ABSTRACT
Nebuchadnezzar had returned in triumph while clasping the hand of Marduk, so scribes and scholars in Babylon would have read the literary compositions about Nebuchadnezzar while imagining the city as they knew it at the zenith of its fortune. