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- [00:00]
Tom Holland
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- [01:36]
Tom Holland
Hey guys, I hope you're doing well. I'm all good here. I'm just getting my gear together for the next episode. I'm recording all about Zoroastrianism. Really, really interesting. Something I know nothing about and I'm looking forwards to recording and then sharing it with you in the next few weeks. Now today we're kind of keeping in that area of the world because we're talking about the fall of Babylon in the 6th century. These larger than life figures like the absent Babylonian King Nabonidus Belshazzar, famous from the B, the writing on the wall, and also Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. It's a really cool story and who better to talk through it than the one and only Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones. Lloyd, as always, he did not disappoint. And what's really exciting about this episode is that it's going to be on our Ancients YouTube channel. That's right, we've just launched the YouTube channel, so you can also watch this episode too if that is potentially of interest. Now that all being said let's get into the episode. I really do hope you enj. 539 BC and the greatest city in the ancient world has opened its mighty gates to a new power. In came the Persian king and conqueror Cyrus with his army, fresh from an incredibly bloody victory against the city's previous ruler. This city was Babylon. For the past few decades, Babylon had been the heart of its own powerful empire. But now that empire was no more. This is the story of the fall of Babylon with our guest, Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewellyn Jones. Lloyd, great to have you back on.
- [03:26]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Hello. Fabulous to be with you again.
- [03:28]
Tom Holland
And is this one of the biggest, pivotal moments in Mesopotamian history, this transition from the Babylonian empire to the Persian Empire?
- [03:36]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yes, I think so. I mean, generally, you know, if you look at popular histories of Babylon that have been written over, you know, generations, the beginning of the Persian period is usually the cutoff point for most Babylonian historians. I would argue that we need to see a longevity of Babylon. You know, it goes into the Persian period. We shouldn't stop thinking about Babylon there because it still has, you know, a lot of life left in it yet. But generally, generally, yeah, I say this is the end of a great Mesopotamian empire. And Babylon, of course, is incorporated into the bigger Persian empire, which is a world empire. So there is a shift.
- [04:12]
Tom Holland
Do we have many types of sources to tackle this subject?
- [04:15]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
We do. Not all of them particularly reliable, of course, but the good thing is we do have indigenous Mesopotamian sources, indigenous Babylonian sources, and that's a good thing. Not necessarily fulsome in terms of narrative, but certainly we can create a chronology out of the cuneiform sources. And we also have a series of sort of conquest literature, if you like, created by the new Persian overlords of Babylon too, which are kind of reflecting back on what happened and obviously therefore needs to be read quite carefully because this is propaganda literature.
- [05:02]
Tom Holland
Do we also have the Bible as well? Can the Bible be a source for us?
- [05:05]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
The Bible certainly shouldn't be dismissed, but the Bible doesn't really account in any way. Again, a narrative of Babylon's fall and takeover. But the key players are virtually all there. Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the Great. But the Bible misses out a person who is really integral to all of this, and that's Narbonidas, Narbonidus, who is the last indigenous Babylonian monarch. And I think, you know, he's worth a lot more attention than is usually given to him.
- [05:37]
Tom Holland
Well, absolutely. We've got some big names to cover in this topic today, don't we. So let's set the scene. First of all, the mid 6th century BC. What does Babylon look like? How powerful is Babylon at this time?
- [05:49]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Okay, so this is the point that Babylon is in all of its glory. Okay, so Nebuchadnezzar II's campaigns, following his father's campaigns into Mesopotamia, into especially the Levant, made Babylon an incredibly wealthy city. And that wealth was utilized by Nebuchadnezzar on an industrial scale to make Babylon great again. That was his aim, essentially. All right, so Babylon had experienced ups and downs in its long 2,500 year history where it had shone and then declined, shone and declined. So it's not one rise and scenario in Babylonian history at all. But here we have under Nebuchadnezzar II this idea of making Babylon into a super city, really. And the essential kind of structure of Babylon changes under Nebuchadnezzar. So during his reign we have the final formation of the state architecture of the city. So a great processional route which went from the river Euphrates across a bridge into the heart of Babylon, the mighty Ishtar, which we now see in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, is staggeringly beautiful.
- [07:06]
Tom Holland
The great walls of Babylon, huge, vast.
- [07:09]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Walls of Babylon itself. The great ziggurat of the God Marduk. This is an imperial edifice really for the Babylonian state as a whole. So I think that Babylon in the 6th century was probably the biggest city the world had ever seen at that point. Before your Alexandrias and your Romes, there was Babylon and there was nothing to comp. It was also a really rich multicultural society as well. So there were, you know, people from all over the ancient world living in Babylon or visiting Babylon. And it's no surprise, really, is it, that that idea of, you know, the mixture of languages that could be heard on the city streets is there in the Hebrew Bible. Remember the Tower of Babel story that we've talked about in the past? I mean, that I think, you know, really captures this kind of multiplicity of ethnics there in the city.
