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AN UNRECOGNIZED VASSAL KINGO F BABYLON I N T H E EARLY ACHAEMENID PERIODIV*

WILLIAM H. SHEAPort-of-Spain, Trinidad, West IndiesV . Evidence for Ugbaru's Kingship of Babylon i n 538 B . C .

The Use of Personal Names in the Babylonian Chronicles.The personal name of Ugbaru appears in Column 111 of theNabonidus Chronicle at least twice and possibly a third time.While these references are of interest to note, their fullersignificance is not apparent until they have been comparedwith the use of personal names in the other chronicles. Thiscomparison is presented in Table IX.

Table IXSURVEY OF PERSONAL NAMES IN BABYLONIANCHRONICLES FROM THE 8TH--6TH CENTURIES

Media, RulersChronicle Persia, Other of the Names ofNumber A ssyria Babylon and Elam Kings Sealand Commoners


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148 WILLIAM H . SHEAA Statistical S um m a ry to the Data Presented i n Table I X

I . The number of kings who are named in these Chronicles . . . 582. The number of times the names of these kings are used . . . 1773. The number of persons named who were not kings . . . . . 74. The number of times the names of these persons are used . . 7

Two omissions from Table IX should be noted before thematerials compiled there are discussed. The references toUgbaru in the Nabonidus Chronicle have not been included inthe table because they are the object of the comparison."Nabu-ka~ir, descendant of Ea-iluta-ibniJJ' he scribe whowrote our copy of the new Extract ChronicleJ1lo as also beenomitted from the list since he was not a participant in theevents he recorded. The two individuals from the Sealand whoare mentioned in the Babylonian Chronicle and the new

The following abbreviations are used in addition to those listed onthe back cover and those listed in the initial note of the first installmentof this article ( A U S S , IX [1g71], 51): B H T = Smith, S., BabylonianHistorical T ex ts Relating to the Ca pture and Downfall of Bab ylo n (1924);B I N = Nies, J . B. and C. E. Keiser, Historical, Religious, and EconomicTex t s (Babylonian Inscriptions in the Collection of James B. Nies)(1920); BLC = Bodleian Library Collection, now in the AshmoleanMuseum, Oxford University; Cambyses = Strassmaier, J . N., I n -schriften von Cambyses (1890); CUL = Mendelsohn, I., Catalogue ofthe Ba bylon ian Tablets i n the Libraries of C olumbia U niversi ty (1943);C y r u s = Strassmaier, Inschr if ten von C yru s (1890); Darius = Strass-maier, Inschrif ten von Dar ius (1893-1897);GCCI I and I1 = Dougherty,R. P., Goucher College Cuneiform Inscriptions (1923, 1933); L B L =Thompson, R. C., Late Ba by lon ian Letters (1906);L C E = Keiser, C. E.,Letters and Contracts from Erech W rit te n i n the Neo-Babylonian Period(1918);MLC = Morgan Library Collection (at Yale); Nabonidus =Strassmaier, Inschrif ten von Nabonidus (1889); Nabuchodonosor =Strassmaier, Inschriften von Nabuchodonosor (1889); N B B A D =Moore, E. W., Neo-Babylonian Busine ss and Adm inistrative Documents(1935);NBC = Nies Babylonian Collection (at Yale);N B D = Moore,Neo-Babylonian Documents i n the Un iversi ty of M ichiga n Collection


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A VASSAL KING OF B A B Y L ON I49Extract Chronicle present a special problem here; consequentlythey have been listed separately in Table IX and have notbeen included in the statistical summary to the table. At thetime referred to in these two Chronicle passages, the rulers ofthe Chaldeans in the marshes at the head of the Persian Gulfwere officially subject to Assyria. However, it is obvious fromthe texts that both Zer-DU-lishirand Nabu-bel-Shumate hadcast off such ties and were in league with Elam and Babylonagainst Assyria. I n so doing they were acting essentially asindependent rulers, or kings, but the texts of that time didnot always refer to the tribal leaders of the Sealand as "KingsJ'(Sarru), even when they were independent.111 The problemhere is one of political terminology and it seems more consistentto group these two individuals with the kings in Table IXthan with the persons in the last column there who were allsubordinates of the kings. With these preliminary remarksout of the way, the status of the seven persons named in theChronicles who were not kings can be examined.

The first five cases come from parallel passages in theBabylonian Chronicle and the Esarhaddon Chronicle. The

111 Several Chaldean tribes are mentioned in the annals of Shal-tnaneser 111, bu t "Bit- Jakin, as often on later occasions, appeared asthe strongest of the tribes; and its chief was the only sheikh accordedthe title 'king' by the Assyrian annalist" (PHB, p. 260). The titlebestowed upon him was "King of the Sealand." Then, "Over a centurylater the official accounts of Tiglath-pileser 111's campaigns against theChaldeans likewise bestowed the title of 'King' only on Merodach-baladan head of the Jakin tribe. . . . One should note however, thatin the more compressed versions of Shalmaneser 111's Chaldeanconquests, the chieftains were collectively referred to as 'kingsD"(ibid., note 1664). Brinkman's summary of the situation here is that"we know little about the internal organization of the Chaldeantribes. . . . The individual tribes are called BU-PN , 'House of So-and-


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I50 WILLIAM H . SHEA

first two persons, [XI-ahhe-Sullim, the gzi.en.na official ofNippur, and Shamash-ibni, the "Dakkurean," are mentionedin the entry for the 3rd year of Esarhaddon. The crime ofthese officials is not mentioned in the texts, but their fate is-they were "led away to Assyria and executed in Assyria." 112Two similar culprits were apprehended during Esarhaddon's6th year. In this case Shum-iddin (or Nadin-shumi) was theguilty gd.en.na official and Kudurru was the "Dakkurean"involved. The texts do not relate their ultimate fate, but theydo state that they were taken to Assyria. These four officialswere disposed of under the administration of Esarhaddon, butthe 5th and final official mentioned by name in these twotexts, Bel-etir, was apparently taken care of by Shamash-shum-ukin. Actually, Bel-etir's name was not written in thepart of the Esarhaddon Chronicle that relates to him, but it ispresent in the corresponding passage of the BabylonianChronicle. The record for the accession year of Shamash-shum-ukin in the latter text says that, "In the month of Tebetu,the 20th day, Beletir, the (chief) justice of Babylon was seizedand executed."118 The names of these officials are all found inthe second, or detail, section of the Babylonian Chronicle thatrecords the reign of Esarhaddon and after ;only kings are men-tioned by name in the first, or summary, section of that text.The names of the other two persons referred to in Table IXthat were not kings come from two of the last three Chroniclesin the list. Nabu-shuma-lishir is mentioned in the text thatchronicles the first ten years of Nebuchadrezzar's reign, butlittle is known of his activities from this Chronicle since thepertinent part of the text is badly damaged. Wiseman says ofthis passage,


