Read Titans of History Online

Authors: Simon Sebag Montefiore

Titans of History (3 page)

BOOK: Titans of History
5.78Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

There was, though, a price to pay: Solomon suffered “imperial over-stretch”: exorbitant taxes oppressed the Hebrews. When the king died, his united realm fragmented into two rival kingdoms, Israel and Judah—this was, the Bible has it, God's punishment for Solomon's breaking of his covenant.

The main sources for David and Solomon are the biblical Books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. There is archaeological proof that David existed, though it is doubtful whether Jerusalem was the glorious capital described in the Bible and whether the Davidic kingdom was an empire extending from the Egyptian border to Damascus. Archaeologists now believe the city was small and the kingdom was more of a tribal federation. On the other hand, 10th century traces have been found in the City of David in Jerusalem, which, thanks to its recently discovered Canaanite remains, was clearly a substantial stronghold. The lack of traces in itself is not decisive—after all the Maccabean kingdom a thousand years later, which covered similar territory to that of David, also left remarkably few traces. The court history of David in the Bible does read like a realistic firsthand account of a king in decline. And the Tel
Dan stele, discovered in 1993/4, proves that David was a historical character, using the name “House of David” to describe the Kingdom of Judah ruled by David's royal descendants.

As for Solomon, there is no archaeological proof of his personal existence. Unlike the rounded portrait of his father, Solomon appears as the legend of an ideal Oriental emperor. There is certainly wishful thinking and perhaps projection in the splendor of his court and brilliance of his life, and it is likely the biblical writers, forming their text four hundred years later, were describing their own Jerusalem, their own Temple, ambitions and nostalgia, in their Solomonic portrait. Little has been found of his Temple in Jerusalem but its biblical description is totally plausible in size and style—typical of temples discovered all over the Middle East. His gold and ivory wealth is credible too—artifacts have been discovered in other Israelite palaces such as those at Samaria. His famous mines resemble ancient 10th century mines recently discovered in Jordan. The size of his army is feasible—a king of Israel fielded 2000 chariots a century later. As for his fortress cities of Megiddo, Gezer and Hazor, the ruins there were initially assigned to Solomon's period but there is now debate as to whether they actually belong to the Kings of Israel a century later. However, new analysis of the stables there suggest that they may be his after all. As for the Temple, it certainly existed within a few years of his death, because Egyptian inscriptions confirm that the Pharaoh Sheshonq invaded Judaea and was paid off with the gold of the Jerusalem Temple. If Solomon's magnificence is exaggerated, it is likely he did build the Temple.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR II

c.
630–562
BC

Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury … And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace
.

Daniel 3:19–20

Nebuchadnezzar was the Lion of Babylon and the Destroyer of Nations. Ruler of the great neo-Babylonian empire from 605 until 562
BC
, he was the embodiment of the warrior-king. The Bible records that Nebuchadnezzar was the instrument of God's vengeance on the errant people of Judaea—a destiny he appears to have embraced with relish.

Born sometime after 630
BC
, Nebuchadnezzar was the eldest son of King Nabopolassar (ruled 626–605
BC
), the founder of the Chaldean dynasty in Babylon. Nabopolassar had successfully thrown off the yoke of the Assyrian empire to the north, and had even sacked the great city of Nineveh. Boasting of his triumphs, he had spoken of how he had “slaughtered the land of Assyria” and “turned the hostile land into heaps of ruin.”

The young Nebuchadnezzar was involved in his father's military conquests from an early age, and in 605 he oversaw the defeat of Egyptian forces at Carchemish, a victory that helped make the Babylonians the masters of Syria. Nabopolassar died later that year, and Nebuchadnezzar mounted the throne but immediately faced rebellions around his entire empire—which he crushed with remarkable energy and acumen.

Nebuchadnezzar set about expanding his dominions westward; a marriage alliance with the Median empire to the east had ensured there would be no trouble from that quarter. Between 604 and 601 various local states—including the Jewish kingdom of Judah—submitted to his authority, and Nebuchadnezzar declared his determination to have “no opponent from horizon to sky.” Buoyed by his success, in 601 Nebuchadnezzar decided to take on his greatest rivals, sending his armies into Egypt. But they were repulsed, and this defeat provoked a series of rebellions amongst Nebuchadnezzar's previously quiescent vassals—most notably Judah.

