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These watches, however, were probably not observed for astronomical purposes alone, but represent the time division, as among the Hebrews, for the temple service. There were three night watches among the Babylonians, and, in all probability, therefore, three day watches likewise.
Thus the innocent blood was saved the same day; and from that time forth was Daniel had in great reputation in the sight of the people. When Cyrus of Persia received his kingdom, Daniel conversed with him, and was honoured above all his friends. Now, the Babylonians had an idol called Bel, which the king worshipped, but Daniel worshipped his own God.
The transfer of the gods or of some of them to places in the heavens was, as we saw, a scholastic theory, and not a popular belief. It was a natural association of ideas, accordingly, that led the Babylonians to give to their temples the form of the dwelling which they ascribed to their gods.
Moreover, the belief itself belongs in the domain of ancestor worship, and in historical times we find but little trace of such worship among the Babylonians. We may, therefore, associate the custom with the earliest period of the Babylonian religion. This view carries with it the antiquity of the term Shuâlu.
The groundwork, as was stated, was laid by the earlier conquered people. The religion of the Babylonians rested on the basis of the old Sumerian worship. There was homage to demons, powerful for good or for evil, who were brought together into groups, and were figured now as human beings, now as lions or other wild animals, or as dragons and that sort of monsters.
For Dedan was a north Arabian tribe, whose home was near Tema, and whose name may have had a connection with that sometimes given by the Babylonians to the whole of the west. Such, then, was Arabia in the days of the Hebrew writers. The south was occupied by a cultured population, whose rule, at all events after the time of Solomon, was acknowledged throughout the peninsula.
But Oroetes, the satrap of Sardis, compassed his death by foul treachery, and wrought many other crimes; whom Darius in turn put to death by guile, fearing to make open war upon him. And not long afterwards, he sent Otanes to make conquest of Samos. And during the same days there was a revolt of the Babylonians; and Darius went up against Babylon, yet for twenty months he could not take it.
That the Babylonians carefully noted and recorded eclipses is witnessed by Ptolemy, who had access to a continuous series of such observations reaching back from his own time to B.C. 747. Five of these all eclipses of the moon were described by Hipparchus from Babylonian sources, and are found to answer all the requirements of modern science. They belong to the years B.C. 721, 720, 621, and 523.
To whatever causes this may have been owing a subject which will be hereafter investigated the fact is certain; and it entirely destroys the force of the argument from the language of the Babylonians at the later period. Another ground, and that which seems to have had the chief weight with Niebuhr, is the supposed identity or intimate connection of the Babylonians with the Assyrians.
Symbols of these spirits serpents, unicorns, scorpions, and the like are added on the monuments which were placed at the boundaries, and on which the terms were specified that justified the land tenure. To this class of monuments the name of 'Kudurru, or 'boundary' stones, was given by the Babylonians themselves.
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