- [08:04]
Tom Holland
So do we get. Do we think the origins of the word babble and to babble about and babbling could come from Babylon?
- [08:09]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Unfortunately not. I'd love to say, yeah, that's exactly the way it was through route. No, unfortunately not. Babel. The Tower of Babel comes from the old Akkadian name for Babylon, which was Babil. So it simply comes from that. Okay, that's strong.
- [08:25]
Tom Holland
I also want to mention quickly the bridges, because of course you've got the Euphrates river running through the heart of Babylon. And another monumental piece of architecture to really the prominence was it was the great bridges that crossed over this river.
- [08:37]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely, absolutely. We should think of ancient Babylon more akin to Venice than anything else. You know, it was punctuated with canals, and these waterways were the main communication channels for the Babylonians.
- [08:54]
Tom Holland
So how do we get from Nebuchadnezzar and this golden age of Babylon, the greatest city in the world, the center of the world? How do we get from his reign to the reign of the figure who's gonna be a key person in this story? Nabonidus.
- [09:09]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yes. So Nabonidus follows Nebuchadnezzar to the throne. Nebuchadnezzar doesn't leave any apparent heirs. So whether he didn't have children at all or his children had died, we really don't know. But there's a gap. Nabonidus seems to have been part of the collateral branch of the royal family. He wasn't, you know, core to it at all, but he comes to power thanks to his mother. Her name is Adad Guppi. And we know a lot about her because she left an autobiography. Now, it was probably written after her death, so not exactly her own words, but I think there's enough there to convince us that, you know, she kind of gave it an authority. And Adad Gopi is probably the ultimate stage mother in ancient history because she engineers her son's succession to the throne. This isn't unusual per se. You know, very often wives of kings do that for their sons. But the fact that she's not part of the inner court, you know, she's not the wife of Nebuchadnezzar or something, makes this a little bit unusual. So her background is needed before we can really understand what Nabonidus was all about. So she was born and bred in a city called Haran, which is in Syria. And Haran was the chief cult center for the worship of the moon God. And the moon God was named Sin. Now, you know, Babylonians worshiped many, many gods in Babylon, the chief God there was Marduk. And his temple dominated the whole city. And the cult of Marduk was the most important one in the land. But in Haran, we have not exactly a rival centre, but an alternative centre where it just happened to be Sin who was the chief God. And it would seem that in her youth, this Adad Gopi was priestess within the temple and she became an absolute devotee of this God. You know, it's very easy when we think about people from the ancient world to disassociate them from the idea of faith. You know, when we talk about, you know, the gods being worshipped, we all think it's all rather sort of facile. And you know, on a surface, what we see with Adad Gupi is a real belief in this God. I mean, she dedicates her life to the worship of this deity whom she regards as being an active presence in her life. Faith is how the only word we can use for it. She's got a deep faith in this God. Now when she's in her teens, she marries a local nobleman and he's of some status, but he's not really of any great political importance. She claims later on in her autobiography that she was born in the reign of King Ashurbanipal of Assyria.
- [12:18]
Tom Holland
So that is before the fall of Nineveh in 612.
- [12:21]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
That's right, because we know she died at about the age of 95. Wow. A very long lived woman for antiquity.
- [12:29]
Tom Holland
That's good going.
- [12:30]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yeah. Most people were dead by 40 in antiquity. Okay, so this is a long lived woman. So you can understand why she puts her faith in a God as well. You know, it gives her this longevity. So it's highly likely she was, and some historians have said, well, actually she could have come from the family of Ashurbanipal. So was she of royal Assyrian stock? That's a tantalizing thing. Certainly she sort of sees herself as somebody of consequence, there's no doubt in that. She has a son when she's in her late teens and she calls him Nabonidus Nabu, after the God of wisdom, Nabonidus. And she, like many mothers, wants the best for her boy. And in her autobiography she tells us in great detail how she pleaded with sin every day to make something of her son. You know, that he would be something special.
- [13:27]
Tom Holland
Make Narbona's great.
