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CHAPTER4 SUMMARY and CONCLUSIONS I Have Attempted in This Study to Provide an Analysis of the Theory and Practice of the Neo-Bab CHAPTER4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS I have attempted in this study to provide an analysis of the theory and practice of the Neo-Babylonian empire in its relationship to subjugated populations, and in particular to the population of Judah. I have also tried to investigate how the perspectives about empire that are preserved in a variety of passages from the biblical prophets, members of the subjugated Judean community, offer the historian useful information about the empire. Several conclusions derive from the study. Analysis of the Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions in the first chapter led to the conclusion that the Babylonian kings, and Nebuchadnezzar II in particular, attempted to formulate a coherent imperial creed. The inscriptions, however, do not expound this creed in a formal set of propositions: it finds expression in a particular recombination of traditional language about the king and the state and their relationship to the non-Babylonian world. The royal titulary, usually the first component of these inscriptions, indicates several characteristic ways in which the scribes conceived the king's role within the realm. First, the royal titulary is self-consciously Babylonian. That is, the selection of royal epithets is characteristic of the Babylonian tradition, and, with exceptions in the inscriptions of Nabonidus, avoids epithets not found in that tradition, especially Neo-Assyrian royal epithets. In fact, several archaic epithets that had been common in the Babylonian tradition from early on, but which became the sine qua non of the Neo-Assyrian titulary, sarru rabfl, "great king," sarru dannu, "mighty king," sar kissati, "king of the universe," and sar kibrat erbetti, "king of the four comers (of the earth)," are avoided by the Neo­ Babylonian kings in their titulary, again with several notable exceptions under Nabonidus. Furthermore, the titulary emphasizes the traditional role of the king as the caretaker of Babylon and the sanctuaries of the gods, and avoids epithets which are explicitly militaristic in tone or 204 The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Prophets which lodge claims for the king's universal dominion. This contrasts with the general Neo-Assyrian titulary, and with the titulary claimed by the Assyrian kings in their Babylonian inscriptions, where such epithets are usual. Again, of the Neo-Babylonian kings only Nabonidus provides exceptions to this pattern. We concluded that, inasmuch as the titulary reflects a programmatic understanding of the king's role as ruler of the empire, the Neo-Babylonian tradition shows remarkable restraint in its portrait of the king as conqueror and warrior. The exceptions from Nabonidus do not suggest that he abandoned such restraint completely, but rather that he had a particular agenda which involved forging a link with the Assyrian tradition. The expression of the king's role in the titulary, which avoids militaristic and expansionist epithets, is partially paralleled by the passages in the iniima clauses of the royal inscriptions that narrate the commissioning of the king by the gods. Under Nabopolassar, the perspective of these passages is parochial: although his defeat of the Assyrians receives emphasis, the texts do not ascribe him rule over the entire universe or all humanity; rather, the focus in his inscriptions is on Babylonia. This changes with Nebuchadnezzar, who is now said to rule over all humanity and the four comers of the earth, a claim that accords with his efforts to extend Babylonian domination beyond the Mesopotamian heartland. It is here-and not in the titulary, as with the Neo-Assyrian kings-that we see an effort to articulate the king's imperial dominion through the use of traditional language coupled with a newly conceived imperial geography. Nevertheless, even the passages describing Nebuchadnezzar's commission are restrained in expressing aspirations for conquest or expansion of the realm. In these passages, the gods do not command the king to conquer foreign peoples or to expand the borders, as is usual in Neo-Assyrian texts; rather, the gods simply "give" (nadanu) or "entrust" (qepu) the widespread peoples of the earth to the king, or they "fill (his) hands" (qiiti mullu) with the responsibility to shepherd or rule them. The inscriptions, thus, portray the king as the protector and benefactor of the people whom the gods have granted him to rule. Further, according to the imperial creed, Babylon is the administrative and economic center of the world, and the king gathers all peoples "for good" (!abis) into its "eternal shadow." The imperial portrait of the king depicts him as the benign agent of the gods on earth, and not, as in the Assyrian tradition, as the gods' agent of conquest. .
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