Читать книгу The Herodotus Encyclopedia - Группа авторов - Страница 918

JOSEF WIESEHÖFER

University of Kiel

In connection with the CONQUEST of “Assyria” by CYRUS (II), and more precisely, the king’s cunning and bloodless capture of Babylon (1.188–91), Herodotus offers a detailed description of the city (1.178–83). It is a metropolis of hitherto unknown size, forming a square whose sides are 120 stadia (approx. 22 km) in length with a protective moat in front. The city is surrounded by a wall of baked bricks 50 cubits (approx. 25 m) wide and 200 cubits (approx. 100 m) high (1.178.2–3). This is crowned by “small houses” protruding inwards and outwards, with enough space between for a four‐horse CHARIOT (1.179.3). One hundred gates of BRONZE regulate entrance to the city (1.179.3), and the EUPHRATES RIVER divides it into two halves of approximately equal size. At the center of these halves are the royal palace and the temple of Zeus BELUS (1.181.2). The temple district is 2 × 2 stadia and has a tower building in the middle, which measures one square stadion at its base. It consists of a total of eight individual towers and can be accessed via an ascending spiral staircase (1.181.2–5). About halfway up there is a resting place with benches. The Herodotean dimensions of the city and its WALLS were not left uncommented in antiquity (Ar. Av. 552; Arist. Pol. 1276a.25–31; Prop. 3.11.21–22; Ov. Met. 4.57–58; Lucr. 6.59–60; Mart. 9.75.2–3; Juv. 10.171).

After his report on the conquest of Babylon, Herodotus describes Babylonian customs (1.192–200), among them the public PROSTITUTION of Babylonian women in a temple of APHRODITE (1.199), the auction of marriageable girls in an annual MARRIAGE market (1.196), and the exchange of medical KNOWLEDGE in the marketplace (1.197). Earlier, he relates the report of the Chaldean PRIESTS concerning the encounter of Zeus Belus with a god‐chosen Babylonian woman in the temple on top of the tower (1.181.5–182.2), For Herodotus, Babylon, like MEMPHIS in EGYPT, the oldest residence, testifies to a former, once impressive and civilizing rule; but this effect is ambivalent, since the enormous power of the city’s kings has come to an end.

Despite the fact that the cityscape excavated by the archaeologists—apart from a few construction details—can hardly be reconciled with Herodotus’ report, and that the customs and practices described by him do not have a basis in the cuneiform texts, Herodotus’ statements were not questioned for a long time. Instead, research adhered to the thesis of Herodotus’ presence and research in Babylon and developed complex explanatory models for precisely these divergences. The most important of them reckoned with a) gaps in MEMORY on the part of the author; b) inaccurate information provided to the author by previous Greek writers or contemporary native guides; c) drastic changes in the cityscape between Nebuchadnezzar II (excavated city) and the second half of the fifth century BCE (time of Herodotus’ alleged visit), mostly traced back to retaliatory measures of XERXES after local rebellions (diversion of the Euphrates; impairment of the cult of Marduk; end of Babylonian kingship). It was allegedly only through Alexander III of Macedon (324–323) that a revival of the cults and the role of Babylon occurred. Recent studies have shown, however, that there is no evidence at all of a drastic change in the appearance of Babylon in the ACHAEMENID period. Rather, our testimonies point to continuity of the building stock, cityscape, and cults. What should trouble us are not only the contradictory references of the Alexander historians to the wrongdoer Xerxes and the restorer Alexander, who staged himself on his campaign as Xerxes’ counterpart. It is also the fact that Herodotus, who characterizes the Persian king as addicted to HUBRIS, knows nothing of the alleged destructive measures Xerxes undertook in Babylon.

SEE ALSO: Chaldeans; Labynetus; Measures; Near Eastern History; Nitocris the Babylonian; Numbers; Reliability; Semiramis; thōmata; Zopyrus (1) son of Megabyxus (1)