- [13:29]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yeah, again, there must be something in this boy, you know, she says, you know. And to that end she says, I dedicated myself to sin, to the God. And she's really interesting. She says, I cast off my luxuries, I wore hair garments, I ate only bread and onions, you know. So she lives a kind of convent life, almost putting all of her passions, all of her devotion to this God with the hope that as a consequence he would support Nabonidus. It's quite incredible, isn't it, you know? Well, anyway, when Nabonidus is in his mid teens, his mother takes him to Babylon from the first Visit from Haran to Babylon. And I suppose because of her status, she is welcomed at court by Nebuchadnezzar. And this is Nabonidus first introduction, essentially, to court society in Babylon. And you get the impression that Adad Gopi, you know, has her finger in several pies at court as well. So she maneuvers her son into high circles, including circles of governance and also of the military as well, and he becomes essentially a kind of indispensable asset to Nebuchadnezzar ii. So as far as Adad Guppi is concerned, you can see that, you know, this is all starting to pay off. He becomes somebody. And to the point that when Nebuchadnezzar dies, Nabonidus, almost without opposition. Almost without opposition, inherits the throne. So it's strange now, Azad Guppy would say, well, faith moves mountains. And this is exactly what has happened. It's all come to be. So this is why you've always got to take things with a pinch of salt. And given that it was written, of course, in retrospect, hindsight is a great thing. So she can create a narrative that way. But I do believe she was a woman of great resolve and great piety as well. So, yes, he becomes king, and shortly after his accession to the throne, he begins to rule in the manner of Nebuchadnezzar. He kind of sets an agenda, you know, to continue Nebuchadnezzar's policies. But like his mother, he too is an acolyte of sin.
- [15:59]
Tom Holland
Interesting. So that precedes his actual arrival to Babylon.
- [16:02]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yeah, and you can understand it. I mean, he's been brought up in, you know, basically what is a zealous household. Okay. I mean, how would you get that? It's a cult that he's been brought up in, and he cannot move away from that. And he makes no attempt to move away from that. And that's a little bit upsetting in a Babylonian context because the chief duty of the Babylonian king from Hammurabi way, way in the past.
- [16:30]
Tom Holland
Yeah. More than a thousand years.
- [16:31]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
More than a thousand years, was to worship and placate the chief God of Babylon, Marduk. So every year in particular, at the new year festival, which would take place in sort of March, April, the king of Babylon would process through the Ishtar gates down this great avenue, which is lined with Ishtar's lions, to the temple of Marduk. And there he would meet the high priest of Marduk, and they'd go through this ritual of bizarre ritual where the priest the high priest would slap the king's face so hard that tears would come to his eyes. That was the whole point. Once those tears were here, it would be read as the king was acquiescing to the will of the God, and therefore the God would protect Babylon again. So this New Year's ritual was a vital component of Babylonian life. And in fact, you could almost say that the whole architecture of Babylon was created by Nebuchadnezzar for that purpose. It all leads to this kind of inner chamber in the ziggurat, you know, for that kind of beating to go on. And, of course, early on in his reign, Nabonidus began to neglect those duties. He just wasn't into it. It's almost like, you know, he couldn't quite see the value of Marduk. You know, Sin had done all the work for him so far. Why would he turn attention away from them? It's really strange in the world of polytheism when, you know, when you could go from one God to another.
- [18:03]
Tom Holland
It's very monotheistic.
- [18:05]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
You know, something is going on there, you know, and that I think we can only blame, really, his mother for making him feel that way. Well, it comes to a point, really, where Narbonidus is so kind of obsessed with the idea of the moon God that he decides to leave Babylon. He thinks, I've no role here, really, you know, and the context is.
- [18:29]
Tom Holland
So he's only been ruling for about three years or so, three or four.
- [18:32]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Years in the 550s BC. So he's got a son already. And the son is. He must be in his early 20s by this point. His name is much better known than his father, actually, Belshazzar. So we look at him in the Book of Daniel, for instance, the writing.
- [18:49]
Tom Holland
On the wall, isn't it?
- [18:50]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely, absolutely. So Belshazzar, he's left behind to be the regent of Babylon. Now, Nabonidus himself takes himself away from Babylon and he goes down south to Arabia, and he goes to a place called Timur, which is today in the sort of Saudi Arabia area. And it was an oasis. It was a beautiful place. And apparently lots of archaeological work has been done in the last decade there. And we've discovered a palace of Narbonidus that he built for himself there. And he built for himself a temple to the God Sin as well. So he kind of goes into voluntary religious exile, really, and kind of gives up the rule of Babylon to his son. And Belshazzar seems to rule very effectively. Interestingly, let's the name Belshazzar, of course, has that compound bel in it, which is an alternative name for Marduk. So we can really see that this regent king gave a great deal of emphasis on the traditional rites of Marduk.
- [19:59]
Tom Holland
Is it linked to BAAL at all.
- [20:01]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
And Finnish or different tribes? No, no. Well, I suppose you could say yes in a way, in that they both actually mean lord.
- [20:07]
Tom Holland
Right.