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON 1 sFew details remain but the name of Nabii-Suma-ligir, the youngerbrother of Nebuchadrezzar, is mentioned with a specific, thoughbroken, date. The text of the record can only be guessed at; never-theless it is unlikely to have been concerned with a revolt led byNabii-Suma-liSir in view of the subsequent call-up of the army foryet another campaign in Syria which brought in much tribute toBabylon.11*The seventh and last personal name of an individual who

was not a king that is attested in these texts is found in theNabonidus Chronicle. According to Smith,l15 the name ofNabu-Bel-dan-u~urappears in the lower part of the firstcolumn of this text where the entry for the 3rd year of Nabo-nidus apparently was recorded. Unfortunately, however, thepassage of the text in which his name appears is so badlydamaged that it is impossible to determine anything aboutthis individual or his activities. Evidently Oppenheim wasuncertain about the nature of this reference too, for he simplytranscribed dNabd- EN(?). DAN.SES for this group of signs inhis translation of the Nabonidus Chronicle.116 Smith alsosuggested that since the conjunction "and" appears in frontof this name, another personal name preceded it, but if so,only the last sign of that name is left.l17 To summarize thissurvey of the Chronicles, only seven cases were encounteredin which personal names were used in the texts for individualswho were not kings. Of these seven persons named, five wereerrant officials who received punishment for their misdeeds.The remaining references involve the names of two personsabout whom nothing can be determined from the texts inquestion because of damage to the passages in which theirnames appear. Another feature of this survey is the fact thatthe names of all seven of these individuals appear only onceeach in the Chronicles in which they are mentioned.


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I 9 WILLIAM H . SHEA

an interesting contrast in regard to the use of names in theChronicles. Belshazzar is referred to five times in the legibleportions of the second column of that text, but he is referredto only by his position of crown prince and never by name.On the other hand, Cambyses is mentioned only once in thelegible portions of the text, but his personal name is used there.The difference between the treatment of these two individualsin the text might be due to the fact that Belshazzar nevercame to the throne and therefore is not mentioned by name,whereas Cambyses did become king so his name is present inthe text. Another explanation is possible here, however, andthat is the suggestion that Belshazzar's name originallyappeared in Column I that is now badly broken, and that thereferences to him by title in the second column presumedupon the antecedent personal name now missing from thepreceding section of the text.

The statistics collected above on the seven persons named inthese Chronicles who were not kings contrast with the factthat eight times as many kings (58) are mentioned by namein the same ten chronicles, and their names are used in thosetexts a total of 177 times, which averages out to just aboutthree times per king. Coincidentally, three is precisely thenumber of times the king of Babylon proposed here is mentionedby name in the third column of the Nabonidus Chronicle.This use of his name in that text does not prove that Ugbaruwas a king, but it does add prestige to his person, and itsuggests the possibility that perhaps he should be classed withthe kings after all. Certainly the seven cases discussed abovedo not provide any parallel with the way in which Ugbaru'sname is used in the Chronicle. However, the evidence here ismerely suggestive and not conclusive, so the references to


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understood when consideration is given to the cornparat ivematerials on the use of death dates in the other chronicles.The death dates in these chronicles are listed in Table X forthis purpose.

Table XLIST OF THE DEATH DATES IN THE BABYLONIANCHRONICLES FROM THE 8TH-6TH CENTURIES

ChronicleNumber Person Ogice Co un try Death Date

I Tiglath-pileser I11 KingShalmaneser V KingHallushu KingKudurru KingMenanu KingHummahaldashu KingSemcherib KingName not given KingName not given KingWife of the king QueenEsarhaddon KingBel-etir JusticeI1 Hummahaldashu I1 KingName not given* KingWife of the king* QueenEsarhaddon* KingUnnamed (Bel-etir)* JusticeV I Sin-shar-ishkun KingVII Nabopolassar KingX Mother of the king Queen-motherName not given KingUgbaru ?Wife ( ?) of the king Queen ( ?)

Assyria TebetuAssyria TebetuElam 26 TashrituElam 8 AbuElam 7 AddaruElam 23 TashrituAssyria 20 TebetuSidon TashrituKindu AddaruAssyria 5 AddaruAssyria I o ArahsamnuBabylon 2 0 TebetuElam 5 UluluSidon [Tashritu]Assyria 6 AddaruAssyria 10ArahsamnuBabylon 2 0 TebetuAssyria AbuBabylon 8 AbuBabylon 5 NisanuLydia AiaruBabylon I I ArahsamnuBabylon Month [XI

* Essentially duplicates the information in the Babylonian Chronicle


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154 WILLIAM H. SHEAbelong to royalty. In addition, some doubt may be expressedabout the chief justice's death date. The Babylonian Chronicledoes not specifically state that Bel-etir was executed the sameday he was seized, but that is probably the best way to under-stand the text. A dozen of the death dates in Table X comefrom the Babylonian Chronicle, seven from the first or summa-ry section of the text, and five from the second, more detailedsection. The four death dates in the Nabonidus Chronicle arealso evenly distributed between the two sections of that text ;two are present in the detailed section in the first two columnsof the chronicle, while the death dates for Ugbaru and thewife of the king appear in the second or summary section ofthe text. Since death dates in these chronicles are used almostexclusively for royalty, with the one exception of Bel-etir inthe Babylonian Chronicle, this evidence complements theobservations above on the multiple use of Ugbaru's name inthe Nabonidus Chronicle. Again, the fact that Ugbaru'sdeath date is explicitly stated in the text implies but does notconclusively prove that he was a royal personage, i.e., a king.Ugbaru Versus Gubaru. The next aspect of this subject forexamination is the problem presented by the three names in thethird column of the Nabonidus Chronicle that are bothsimilar and different at the same time. The name of thegovernor of Gutium in line 15appears to be Ugbaru, Gubaru isclearly the name of Cyrus' governor in line 20, and Ugbarushows up again in line 22 as the name of the man whose deathis recorded there. To complicate matters further, Gubaru isthe name of the governor of Babylon found in some 25business and administrative documents that date from the4th year of Cyrus to the 5th year of Cambyses. The question


