Cyrus Cylinder

The Cyrus Cylinder is a barrel-shaped clay artifact inscribed, in cuneiform, with an account of the deeds of Cyrus the Great in conquering Babylon, thus ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire and starting the reckoning of the Persian Empire. It was found by Hormuzd Rassam in 1876 amidst the ruins of the Esaglia Temple in Babylon. It is universally recognized as a propaganda piece that was commissioned by Cyrus in order to present a very favorable view of his conquest to the Babylonian populace and to the world in general.

Text[edit]

The initial lines of the text, as given by Hanspeter Schaudig,^[1] are as follows:

[When (. . . ) Mardu]k, the king of the whole of heaven and earth, . . . . . . . . subju]gated [. . . . . who] laid waste [the land in accordance with] his (=Marduk’s) [wr]ath [. . . . . . . . . . .] the regions] of the world [. . . . .t]o his (=Marduk’s anger [. . . and without (the consent) of] his great heart, a low and unworthy man (= Nabonidus)^[2] was installed as lord of his (= Marduk’s) country. [. . . . . . . . . . . .] , , , , (Nabonidus) imposed on them. He ma[de] a counterfeit of (Marduk’s temple Esagil [. . . . . .] . . . for (the city of) Ur and the rest of the sacred cities, rites, which were inappropriate to them (i.e. the sacred cities and the gods), [improper] sac[rifices . . .]. He spoke [insolence] every day and was not afraid (of Marduk’s wrath). As an insult, (Nabonidus) brought the daily offerings to a halt and inter[fered with the rites. He s]et up [. . .] in the midst of the sacred cities. In his heart he br[oug]ht ruin on all of them by a yoke without relief. (Nabonidus) brought the daily offerings to a halt and inter[fered with the rites. He s]et up [. . .] in the midst of the sacred cities. In his heart he br[oug]ht to an end the worship of Mardkuk, king of the gods. He [d]id yet more evil to (Marduk’s holy) city every day. [. . . . He tormented] its [people], he brought ruin on all of them by a yoke without relief.

In this rendering of a translation, an ellipsis ( . . .) means text is missing that cannot be restored, while square brackets indicate the translator’s estimation of text that can be reasonably restored. Words enclosed in parentheses are explanations from the translator. This introduction sets the tone for what follows: Nabonidus has shown himself unworthy to be the ruler of Babylon. The introductory sentences also show that what follows will not be a disinterested historical account, but propaganda directed to the recently defeated Babylonians in order to help them willingly submit to their new conquerors, Cyrus and his Medo-Persian coalition. The Cylinder continues with a standard motif of Near Eastern conquerors: the gods have ordained that the conqueror should now be the ruler of the conquered people:

At their complaints, the Enlil-of-the-gods (=Marduk) became furiously enraged a[nd . . . . Nabonidus violated] their (= the gods’) sacred territories, (and so) the gods who dwelt therein deserted their shrines. Arousing (Marduk’s) wrath, (Nabonidus then) had (the statues of) the gods brought into Babylon (from their proper cities). But Marduk, the l[ofty Enlil-of-the-god]s, relented and felt pity for the cities whose dwelling-places were lying in ruins. He made up [his] mind and had mercy on the people of Babylonia who had become like (living) dead. (Marduk) scanned and checked all countries, looking for a righteous king, dear to his hear, and finally he took with his very hand Cyrus, king of the city of Anshan, and calling his name, he appointed him to be king of the entire world. (Marduk) make bow down at (Cyrus’) feet the land of the Gutians and all of the Ummān-Manda. And all the people that (Marduk) had given into his hands, (Cyrus) tended most carefully like a shepherd in truth and righteousness. Marduk, the great lord, who takes care of his people, saw with pleasure his good deeds and his righteous heart. He commanded (Cyrus) to set out for Babylon, he made him take the way to Tintir (=Babylon), and, like a friend and companion, he walked at his side.