- [20:07]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
So yes, in a way. Yeah, you could see that. I'll give you that.
- [20:09]
Tom Holland
Okay, thank you.
- [20:11]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
So now there's an interesting quandary here. Do we really have Narbonidus going into voluntary exile or was there really a kind of usurpation going on?
- [20:24]
Tom Holland
Are they fed up with him already?
- [20:25]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely. I get a feeling that is what's really going on here, that Naboni just doesn't put up a fuss and in a way, perhaps is quite happy to abandon Babylon. But Belshazzar is not really there as a caretaker king, he is there as king. So I think really we have the situation of, you know, king in exile and king on the throne, and they're both being called in those terms. Belshazzar seems to be a very competent, very competent ruler indeed. And I suppose it's no surprise, therefore, that, you know, the biblical authors kind of don't remember Narbonidus, but they do remember Belshazzar because he's present. You know, don't forget when the Jews are in Babylon, you know, they're there during their exile. He would have been ruling them at this period.
- [21:11]
Tom Holland
And is it the Bible that calls Belshazzar actually the son of Nebuchadnezzar?
- [21:15]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yes. So they write out entirely. They write out Nabonidus probably out of innocence. I don't think it's a kind of like an attempt to write out, you know, to demonize him or give him Domnati or Memoria or anything. I just don't think they realized that there was a king in between at all. So he's down in Arabia, you know, worshipping his God and living in this beautiful oasis. And then out of the blue, when things seem to be going really well for Belshazzar, news is brought to Babylon that there is an army advancing on them.
- [21:48]
Tom Holland
Interesting.
- [21:49]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
And this is the last thing they expected, right?
- [22:00]
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- [22:29]
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- [23:13]
Tom Holland
And so before we get more to that army, shall we talk? Also, Nabonidus's mum, is she now out the picture? Has she died?
- [23:20]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yes, she doesn't feature in the sources any longer. Her goal has been completed. We should imagine that she. I mean, when would she have died then? If she's about 94, she would have died sort of relatively early in the reign of Narbonidus in that case. So maybe she went with him to the oasis in Arabia. Maybe she's there with him. She disappears from the records. Disappears from the records, yeah, absolutely. And it's her grandson then who is now reigning in Babylon.
- [23:50]
Tom Holland
So what is this army that has appeared on the scene?
- [23:53]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Well, this is the army of Cyrus the Great, this new king of Persia, who, you know, I.
- [23:59]
Tom Holland
We've talked about him a bit.
- [24:00]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yes, I have some admiration for. He goes from taking the disparate tribes of Persia and unifies them into. Into one fighting force. He marches them from the south of Iran to the north, where they absolutely obliterate the Medes.
- [24:17]
Tom Holland
It's the Medes, isn't it?
- [24:18]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yeah, yeah. So then the Persians take over the Median Empire, which stretched all the way into Anatolia to the Hylas River. And then Cyrus led his army across Anatolia to Sardis and the great kingdom of Lydia fell to him. So within a decade, the Persians are suddenly ruling half of the ancient Near East. But then rather than doubling back and going home, Cyrus decides he's going to go for the ultimate prize and that is he's going to see if he can't take Babylon as well.
- [24:51]
Tom Holland
And an idea of like mapping the territory so it almost feels like Persia is almost a shroud.
- [24:57]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
On top of what? That's right. It's like a great archway, I suppose, that sits over Babylon And Babylon's control.
- [25:03]
Tom Holland
Is the Mesopotamian valley and maybe a.
- [25:05]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Bit into Syria and into Syria and into the Levant, all of that. Okay, so, yeah, it sits. It's a good analogy, actually. Like a dark cloud hovering above Babylon. Now, obviously, news is being brought to Belshazzar of these new conquests that are going on. You know, there's a new boy on the block, and it's a bit frightening as well. You know, even though the Greeks, for instance, regard in later years Cyrus as this great paragon of kingship, you know, of kind rule and authority, we can't deny the fact that you build an empire on bloodshed, okay? You know, at sword point. So there would have been a lot of killing and a lot of grief and a lot of hurt in the creation of this empire. So without a doubt, this was a cause of concern for the Babylonians. But they still think, well, we are still the main power here. Who are these upstarts? So Cyrus marches his armies from the coast of Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, into North Syria, and he begins to march down the Euphrates, inching towards Babylon. Now, about 50 miles outside of Babylon is the city of Opis, which was an important trading center. You know, it looked to the north of Iraq, so it was kind of a hop, skip and a jump from Babylon, but a big commercial center in itself. And there, Cyrus surrounds the city with his army, and with that, Belshazzar leaves Babylon and goes to Opis and sets up his own camp outside the city as well. So he's prepared for a battle there. Cyrus men completely capture the city and they annihilate it. They kill every man that they find. Most women and children and those who do survive are sold into slavery. It is a brutal attack on this city. And killed in the conflict itself is Belshazzar.
