And yet, though the prophet’s language was thus figurative, the prediction was eventually fulfilled in a very literal way. The empire of Cyrus was broken up after the death of Kambyses, and had to be reconquered by Darius the son of Hystaspes, the real founder of the Persian Empire. Darius was a Zoroastrian monotheist as well as a Persian, and under him and his successors polytheism ceased to be the religion of the State. Twice during his reign he had to besiege Babylon. Hardly had he been proclaimed king when it revolted under a certain Nidinta-Bel, who called himself “Nebuchadrezzar, the son of Nabonidos.” A cameo exists with his helmeted profile, engraved by a Greek artist, and surrounded by the words, “To Merodach, his lord, Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, has made (it) for his life;” unless, perhaps, Professor Schrader is right in referring the portrait, not to the pretender, but to the real Nebuchadrezzar of Biblical history. Babylon endured a siege of two years, and was at last captured by Darius only by the help of a stratagem. Six years afterwards it again rose in revolt, under an Armenian, who professed, like his predecessor, to be “Nebuchadrezzar, the son of Nabonidos.” Once more, however, it was besieged and taken, and this time the pretender was put to death by impalement. His predecessor, Nidinta-Bel, seems to have been slain while the Persian troops were forcing their way into the captured city. After the second capture of Babylon Darius pulled down its walls; and his son Xerxes completed the work of destruction by destroying the great temple of Bel, and carrying away the golden image of the god.