NEBUCHADNEZZAR II. - Second Neo-Babylonian king (Babylonian 'Nabū-kudurri-uṣur = "Nabū protect the heir son"; Hebrew Nēbhūkhadhre'sar, the older and more genuine form of Nēbhūkhadhnešar), during whose reign (605-562) the Neo-Babylonian Empire reached its zenith. The firstborn son of Nabopolassar, who had to struggle throughout his life to found the Empire, he had already been destined for the throne in 614, when Nabopolassar and Cyaxares met on the ruins of the city of Aššur: his father concluded a more intimate alliance with Media, and N. received in marriage Amýhia, daughter of Cyaxares, an event important for the foreign policy of his reign. His abilities showed themselves after the fall of Nineveh (612). In the wars against Assyria, which had allied itself with the pharaoh Necho, N. received command of the troops. Especially at Carchemish, a battle decisive for the history of a century, N. proved himself a brilliant strategist.
Despite the heroic resistance (in the excavations of Carchemish it has been possible to ascertain that the defenders of the city fought until the fire burned them alive), N. defeated the Pharaoh and pressed him hard until, having already reached the gates of Egypt, news came to him that his father had died in Babylon. He then entrusted the army and the booty to a friend and as quickly as possible, through the desert of Syria, reached Babylon. Having arrived at the tomb of his father, buried in the palace, after about 15 days of travel, the conqueror of the Pharaoh had no difficulty in securing the throne; having ascended it, he became the greatest figure of his time, as a commander of troops, a most skillful statesman, a builder and architect, so as to make his Babylon the most splendid city that ever existed.
If, however, the cuneiform sources are most eloquent about his building activity, they are silent about his foreign policy and his wars, as indeed they are about Hammurabi, whom N. deliberately imitated. There remains only one inscription with the traditional and generic indications that he crossed distant and difficult mountains, from the Upper Sea (= Mediterranean) to the Lower Sea (= Persian Gulf), that he annihilated the rebels, took enemies prisoner and brought immense booty to his city of Babylon, before the lord Marduk; furthermore the inscription of the Wādī Brissah in Lebanon (it relates that he drove from that mountain, the "forest of Marduk", an enemy who was stealing its riches, and that by splitting rocks he built a way to make the tall trunks of the cedars slide), and another one mutilated at the end of the reign.
From the Bible more information is available, but in some cases one must pay attention to the literary genre of the biblical passages that one might wish to use as historical testimony. Thus, according to Dan. 1, 1, it is very probable that N., pursuing the Egyptians in 605, entered Jerusalem and plundered the Temple, taking some hostages. King Jehoiakim, placed on the throne by the Pharaoh, according to II Kings 24, 1-7, submitted and became a vassal of N. for three years. Then he rebelled, trusting rather in his soothsayers and false prophets than in Jeremiah. N. harassed him at first with raids, which he had carried out by the neighboring peoples, but finally he moved his army and shut him up under siege in Jerusalem (597). Jehoiakim died during the siege, and the punishment fell upon his son Jehoiachin: the city was taken, the nobles, the soldiers, the craftsmen, the treasury and part of the sacred vessels of the Temple were deported to Babylon. Jehoiachin too went as a prisoner to Babylon, where N. provided for his maintenance (there survive "receipts" for the delivery of oil etc. supplied to Jehoiachin, in cuneiform script). N. appointed as new king Mattaniah, changing his name to Zedekiah (v.), and he in the first years remained faithful to N. Then Egypt, under the pharaoh Hophra (v.), stirred up the neighboring peoples and succeeded in forming a coalition against N. Moab, Ammon and the naval power of Tyre joined it, all eager for freedom and trusting in the promises of Egypt. Against all the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah, the Egyptian party prevailed in Jerusalem, and Zedekiah took part in the conspiracy. N. hastened with his army and set up his headquarters at Riblah. His troops reconquered Lebanon, with the exception of insular Tyre, which resisted for fully 13 years, invaded Judea taking fortress after fortress (as is well illustrated also by the Lachish ostraca), and besieged Jerusalem for more than a year. Hophra too moved and came to Gaza, but, as the army of N. went to meet him, he realized that it was not the moment to risk battle and withdrew behind the Delta. The Babylonians returned to Jerusalem and took the ever-rebellious city; a month later the "chief of the charioteers" (Jer. 39, 3. 13), in reality chief of the bodyguard, Nebuzaradan (v.), destroyed it. Only Tyre still held out, but finally Ethbaal submitted, acknowledging the sovereignty of N., and with this the maritime trade resumed. A miserably mutilated cuneiform tablet, as has been mentioned, reports for the year 567 another expedition against Egypt, but whether and to what extent N. entered Egypt cannot be established.