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON I 5 5chronicle referred to the same person, but he allowed for thepossibility that they might refer to separate individuals.118Oppenheim's translation of the Nabonidus Chronicle alsoseems to imply that only one person is referred to by thesethree names.ll@On the other hand, Albright has advocated theview that two separate and distinct individuals are involvedhere.120 Whatever the final solution to this problem may be,Smith's publication of the Nabonidus Chronicle certainly

118 From the body of his remarks on the chronicle it is apparentthat Smith considered the most likely interpretation to be that allthree names applied to the same person (ibid., pp. 104, 105). However,Smith was less positive on this point in a footnote later: "(20) Gubaru.It is possible that the chronicler intended to distinguish Ugbaru ofGutium from Gubaru, whom Cyrus appointed governor of Akkad andEbir nari, that Ugbaru is the Gobryas of Xenophon, and Gubaru isidentical with the governor of . . . Akkad and Ebir-nari who is frequent-ly mentioned on business documents of the time of Cyrus and Cam-byses. On the other hand it is possible that the chronicler intended oneand the same person by Ugbaru and Gubaru, the Gobryas of Xenophon,that he was appointed governor by Cyrus, but died on the night of the10-1 th Marcheswan, and was succeeded by another Gubaru, not hisson, since Xenophon expressly states that his only son had beenmurdered, Cyropaedia, VI, 4, 3-4" (ibid., pp. 121, 122).

'la Oppenheim translated all three of these names with the equiva-lent Greek name of Gobryas, and only in the first instance did he placethe Akkadian name in parentheses after the Greek (ANET, p. 306).Dougherty followed a similar course in his translation of this passage.He used Gobryas to translate all three names too, and he placedUgbaru in parentheses after the first and third names, but he did notput Gubaru after the name in line 20. However, he did transliterateall three names just the same as Smith did in his transliteration of theselines (Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar [New Haven, 19291,p. 173). Dougherty also followed Smith in placing a cautionary com-ment on the problem here in a footnote, "The reading (BAD = imfit)in BHT, p. I I 4, is textually correct, and hence on the assumption thatGubaru and Ugbaru refer to the same person, we must assume thatthere was another Gubaru (Gobryas),who was the governor of Babylon


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Is5 WILLIAM H . SHEA

clarified one part of it. His copy and translation of the textclearly indicate that Ugbaru died soon after the fall of Baby-lon, which means that he did not live long enough to begovernor there in the 4th year of Cyrus, so he obviously wasnot the same person as Gubaru the governor mentioned in thebusiness and administrative texts.121 From this point on,resolving the rest of the problem would seem to be simple andmerely require connecting up the names that are alike,Ugbaru in line 15of the chronicle with Ugbaru in line 22 of thesame text, and Gubaru in line zo with Gubaru in the othertexts. A correlation like this would definitely favor Albright'sviewpoint on the subject, but the problem is complicated bythe orthography of these names in the text of the chronicle.The names in question are reproduced here from Smith's copyof the text to assist in their discussion that follows :

Line 15 7 X ?-ba-ruLine 20 74% a a Gu-ba-ru

The first problem connected with the orthography of thesenames in the text comes from the first sign in the first name.Obviously, that sign is not the same as the first sign in either ofthe other two names. It has been suggested, however, that itcomes close to the first part of the Ug sign in line 22, and sinceit does not resemble any other sign in the Neo-Babyloniansyllabary, that appears to be a fair estimate of the situation.It is interesting to note that the problem with this sign didnot result from damage to the tablet, for this part of thepassage is not damaged according to Smith's copy. Instead,


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON I57

pleted by the scribe, possibly because he could not see theend of it in the original."la2 In other words, this sign mayindicate that this part of the text was not completely legibleto the scribe who wrote our copy of the Nabonidus Chronicle,possibly because of damage to the tablet from which it wascopied.

In addition to this complication concerning UgbaruJs namein the text, Albright has suggested that the first sign in hisname should be read Uk instead of UgJ1= which woulddifferentiate him even more sharply from Gubaru in line 20.The first sign in the third name does carry the Uk value, as wellas those of Ug and Uq, so this interpretation is linguisticallypermissible. However, there is nothing inherent in the textitself that favors a reading of Uk over Ug for this sign, andsince his name is not attested in other texts of the time outsideof the Nabonidus Chronicle, there are no materials availablewith which to compare it. In other words, the reading of Ug

Ibid.,p. 121.Or As. "Smith's hand-copy . . . distinguishes sharply betweenthe Persian governor of the Zagros region, who occupied Babylon, andthe Persian who was appointed governor of Babylonia by Cyrus. Theformer is said by the very reliable Chronicle . . . to have died soonafter the conquest of Babylonia, whereas the latter remained governorof Babylonia and Syria for many years under Cyrus and Cambyses,as attested by many economic texts. The former's name is written incuneiform something like Sik( ?)-ma-ru in the first occurrence andAs(?)-ma-ru or Uk(?)-ma-ru in the second; the reading Ugbaru ishighly improbable, and motivated chiefly by the desire to identify thename with that of the Greek Gobryas. On the other hand, Gubaru,appointed governor of the richest provinces of the Persian Empire, isundoubtedly to be identified with Gobryas" (Albright, op . cit., p. 375).Albright took up the second of the two interpretations of this mattermentioned by Smith and Dougherty to argue against Olmstead who


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158 WILLIAM H. SHEAfor this sign is just as reasonable, or unreasonable, as thereading of Uk or Uq. By the same token, on purely linguisticgrounds, the first sign of the name in line 20 could also be readqzi or ku, in order to differentiate the individual referred tothere from the later governor, but this is a historical and not alinguistic consideration. Only one fact is definite from theorthography of the initial signs in these three names-thevowel follows the consonant in the first sign of the secondname (Gu@/ku,), and it precedes the consonant in the firstsign on the third name (Uglklq), whatever consonant thosesigns may indicate.

Albright has also suggested that the second sign in Ugbaru'sname should be read ma instead of ba.l24 In favor of this viewis the fact that Smith did copy the bottom wedge of this signquite horizontal in lines 15 and 22, while in line 20 of his copyit inclines slightly upwards. However, as is well known, it isvery difficult to differentiate between the ba and the ma signsin Neo-Babylonian orthography. As far as I know, none of thecuneiformists who have examined this tablet, including Smithhimself who copied these signs this way, have read any othervalue than ba for the second sign in all three of these names.This interpretation may simply be based on contextualconsiderations, of course, but if it is, that is a further indicationof the nature of the problem here. Finally, the one sign that isnot disputed in these names is the last one which clearly isthe same rzc sign in all three cases. In summary, only two ofthe nine signs that compose these three names in the text areunquestionably different, the first sign in the second andthird names, and the only definite difference that these twosigns entail is the position of the vowel involved. Since this is


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON 159A very interesting and well-documented piece of informa-

tion pertinent to this problem comes from the business and'administrative documents that refer to Gubaru the governorof Babylon. Since the chronological distribution of these textsis of considerable interest in this connection, their distributionhas been detailed in Table XI. The reference to Gubaru in theNabonidus Chronicle has been omitted from the list sincethat reference is in question here.

Table XICHRONOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION OF BUSINESS ANDADMINISTRATIVE TEXTS THAT REFER TO GUBARU, THEGOVERNOR OF BABYLONKing Year ReferencesCyrus accession1st

2nd3rd4th

Not attestedNot attestedNot attestedNot attestedN B R U 43 (dated VIII, I )N B R U 45 (dated XII, g)N B R U 46 (dated XII, 10)Not attestedRECC 56, 92T C L XIII 142RECC 70, N B R U 61GCCI I1 103, L C E 169, B I N 114

Cambyses 1st Cambyses 96, B E VIII 20and T C L XI11 150, 152, GCCI I1 120, RECC 127, 1283rd RECC 137, 1604th RECC 168, 1725th RECC 177, 178, T C L XI11 168

The 25 texts cited above cover a span of 11 years which


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160 WILLIAM H. SHEA

years after that event, and three years after the death ofUgbaru in October, 538. Even though we are dependent uponthe chance survival and recovery of materials of this type, asmentioned in Part I, the chronological distribution of thesetexts still appears to be significant. The complete absence ofany reference to Gubaru, the governor, in the texts for four fullyears after the f a l l of Babylon raises the question whether hewas governor during that time or not. The absence of Gubarufrom the texts of those four years is emphasized by the factthat he appears fairly regularly in texts from the next 11years after that. While a gap of a year or two in these referen-ces might be expected statistically (cf. the 5th year of Cyrus),four years in a row is more than one would ordinarily expect ifGubaru was governor during that time. However, thisproblem cannot be resolved with finality until texts turn upwith the name of the governor of Babylon during the firstthree years of Cyrus. At the present time there is no evidenceto connect Gubaru of the Nabonidus Chronicle with thegovernor in the economic texts except the fact that theirnames appear to be the same, and since this passage in thechronicle clearly applies to the accession year of Cyrus, thetwo names in these sources are separated by a gap of fouryears.At first glance the fact that the name Gubaru is found inboth the chronicle and the administrative texts might appearto be convincing evidence that both sources refer to the sameperson, but this is not necessarily the case. The onomasticon ofthis period shows that some personal names were used bymany individuals, some were used by a few, and some areattested for only one person.lz6 Gubaru was not a name that


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A VASSAL K I N G OF B A B Y L ON 161

t i ~ n , l ~ ~nd he can be connected with the Gobryas Megab yzusof Herodotus.la7 Because of the different political circum-stances in which Gaubaruva is found and because he appearson the scene four years after the last reference to Gubaru thegovernor in the Babylonian texts, it seems likely that the twoshould be differentiated. Herodotus also mentions anotherGobryas who was the son of Darius I and Artystone.l28Finally, another Gubaru appears in the Babylonian businesstexts from the time of Darius 11. Thus the mere fact thatGubaru of the chronicle and Gubaru in the administrativetexts have the same name does not necessarily prove that theywere the same person.

On the other hand, there are two features of the NabonidusChronicle that may possibly support the identification ofUgbaru with Gubaru in the third column of the text. The firstfeature is found in the use of these two names when they arecompared with the use of personal names in the chronicles ingeneral as discussed above. Obviously, Ugbaru cannot bejudged king of Babylon when he first appears in the chronicleas the governor of Gutium who led a part of Cyrus' army tovictory over Babylon without a battle. Gubaru also is simplymentioned as "his [Cyrus'] governor" in line 20 of Column 111.Presumably the governorship of Babylon is the office referredto here but that is not explicitly stated in the text and it maybe significant in this connection that Ugbaru is mentioned as agovernor of Cyrus before this. At any rate, neither of thesetwo references could possibly be interpreted as applying to aking. However, to differentiate between Ugbaru and Gubaruhere of necessity means that not one but two non-royalpersonages are mentioned by name in this chronicle passage.


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162 WILLIAM H . SHEAsurveyed above are taken into account, it seems statisticallyunlikely.

