BABYLON AND PERSIA

324 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.following year (Sivan of the tenth year of Naboni¬dus), that, " Kurash came into Accad from the landof the Elamites." Then we read "The Prefect ofErech," . . . and here the line breaks off. Itis evident that Kyros met with a repulse beforeErech, one of the most important cities of the em¬pire. At all events there is no further mention ofthe Persians until the seventeenth year of Nabonidu.s,538 B.C.23. We have no certain information as to themanner in which Kyros spent the seven or eightyears between this premature attempt and his sec¬ond, successful, Babylonian campaign. Pie had workenough, no doubt, to fill the timewhat with expe¬ditions into the far cast, building at Pasargada;, andfortifying and improving his home-rule. . As to Na¬bonidus, we are quite as much at fault, the cylinderwhich is our most trusty guide being illegible fromhis eleventh year to his seventeenth,- /. f. his last.One thing is clear : he had not found, perhaps notsought, the way to reconciliation with the haughty' and covetous priesthood of Babylon. On the con¬trary, he had done much to alienate them still more.He did, indeed, show himself in Babylon at last,and gave orders for the procession to take place:Nebo came from Borsip, and Bel "went forth."There was also a sacrifice " for peace." But at thesame time he mortally offended the priests by send¬ing for the gods of other cities and placing them inthe sanctuaries of the great Babylonian patrons:" the gods of Accad, those above the atmos¬phere and -those below the atmosphere, descended