Related by marriage and allied with Media (v.), N. had no need to fight in the east and north of his empire. It seems that his relations with Media, which even in his time possessed the most formidable army, were always those of good neighbors. N., however, became aware of the danger and therefore completed the inner and outer walls of the city of Babylon, built Imgur-Bēl and Nimitti-Bēl, fortifying the latter further with an artificial marsh. But a more monumental defensive system (the "Median wall" admired by the Greeks) was built further north, where between Opis and Sippar the Tigris and the Euphrates came within 30 km of each other, incorporating canals, marshes, dikes and walls. In the war of Media with Lydia, between 590 and 585, the envoy of N., Neriglissar (v.), his son-in-law and second successor, knew how to induce the two parties to a compromise peace that established the frontier on the Halys.
The foreign policy of N. gave great development to commerce; and the city of Babylon, inhabited by about 200,000 souls, became the commercial center of the world. One may suppose that N. also imposed himself on Arabia, at least for the control of some caravan route. Thus he enriched his country, and such an advantageous position allowed him to embellish it in an incredible manner, so that one cannot excavate a site of any importance in southern Mesopotamia without bricks coming to light with his inscription, true bricks baked in fire, no longer dried in the air.
Splendid above all was the palace of N., excavated by R. Koldewey, an area in the "quarter" of the "Gate of God," together with the fortifications measuring 500 by 400 m, between the processional street of Aiburšābum, the wall Imgur-Bēl, the Euphrates and the canal Libil-ḫegalla. It was divided into two parts, the "southern castle," already inhabited by Nabopolassar, but rebuilt anew on stronger foundations, and the "main castle," built around a courtyard measuring 60 by 55 m (the main one, since there were 4 others), whose walls, on a blue background, were adorned with palms in enamel. To the south of this courtyard was the throne room; this palace bore the names markas nīlī or markas māti, that is, "bond of men" or "bond of the land." The northeastern part of the main castle, facing the temple of Ē-maḥ and toward the marvelous gate of Ishtar, served as a storeroom, and on its terrace were the hanging gardens, built according to Berossus for Queen Amytis, so as to remind her of the beautiful mountains of her native country. Immediately beyond the walls Imgur-Bēl, in the corner between the street of Ishtar (also processional, part of Aiburšābum) and the Euphrates, he built the so-called "northern castle," enclosing among other things a veritable museum of monuments taken in wars (the bīt tabrāt nīlīm, "house of the wonders of the people," could refer to it). At the entrance stood colossal lions of basalt. The walls were covered with blue paste and with paintings.
The processional street of the god Marduk was another marvel, and even more so the gate of Ishtar, 23 m wide, paved with large limestone blocks, flanked on both sides by walls 7 m thick, adorned with lions, bulls, and the sacred mūlūšī of Marduk. Further north, where the outer walls of Nimitti-Bēl reached the Euphrates, N. built (it seems for a summer residence) another castle. He moreover renewed or dug anew many canals, and especially lined their banks with brick walls.
Even more than the profane constructions, to N., a man of sincere devotion to the gods of Babylon, the sacred buildings were dear to his heart. By rebuilding and embellishing the temples, N. won the favor of the priests and solved a problem of internal politics current during the Neo-Babylonian era.
