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When I was a boy I was always told, and you have probably been told the same thing:
“You can have no dessert until you have eaten your dinner.”
No matter whether I was hungry or not, “No dinner, no dessert.” This was a rule that my father said was “like the laws of the Medes and Persians.”
I didn’t know then who the Medes and Persians were, but I know now that they were two Indo-European peoples living next to Babylon—you remember Nebuchadnezzar had married a Median woman—and that they were governed by laws, which were fixed so hard and fast and were so unchangeable, that we still speak of any such thing that does not change as like “the laws of the Medes and Persians.”
The Medes and the Persians had a religion, which was neither like that of the Jews nor like that of the Babylonians. It had been started by a Persian named Zoroaster, who was a wise man like Solomon. Zoroaster went about among the people, teaching them wise sayings and hymns. These wise sayings have been gathered into a book. Zoroaster taught that there were two great spirits in the world, the Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit.
The Good Spirit, he said was Light, and the Bad Spirit Darkness. The Good or Light he called Mazda. The Persians kept a fire constantly burning on their altar. They thought the Good Spirit burned in the fire, and they had men watch over the flame to see that it never went out. These men who watched the flame were called Magi, and they were supposed to be able to do all sorts of wonderful things, so that we call such wonderful things magic , and the people who are able to do them we call magicians . At the time of this story which I’m telling you, the ruler of the Medes and the Persians was a great king named Cyrus.
But before I go on with this story, I must tell you about a little country not far from Troy. This little country was called Lydia. Perhaps you may know a girl named Lydia. I do. Lydia was ruled over by a king named Croesus, who was the richest man in the world. When we want to describe a man as very wealthy, we still say he is “as rich as Croesus.”
Croesus owned nearly all the gold mines, of which there were a great many in that country, and besides this he collected money in the form of taxes from all the cities near him.
Before the time of Croesus, people did not have money such as we have now. When they wished to buy anything, they simply traded something they had for something they wanted—so many eggs for a pound of meat or so much wine for a pair of sandals. To buy anything expensive, such as a horse, they paid with a lump of gold or silver, which was weighed in the scales to see just how heavy it was. It is hard for us to think how people could get along without cents and nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars—with no money at all—and yet they did.
Croesus, in order to make things simpler, cut up his gold into small bits. Now, it was not easy for everyone to weigh each piece each time it was traded, for he might not have any scales handy. So Croesus had each piece weighed and stamped with its weight and with his name or initials to show that he guaranteed the weight. These pieces of gold and silver were only lumps with Croesus’s seal pressed into them, but they were probably the first real money even though they were not round and beautifully engraved like our coins.
Now, Cyrus, the great Persian king, thought he would like to own this rich country of Lydia with all its gold mines, so he set out to conquer it.
When Cyrus was on the way, Croesus sent in a hurry to the oracle in Greece to ask what was going to happen and who was going to win. You will remember what I said about the oracle at Delphi and how people used to ask the oracle questions—to have their fortunes told, as some people still do today.
The oracle replied to Croesus’s question:
“A great kingdom shall fall.”
Croesus was delighted, for he thought the oracle meant that Cyrus’s kingdom would fall. The oracle was right, but not in the way Croesus had thought.
A great kingdom did fall, but it was his own kingdom of Lydia and not Cyrus’s that fell.
But Cyrus was still not satisfied with the capture of Lydia, and so at last he attacked Babylon.
Delphic oracle
Now, the people in Babylon who thought of nothing but pleasure were busy feasting and drinking and having a good time. Why should they worry about Cyrus? Their city had walls that were so high and thick and was protected by such strong gates of brass that it seemed as if no one could possibly have captured it.
But you remember that the Euphrates River ran beneath the walls and crossed right through the city. Well, one night when the young prince of Babylon named Belshazzar was having a party and enjoying himself, feeling quite certain that no one could enter the city, Cyrus made a dam and turned the waters of the river to one side. Then Cyrus’s army marched into the city through the dry riverbed and captured the surprised Babylonians without even a fight. It is supposed that some of the Babylonian priests helped him to do this and even opened the gates, for Babylon had become so wicked that they thought it time for it to be destroyed.
Old Lycurgus would have said, “I told you so. People who think of nothing but pleasure never come to a good end.”
This surprise party was in 538—5 and 3 are 8.
Two years later Cyrus let the Jews, who had been carried away fifty years before from Jerusalem, return to the home of their fathers, thus ending the Babylonian Captivity.
Today the only thing left of this great city of Babylon — Babylon the Wicked, Babylon the Magnificent, Babylon with all its great walls and brass gates and Hanging Gardens—is a mound of earth.