Nebuchadnezzar returned to his Babylonian homeland, plotting his revenge. After a brief hiatus, he stormed westward once again, carrying almost all before him. In 597 the kingdom of Judah submitted. Nebuchadnezzar had the king, Jehoiachin, deported to Babylon. In 588, Judah, under the king's uncle Zedekiah, revolted. In 587–586 Nebuchadnezzar marched on defiant Jerusalem, besieged it for months, and finally stormed it, wreaking total destruction. Nebuchadnezzar ordered the city leveled, the people slaughtered, the Jewish Temple razed and Prince Zedekiah was made to witness his sons' executions before his own eyes were gouged out. The Jews were then deported east, where they mourned Zion “by the rivers of Babylon.”

Nebuchadnezzar's achievements on the battlefield were accompanied by a surge of domestic construction. Drawing on the slave labor of the various peoples he had subjugated, Nebuchadnezzar had numerous temples and public buildings erected or renovated. The extravagant new royal palace, begun by his father, was completed. And, most famously, the king commissioned the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—one of the wonders of the ancient world—as a present for his wife.

In his chronicles and inscriptions, he stressed above all his devotion to the god of Babylon, Marduk, and his love and promotion
of justice for his people: he was a reformer who rebuilt the law courts, banned bribery, prosecuted officials for corruption, and stressed that he would not tolerate anyone who persecuted the poor and powerless. Furthermore, the biblical story of his madness is in fact a historical mistake, made deliberately to taint his reputation by the Bible's Jewish writers, who hated him. It was actually the last King of Babylon, Nabonidus (556–539
BC
)—who left the city for ten years to live in Arabia—who was said to have gone mad before losing his empire to Persia. Nebuchadnezzar died in 562; his son and heir was a failure, assassinated after two years—and his empire scarcely outlived him by twenty years. Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon in 539.

Despite his many benevolent achievements, Nebuchadnezzar is indelibly associated with unbridled conquest and the brutal treatment of subject peoples—the Destroyer of Nations who fulfilled the vision of the Jewish prophet Jeremiah: “He has gone out from his place, to make your land a waste. Your cities will be ruins, without inhabitant.”

CYRUS THE GREAT

590/580–530
BC

I am Cyrus, the Great, the King
.

Inscription from Pasargadae

Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, was the founder of a powerful empire that dominated western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean for two centuries. He was a peerless ruler: a bold soldier and
conqueror but also a tolerant monarch who recognized the human rights of his subjects, permitted religious freedom and liberated the Jews from slavery. In the ancient world he was lauded as the model of the ideal king, even by the Greeks, and was something of a role model for Alexander the Great. Cyrus' realm stretched from modern Israel, Armenia and Turkey in the west to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the fringes of the Indian subcontinent in the east.

Cyrus—Kourosh—was born in Persis, in modern-day Iran. His mother was the daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes in western Iran. As with other great heroes, such as Moses or Romulus and Remus, a legend was passed down about Cyrus' birth (recorded by Greek historian Herodotus amongst others). Astyages had a dream that he interpreted as a sign that Cyrus would grow up to overthrow him: his daughter urinated a golden stream that squirted out his entire kingdom. Then he dreamed that a vine was growing out from between his daughter's thighs. Clearly his grandson was a threat so he ordered that the infant be put to death. But Astyages' adviser Harpagus could not bring himself to murder a newborn child, so he gave the baby to a shepherd. By the time Cyrus was ten, his precocious gifts had brought him to the court of Astyages, where his identity was discovered. Astyages allowed the child to live, but had his brutal revenge on Harpagus by tricking him into eating his own son.

Whether true or not, the legend shows that from the start Cyrus was seen as the anointed redeemer of his people. In 559
BC
he succeeded his father Cambyses I as head of the Achaemenid dynasty that ruled Persia, which was then restricted to an area of southwest Iran and subject to the Medes. In 554 Cyrus allied himself with Harpagus and led a rebellion against his cruel grandfather Astyages. The revolt gathered momentum during the next four years, and when Cyrus marched against Astyages in 550, the Median soldiers defected. Cyrus captured the land of the Medes and made its capital, Ecbatana, his own.