Cyrus’s takeover of Babylon is then described as peaceful, despite the exceedingly large army he commanded:

(Cyrus’) vast troops whose number, like the water in a river, could not be counted, marched at his side, girt with their weapons. Without any fight or battle (Marduk) had him enter Babylon and saved his city Babylon from hardship. (Marduk) delivered into (Cyrus’) hands Nabonidus, the king who would not revere him. All the people of Babylon, the entire land of Sumer and Akkad (=Babylonia), nobles and governors, bowed down before (Cyrus) and kissed his feet, with shining faces they rejoiced at his kingship. Sweetly they hailed him as the lord through whose help they had come to life again from the perils of death, praising his name as the one who has saved them all from distress and disaster.

Cyrus identifies himself:

I am Cyrus, the king of the world, the great king, the mighty king, the king of Babylon, king of the land of Sumer and Akkad, the king of the four quarters of the world, son of Cambyses, the great king, the mighty king, king of the city of Anshan, descendant of Teispes, the great king, king of the city of Anshan, eternal scion of kingship, whose rule Bēl (=Marduk) and Nabû dearly love, whose k[in]gship they desired for their own delight. When I entered Babylon in peace, I took up my lordly abode in the royal palace amidst jubilation and rejoicing. Marduk, the great lord, bestowed on me as my destiny that wide heart of mine, (as a token) of someone who loves Babylon, and so I do revere him every day. My vast troops walked around in Babylon in peace, and I did not permit anybody to frighten (the people of) the land of S[umer] and Akkad.

The panegyric continues by recounting how Cyrus brought relief to the people from their oppression and how he returned to their proper cities and temples the images of the gods that Nabonidus had brought to Babylon. He also relates that he sent various people-groups who had been displaced back to their homelands. He restored the daily sacrifices in Babylon, repaired the wall of the city, and completed the building of a quay. The text finishes with a prayer to Marduk’s blessing on Cyrus.

Significance of the text[edit]

This text was apparently the first in a series of public proclamations that established something of a new genre: official proclamations from the Persian court regarding the faults of Nabonidus and the much better situation now that the Persians were in control. Although a modern reader readily recognizes that many of the claims are sheer propaganda, there are some aspects of the text that shed light on the passages in the Bible that credit Cyrus as the king who allowed the Jewish people to return to their homeland (2 Chronicles 36:22–23; Ezra 1:1–4). Also, in the interest of diplomacy, he allowed himself to be presented, conveniently, as a faithful worshipper of the god or gods of the people he was addressing. It is generally thought that Cyrus followed the Zoroastrian religion of the preceding kings of Persia, thus worshipping Ahura Mazda as the supreme being, but this did not prevent him from presenting himself as a faithful worshipper of the Babylonian god Marduk when it served his political purposes.

Despite these insights that the publication of the Cyrus Cylinder and related documents gave into the history of the time, the content of the Cylinder produced some apparent conflicts with that history as it was derived from other sources. These conflicts will be addressed next.

Conflict of the Cyrus Cylinder with Herodotus’s Histories[edit]

In his Histories (1.107.1 to 1.129.4), Herodotus relates that Astyages, king of Media, had dreams that foretold that one day his daughter Mandane would bear a child who would usurp his kingdom and become lord of all Asia. In order to prevent this, Astyages gave his daughter in marriage to a commoner named Cambyses, so that the grandson would not be of the royal line. Later he went even further and ordered that when the child was born, he would be killed. The herdsman to whom this task was entrusted, however, spared the child, and when the child (Cyrus) grew up and eventually learned of these circumstances, he became an inveterate enemy of his grandfather Astyages. After gathering an army of Persians, Astyages was defeated in battle and the Persians made the Medes “slaves instead of masters and the Persians, who were the slaves, are now the masters of the Medes” (Histories1.129.4).

In the late 1800s, when the Cyrus Cylinder and other cuneiform texts came to light and were translated, it became clear that Cyrus was not the son of a commoner; his father Cambyses I and grandfather Teispes were kings of Persia before him. Despite this clear contradiction of the background of Cyrus as related in Herodotus, the consensus among modern historians is still that Cyrus and the Persians defeated Astyages and the Medians, making them subordinate to the Persians, all this happening several years before the fall of Babylon to Cyrus and his forces in 539 BC.

