TWE FAIJ- OF BABYLOX AND DANIEL V, 30. 



27 



improbability in the idea that G61)ryas may have captured the 

 portion of the city on the west bank of the Euphrates, and may 

 have received instructions from Cyrus to delay further operations 

 till he arrived. There seems some doubt about the translations 

 " assault," and " king's son." But surely, as matters stand at present, 

 the translations which harmonize with the statements of the Hebrew 

 and Greek authorities are more likely to be correct than those which 

 place these statements in direct opposition to one another. 



Mr. John Schwartz, Jun., writes : — 



Our lecturer's new point of view that the Persians only entered 

 without opposition into the western side of Ba1)ylon, while the 

 eastern main portion resisted for some months, is very ingeniout;. 

 The classical account of the lowering of the level of the Euphrates 

 by diverting trenches, receives some support from the fact that this 

 river, like the Nile, rises considerably during the summer months, 

 when the snows around its source are melting, but in the month of 

 November, when the entry was effected, it M'ould be at its lowest. 

 There are, however, difficulties ; the Euphrates was a very rapid 

 stream, so rapid that in those days nnvigation against stream was 

 impossible, and it seems very doubtful whether such a stream could 

 be rendered fordable even by a stupendous diversion of water. It 

 is also difficult to imagine that such work could be carried on 

 without the knowledge of the besieged. Passing over the fact that 

 it is rather straining language to state that a force is "not fighting" 

 when besieging a city, the statement quoted from the Annalistic 

 Tablet, "on the l-4th day of the month, Sippai was taken without 

 fighting ... on the 16th . . . the soldiers of Cyrus, without 

 fighting entered Babylon," surely points to the abdication of 

 Nabonidus, who had usurped the throne and incurred the hatred of 

 the local priesthood by forcing the cult of Merodach as supreme. 

 Professor Sayce's statement that the editor of Dan. v could not 

 have been a contemporary was based on much more vital points 

 than those referred to by our lecturer. The monuments show that 

 the editor was incorrect in stating that Belshazzar was the son of 

 Nebuchadnezzar, that he was a king of Babylon, and that he was 

 succeeded by Darius the Mede. Professor Sayce seems to me to 

 demonstrate that the editor was mixing up the siege of Babylon by 

 Darius Hystaspes later on, with this earlier war. 