- [27:08]
Tom Holland
Oh, right. So his army does take part in the.
- [27:10]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely. So they try. They try to push back against this new force, but they're too weak. They're far too weak. You have to ask the question, why does Cyrus do this? Well, he puts all of his energies into the sack of Opis because he doesn't want to do that to Babylon. He wants to take Babylon as a prize possession, untarnished by any of this. He knows that Babylon has got these new grand buildings. He doesn't want to see those sacked and burned to the ground. So he uses Opis as a kind of propaganda piece, saying to the Babylonians, you know, this is what I will do to you if I have to. So I suggest that you Open your gates to me. Okay, so it's a really pragmatic way of doing this. But you know, we tend in our historiography, Osiris, to overlook this, the brutality of that attack. And it really was quite terrifying. So much so that Nabonidus down in Arabia was actually terrorized enough to take up arms and return to Babylon.
- [28:19]
Tom Holland
So now he comes back.
- [28:20]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
He comes back, which is something to be praised, you know, I mean, he doesn't abandon his duties. He could easily have stayed well out of the conflict at all. So he comes back. What kind of support he has, we don't know. We really don't know. And of course his son has been slaughtered. We know that. And so Cyrus and his army begin to move closer to Babylon. Now Cyrus has a plus card on his side as well, and that is local Babylonian military generals and nobles tend to come over to his side. They see that really the future lies with Cyrus. And so some very prominent Babylonian nobles turn and become part of the Persian brigade as well. And therefore, of course, can provide Cyrus with intelligence is what he needs, you know. So he marches his army to Babylon. And as they approach the gates, the great gates of Babylon, indeed, they open peacefully for Cyrus. It's an amazing scene really. And apparently he promises the Babylonians that they will not be put to the sword. No harm will be done to them, to their families or to their gods. And he rides on a horse into the city center, right up to the temple of Marduk, which he then goes and visits where Nabonidus is in all of this, we don't know. He's conspicuous by his absence. Maybe he's already been taken prisoner, which is my opinion. I think that's probably what goes on there. And in the temple of Marduk, essentially Cyrus establishes himself as the king of Babylon, the new king of Babylon. So in some respects, I mean, if we follow our chief source for this, which is an incredible clay cylinder which we call the Cyrus cylinder, it's in the British Museum, it's one of the most important documents from the ancient world. I think what we have there is this story from Cyrus's point of view of what happened at that time. And of course it's a lot of spin doctoring going on. If there was any resistance in Babylon itself, it's completely overwritten. I get the feeling there wasn't. To be honest, I really think that the basis of the Cyrus cylinder is factual. But what he says in that cylinder is of real importance to us because he portrays himself as an authentic Babylonian king.
- [31:02]
Tom Holland
Interesting.
- [31:03]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Okay, so he opens by saying, I am Cyrus, King of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, which are the titles that have been used since, again, Hammurabi, Sargon as well. Oh, way, way, way back. Okay, so this is him understanding what Mesopotamian kingship is all about. And we must make the difference here between kind of Iranian, Persian identity and Mesopotamian identity. They were not the same things at all. You know, the Iranians were a completely different people.
- [31:34]
Tom Holland
This is the valley over, so to speak.
- [31:37]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
We've got the Zagros Mountains cutting between these two. This was a very different way of thinking about ideology. You know, the idea that the Mesopotamian king was a shepherd of his people, that kind of shepherd imagery meant nothing to the Persians, but they adopt it in Babylon. So Cyrus, in this incredible document, and it must have been written with the cooperation of the religious elite, he writes how the God Marduk was frustrated that the Babylonian peoples were not being well looked after by their king. And he says, Nabonidus, this misfit, you know, had completely abandoned the gods. And moreover, he lays at Nabonidus feet this idea that he was enslaving the Babylonian people. There's no evidence for that whatsoever. But it's, you know, Cyrus has constructed that document to say that Narbonidus was a bad king. I doubt very much if Cyrus knew anything about Narbonitus, but it's the priests, of course, who are writing that. And you can see that they've got an axe to grind as well, so they're probably willing to do it too.
- [32:50]
Tom Holland
But it's interesting. Do you therefore think that alongside those generals that went over to Cyrus that maybe some of the priests also went over to Cyrus before he even approached the wolves?