Conflict of the Cyrus Cylinder with Xenophon’s Cyropaedia[edit]

Xenophon’s Cyropaedia agrees with the cuneiform texts and contradicts Herodotus: Cyrus was the son of Cambyses I, king of Persia. Also in disagreement with Herodotus, the Cyropaedia portrays the relationship with his grandfather Astyages as always cordial, from the first time that they met when Cyrus was about 12 until the death of Astyages a few years before the initial defeat of the Babylonian coalition under the command of Croesus, king of Lydia, in 547 BC. At the time of that battle, the kingship of Media had passed on to Cyaxares II, son of Astyages and grandson of Cyaxares I. The Medes were still overlords of the Persians, even though, before he died, Astyages had requested of Cambyses I and the Persian Council of Elders that his favored grandson Cyrus would be general over the combined Median and Persian armies.

When he became general of the combined armies, Cyrus was still subject to his temperamental overlord, Cyaxares II. This relationship continued until just after the capture of Babylon in 539 BC by the forces under Cyrus. After affairs were settled in the city, Cyrus went to his uncle in Ecbatana, the Median capital, “and when they had exchanged greetings, the first thing Cyrus told Cyaxares was that a palace had been selected for him in Babylon, and official headquarters, so that he might occupy a residence of his own whenever he came there; and then he also gave him many splendid presents” (Cyropaedia 8.5.17). Cyaxares responded by offering his daughter as wife to Cyrus, “and with her I offer you all Media as a dowry, for I have no legitimate male issue” (8.5.19). Cyaxares died less than two years after this, at which time the Persians officially became the leaders in the Medo-Persian coalition, even though Cyrus had been the leader of their combined armies for several years before that.

The problem that the Cyrus Cylinder, when it was found and translated, presented to Xenophon’s account was that there was no mention of Cyaxares II in this or in any of the later cuneiform accounts produced by Cyrus and his successors. Therefore in the late eighteenth century historians decided that the essential features of Herodotus’s story (except the birth narrative) must be true. After seventeen centuries of scholarship, starting with Josephus in the first century, that favored Xenophon’s account over that of Herodotus, the pendulum swung in favor of Herodotus. The verdict: there was no such person as Cyaxares II, son of Astyages, although no one could offer a satisfactory explanation of why Xenophon invented him. The main themes of the Cyropaedia—the education and character of Cyrus, and Xenophon’s digressions on the ideal ruler and military commander—could have been presented without such a person. In that regard there is something of a similarity with the “critical” view of Darius the Mede in the biblical book of Daniel, chapter 6: There was no such person as Daniel’s Darius, even though the book of Daniel could have been written just as well without him. The story of Daniel in the lions’ den would be more acceptable to modern historians if the king who reluctantly allowed this to happen had been Cyrus rather than “Darius the Mede.” And so Xenophon’s Cyaxares II and Daniel’s Darius the Mede, both of whom curiously are presented by their respective authors as being the supreme authority over Babylon immediately after the end of the Neo-Babylonian empire in 539 BC, have shared a similar fate: they were consigned to non-existence in the world of historical reality.

Conflict of the Cyrus Cylinder with the “Harran Stela” of Nabonidus[edit]

Recent scholarship has recognized that the Cyrus Cylinder, and texts that followed in its genre, must be recognized as propaganda that sought to rewrite the history of the time so that it was favorable to the Persian conquerors while casting the previous Babylonian regime, particularly Nabonidus, in a bad light. Among the cuneiform texts of this type are the “Verse Account” of Nabonidus and the “Dream Text” of Nabonidus; both of these were Persian adaptations of earlier genuine texts of Nabonidus, but which were rewritten to reflect badly on Nabonidus. The previous authentic Babylonian texts were then systematically destroyed. This is all consistent with a passage in the Cyropaedia in which Cambyses I tells his son Cyrus, who is about to engage in the first conflict with the Babylonians, that a great general or leader of men “must be designing and cunning, wily and deceitful, a thief and a robber . . .” (1.6.27). Cyrus apparently followed this advice, so that Steven Hirsch writes, “The real Cyrus was a master of propaganda, as can be seen from the Cyrus Cylinder, the Babylonian verse chronicle of Nabonidus’ fall, and the stories of Cyrus’ merciful treatment of conquered kings, all no doubt propagated with Cyrus’ encouragement or active participation.”^[3] In a similar vein, J. van der Spek: “Cyrus was very successful in his propaganda and modern historiography is still influenced by it.”^[4]

