cyrus as the chosen 

 deliverer and the destroyer of Babylon, of whom Nebo and 

 Bel were the divine representatives, had carried him away in 

 his praise of the great one.''* 



In the genealogy which Cyrus gives in the above-mentioned 

 Cylinder we have restored to us the lost line of Persian kings 

 prior to Darius Hystaspes. 



He there says : — 



" I am Cyrus, King oi" multitudes, the great King, the powerful King, 

 King of Babylon, King of Sumir and Akkad, King of the four quarters, 

 son of Kambyses the great King of the City of Ansan, grandson of Cyrus, 

 the great King, King of the City of Ansan, and great-grandson of Tiespes, 

 the great King, King of the City of Ansan." 



The genealogy of the Persian conqueror, which is preserved 

 to us in this inscription, is most important, as it affords us a 

 key to the extremely tolerant, if not indifferentist, policy of 

 Cyrus in religious matters. It will be noticed that from the 



time of Tiespes (j (^>- ^^jj ^'\>- ^^\-, Si-is-pi-is) , the 



Achgemenian, the ancestors of Cyrus do not assume the title 



* The Assyrian oi' the passage is from W.A.I., vol. v., pi. '35, line 32. 

 " llani asib libbi su-nu ana asri sunn utir va, 

 Hani mat Suniiri u Akkadi sa DP Nabu-naid ana 

 Asgati bil ili useribi. Ana kirib Suanna (ki) ina, 

 Kibiti DP Marduk bil rabu ina saliniiti ina 

 Mastaki suna usesib. Yumi sam makhar Bel u, 

 Nabu sa ai-aku yumi ya litamu u litibakaru, 

 Amata dunki ya ana Marduk bil ya ikbu sa 

 Kuras palikh su u Kambuzi ya abil su. 



