But to describe his father as “king of Babylon” was a statement somewhat removed from the truth. In the contract-tablets of the time of Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-Merodach, where the name of Neriglissar occurs somewhat frequently as a purchaser of houses, land, etc., he is called simply “son of Bêl-šum-iškun,” without any other title whatever (see p. 438). But perhaps Neriglissar’s statement is due to some historical event of which we are ignorant. Neriglissar died in the month Nisan or Iyyar of the fourth year of his reign, and was succeeded by his son Labāši-Marduk, the Labarosoarchod of the Greek writers. According to Berosus (Josephus against Apion, i. 20), he was no more than a child, and it may be supposed that he was a younger son of Neriglissar, though concerning this we have no information. He only reigned nine months, a plot having been laid against him by his friends, and he was tormented to death, “by reason of the very ill-temper and ill practices he exhibited to the world” (Berosus). After his death, according to the same historian, the conspirators met, and elected one of their number, Nabonnedus (Nabuna’id), as king. “In his reign it was that the walls of the city of Babylon were curiously built with burnt brick and bitumen,” is all that Berosus has to say with regard to the sixteen years of his reign which preceded his overthrow. Many inscriptions of the reign of this king exist, and we are able to gain from them an excellent idea of the state of the country and the historical events of this important period. All that Nabonidus tells us concerning his origin is, that he was the son or descendant of Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî, whom he calls _rubû êmqu_, “the deeply-wise prince.” Who he may have been is not known, but there exist two tablets of the nature of letters written by a certain Nabû-balaṭ-su-iqbî to Aššur-banî-âpli, whose faithful servant he professed to be, protesting against the treatment which he had received at the hands of certain men who were hostile to him. If both these letters were written by the same person, they must belong to about the year 652 B.C. (the eponymy of Aššur-naṣir, which is mentioned in one of them). As that was about one hundred years before Nabonidus came to the throne, this personage, if related to him, must have been his grandfather or great-grandfather. Other persons of the same name are mentioned in the fifth, eleventh, eighteenth, and thirty-fourth years of Nebuchadnezzar, but it seems very unlikely that the father of Nabonidus should be one of these. According to the Babylonian Chronicle, Nabonidus was at the beginning of his reign engaged in the west, to all appearance cutting down, among other things, trees on Mount Amanus for building purposes at Babylon. Something also took place by the Mediterranean (_tâmtim ša mât Amurrî_, “the sea of the land of Amoria”). Apparently he had also troops in this district, and sacrifices were performed there.