BABYLON AND PERSIA

"KURUSH THE KING, THE AKHMMENIAN." 321state affairs. It is surmised by some scholars thatshe may have been a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar,which would indeed account both for her characterand tlie position she held, as also for the fact that herson reigned for so many years unopposed and un¬molested. As it is highly probable that there stillwere some public works to finish, and that the queenmothermay have taken an active interest in them,-we may find in this circumstance the most naturalexplanation of Herodotus' mistake.22. There can be little doubt that Nabonidus owedhis elevation in a great measure to the priesthood,to which he, by birth, belonged. His zeal in build¬ing and especially repairing temples surpasses thatof his most pious predecessors, and seems to haVebeen accompanied by a sort of antiquarian taste,which prompted him to search for the cylinders ofthe original founders, so as to establish the age ofeach sanctuary. To this remarkable peculiarity weowe some of our most precious discoveries, and infact a new departure in the chronology of AncientChaldea.* Unfortunately for himself, however, Na¬bonidus appears to have devoted most of his careand to have shown a marked preference to the oldertemples of the land, whereupon the priesthood ofthe capital itself, the guardians of the more specialpatrons of later Babylon, Bel-Marduk and Nebo,took offence on behalf of these deities and consid¬ered their own dignity slighted and their interestsneglected by one who, in their opinion, should have* See the discovery of Nabonidus' cylinders at Sippar and Larsam,"Story of Chaldea," pp. 213, 218, 219.