No Oriental empire could escape from the effects of frequent and abrupt changes in its rulers:  like so many previous dynasties, that of Nabopolassar became enfeebled as if from exhaustion immediately after the death of its most illustrious scion, and foundered in imbecility and decrepitude.  Popular imagination, awe-struck by such a sudden downfall from exalted prosperity, recognised the hand of God in the events which brought about the catastrophe.  A Chaldaean legend, current not long after, related how Nebuchadrezzar, being seized towards the end of his life with the spirit of prophecy, mounted to the roof of his palace, and was constrained, as a punishment for his pride, to predict to his people, with his own lips, the approaching ruin of their city; thereupon the glory of its monarch suffered an eclipse from which there was no emerging.  The Jews, nourishing undying hatred for conqueror who had overthrown Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple of Solomon, were not satisfied with a punishment so inadequate.  According to them, Nebuchadrezzar, after his victorious career, was so intoxicated with his own glory that he proclaimed himself the equal of God.  “Is not this great Babylon,” he cried, “which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my majesty!” and while he thus spake, there came a voice from heaven, decreeing his metamorphosis into the form of a beast.  “He was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hair was grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.”  For seven years the king remained in this state, to resume his former shape at the end of this period, and recover his kingdom after having magnified the God of Israel.*

     * Dan. iv.

The founder of the dynasty which replaced that of Nebuchadrezzar, Nabonidus, was certainly ill fitted to brave the storms already threatening to break over his kingdom.  It has not been ascertained whether he had any natural right to the throne, or by what means he attained supreme power, but the way in which he dwells on the names of Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur renders it probable that he was raised to the throne by the military faction.  He did not prove, as events turned turned out, a good general, nor even a soldier of moderate ability, and it is even possible that he also lacked that fierce courage of which none of his predecessors was ever destitute.  He allowed his army to dwindle away and his fortresses to fall into ruins; the foreign alliances existing at his accession, together with those which he himself had concluded, were not turned to the best advantage; his provinces were badly administered, and his subjects rendered discontented:  his most salient characteristic was an insatiable curiosity concerning historical and religious antiquities, which stimulated him to undertake excavations in all the temples, in order to bring to light monuments of ages long gone by.