In the second place, there are quite a few elements in thispart of the chronicle that can be readily organized into a briefchronicle of Ugbaru's career. When he appears on the scenein line 15his background as the governor of Gutium is mention-ed with his major military achievement, the conquest ofBabylon. Ugbaru's control of Babylon before Cyrus arrived isevident from the fact that his Gutian troops are specificallymentioned as the guards of the temple precincts, and the textnotes that they performed their duties so efficiently that "noappointed ceremony was passed over." 129 The chronicle doesnot specifically state when and by whom Nabodinus wasarrested when he returned to Babylon, but the fact that thisdetail is located in line 16 implies that he was taken prisonerbefore the end of Tashritu, the date of the next event listedin the text, which means that Ugbaru probably was the prin-cipal authority to whom he surrendered. Even the triumphalentry of Cyrus is interesting in this regard, for after "Cyrusproclaimed peace to Babylon"130 no further mention of him ispresent in the legible portions of the text, i e . , this part ofColumn I11 certainly does not look like the beginning of astandard chronicle for his reign in Babylonia.The next event listed in the chronicle after Cyrus sent hisgreetings to Babylon is Gubaru's installation of governorsthere. If this Gubaru is the same person as Ugbaru, then thisobservation also fits very well into a chronicle of Ugbaru'scareer as a reference to his most important act in post-conquest Babylonia-the organization of the Persian adrnin-istration. Before considering the other possibility, that


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON 163the text in connection with the fact that his death is mentionedin the chronicle. If Ugbaru had returned to his post in Gutiumand died there, it is very unlikely that his death would havebeen reported in a chronicle written in Babylonia. Since itappears reasonable to assume that Ugbaru remained inBabylonia until his death late in 538, the next question is,what position did he occupy during that year ? And if Gubaruwho appointed the governors was not the same person asUgbaru and they were contemporaneous in Babylonia for ayear, what was the relationship between them ? It is difficultto imagine that Cyrus could have made Ugbaru, who conquer-ed Babylon for him, subordinate to the governor he appointedthere after the conquest. Since it seems more likely thatUgbaru would have occupied a position equal or superior toGubaru, only two positions seem to be available that he couldhave occupied-military prefect over Babylonia, or king ofBabylon vassal to Cyrus. However, instead of interpreting thetext in such a way as to make Gubaru and Ugbaru two personscontemporaneous in Babylon for a year after the conquest, itseems easier and more reasonable to assume, in view of thedubious orthography of the names in the text, that theywere one and the same individual. As stated above, this viewof the names involved would fit the reference to the appoint-ment of governors into a brief chronicle of the career ofUgbaru very nicely.

The return of the gods of Akkad to their cities from Kislimuto Addaru must also have taken place under the auspices ofUgbaru, either directly if he was the governor of Babylon atthat time, or indirectly through Gubaru the governor who wassubordinate to him, if they are to be differentiated. The return


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164 WILLIAM H. S HEAbe assumed that they were performed when the text does notspecifically state that they were omitted. In this case, thegods were ready for the New Year because they all arrivedhome on time, by the end of Addaru, which implies that thefestival was performed even though it is not noted in the text.

In addition, it is suggested here that Ugbaru was elevatedfrom the office of governor of Babylon to be king of Babylonat the time of this same New Year's festival, even thoughthere is no reference to his accession in this passage of thechronicle. In the preceding discussion on the classificationof the Nabonidus Chronicle, several other important omissionsfrom this section of the text were pointed out: the fate ofNabonidus and especially a summary statement for his reign,the labels and dividers that marked off the regnal years in thetext, and the record of the accession of the king who succeededNabonidus, whoever he may have been. In other words,while UgbaruJs accession is not mentioned here, neither isanybody else's, including Cyrus'. In view of the unusualnature of this part of the Nabonidus Chronicle, the accessionproposed for Ugbaru has been interpolated here on the basisof the other evidences examined in this study, even thoughit is not specifically referred to in the chronicle. Since noaccession statement is present in this section of the text a t all,the chronicle does not contradict this proposed accession;consequently it must stand or fall on the merits of the othermaterials that have been assembled in support of it . I t maybe that no events of outstanding importance occurred duringUgbaru's seven-month reign, so perhaps the statement of hisaccession was simply assimilated into his death date. Asdiscussed above, death dates were used almost exclusively


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON 165king of Babylon. He ruled only very briefly, however, as hisreign was cut short at a month and 12 days. The chronicledoes not mention his relationship to Nabu-nadin-zeri whoruled for two years before him, but the Babylonian King ListA informs us that he was his son.133

The third column of the Nabonidus Chronicle closes withthe record of Cambyses' participation in the New Year'sfestival on the 4th of Nisanu. According to the consecutivechronological interpretation of the text, this act of his tookplace in the spring of 537; therefore it cannot refer to hisinstallation as king of Babylon coregent with his father, forit comes at the end and not the beginning of the gap in Cyrus'titulary in the economic texts. It appears that Cambysesparticipated in the New Year's ceremonies at that time onbehalf of his father Cyrus, to ratify his title to the throne ofBabylon which he took up by decree some three monthsbefore, after the death of Ugbaru. In this context, Cambysesappears to be a dynastic representative as Saggs suggests,"Cyrus' young son, Cambyses, officiated at the New YearFestival in Babylon, whereby the dynasty received investiturefrom the god Marduk, henceforth exercising kingship overBabylonia not only by right of conquest but by divinevocation.'In closing these comments on the problem of U gbaru versusGubaru it should be noted that the final decision on whetherthese names represent one and the same person or two differentindividuals does not materially affect the main proposal ofthis study, that Ugbaru was the official king of Babylon forseven months from the spring to the fall of 538. As a matterof fact, the argument for his kingship is somewhat stronger if


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166 WILLIAM H. SHEAaspects of the problem are considered, the most reasonableinterpretation of the text is the view that all three namesrefer to the same individual. It is also my opinion that thename of the individual in question was actually Gubaru andnot Ugbaru. This opinion is based upon two pieces of inforrna-tion. In the first place, the name Gubaru was used by severalindividuals of the time, both in Persia and Babylonia, but thename Ugbaru is otherwise completely unattested. Secondly,Gobryas is the name of one of the two generals of Cyrus wholed the final attack on Babylon, according to Xenophon.136In the commentary on his translation of the Nabonidus Chron-icle, Smith suggested that this Gobryas of Xenophon is thesame person that is mentioned three times in the thirdcolumn of the chronicle under the names Gubaru and Ugba-ru.ls6 This identification seems quite reasonable and it isaccepted here. I t may be significant, then, that the name ofGobryas in Xenophon gives no indication that it originallyhad an initial vowel in Akkadian, but this evidence is a bitremote from the time when the person who carried that namelived. Even though it seems more likely that the man's namewas Gubaru than Ugbaru, the name Gubaru has not beenused for him in this study in order to avoid introducingfurther confusion into an already complicated subject.Whose Wife Died? The supplementary evidence assembledabove in support of the hypothesis that Ugbaru was king inBabylon for a part of 538 naturally raises the question, ifUgbaru was the king of Babylon at that time, then why is notthere a reference to the fact that he was a king in the Naboni-dus Chronicle ? The proposal presented in this section is thatthere may be such a reference in the chronicle after all. Two


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A VASSAL KING O F BABYLON 1 ~ 7Ugbaru. Before considering the possible significance of thisreference, however, a few problems connected with the trans-lation of the text should be examined. The textual considera-tions here involve three questions:who died ? when did he or shedie ? and, when did the subsequent period of mourning begin ?

