Although Herodotus does not name Nebuchad nezzar, he is supposed by some to allude to the expedition of Pharaoh-Necho against Babylon, when he observes that Necho, after an engage ment at Magdolos in Egypt, took Kadytis, a great city of Syria.' It is conjectured that he may have confounded Migdol, in Egypt, with Megiddo, and that Kadytis was the same with Jerusalem (El Kaddosh, the noly city'). (Jahn's Hebrew Conz monwealth.) [All authorities, however, agree with the Bible in making Nebuchadnezzar's reign extend to forty-three years ; comp. Berosus ap. Joseph. cont. Ap. i. 20; Polyhistor ap. Euseb. Chron. i. 53 ; Ptol. Mag. Syntax., v . 14 ; 2 Kings xxiv.. 12 ; xxv. 7 ; Jer. The latest date found on any of the clay tablets belonging to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar is the forty-second year of his reign, which falls in with the supposition that his reign terminated soon after (Rawlinson, Bampton Lecture, p. i6i).] We learn from a continuation of the extract from Berosus already cited, that Nebuchadnezzar almost rebuilt the city of Babylon with the spoils of his expedition, and magnificently adorned the temple of Bel, together with other temples, and built a splendid palace, which he beautified with wooded terraces, and those hanging gardens which were considered one of the wonders of the world [BABY LoN]. To him are also attributed those stupendous canals described by Herodotus, who himself visited Babylon about D.C. 43o, and whose descriptions are fully corroborated by the statements of Philos tratus, Quintus Curtius, Arrian, and Didorus Si culus, by none of whom, however, is this monarch mentioned. Josephus adds, that Magasthenes, in his fourth book, refers to the same subject, and thereby endeavours to show that he exceeded Her cules, and conquered a great part of Africa and Spain. Strabo adds, that Sesostris, king of Egypt, and Tearcon, king of Ethiopia, extended their expedition as far as Europe, but that Navoko drosor, who is venerated by the Chaldaeans more than Hercules by the Greeks marched through Spain to Greece and Pontus.' According to the canon of Ptolemy (with which Josephus agrees, c. Apian. i. 2o), Nebuchadnezzar reigned forty-three years, when he was succeeded by Ilouaroudamos, the Evil-Merodach of Scripture.
The difficulties attending the nature of the dis ease and recovery of Nebuchadnezzar have not escaped the notice of commentators in ancient as well as modern times. The impression made by them on the acute mind of Origen, led him to con clude that the account of Nebuchadnezzar's meta morphosis was merely a representation of the fall of Lucifer. Besides this, which is not likely to meet with many supporters, there have been no less than five different opinions in reference to this subject. Bodin (in Demand.) maintains that Nebuchadnezzar underwent an actual metamorpho sis of soul and body, a similar instance of which is given by Cluvier (Append. ad Epilom. Hist.) on the testimony of an eye-witness. Tertnllian (De Pa•it.) confines the transformation to the body only, but without loss of reason, of which kind of metamorphosis St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xviii. 18) reports some instances said to have taken place in Italy, to which he himself attaches little credit ; but Gaspard Fencer asserts that the transformation of men into wolves was very common in Livonia. Some Jewish Rabbins have asserted that the soul of Nebuchadnezzar, by a real transmigration, changed places with that of an ox (Medina, De recta in Deum fid.) ; while others have supposed
not a real, but an apparent or docetic change, of which there is a case recorded in the life of St. Macarius, the parents of a young woman having been persuaded that their daughter had been trans formed into a mare. The most generally received opinion, however, is, that Nebuchadnezzar laboured under that species of hypochondriacal monomania which leads the patient to fancy himself changed into an animal or other substance, the habits of which he adopts. Jerome probably leaned to this opinion (in Dan. iv. 4). To this disease of the imagination physicians have given the name of Lycanthropy, Zoanthropy, or Insania Canina [DISEASES OF THE JEWS]. In Dan. iv. 15 (iv. 12, according to the Latin) there seems an allusion to some species of insanity in the expression, even with a band of iron and brass' (alllgetur Terre° et area, Vulg.) ; and the loss and return of reason is very clearly intimated in ver. 34, mine understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High.' Virgil (Eclog. 6) refers to this kind of madness in the case of the daughters of Prcetus, who fancied themselves oxen, and made the plains resound with their bellowings : Implerunt falsis mugitibus agros.
And a somewhat similar kind of insanity is de scribed by Mr. Drummond Hay ( Western Barbary, 1844, p. 65) as produced by the use of an intoxi cating herb among the Gisowys, or Moorish fana tics. (See Heinroth, Seelenston i. 65 ; Ader, De cep-oils in Evang., p. 31, etc. ; Meade, Med. Sac. ; Muller, De Nebuchadnezz. p.eraktopq5th o-EL ; Pusey, Daniel the Prophet, p. 425, E, etc.) The idea of an allegory has been revived in modern times, especially by De Wette (Einteitung, p. 257), who considers the accounts in Daniel too improbable, if literally understood, although he admits that they may have been founded on histo rical traditions. He considers the whole of the narrative in Daniel as referring to Antiochus Epiphanes, who he asserts is also signified by Bel shazzar. In reference to the subject before us his translator adds, that Antiochus Epiphanes was called with perfect propriety Ebinzanes, or, the mad, which may have given the author a hint to represent the old and idealized monarch of his nation as bereft of reason, and reduced to the form and character of a beast. Here the historical fact is idealized, and an exquisite piece of sarcasm on the folly and brutality of Antiochus is produced' (Dan. iv. 14, 34). But the truth of this inference, however ingenious the argu ments in its favour, depends altogether on the alleged spuriousness of the book of Daniel, whose genuineness is attested by the citations of the N. T. writers, and by the author of the 1st book of Maccabees, who was acquainted with the book of Daniel, even in the version of the Sept. (Macc. i. 54, comp. with Dan. ii. 27 ; and ii. 59 with Dan. iii. and vi.) [DANIEL.] De Wette can only avoid the force of this evidence by denying the authority of the N. T. writers in a case of the kind. He adds that it is a biassed assumption of Hengstenberg to maintain that I Maccab. was ori ginally written in Greek (allein class es urspriinglidt griechisch . . . sei, ist eine parteiische A nnahme) not _Hebrew, as De Wette's English translator has it, and in the time of John Hyrcanus (B. C. 134-105), as according to him (De Wette) it ap pears from i Maccab. xvi. 23, 24, to have been written much latter [MACcABEES].