After this there is a gap until the sixth year of his reign, the entry for which, however, refers wholly to Astyages’ operations against Cyrus, and its disastrous results, for he was made prisoner, Ecbatana sacked, and the spoil brought to Anšan, Cyrus’s capital. Previous to this, as Nabonidus informs us in his cylinder-inscription found by Mr. Rassam at Abu-habbah (Sippar), the Medes had been very successful in their warlike operations, and had even besieged Haran, making it impossible for Nabonidus to carry out the instructions of his god Merodach, revealed to him in a dream, to restore the temple of Sin in that city. On the king of Babylon reminding the deity of the state of things in that part, and speaking of the strength of the Median forces, he was told that in three years’ time their power would be destroyed, which happened as predicted. He now caused his “vast army” to come from Gaza and elsewhere to do the needful work, and when completed, the image of the god Sin was brought from Babylon, and placed in the restored shrine with joy and shouting. Naturally the Babylonian king was overjoyed at the release of Haran from the power of the Medes—could he have foreseen that Cyrus, their conqueror, would one day hurl him from his throne, his enthusiasm concerning the success of “the young servant of Merodach” (as he calls him) would have been greatly abated. In his seventh and eighth years the king was in Temâ, and the crown prince (apparently Belshazzar is meant), with the great men and the army, was in Akkad (the northern part of Babylonia, of which the city of Agad or Agadé was the capital). The king did not go to Babylon, Nebo did not go to Babylon, Bel did not go forth, the festival _akitu_ (new year’s festival) was not performed, though the victims seem to have been offered in Ê-sagila and Ê-zida as usual, and (the king) appointed a priest (_uru-gala_) of the weapon (?) and the temple. In the ninth year also the same state of things existed, and this year the mother of the king died, to the great grief of the people. It is also recorded for this year that Cyrus, apparently in the course of one of his military expeditions, crossed the Tigris above Arbela. From the fact that the religious processions and ceremonies are given as being unperformed every year from the seventh to the eleventh of his reign, it is clear that a great deal of discontent was caused thereby, as is, in fact, indicated by the cylinder-inscription of Cyrus detailing under what conditions he himself entered Babylon. It was evidently one of the duties of the Babylonian kings (and, as we have seen, the Assyrian kings conformed to this when they became kings of Babylonia) to perform the usual ceremonies, and the ruler neglecting this was certain to fall into disfavour with the priesthood, and, by their influence, with the people as well.