THE DYNASTIC PROPHECY

On the text of the Dynastic Prophecy, each column seems to contain one key pattern. Column i mentions Assyria and Babylon in the context of overthrowing and destroying, end­ing with someone bringing extensive booty into Babylon, decorating the Esagila and Ezida, and building a palace in Babylon.

Column ii has a rebel prince arise and establish a dynasty of Harran. This is a Bad King who neglects the New Years’ akitu festival and generally plots evil against Akkad. Then, a king of Elam will arise who will depose the Harranian and settle him abroad. This is also a Bad King. This column is well-enough preserved to allow us to see that the pattern presented was of a “king of Harran” (in whom we may recognize Nabonidus) replaced by a “king of Elam” (whom we know to be Cyrus) (Grayson 1975b: 24-26). The description of the usurpa­tion of Nabonidus and his interruption of the akitu festival is a good indication that Babylon is the source for this text, as is the characterization of Cyrus as an oppressive king who was “stronger than the land.” It can only be Babylon, smarting under the forced return of statuary purloined by Nabonidus from the cult centers of Babylonia, like Mme de Boigne weeping bitter tears over the repatriation of Napolean’s looted art treasures by Wellington, who would dare to refer to Cyrus as a “Bad King.”

The characterization of Nabonidus as Harranian is a reflection of the king’s devotion to Sin of Harran, and Cyrus of Anshan was indeed an Elamite. What is interesting is that the last king of Assyria, Assur-uballit, was not in line for the throne and made his stand in Harran or, in other words, could easily have been described as a rebel king who established himself in Harran.

Column iii describes a king who is clearly marked as Darius III. The prophecy envisages a king who reigns two years, is done in by a eunuch, and is replaced by some prince or other who reigns five years. Arses reigned for two years and was assassinated by the eunuch-general Bagoas. Bagoas picked Darius, who was not in the direct line of succession. Darius III ruled for five years (Grayson 1975b: 26).

According to the prophecy, the king was attacked by an army of Haneans who defeated and plundered him. Afterwards, the king was able to rally his troops and, with the assistance of Enlil (that is, Ahuramazda), Shamash (that is, Mithra), and Marduk (that is, Persis), to defeat the Haneans, after which he rewarded Babylon with tax exemptions.

The first episode involving the “Haneans” can only be a reference to the Battle of Issus which pitted Alexander the Great against Darius III. So, the “Haneans” (apparently Alexander and his Greek troops) are initially successful, but then the king (Darius III) is able to mount a counteroffensive followed by gracious tax breaks for Babylon. This particular section of the text has occasioned much puzzlement since “everybody knows” that Alexander defeated Darius (Grayson 1975b: 26-27). What everybody does not know, however, is that between the Battle of Issus and the Battle of Gaugamela nearly two years elapsed during which Alexander puttered around in Egypt and Libya while the Persian satrap Ariwarat recovered Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, celebrating on his coins with the motif of a Simurg devouring a Greek stag, and Andromachus, Alexander’s hapless satrap of Syria, was burned alive by the Samaritans (Olmstead 1948: 508, 513).

The source of the Dynastic Prophecy’s (mis)information was probably a Babylonian in­scription of Darius III boasting of victory and ascribing his success to the assistance of local gods by way of explaining tax exemptions or other largesse being showered on the population. In any case, the ultimate fate of Darius III is not of concern to this column of the text, which cares only that there is a pattern: Haneans win (the battle), Haneans lose (the war).

This is obviously a repeat of the pattern of columns i—ii of this text in which an earlier set of confrontations between east and west culminated in victories for the east, which raises an interesting question. Since it is Babylon’s point of view that is reflected in the prophecy, we may assume that the object was to foresee a time when the fortunes of Babylon were in some sense restored, if not to their full glory at least to tax-exempt status, and to argue that bad treatment of Babylon was always a formula for disaster.

