( Ἄζωτος, ἡ)
ERAN ALMAGOR
Jerusalem
An important Philistine commercial city about 4 kilometers from the MEDITERRANEAN coast, situated between ASCALON and inland Ekron (BA 70 F2). Semitic Ashdod (perhaps “a fortified place, stronghold,” from shadad, i.e., “ravager”), Azotus in Greek; later, in Hellenistic times, the city adopted the Greek version of its name (1 Macc. 5:68, 10:77; Acts 8:40). It was a member of the Philistine Pentapolis (Jeremiah 25:20, Joshua 11:22, 15:46–47) with its own distinct dialect (Nehemiah 13:24). Sargon II of Assyria took and destroyed the city in 712/11 BCE through his chief of staff (turtanu, Isaiah 20:1). According to Herodotus (2.157), the Egyptian Pharaoh PSAMMETICHUS I besieged Azotus, “a great city of SYRIA,” for twenty‐nine years (presumably not consecutively), until he took it (c. 635). Herodotus adds that of all the known CITIES it held out the longest under a SIEGE (cf. Zephaniah 2:4). After the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II captured the city in 604, it was rebuilt by the Persians in 539.
SEE ALSO: Near Eastern History
FURTHER READING
1 Dothan, Moshe. 1967–1982. Ashdod. 4 vols. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
2 Lloyd, Alan B. 1988. “Herodotus’ Account of Pharaonic History.” Historia 37.1: 22–53.
3 Rainey, Anson F. 2001. “Herodotus’ Description of the East Mediterranean Coast.” BASOR 321: 57–63.
B
BABYLON (Βαβυλών, ἡ)
JOSEF WIESEHÖFER
University of Kiel
In connection with the CONQUEST of “Assyria” by CYRUS (II), and more precisely, the king’s cunning and bloodless capture of Babylon (1.188–91), Herodotus offers a detailed description of the city (1.178–83). It is a metropolis of hitherto unknown size, forming a square whose sides are 120 stadia (approx. 22 km) in length with a protective moat in front. The city is surrounded by a wall of baked bricks 50 cubits (approx. 25 m) wide and 200 cubits (approx. 100 m) high (1.178.2–3). This is crowned by “small houses” protruding inwards and outwards, with enough space between for a four‐horse CHARIOT (1.179.3). One hundred gates of BRONZE regulate entrance to the city (1.179.3), and the EUPHRATES RIVER divides it into two halves of approximately equal size. At the center of these halves are the royal palace and the temple of Zeus BELUS (1.181.2). The temple district is 2 × 2 stadia and has a tower building in the middle, which measures one square stadion at its base. It consists of a total of eight individual towers and can be accessed via an ascending spiral staircase (1.181.2–5). About halfway up there is a resting place with benches. The Herodotean dimensions of the city and its WALLS were not left uncommented in antiquity (Ar. Av. 552; Arist. Pol. 1276a.25–31; Prop. 3.11.21–22; Ov. Met. 4.57–58; Lucr. 6.59–60; Mart. 9.75.2–3; Juv. 10.171).
After his report on the conquest of Babylon, Herodotus describes Babylonian customs (1.192–200), among them the public PROSTITUTION of Babylonian women in a temple of APHRODITE (1.199), the auction of marriageable girls in an annual MARRIAGE market (1.196), and the exchange of medical KNOWLEDGE in the marketplace (1.197). Earlier, he relates the report of the Chaldean PRIESTS concerning the encounter of Zeus Belus with a god‐chosen Babylonian woman in the temple on top of the tower (1.181.5–182.2), For Herodotus, Babylon, like MEMPHIS in EGYPT, the oldest residence, testifies to a former, once impressive and civilizing rule; but this effect is ambivalent, since the enormous power of the city’s kings has come to an end.
Despite the fact that the cityscape excavated by the archaeologists—apart from a few construction details—can hardly be reconciled with Herodotus’ report, and that the customs and practices described by him do not have a basis in the cuneiform texts, Herodotus’ statements were not questioned for a long time. Instead, research adhered to the thesis of Herodotus’ presence and research in Babylon and developed complex explanatory models for precisely these divergences. The most important of them reckoned with a) gaps in MEMORY on the part of the author; b) inaccurate information provided to the author by previous Greek writers or contemporary native guides; c) drastic changes in the cityscape between Nebuchadnezzar II (excavated city) and the second half of the fifth century BCE (time of Herodotus’ alleged visit), mostly traced back to retaliatory measures of XERXES after local rebellions (diversion of the Euphrates; impairment of the cult of Marduk; end of Babylonian kingship). It was allegedly only through Alexander III of Macedon (324–323) that a revival of the cults and the role of Babylon occurred. Recent studies have shown, however, that there is no evidence at all of a drastic change in the appearance of Babylon in the ACHAEMENID period. Rather, our testimonies point to continuity of the building stock, cityscape, and cults. What should trouble us are not only the contradictory references of the Alexander historians to the wrongdoer Xerxes and the restorer Alexander, who staged himself on his campaign as Xerxes’ counterpart. It is also the fact that Herodotus, who characterizes the Persian king as addicted to HUBRIS, knows nothing of the alleged destructive measures Xerxes undertook in Babylon.
SEE ALSO: Chaldeans; Labynetus; Measures; Near Eastern History; Nitocris the Babylonian; Numbers; Reliability; Semiramis; thōmata; Zopyrus (1) son of Megabyxus (1)
FURTHER READING
1 Henkelman, Wouter, Amélie Kuhrt, Robert Rollinger, and Josef Wiesehöfer. 2011. “Herodotus and Babylon Reconsidered.” In Herodot und das Persische Weltreich—Herodotus and the Persian Empire, edited by Robert Rollinger, Brigitte Truschnegg, and Reinhold Bichler, 449–70. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
2 Rollinger, Robert. 1993. Herodots Babylonischer Logos. Eine kritische Untersuchung der Glaubwürdigkeitsdiskussion an Hand ausgewählter Beispiele: Historische Parallelüberlieferung—Argumentationen—Archäologischer Befund—Konsequenzen für eine Geschichte Babylons in persischer Zeit. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
3 Rollinger, Robert. 2008. “Babylon in der antiken Tradition—Herodot, Ktesias, Semiramis und die Hängenden Gärten.” In Babylon. Vol. 1, Wahrheit, edited by Joachim Marzahn and Günther Schauerte, 487–502. Berlin: Hirmer.
4 Rollinger, Robert. 2014. “Von Kyros bis Xerxes: Babylon in persischer Zeit und die Frage der Bewertung des herodoteischen Geschichtswerkes—eine Nachlese.” In Babylonien und seine Nachbarn in neu‐ und spätbabylonischer Zeit. Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium aus Anlass des 75. Geburtstags von Joachim Oelsner, edited by Manfred Krebernik and Hans Neumann, 147–94. Münster: Ugarit‐Verlag.
BACALES (Βάκαλες, οἱ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A small Libyan tribe living, according to Herodotus (4.171), in the middle of the territory of the AUSCHISAE; he places them near to and along the coast west of BARCA (BA 38 B1) and says they share the customs of the tribes south of CYRENE, who imitate the Greeks of that city. The personal name Bacal is common in inscriptions from the area (Masson 1984), and the name of the tribe (Bkn.w) appears in Egyptian documents from the late Bronze Age as well as a recently published ostracon of the fifth century BCE containing the name INAROS (Winnicki 2006).
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