In 547 he conquered the kingdom of Lydia, (in today's Turkey) deposing the fabulously wealthy king, Croesus. This extended his domain throughout all Asia Minor, and drew in the Greek cities along the coast of the Aegean Sea. Having secured the western frontiers of his empire, Cyrus turned his attention to Babylonia.

Babylon was the most splendid of the ancient cities, but it was governed by a tyrannical and unpopular king, Nabonidus. Cyrus was welcomed as a liberator when, in 539, he dug a canal to divert the River Euphrates and marched his army into the thousand-year-old capital. With Babylon came vast territories including Syria and Palestine, which gave Cyrus control over most of the Near East.

Within twenty years Cyrus had assembled the greatest empire the world had ever seen. He realized that keeping his vast new domain together would require peaceful diplomacy, rather than oppression and violence. So instead of forcing Persian customs and laws on the newly conquered peoples, he set about creating a new concept of world empire, selecting the best elements from different areas to create a better whole. He employed Median advisers, mimicked the dress and cultural influence of the Elamites, and tolerated religious freedom everywhere in return for total political submission. He governed from three capitals: Ecbatana, the Persian capital Pasargadae, and Babylon.

In Babylon he freed the Jews who had been held there in slavery since the 586
BC
Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. Cyrus returned them to Jerusalem; paid for their return, and funded the rebuilding of their temple. As a result, he is the only Gentile to be regarded by some Jews as possessing messianic qualities. His reputation was further enhanced by the discovery in the 19th century of the “Cyrus Cylinder,” an artifact inscribed with details of Cyrus' conquests and his overthrow of tyranny, and declaring his belief in religious toleration and his opposition to slavery. It is recognized by the United Nations as the first charter of human
rights. He was no liberal—brutally repressing any political revolts—but he did grant religions tolerance.

Cyrus died on campaign in 530
BC
, fighting Tomyris, queen of the Massagetai, who was intent on exacting bloody revenge for the death of her son, who had been held captive by Cyrus. The inscription on Cyrus' tomb in Pasargadae, which still stands, was: “O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus, who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore grudge me this little earth that covers my body.” Cyrus was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, whose short reign resulted in the capture of the only territory in the Near East that Cyrus had not added to his empire: Egypt. The Achaemenid Empire almost fell apart but was refounded by a second Persian empire builder, only distantly related to Cyrus: Darius the Great conquered all of Cyrus's realms, confirmed Cyrus's tolerant policies, invaded Ukraine, India and Europe and organized the first imperial postal service and world currency: he was the Augustus of the Persian empire. But he pushed into Greece, where, before his death in 490
BC
and was defeated by the Greeks at Marathon. Darius' successor, his son, Xerxes, failed to crush the Greeks—but his legacy ensured that Cyrus' empire lasted two centuries.

THE BUDDHA

c.
563–483
BC

“Are you a god?”—“No,” he replied.
“Are you a reincarnation of god?”—“No,” he replied.
“Are you a wizard then?”—“No.”
“Well, are you a man?”—“No.”
“So what are you?” they asked in confusion.
“I am awake.”

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, questioned on the road after his enlightenment

The Buddha's teachings of benevolence, toleration and compassion have a universal appeal that extends far beyond those who expressly follow him. His quest for enlightenment gave rise to a movement that is as much a code of ethics as a religion. It provides each of his followers with the ability and the desire to live a life of contentment and spiritual fulfillment.

According to legend, the Buddha was conceived when Mahamaya, the queen consort to the king of the Sakyas, dreamed that a white elephant had entered her womb. Born in a curtained enclosure in a great park in Nepal, the prince was originally called Siddhartha Gautama (the title Buddha—“enlightened one”—was conferred on him later). His forename, meaning “one whose aim is accomplished,” was an allusion to priestly predictions that he would achieve greatness either as a ruler or as a religious teacher. Some scholars have suggested his birth was later than tradition holds, around 485
BC
.

BOOK: Titans of History
5.78Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Finders Keepers by Gulbrandsen, Annalisa
Aunt Penelope's Harem by Chris Tanglen
The Woman Next Door by Barbara Delinsky
Strike Zone by Dale Brown
Last Night's Kiss by Shirley Hailstock
His Bacon Sundae Werewolf by Angelique Voisen
Still Here: A Secret Baby Romance by Kaylee Song, Laura Belle Peters