The first of these three questions stems from the fact thatthe identity of the person who died after Ugbaru is somewhatin doubt because the first sign in line 23 where that personwas identified is badly damaged now. However, the natureof the official "weepingJJ that follows next in the text seemsto indicate that the person mourned thereby was a femalemember of the royal household, ie., the mother, wife, ordaughter of the king. In favor of the view that a femalepersonage was referred to by this damaged sign is the fact thatthe BAD+@ for the verb "diedJJ that accompanies it isfollowed by the complement -at as an indicator of the feminine,in contrast to the same verb in the preceding line where nosuch complement appears with Ugbaru as the subject.Concerning the sign in question Smith suggested that "thetraces favour PinchesJ reading DAM"^^^ and the few wedgesthat he copied at the edge of the damaged area do coincidewith the beginning of that sign. That being the case, the wifeof the king ( ~ ~ ~ l a i i a ta h ) s probably the person whose deathis recorded at the beginning of line 23, and that is the inter-pretation accepted in this study.

The second question is, then, when did she die ? The lastsign legible at the end of line 22 n Smith's copy, although it ispartly damaged, appears to be the determinative for themonth. The actual sign for the month in question is completelymissing in the damaged area at the end of the line, so the


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168 WILLIAM H. SHEA

Oppenheim placed Arahsamnu in brackets here 138 but thatestimate cannot be verified from the text itself. There is somereason to suspect that she did not die in Arahsamnu. Whentwo events listed in the text occurred in the same month, thescribe who wrote this chronicle generally dated the second ofthose two events by the day number only; at least there arefour examples of this in Column 111. In this case the determina-tive for the month appears to be present and there is notenough room at the end of the line for the month sign and theday number too, so she probably did not die in the same monthof Arahsamnu that Ugbaru died.

If this wife of the king did not die in Arahsamnu, is thereany way to determine when she died ? The record of the deathof Nabonidus' mother in Column I1 of the chronicle might beused here to arrive at a rough estimate as to when she died.The official "weeping" in Akkad for Nabonidus' mother wasnot performed until the month of Simanu, two months or moreafter her death on the 5th of Nisanu. Since the three-day"weeping" Belshazzar and his troops performed for her,presumably in Nisanu, is separated in the text from the generaland official mourning in Akkad in Simanu, it appears that thelength of time between those two events was necessary to takethe news of his mother's death to Nabonidus in Tema, toreturn his decree concerning the official mourning for her toBabylonia, and to carry out that decree there. The fact thatan official mourning was performed in Akkad for the wife ofthe king mentioned in Column 111gives reason to suspect thatshe was in Babylonia at the time of her death. Then presumingthat Cyrus was not in Babylonia when she died, the twomonths or more mentioned in connection with the previous


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A V A SS AL K I N G O F B A BY L O N 169died as early in the year as the 9th or 10th months, since themourning for her began in the last week of the 12th month.

The third question concerning the text here is, when did theperiod of mourning begin? Related to this question is thecorollary of it, how long did it last? This question arisesbecause Oppenheim's translation of line 23 gives the 27th ofArahsamnu as the date on which the mourning began,l39 andsince it ended on the 3rd of Nisanu, this would indicate thatthe mourning went on for over four months. This seems to bean inordinately long period of time ; therefore Smith's oldertranslation of the 27th of Addaru 140 is to be preferred here,a reading that D. J. Wiseman has confirmed for me in hisrecent examination of the tablet.l4I

With these preliminary considerations completed, we mayaddress ourselves to the principal question of this section,whose wife died? I would suggest that there are five possibleanswers to this question: Belshazzar, Nabonidus, Cambyses,Cyrus, Ugbaru.

The first three persons listed above as possibilities for theking whose wife's death is referred to here can be dismissedquite readily. The second column of the Nabonidus Chroniclerefers to Belshazzar five times, but only by his position ofcrown prince and never by name. He is not mentioned at allin the third column of the text where the end of the Chaldeanrule over Babylon is detailed. Although Belshazzar did actas regent in Babylon for Nabonidus when he was off in Tema,he never was officially invested as king of Babylon, as far as weknow. Obviously then, Belshazzar is not the king we arelooking for and he can be eliminated from the list. Naboniduscomes a little closer to filling the requirements of this reference


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I?o WILLIAM H. SHEAdied and was mourned thereafter was his wife. I t seemsunlikely, however, that such attention would have been paidto his wife after he was deposed, especially in view of thefactthat he was a rather unpopular ruler in Babylonia, and sincethe kingship there had passed to an entirely different power,not to just another king in the ordinary line of succession. I tbecomes all the more unlikely that Nabonidus' wife would bereferred to in this manner when the passage of the chroniclethat mentions the death of this wife of the king is interpretedchronologically according to the consecutive order of the text.This interpretation places her death late in 538, a year laterthan formerly supposed, which makes it very unlikely that thequeen whose death is reported in the text was the wife ofNabonidus. The case for Cambyses' kingship as coregent withCyrus early in Cyrus' reign in Babylonia has already beendiscussed at length and rejected? I t should also be noted inthis regard that Cambyses appears in the chronicle only afterthe mourning for the dead queen was over, so it seems unlikelythat he was the king whose wife died.