- [33:00]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
I'm quite convinced of that, absolutely, because, yeah, absolutely. You get no sense of pushback at all, you know, even from the elites now. Kind of interesting that, you know, in the document, the priests who are writing this thing make Marduk speak, you know, and so Marduk says, you know, I'm looking out for a new champion. Narbonidus has done me no good whatsoever, so I need somebody else. And he says, I looked around the world and my eye fell upon Cyrus, and he says, I will make him the shepherd of my people. And then this is incredible line, he says, I took him by the hand and I brought him into Babylon. So here Cyrus becomes completely and utterly, you know, the son of Marduk, really. You know, he becomes his chief priest and his most beloved as well. And Cyrus is very obviously very Keen to be seen in that kind of way. We don't actually know anything about Cyrus indigenous religion, you know, what God he worshiped. Did he worship Ahura Mazda, who becomes really important later on in the Achaemenid period. We simply don't know. But what we're seeing is that he's very pragmatic and is willing to accept local gods. More than just accept. He's actually willing to be seen as the heir, the chosen one of these gods. And incidentally, I should say as well that those words I took you by the hand and led you are echoed of all places in the Hebrew Bible in the book of Isaiah. So there it is, Yahweh, the Hebrew God who says, I was looking for a champion for my people. I looked around the world and my eye fell upon Cyrus and I made him the shepher, my people. And I took him by the hand and I brought him to Babylon. What suggests to me is that there is kind of like one core text that's being used, you know, and it's being disseminated to different religious groups in Babylon. And it's with the kind of instruction, insert your God here, you know. So Cyrus is playing to a big crowd and they're all basically using this idea that he is the chosen one of whatever God is appropriate.
- [35:03]
Tom Holland
But it shows he really understood, didn't he though, the multicultural nature of Babylon at that time. And he played to their different beliefs.
- [35:10]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely. He really gets it. Which is remarkable because when you think, you know, he comes from this tiny tribe in southwest Iran, you know, which was hardly multicultural, you know, and he just, he just gets it. And that's, I think, one of the things that makes him great. It really does. You know, he understands those kind of processes. So what we have there then is this, this huge propaganda thing. And about a year later, he installs his son as the regent of Babylon. So Cyrus leaves as intentions to leave to keep on conquering, of course. But he wants Babylon to be well looked after. And he appoints his son Cambyses to be the viceroy of Babylon, essentially. Now there's a really, really fascinating little section of the Cyrus cylinder which unfortunately, it's really full of lacunae. You know, it breaks off, it's really badly damaged at this point. But there's enough to see that in a big ceremony of state in the temple of Marduk, Cyrus appoints Cambyses as the regent in this big ceremonial. And there's this tiny little detail. Cyrus says Cambyses wore Elamite dress. Now that's a really odd detail, but it's actually. Let's unpack it. The Elamites were the kind of neighbors of the Persians in Iran. And I think that now we understand that the early Persians were heavily influenced by the Elamites. You know, they were kind of like the lost link really of understanding where Persian society and culture came from.
- [36:47]
Tom Holland
So Elam, that's near the Persian Gulf.
- [36:49]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
So Elam is, is on the bottom of the Zagros Mountains in the flat plains, that now very sort of oil rich area that straddles today Iran and Iraq. Its chief city was Susa, the ancient city of Susa. So this was a very important area for the Persians. The Elamites had been the constant enemies of Babylon throughout its history and Babylon had been invaded by the Elamites many times. So it's kind of interesting here that Cyrus presents his son in the costume of a people who had conquered Babylon in the past. So this idea that there's this pure sort of loving between Cyrus and the Babylonians is kind of altered, ruptured by this appearance of Elamite dress. It's rather like, you know, when the British went into India and at these state ceremonies everybody was wearing, you know, British court dress to be on parade to make their presence felt. And I think that's what's going on there. So it's not exactly as it's presented in most of the Cyrus cylinder, this kind of harmonious transference of power. There is an element of one upmanship going on there too. However, what is fascinating is you would think that in a period like this where there's a change of regime that things will all fall apart in Babylon. But it doesn't. Babylon's life just keeps on going as normal. And that's because Cyrus made no attempt whatsoever to change the governance of Babylon. He didn't change the administrators, he doesn't change the priesthood. Which kind of suggests, you know, he has the idea if it ain't broken, don't fix it. You know, it just is maintained. Which again kind of suggests that the priests and the bureaucrats and the nobles were in on the change. You know, were probably more than happy to see Narbonitis go.
- [38:58]
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- [40:11]
Tom Holland
So the story of the fall of Babylon in 339. I mean the bloodletting, the destructive part of it isn't at Babylon itself, it's at opus. It's a battle completely destroyed.
- [40:20]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely.
- [40:21]
Tom Holland
And yet, you know, the takeover of Babylon itself, even though at that time Babylon, you know, is more fortified than it's ever been before in its history with its incredible wolves and so on, you know, it seems to be bloodless, you know, Cyrus taking over with the nobles.
