Greeks and Babylonians: A Blueprint for the Seleucid Empire
Berossos, I have argued so far, devised a culturally composite approach that enabled him to articulate the history of the world from a hybrid Babylonian–Greek perspective. He did not simply translate Babylonian thought into Greek categories or impose Greek thought onto Babylonian tradition but rather explored areas of convergence between two cultures. His means of doing so were subtle; he would fill gaps in the historical record and select from among competing versions of a given myth. Sometimes, a subtle change in emphasis was all that was required. At other times, Berossos could be bold in his defiance of cultural boundaries: his account of human creation is perhaps the clearest example. Berossos, however, was no utopian thinker, and his text was not calculated to promote nebulous notions of human community. Rather, it addressed some of the very real concerns of his Seleucid Greek audience.
Berossos’s Seleucid voice can clearly be heard in some passages in the Babyloniaca. Let us return to the model king Nebuchadnezzar II. This is how Berossos describes his building works in Babylon (BNJ 680 F 8a (139–40)):
αὐτὸς δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐκ τοῦ πολέμου λαφύρων τό τε Βήλου ἱερὸν καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ κοσμήσας φιλοτίμως, τήν τε ὑπάρχουσαν ἐξ ἀρχῆς πόλιν καὶ ἑτέραν ἔξωθεν προσχαρισάμενος, καὶ †ἀναγκάσας πρὸς τὸ μηκέτι δύνασθαι τοὺς πολιορκοῦντας τὸν ποταμὸν ἀναστρέφοντας ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν κατασκευάζειν, ὑπερεβάλετο τρεῖς μὲν τῆς ἔνδον πόλεως περιβόλους, τρεῖς δὲ τῆς ἔξω, τούτων <δὲ> τοὺς μὲν ἐξ ὀπτῆς πλίνθου καὶ ἀσφάλτου, τοὺς δὲ ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς πλίνθου. καὶ τειχίσας ἀξιολόγως τὴν πόλιν, καὶ τοὺς πυλῶνας κοσμήσας ἱεροπρεπῶς, προσκατεσκεύασεν τοῖς πατρικοῖς βασιλείοις ἕτερα βασίλεια ἐχόμενα ἐκείνων
He himself lavishly decorated the temple of Belos and the other temples from the spoils of war. He … (text unclear) the existing old city and added(?) another city outside the walls. And making sure(?) that attackers should no longer be able to change the course of the river and use it against the city, he surrounded the inner city with three walls and the outer city with three. Of these walls, the former were made of baked brick and bitumen, the latter of brick only. After he had fortified the city in this remarkable way and decorated the gateways in a manner that befitted their sanctity, he built in addition to his father’s palace another palace adjoining it.
In this passage, Nebuchadnezzar behaves like a traditional Babylonian king, restoring the walls, temples, and palaces of the city in a manner that recalls his own inscriptions, as has already emerged. Yet Nebuchadnezzar, in Berossos’s description, also acts like a Hellenistic monarch. John Dillery has drawn attention to phrases such as κοσμήσας φιλοτίμως (“decorating lavishly”) and τειχίσας ἀξιολόγως (“fortifying in a remarkable manner”), which are associated with the discourse of euergetism in Hellenistic times (Dillery 2013 esp. 84–85).6 More generally, Nebuchadnezzar’s actions chime with the common notion that royal benefactors supported the growth of (Greek) cities. Berossos, it would seem, cast Nebuchadnezzar as a proto-Seleucid king, and his Babylonian subjects as profiting from an early form of Hellenistic euergetism. The idea was by no means absurd: recent research has shown that Hellenistic Babylon enjoyed a significant degree of political independence (Clancier 2012b) – though the situation may already have changed under Antiochus III (and not Antiochus IV as previously thought). To some extent, this would have allowed Berossos to assimilate it to Hellenistic Greek cities and their relationship with the Seleucid king. Yet, Berossos was not so rash as to suggest that Greeks and Babylonians should enjoy the same status, much less that the two cultures could simply be merged. What he proposed was more realistic: Greek and Babylonian élites, he suggested, could continue to function each on their own terms, but within a shared framework of Seleucid institutions, values, and ideas.
Berossos develops his model of a composite empire in his portrayal of Nebuchadnezzar, the proto-Seleucid hero of his account. At BNJ 680 F 8a (137), Nebuchadnezzar must claim his throne after the death of his father Nabopolassar:
αἰσθόμενος δὲ μετ’ οὐ πολὺν χρόνον τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς τελευτὴν Ναβοκοδρόσορος, καταστήσας τὰ κατὰ τὴν Αἴγυπτον πράγματα καὶ τὴν λοιπὴν χώραν, καὶ τοὺς αἰχμαλώτους ᾽Ιουδαίων τε καὶ Φοινίκων καὶ Σύρων καὶ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Αἴγυπτον ἐθνῶν συντάξας τισὶ τῶν φίλων μετὰ τῆς βαρυτάτης δυνάμεως καὶ τῆς λοιπῆς ὠφελείας ἀνακομίζειν εἰς τὴν Βαβυλωνίαν, αὐτὸς ὁρμήσας ὀλιγοστὸς παρεγένετο διὰ τῆς ἐρήμου εἰς Βαβυλῶνα.
When Nebuchadnezzar learned of his father’s death not long thereafter, he settled his affairs in Egypt and the rest of the territory and gave control over the captives – Judeans, Phoenicians, Syrians, and the populations settled in Egypt – to some of his friends, ordering them to bring them to Mesopotamia together with the bulk of his army and the rest of the spoils. He himself set out with a few companions and reached Babylon by crossing the desert.
What we see here is a defining moment in the history of the Neo-Babylonian Empire: Nabopolassar has died, and his son Nebuchadnezzar must return from campaign to claim his throne. He relies on heroic prowess: Nebuchadnezzar must cross a desert, a typical achievement of would-be world rulers (Haubold 2013a: 110 n.125). But he must also call on the help of the “friends” (φίλοι), a technical term for the military and administrative élites of the Seleucid Empire (Savalli-Lestrade 1998; Habicht 2006; Strootman 2007: 119–180, 2011: 70; Dillery 2013: 83–84). Berossos describes these philoi as men of action, who go on campaign with the king and help him extend and defend his empire. At this crucial moment of transition, they play an indispensable role in securing Nebuchadnezzar’s conquests. However, there is a second group on whom Nebuchadnezzar relies to stabilize his rule. This is how the text continues (BNJ 680 F 8a (138)):
καταλαβὼν δὲ τὰ πράγματα διοικούμενα ὑπὸ Χαλδαίων καὶ διατηρουμένην τὴν βασιλείαν ὑπὸ τοῦ βελτίστου αὐτῶν, κυριεύσας ὁλοκλήρου τῆς πατρικῆς ἀρχῆς …
Finding