Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian Legacy

Nebuchadnezzar II, also known as Nebuchadnezzar the Great, was the fearsome, vainglorious ruler of Babylon from c630 – 562 BC. Dubbed the ‘destroyer of nations’, her reduced Judea and Jerusalem to rubble and sent the Jews into exile. His portrayal in various historical texts, most memorably the Old Testament, paints the picture of a marauding, mighty king who would stop at nothing to heap his beloved Babylon in glory. He built his nation into a cultural centre for the Near East, lavishing it in glory with his fine buildings, palaces and, of course, Hanging Gardens. His reign inspired his people to victory over some of the most powerful nations of the time; effectively ruling the Middle East. And his mystique would be reprised 2,500 years later, when the Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein used Nebuchadnezzar’s glory to rally his people into heinous ethnic cleansing and impossible wars.

Victorious beginnings

Nebuchadnezzar’s father, Nabopolassar, had already sparked a Babylonian renaissance when, alongside the Medes and Susianians, he destroyed the Assyrian capital at Nineveh in 612 BC – reducing the famous city to ashes and massacring its inhabitants. Nabopolassar had forced the Assyrians deep into north western Mesopotamia, and ordered his son to maintain control in the area.

According to the Babylonian writer Berossus, Nebuchadnezzar then married the Median royal Amytis, tying together the two powerful nations. And Babylon would become even stronger when, in 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar and his potent army pushed back the vengeful Assyrians, and their Egyptian allies under Pharaoh Necho II, decisively at the Battle of Carchemish – bringing Syria and Phoenicia under Babylonian rule. Yet Nebuchadnezzar was soon rushing back to Babylon, where he had heard that his father had died, bequeathing him the Empire.

The newly-crowned Nebuchadnezzar barely spent a breath waiting to spread his kingdom further afield, heading north to brush aside the burly Cimmerian and Scythian tribes. Nebuchadnezzar headed westwards, where he planned to take western Syria and the prized kingdom of Judea, which he advanced to in 597 BC following an unsuccessful and costly invasion of Egypt in 601 BC.

Nebuchadnezzar was determined to wipe the Jews from the map – in an eerie foreshadowing of modern Arab leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and captured Jerusalem, making it a Babylonian satellite state. Ten years later, however, a Jewish uprising under King Zedekiah led to total destruction the hands of Nebuchadnezzar’s men, who razed both the city and its temple to the ground, driving many of its citizens from Judea to Babylon. This explosive sequence of events is famously chronicled in the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Kings, especially portraying Nebuchadnezzar as boastful and furiously proud. The Bible’s account of the king certainly rings true when observing the tyrannical reign of Saddam, when the destruction of the Jewish race became one of his primary propaganda tools. With Nebuchadnezzar ostensibly on his side, Saddam spurred his people into terrible acts of genocide and relentless episodes of repression.

With the powerful and cordial Median empire skirting Babylon’s northern frontiers, Nebuchadnezzar next headed for the Phoenician (modern Lebanese) city of Tyre – at the time a potent state – and proceeded to stake it out in a thirteen-year siege, from 585 – 572 BC. Eventually after a long and tiring impasse, the Tyrians accepted Babylonian rule, and became yet another vassal state in Nebuchadnezzar’s burgeoning empire. Subsequent sorties saw the stoic Egyptians resist full-scale Babylonian invasion. And though Nebuchadnezzar’s illustrious armies continued fighting until his death in 562 BC, the capture of Tyre was to become the pinnacle of the Chaldean Babylonian domination of the Near East. It would only be thirteen years after the king’s demise that Cyrus and his marauding Persians would stamp their bloody authority on Babylon, razing the Chaldean dynasty to little more than a memory.

Building Babylon

With his empire one of the most feared entities in the region, and with almost unbounded wealth accrued from years of military success, Nebuchadnezzar set about renovating his home city with a succession of ambitious and elaborate building projects. These included not only revamping its network of streets and temples, but also huge, breath-taking monuments which have lived on forever in the minds of people around the world.

Possibly the most legendary of all Nebuchadnezzar’s creations were his Hanging Gardens, a horticultural masterpiece so magnificent it made Philo of Byzantium’s list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. A gift to his ailing wife to remind her of the lush pastures of her Median homeland, the gardens stood for four hundred years until a succession of earthquakes took their ultimate toll in the 2nd century BC – and are said to have inspired similar sites in the Near East, such as those at Nineveh.

Another grand symbol of Nebuchadnezzar’s – and Babylon’s – power was the huge Ishtar Gate; the eighth portal to the inner echelons of the city. The 47ft high gateway was made from blue glazed tiles adorned with the various symbols of Babylon, such as dragons and aurochs – and was originally one of Philo’s Wonders, although it was replaced by the Lighthouse of Alexandria in the 6th century AD. Not one for modesty, Nebuchadnezzar inscribed the gate with a series of cuneiform appraisals, one of which reads: “I (Nebuchadnezzar) laid the foundation of the gates down to the ground water level and had them built out of pure blue stone. Upon the walls in the inner room of the gate are bulls and dragons and thus I magnificently adorned them with luxurious splendour for all mankind to behold in awe.” Two major reproductions of the Gate exist today; one in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum and one beside the actual remains of Babylon, built by Saddam Hussein in a vain attempt to assume his ancient hero’s identity.

Nebuchadnezzar also tried to revive the polytheistic religions of Babylon which had been neglected by his father. Indeed, Ishtar, the goddess to whom his famous gate ascribed, was associated with life, fertility, sex and war – and equated with the planet Venus. The Babylonian cult placed much importance on the stars – and astronomy became a key target for Chaldean innovation. Indeed it was the Babylonians who were largely credited with creating the seven-day week, as well as being some of the first people to explore the astrological link between space and the future. So next time you meet a tall, dark stranger you might want to say a little thank you to Nebuchadnezzar and his people.

What is Nebuchadnezzar’s legacy?

Jews and the Hebrew Bible show Nebuchadnezzar to be a terrifying tyrant with a bloodthirsty passion for military expansion, and a hatred for the Jewish race. And in the Book of Daniel the great king is shown apologising to God, losing his mind and wandering the wilderness for seven years as a feral former ‘destroyer of nations’. Much of the Bible’s characterisation may be true – most historical accounts show Nebuchadnezzar to be a fearsome zealot who would stop at nothing to drag his people towards greatness at any cost – and the comparison with his self-elected protégé Hussein is ominously uncanny.

Yet it must also be said that nearly all leaders at the time had a violent appetite for success – and that Nebuchadnezzar’s campaigns and building projects turned a former power into a great empire, capable of ruling an entire region for decades. A ruthless, anti-semitic and bloodthirsty tyrant then, but a successful one. If he were around today, he would be raising a toast to his own opulence with a Nebuchadnezzar of Champagne, without spilling, or sharing, a drop.
 

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About The Author

Sean Williams

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Sean is an English Literature graduate, who currently works as a writer and journalist in London. He enjoys ancient history, theatre and sport. He does not enjoy Big Brother.