- [40:37]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely. From what we can. I mean there is not one text that we have that talks about Babylonian insurrection at this period. So that is really fascinating, I think. I mean, you know, blood is shed at Opis, lots of blood. And the royal family suffers that way. And I think, you know, Narbonydus disappears from the scene. He must have been executed. There's no chance that he survived.
- [41:01]
Tom Holland
Cause it symbolizes the end of the Neo Babylonian empire dynasty, doesn't it?
- [41:05]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Exactly, exactly. And another thing which you know, is in the Cyrus cylinder as well, towards the rear of the inscription, the back of the inscription is that Cyrus says, I rebuilt the city walls which were in decay, not from attack, just because they hadn't been upkept, you know, by Nabonidus and Belshazzar. He kind of let them go into disrespect. So he builds them up and he says, and I found an inscription that belonged to an ancient king whose name was Ashurbanipal. And so he links himself then as well to this longevity of Mesopotamian kingship.
- [41:40]
Tom Holland
Assyrian kings.
- [41:41]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Assyrian kings, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Who of course had ruled Babylon themselves as well. So you know, he's playing the antiquarian there as well, which is really fascinating. Interesting, I should say, as well, for justification. Nabonidus was also very interested in Babylon's past history. And in fact his daughter was Kind of like an amateur archaeologist, and he allowed her to set up her own little museum in Babylon.
- [42:11]
Tom Holland
Wow.
- [42:11]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yeah. We get the first ever kind of real sort of suggestion of. Of ancient artifacts being gathered together and put on display, and that's by this Babylonian princess, so kind of, you know, cut him his dues. I mean, he was interested in Babylon's kind of history and Babylon's culture, I suppose.
- [42:28]
Tom Holland
I'd like to ask about one more story and this brings us back to the Bible and the story of Belshazzar, because can you explain to us the writing on the wall story and how it could link to the real story of Belshazzar and his demise?
- [42:41]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, this is puzzle scholars, rabbis and priests for centuries. It's a very strange thing. So part of it is, of course, because there's this hubris that's going on. Belshazzar is holding this enormous feast, this great banquet, and he's using the tableware that had come from the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. You know, his Nebuchadnezzar II sacking of Jerusalem, stripped the temple there. So, you know, they're using drinking cups and gold plate that actually belonged in. In the cult center, in the treasury of the temple. So that's an abomination to God, of course. And so what happens there in the narrative that we get in Daniel is this hand suddenly appears out of nowhere with a pointed finger, you know, and it writes down basically what is a kind of a, kind of equation, a sort of monetary equation really. It says kind of like in the equivalent. For us, it would be a fiver. A fiver, £10 and 20. All of that will bring about your destruction.
- [43:43]
Tom Holland
Five plus five plus ten plus ten.
- [43:45]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Equals your deb, equals your death. Basically, that's the sort of equivalent of it. It is the most cryptic kind of thing. But I suppose it's there in the Bible because it does foreshadow Belshazzar's death in battle, which is not mentioned then in the Bible. So it's very, very cryptic. And I think this is because the problem is, of course, with the dating of the Book of Daniel. Daniel certainly preserves court stories set in Babylon. And this is a very popular sort of genre from the 4th century B.C. to about the 1st century B.C. the genre of the Jewish man in a foreign court is very important. So we have the book of Esther, where we have the story of Mordechai the Jew in the court of the Persian king. We have at the same time the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, very late part of the Bible, actually, that Joseph, in the technical Joseph and the technical Adrian Code. It's a Persian period. Yeah, yeah. It has more to do with Esther than it has to do with the book of Genesis. That's inserted at this point as well. And there again, of course, we have a Jewish boy in the court of the pharaoh. So Daniel's story, again, is a Jewish guy in the court of, well, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar. The trouble is that probably Daniel had its final kind of editing in the Hellenistic period. And during the sort of 300 years of the Hellenistic period, what happens in Babylon and Persia, it all tends to get a little bit mixed up in the mind. And so this is why we get this kind of assimilation of kings sometimes. You know, is Nebuchadnezzar a good guy or a bad guy? You know, he saves Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from a fiery furnace, but at the same time, he makes this mammoth gold statue of himself and gets people to worship him. God punishes him by turning him into a kind of like an animal and then returns him to sanity into a human appearance. So there are all these kind of, like, mythic, legendary stories around them. And it's almost as though, like, the editor hasn't quite made sense of what's going on there. So we get this kind of blurring of periods in the Book of Daniel. So that's why, you know, Belshazzar does make this appearance somehow. He gets linked to the treasury from the temple and this warning that the doom is going to come on Babylon. But then the doom is never really played out in the book. Book. Because, of course, then the latter part of the Book of Daniel deals with the rise of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires, you know, and these animals that come forward, you know, with many horns and so forth, and clash. So, you know, it's a book which is apocalyptic and full of mystery.
