Some have fancied that there was an allusion to the disease of Nebuchadnezzar in the passage of Berosus quoted by Josephus (Cont. Apion., i. 20). NaPouxoSop6cropos stv ovv ihEra rb ltpEacrOat Tog 7rpoetpm.k/vou T eixovs, bp-realer sir dficocrriar, AernXXciEara rap fifes. [See Hengstenberg, Beitr, L los, ff.] There is another remarkable passage respecting him in Abydenus (ap. Eusebium, Pra par. Evang. ix. 41), where, having cited the pas sage from Megasthenes already referred to, he adds, upon the authority of the same writer, a speech of Nabuchodonosor, wherein, having been struck by some god, he foretold the destruction of Babylon by a ' Persian mule,' assisted by a Mede, the former boast of Assyria, after which he suddenly vanished. A reference has been supposed to exist in these words to Nebuchadnezzar's madness and consequent disappearance, but there is at most, as De Wette observes, only a traditional connection between them. Jahn (Hebrew Commonwealth) conceives the whole to be a tradition made up from his prophetic dreams, his insanity . . . and from Daniel's explanation of the well-known hand writing in the banqueting-hall of Belshazzar.
Objections have been made by Sir Thomas Browne and others to the proportions of Nebu chadnezzar's golden statue (Dan. iii.), said to have
been 6o cubits, or 90 feet high, and only 6 cubits in breadth ; for it is evident that the statue of a man ten times higher than its breadth exceeds all natural symmetry. Jahn (boa.) supposes that this form might have a more august appearance, or have been retained from a rude antiquity. Some consider that the height of go feet included the pedestal. Hengstenberg supposes that 02$ may mean an obelisk, as well as a statue, in which case the proportions would be symmetrical. Diodorus Siculus (lib. ii.) informs us that one of the images of massy gold found by Xerxes in the Temple of Bel, measured 40 feet in height, which would have been fairly proportioned to a breadth of 6 feet, measured at the shoulders. Prideaux supposes that this may have been the identical statue erected by Nebuchadnezzar, which, however, Jahn con ceives was more probably only gilt, as a statue of gold could scarcely have been safe from robbers in the plain of Dura ; but this conjecture of Jahn's seems by no means necessary (Pusey, L. C., p. 441).—W. W.