The Harran Stela was composed in the fourteenth or fifteenth year of Nabonidus, i.e. 542 to 540 BC, commemorating his restoration of the temple at Ehulhul. Nabonidus relates how hostile kings were trying to be reconciled with him. The kings are named as "the king of Egypt, the Medes and the land of the Arabs, all the hostile kings".^[5] The significance of this lies in its date of composition, just one to three years before Nabonidus lost his kingdom to the Medes and Persians.^[6] It was also some 13 or 14 years after Cyrus had supposedly subjugated the Medes and became ruler of the combined empire of the Persians and Medes in 559 BC, according to Herodotus and the consensus of modern historians who follow him. Nabonidus, however, makes no mention of the Persians who soon would be the leaders of those who captured his capital. This is consistent with Xenophon’s picture of the Persians still being the subordinate partner in the Medo-Persian confederacy at the time, with Cyrus the junior sovereign under his uncle, Cyaxares II king of Media.^[7] Nowhere in any surviving inscription is Cyrus called the king of Media, unless it is maintained that the present inscription is interpreted that way; this would be in contradiction to other sources where Cyrus is referred to "king of Anshan", "king of Persia", "the great king" and similar titles.^[8] The Harran Stela therefore is evidence that just shortly before the fall of Babylon the king of the Medes, whose name is not given, not only existed, but was considered a more important enemy of the Babylonians than Cyrus and the Persians. All this is consistent with Xenophon’s history of Cyrus in the Cyropaedia, but in contradiction to the accounts in Herodotus, followed by many modern historians, which portray the Persians, with the Medes subjugated under them, as the dominant force challenging Nabonidus for several years before the capture of Babylon.

Attempts to reconcile the Cyrus Cylinder with the conflicting accounts[edit]

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References[edit]

1. ↑ Hanspeter Schaudig, “The Text of the Cyrus Cylinder,” in Cyrus the Great: Life and Lore (Ilex Series 21; ed. M. Rahim Shayegan; Boston: Harvard Univ. Press, 2019), 21–25. For the older translation of Rawlinson, see James J. B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd ed.; Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), 315b–316b.
2. ↑ The ruler of Babylon is not named. As shown here, Schaudig thinks the reference is to Nabonidus, as does Mordechai Cogan, “Achaemenid Inscriptions: Cyrus: Cyrus Cylinder,” in The Context of Scripture II (ed. W. W. Hallo; 3 vols; Leiden: 1997–), 2.315). Finkel and van der Spek, however, think the reference is to Belshaszzar: Irving Finkel, “The Cyrus Cylinder: the Babylonian Perspective,” in The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon (ed. Irving Finkel; London: I. B. Tauris, 2013), 4; R. J. van der Spek, “Cyrus the Great, Exiles, and Foreign Gods: A Comparison of Assyrian and Persian Policies on Subject Nations,” in Extraction & Control: Studies in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper (eds. Michael Kozuh et al.; SAOC 68; Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 2014), 252.
3. ↑ Steven W. Hirsch, The Friendship of the Barbarians: Xenophon and the Persian Empire (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1985), 177, n. 69.
4. ↑ R. J. van der Spek, “Cyrus the Great, Exiles, and Foreign Gods: A Comparison of Assyrian and Persian Policies on Subject Nations,” in Extraction & Control: Studies in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper (eds. Michael Kozuh et al.; SAOC 68; Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 2014), 260.
5. ↑ J. B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd ed.; Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), 562b.
6. ↑ Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–539 B.C. (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 143.
7. ↑ Cyropaedia 3.3.24–25, 4.1.19–21, 8.5.17–19, esp. 19.
8. ↑ It would be circular reasoning to say that the Harran Stela shows that Cyrus is called the King of the Medes because the Medes are listed on the Harran Stela as the enemy of the Babylonians.