There was first of all Esagila, the temple of his...
of his lord, of the national god, of the king of the gods Marduk, "the house of the raising of the head," a rectangle of 79.50 by 85.50 meters, with four magnificent gates (gates were of great importance in architecture). Around a courtyard of 31.30 by 37.50 meters were the marvelous "chapels," built of marble and adorned with lapis lazuli, sparkling with gold: the È-kua with the great seated statue of Marduk, table, chair and footstool all of gold; the Kā-hili-sud, dwelling of Šarpanitu, divine consort of Marduk; the È-zida, habitation of Nabû; and finally the du-kh, where at the new year, on days 8 and 11, Marduk received in audience all the gods, who stood reverently bowed before him, and where this sacred assembly fixed the destinies of heaven and earth. Although he was a "zealot" of Esagila, the principal temple of the Empire, N. did not forget the Etemenauki, the "house of the foundations of heaven and earth" within its vast precinct: a colossal square building of 91.50 meters, consisting of seven superimposed and progressively narrower steps, reaching a height of 90 meters. It was rebuilt by N.; it belongs to a type of construction known in Babylon from time immemorial, so as to be the historical foundation of the pericope of Gen. 11:1-11 (v. BABELE, Torre di). Almost all the temples were the object of N.'s solicitous care, not only in Babylon, but also in Borsippa, Kuta, Sippar, Akkad, Kif, Dilbad, Larsa, Ur, Uruk and other cities. He rebuilt and adorned them; and there he endowed them with magnificent revenues, specifying in his inscriptions minutely the garments, the sheep, the grain and everything necessary for their cults.
N. renewed the splendor of Babylon, surpassing all previous epochs; but he did not succeed in remedying two causes of ruin: internally, the excessive political influence of the priests, especially those of Marduk; externally, the fact that the Medes remained militarily more powerful. The Babylonians, a people of rich and luxurious merchants, did not possess the physical strength of the Medes, shepherds of the mountains. The army of Babylon in his time was composed for the most part of mercenaries, including Greeks. Thus, only six years after the death of N., Nabonidus (v.) inherited not only the splendor, but the grave problem of such an Empire, only to end disastrously before the Iranian power maneuvered by the genius of Cyrus.
Bibliography10 works
Pietro Nober
ARCHAEOLOGY
In two cemetery paintings, the three youths Ananiah, Azariah and Mishael stand before King N., showing by their gestures that they are worshipping the golden statue with the royal likeness. The first example is in the cubiculum of the martyr Crescentianus in Priscilla (Wilpert, Pitture, p. 333 and pl. 123, 1); the second, seen by Bosio (Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p. 279), has recently come to light again in the so-called cemetery of Sts. Mark and Marcellinus on the Via Appia (L. De Bruyne, Arosolia con pitture recentemente ritrovato nel cimitero dei SS. Marco e Marcellino, in Riv. di arch. crist., 26 [1950], pp. 211-14, fig. 7). Far more numerous are the examples on sarcophagi, in which N. in imperial dress is seated with sceptre and diadem and makes the gesture of ordering the adoration; sometimes he is accompanied by a soldier (Wilpert, Saroofagi, pp. 261-63, pls. 129, 2; 176, 189, 195, 4; 199, 3; 200, 2 and 3). The scene is crudely depicted also on a crude Christian lamp found at Carthage, now in the Lavigérie Museum (A. Toulotte, Le roi Nabuchodonosor sur les monuments africains, in Nuovo Bull. di arch. crist., 7 [1900], pp. 113-19).
For the meaning given to N. by Origen, v. Ene. Catt., V, col. 1020, where the scene painted in the cubiculum of the martyr Crescentianus in Priscilla is also reproduced. St. Augustine, however, emphasized that, unlike other persecutors, N. « divino correctus miraculo, piam et laudabilem legem pro veritate constituit » (ep. 185: PL 33, 796).
Enrico Josi