The elimination of the first three persons from the list aboveleaves only Cyrus and Ugbaru as possibilities for the kingwhose wife's death is mentioned in this section of the chronicle.The most common interpretation of this reference in the texthas been to identify this king as Cyrus. This is quite a reason-able identification to make, for Cyrus was ruler over Babyloniaat the time this woman died. In addition, a reference toCassandane (the wife of Cyrus, the daughter of Pharnaspes,and the mother of Cambyses) in Herodotus says that "whenshe died before him, Cyrus himself mourned deeply and badeall his subjects mourn also." la The queen whose death isrecorded in the Nabonidus Chronicle could be fitted into this


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON I7Iwho was the mother of Cambyses. Herodotus also recountedthe tradition that identified her with Nitetis, the daughter ofApries of Egypt, but he rejected that tradition.l44 A thirdtradition about this wife of Cyrus appears in the writings ofCtesias who says that she was Amytis, the daughter of Ast yagesthe Mede.146 Smith identified the queen whose death isrecorded in the chronicle with Arnytis, but in so doing he notedthat "Amytis is considered by some a legendary figure."Unfortunately, there are no further details in Herodotus'account that tell us exactly when and where Cassandane died,which makes it difficult to connect her with the queen referredto in the chronicle with assurance. Also, the reference to "allhis subjects" is not really specific enough to indicate that thewhole empire, and Babylonia in particular, was supposed tomourn for her.

The absence of any reference to Cyrus in the passage of thechronicle that mentions this queen's death may have somesignificance in this connection. If she died in Persia then itdoes not mean very much. However, if this queen died inBabylonia, which might be inferred from the fact that herdeath is recorded in the chronicle and that an official mourningwas performed in Babylonia for her, then it may be significant.If this was Cyrus' wife and she died in Babylonia, then onemight have expected Cyrus to visit Babylonia sometimethereafter, but there is no record of it in the chronicle, andCambyses is the one who appeared in the New Year's cere-monies the day after the mourning for her ended. On theother hand, if this was a vassal king's wife who died in Babylo-nia, and not a wife of Cyrus, then his absence from the recordis quite natural. This is a rather indirect line of reasoning, but


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172 WILLIAM H . SHEA

else. At the time she died Cyrus was the suzerain or "King ofLands" over Babylonia, but it is not certain, pending a moreprecise determination of the date of her death, that he hadbecome the official king of Babylon by that time.

While the view that the wife of the king whose death hasbeen discussed here was a wife of Cyrus must remain a distinctpossibility, I would suggest that another interpretation ofthis reference is also possible. According to this proposal, theantecedent of the word "king" at the beginning of line 23in Column I11 is simply the male personage mentioned in theimmediately preceding phrase of the text, Ugbaru. Theinterpretation proposed here is that Ugbaru the king died inBabylon first, on the 11th of Arahsamnu. Then his wife diedshortly thereafter, also in Babylonia, and an official mourningwas held for her throughout the land at the end of the year.A t the close of the week of mourning, Cambyses participatedin the ceremonies of the New Year to reaffirm Cyrus' accessionto the kingship of Babylon that he had decreed a few monthsbefore when he received the news of Ugbaru's death.

There is no definite proof a t the present time that thisinterpretation of whose wife died is correct. It is simplyoffered here as an alternative to the view that the queenreferred to was Cyrus' wife. I t is consistent, at least, with theother materials assembled above in support of Ugbaru'skingship and therefore may be considered a currently viablealternative to the preceding view. In answer to the questionthat introduced the discussion of this section it can simply besaid that there is a possibility that Ugbaru is referred to by thetitle of king in this text, as the king whose wife's death isrecorded in line 23 of the third column of the chronicle.


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON I73does there appear to be any room for him in these lists. Thisproblem is readily resolved, however, when the location andlength of Ugbaru's reign is noted. According to the inter-pretation proposed in the preceding section, Ugbaru's term ofoffice as king of Babylon began in the spring of 538, at thetime of the New Year's festival in Nisanu, and ended with hisdeath on the I~ t hf Arahsamnu of the same year. From thisit can be seen that all seven months of his reign fell withinthe same Babylonian calendar year. I t is well known thatkings who ruled for only a part of a year were omitted fromPtolemy's Canon,147and a similar practice can be assumedfor the Saros Table. The reason for this procedure is evidentfrom the mathematical construction of these sources. Tocredit one year to a king who reigned for only a part of thatyear would have increased the total number of years in thelist by one beyond the absolute number of calendar yearsinvolved, since the other part of that year was reckoned withthe years of the king who reigned in the preceding or succeedingyear. This evidence in conjunction with the text (RECC 5)that is dated to the 4th of Nisanu as the 1st year of "Cyrus,King of Babylon" appears to indicate that Ugbaru did notbecome king of Babylon until Nisanu in the spring of 538, andthat he was the governor, not the king, before that . The caseof Cambyses provides a parallel to this, for the evidenceindicates that he too was installed as coregent with Cyrus inNisanu, 5 3 0 . l ~ ~

The second problem for discussion here relates to a recentlypublished king list from Uruk that includes Nabonidus, thelast Chaldean king of Babylon, and the first ruler of thePersian period. Since there is no sign of Ugbaru in the list, the


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I74 WILLIAM H. SHEAA prominent feature of the text in connection with thissubject is how badly damaged the list is where the Achaemenidkings begin. Only the ends of the names remain for the firstthree kings there. To illustrate this point, the translation ofthe last four lines before the break at the bottom of the obverseof the tablet is given here: 14Q

[x] + 15 years: Nabonidus[g years : CyJrus[8 years : Cambysles[36 years : Darilus

Assuming that these names have been restored correctly,we still lack the number of regnal years the text indicated forthese kings. The number of regnal years listed for both Cyrusand Cambyses would be of considerable interest here, to seeif any acknowledgement was given thereby to the coregencybetween them. If Cambyses' position as king of Babylon whenhe was coregent with his father was recognized then he shouldhave one more regnal year to make nine instead of the usualeight. If the year when Cambyses was king of Babylon vassalto Cyrus was not acknowledged in the king list, then there isgood reason to expect that Ugbaru's position as king therevassal to Cyrus would not have been recognized in the listeither. In other words, the time that these two individualsruled in Babylon as vassals to Cyrus may very well have beenabsorbed into the regnal years reported for Cyrus, since he wassuzerain over them and Babylonia at the time. However, thisis mere speculation until we have a better king list for thisperiod. I t should also be noted that this king list was writtenmore than three centuries after the time of Cyrus, for the lastking listed on the reverse side of the tablet is Seleucus I1