In this context, it is hard to imagine that there was no discussion of the events of the reigns of Darius and Xerxes in which Babylon was so centrally involved. This was not a good time for Babylon, since both Darius and Xerxes besieged the city and, even if the Esagila was not actually destroyed, there were certainly deaths and confiscations. The only redeeming feature was the fact that Xerxes was assassinated. The same could be said of Sennacherib, who unquestionably destroyed the Esagila, and whose assassination by his own sons could be understood as presaging the fall of Assyria. Putting this together, a discussion of the events at Babylon under the Persians in prophetic guise would have sent the clear message that any empire that tampered with the Esagila was doomed to fail.

So did they just assume you were supposed to know this or, alternatively, was the Dynastic Prophecy actually a six-column text?^[140] In the latter case, there is room for two missing epi­sodes, the first, the treatment of Babylon by Darius and Xerxes, and the second, another curious omission, if omission it be: the first major encounter between Greeks and Persians in Mesopotamia at the Battle of Cunaxa, in which Babylonian levies took part and in which east defeated west.

Here ended the revolt of Cyrus the younger with his Greek troops against Artaxerxes II (the reasonably decent Persian monarch who gets good press in the Book of Esther). Cyrus won the battle, but was killed in the process. In short, this is unproblematically a case of Haneans win (the battle), Haneans lose (the war). If this reconstruction is accurate, we have so far the following patterns.

col. i Harran (Assur-uballit II) loses to Elam (Nabopolassar and Elamite allies)

col. ii Harran (Nabonidus) loses to Elam (Cyrus)

col. iii Darius, turbulence, Xerxes, assassination

col. iv Haneans win (Battle of Cunaxa); Haneans lose (the war)

col. v Haneans win (Battle of Issus); Haneans lose (the war)

The fragmentary final column, which presumably contained the actual prophecy, has three sections:

a king who did something, reigned and died

a broken section

somebody seizing the land. Whoever these last people are, they will be extin­guished.

This fragmentary final column’s three sections ostensibly refer to Alexander in Babylon and the installation of Seleucus as satrap, followed by the expulsion of Seleucus by Antigonus, and ending with the subsequent return of Seleucus I who would then be the somebody (sin­gular) who is described as seizing the land.^[141] We also know that Seleucus was eventually assassinated by Ptolemy Keraunos. Sherwin-White, to the contrary notwithstanding,^[142] the somebodies who are being “extinguished” are presumably the Seleucids.

The Babylonians seem to have taken it rather hard that, whereas Nebuchadnezzar II made Babylon one of the greatest cities in the world, Seleucus I moved the capital to a new city of his own foundation, Seleucia, which, to add insult to injury was on the Tigris rather than the Euphrates. Fine words of propaganda commissioned from local historians (Berossos) need to be backed up by fine deeds if they are to have the desired effect, particularly with the people of Babylon who were not exactly famous for being easy to deal with, having, like cult centers everywhere, an attitude that generosity was simply their due as the “navel of the earth.”

Indeed, it is striking how similar the rule of the Greeks at Babylon as summarized in this text was to that of the Persians before them.

col. i Harran (Assur-uballit) loses to Elam (Nabopolassar and Elamite allies)

col. ii Harran (Nabonidus) loses to Elam (Cyrus)

col. iii Darius, turbulence, Xerxes, assassination

col. iv Haneans win (Battle of Cunaxa); Haneans lose ( the war)

middle voice(!) to mean “They will rule” is nonsense. Even if the verb is not the final-weak balu but the middle-weak belu, there is no reason to suppose that the subject is the Seleucids. Akkadian “to rule” refers to facts on the ground, and implies neither legitimacy nor a condition of long duration. If somebody else has recently “begun to rule” over Akkad, then whether the Seleucids were actually extinguished or not in the process, their rule is at an end, and that is the point of the prophecy.

col. v Haneans win (Battle of Issus); Haneans lose (the war)

col. vi Alexander, turbulence, Seleucus, assassination

Lining up these repeating sequences of events against one another by way of prophecy serves to demonstrate that the west and its gods have always been defeated by the east and its gods. As for the misadventures of Seleucus I, it is certain, for anyone who has eyes and can see, that the Seleucids will be “extinguished” or at the very least replaced by some future dynasty, a salutary warning to anyone who dares to tamper, in however trivial a way, with the privileged status of Babylon.