- [46:43]
Tom Holland
We'll have to do another episode all on the mysterious.
- [46:45]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Oh, we should do Daniel. We should. It's quite remarkable.
- [46:47]
Tom Holland
But it's interesting how you have that Belshazzar mentioned, but actually knowing what actually happens to him, you have to look at other sources of findings.
- [46:54]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
You have to go out. Absolutely, because you get no payoff in the Book of Daniel at all, which is really strange.
- [46:59]
Tom Holland
Lastly, so the Babylonian empire falls and Persia is the superpower now. But we should mention, shouldn't we, that Babylon, it doesn't fall from grace?
- [47:10]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Oh, no, no.
- [47:11]
Tom Holland
It remains incredibly powerful and prestigious for centuries following.
- [47:14]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
It's extremely important in the Persian Empire. I think actually Babylon is the jewel in the Persian crown. You know, they. They appreciate its longevity, its cultural center. The Achaemenids not only occupy the former palaces of Nebuchadnezzar, the kings live there. But they also built their own Apadanas as well at Babylon too. So they are putting their own stamp on it. Babylon becomes one of the centers of royal life. The Persian kings traveled around their empire all the time. So in the wintertime, they tended to be in Susa and Babylon. In the spring, in Persepolis. In the summer they went to the north to Ecbatana for the cool summers. So Babylon was always part of the kind of visiting place for royal retinues. And we know that Persian queens had their own estates in Babylon as well. Parysartis, the wife of Darius ii, had huge estates in Babylonia. In fact, her mother was a Babylonian concubine. So the Persians keep Babylon very, very close to them. They value this place. They really do. And many of the great campaigns, you know, against Alexander, for instance, you know, originate from Babylon. Of course, you know, it's closer to the hub of where it's all happening than Persepolis or Susa in that respect. Yes, Babylon retains its power. There are rebellions in Babylon under Darius. Has to put down two rebellions. Xerxes as well. Babylon always pushes for its independence.
- [48:52]
Tom Holland
It remembers its prestigious parts.
- [48:54]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Will do later. Yes, absolutely. It certainly does. But every time there is a rebellion and even sometimes, you know, replacement kings, we hear of a Nebuchadnezzar III and a Nebuchadnezzar iv. They are always crushed by the Persian powers until, of course, Alexander takes Babylon from them. And really, Alexander's dream was to make Babylon the center of his empire as well.
- [49:18]
Tom Holland
And he will ultimately die in the royal palace there as well.
- [49:21]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Absolutely. Died there too. Absolutely. You know, I always think that the real litmus test about Babylon's importance to Alexander is the fact that his mother, Olympias, realized it as well, because she writes him a letter and says, bring me to Babylon. Because she realizes that's where all the power is going to be set up with Antipater and all of that stuff.
- [49:40]
Tom Holland
Well, Lloyd, that is also another chat for another time. Anything else you'd like to mention about Nabonidus, the fall of Babylon in 539?
- [49:49]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Well, if you want to hear more about it, then I can recommend that you look at my new book, which will be coming out in the spring of 2026. It's called the Mother of All Cities and it's a really chunky book which goes from the creation of Babylon right the way to its fall and to basically it's legends in the Hebrew Bible and in Western culture. Tower of Babel, the whore of Babylon in the book of Revelation and so on as well. So yeah, please take a look at that book.
- [50:18]
Tom Holland
Hanging Garden.
- [50:18]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
Garden, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Lloyd.
- [50:21]
Tom Holland
Only a few more months then to go before that is released and I think it's gonna be a big book. When it does finally launch, it just goes to me to say thank you so much as always my friend for coming back on the podcast.
- [50:31]
Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones
You're so very welcome.
- [50:36]
Tom Holland
Well, there you go. There was the brilliant Reverend Professor Lloyd Llewelyn Jones returning to the show to talk through the great story of the fall of Babylon. I hope you enjoyed the episode, an episode that is also kick starting our brand new ancients channel on YouTube so you can also watch this episode. You can watch Lloyd and I talking through it on YouTube if that tickles your fancy. And it's just the best beginning because every week from now on we will be releasing a new episode on YouTube of course, also on audio as well. But one of our two weekly episodes will also be filmed so you can get to see us talking about it in the flesh as well. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor if you'd be kind to enough to leave us a rating as well. We'd always appreciate that. And don't forget you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe now. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [51:47]
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