122 THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.R.A.S., ON 



were defeated. A few days later Sippar was taken without 

 fighting, and i^abonidus fled. On the 16 th of Tammuz Babylon 

 was entered by Gobryas (Darius the Mede) with the army of 

 Cyrus, and it was apparently in that city that JSTabonidus was 

 taken prisoner. Efficient measures were taken for the protection 

 of the Temple of Belus, and probably, also, for the other sacred 

 places of the Babylonians. On the 3rd of Marcheswan Cyrus 

 entered Babylon, and deputations met him asking that the city 

 might be spared — a grace which w^as at once accorded. On the 

 night of the 11th of Marcheswan Gobryas seems to have made 

 an attack on some portion (? the citadel) which still held out, 

 and " the son of the king died."* Six days' mourning — the last 

 three days of the year and the first three of the next — for him 

 took place. 



Such is the story of Babylon's rise to power during the days 

 of Nabopolassar and IsTebuchadrezzar, and her subjection under 

 Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, who was apparently 

 regent. 



Now, in the translation which I gave in the Journal of the 

 Institute for 1914, I followed the Babylonian Chronicle, 

 which makes Sippar to have been taken on the 14th day of 

 Tammuz, the fourth month. This, however, is not confirmed 

 by the contract- tablets found there, and it is clear that the 

 copyist of the record in the British Museum has made a 

 mistake, and written Tamnmz — the ideograph for which has 

 one wedge less — for Tisri, the seventh month. A tablet 

 indicated by Strassmaier as being dated in the month Chisleu 

 of the seventeenth year of Nabonidus, probably really belongs 

 to Nisan, the first month of that year, so that the real " last 

 date " seems to be that of the Sippar tablet bearing the date 

 10th day of Marcheswan " — that is, the day before Bel- 

 shazzar's death. 



Combining this with the data of the Chronicle, we see that 

 the invasion and conquest of Babylonia occupied 42 days — it 

 was probably on tlie 1st day of Tisri that Cyrus fought the 

 battle of Opis, and he assumed the rule of the country, through 

 Gobryas the Mede, his administrator, on the 12th of Marcheswan. 

 Kormal life at Sippar was hardly disturbed until the 10th of 

 Tisri, and resumed its usual course on or before the 24th of 



Con tract- tablets in the possession of Mr. W. Harding Smith imply 

 that Belshazzar held, as Sir H. C. Rawiinson suggested many years ago, 

 the position of viceroy ; and that Gobryas also occupied a similar position 

 in the time of Cambyses. 