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A VASSAL KING OF B A B Y L ON I 7 5above, why do we not have any contract tablets dated to him ?The first possible answer to this question may be emphasizedby refemng to Table II.lS0While it appears that the textualmaterials assembled there are statistically significant enoughto support the conclusions drawn from them, texts from thefirst eight months of Cyrus' first year are not as abundant aswe might like. With some difficulty, 13 texts with usable titlesthat definitely date from Nisanu of that year to the time ofUgbaru's death have been collected for use in Table 11.Besides that, only a few of the rather modest number of textsavailable from this period come from the important centers ofnorthern Babylonia: Babylon, Borsippa, and Sippar. Thereare several museums, especially in Europe, that possesssignificant numbers of Babylonian texts from the Achaemenidperiod that have not been published, and it is possible thatthey might supply some useful information related to thissubject. The texts from Sippar in the British Museum are ofparticular interest in this connection. Oppenheim referred tothese texts with the comment, "The Sippar of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) period is known by many administra-tive and legal texts ;only a fraction of these tablets have beenpublished." lS1One possible answer to this question, then, issimply that the texts dated to him may not have been recov-ered yet, or they have not yet been recognized among the textsthat have been excavated.

The other possible answer to this question is that the Baby-lonian scribes did not date their tablets to him. It is clearthat they dated their tablets to "Cyrus, King of Lands" duringthe first five months after the fall of Babylon, when Ugbaruwas governor there, according to the interpretation offered


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1 7 ~ WILLIAM H. SHEAin the cases of Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu, and Cyrus andCambyses, this is not unusual in and of itself. The onlyquestion here is whether other scribes dated their documentsto Ugbaru the vassal king at this time, as they did for Kanda-lanu and Cambyses in the other two cases. To the presenttime we have no evidence that they did, but this remains anopen question until a more extensive examination of theunpublished Babylonian texts of the Achaemenid period hasbeen made.

SummaryIn spite of the amount of documentation and discussion

presented in the preceding pages, the procedure followed inthis study is quite simple. The first major piece of evidenceutilized here comes from the royal titles in the economictexts that date to the first two years of Cyrus' rule overBabylonia. The gap in those titles that the older interpretersobserved has been confirmed and amplified by the addition ofa few more titles from texts that were not available at thetime they made their observations. The few exceptionsdiscussed above notwithstanding, it is clear that the standardtitle regularly used for Cyrus in the economic texts from theaccession period and the first nine months of his 1st year wassimply "King of Lands" and that only. Toward the end of his1st year, "King of Babylon" was added to his former title inthese texts, producing the titulary "King of Babylon, King ofLands" that became the standard title used for him thoughoutthe rest of his reign. No satisfactory explanation has yet beenarrived at for this gap in Cyrus' titulary during which time hecarried only the title "King of Lands" in the economic texts.


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A VASSAL KING OF BABYLON I77The second major piece of evidence presented in this study

comes from the Nabonidus Chronicle and it provides, for thefirst time, a reasonable explanation for the gap and change inCyrus' titulary in the economic texts. The dated events in thethird column of the Nabonidus Chronicle interpreted chrono-logically in consecutive order demonstrate that Ugbaru diedinthe fall of 538, not in the fall of 539, as formerly supposedfrom the retrospective interpretation of the text. When thispiece of the puzzle is placed alongside the preceding piece ofevidence, they fit together with chronological precision, forit becomes clear thereby that the texts of the time took up thetitle "King of Babylon" for Cyrus shortly after the death ofUgbaru. That being the case, it has been proposed here thatthe death of Ugbaru and the change in Cyrus' titulary relateto each other as cause and effect, i.e., when Ugbaru whomCyrus appointed as king of Babylon died, Cyrus himself tookover the kingship there, and the scribes added the title to itinto his titulary in the texts they wrote after that. Threesupplementary pieces of evidence have been added to supportthe identification of Ugbaru as king of Babylon that is basedon the two lines of evidence summarized above: the way inwhich his personal name was used in the chronicle, thepresence of his death date in the text, and how well this passageof the Nabonidus Chronicle fits as a brief chronicle of Ugbaru'scareer. The major and minor lines of evidence summarizedhere, in conjunction with other aspects of this subject discussedelsewhere in this study, have led to the conclusions thatUgbaru, the governor of Gutium who conquered and governedBabylon for Cyrus, was elevated to the kingship of Babylonin the spring of 538, at the time of the New Year's festival in


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1 7 ~ WILLIAM H. SHEATable XI1

CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF THE INTERPRETATIONS ANDCONCLUSIONS OF THIS STUDY

BabylonianCalendar Dates

Tashritu14Tashritu16 Tashritu3 Arahsamnu

Kislimu

AddaruNisanu

I I Arahsamnu

27 Addaru3 Nisanu4 Nisanu

Years and DatesB.C.539October

10 October12 October29 OctoberNovember-December

538February-March

26 October

537

8 March14 March15 March

Date Formulae inthe Economic Texts

17th Year ofNabonidus,King of Babylon-Accession Year of

cyrus,King of Lands

1st Year ofCyrus,King of Lands

1st Year ofC y r ~ s SKzng of Babylon,King of Lands2d Year ofCyrus,King of BabylonKing of Lands

Events in theNabonidusChronicle

Cyrus attacksSippar fallsBabylon fallsCyrus entersBabylonReturn of thegods beginsReturn of thegods ends(New Year'sFestival)Ugbaru's death(Cyrus becomesking of Babylon)Queen's ( ?) death

Mourning beginsMourning endsCambyses inNew Year'sFestival

Ugbaru's Career

Governor ofGutiumConquers BabylonMilitary Prefect

Governor ofBabylon

(Enthroned)(King of Babylon

Statements in parentheses are the author's interpretations.(Concluded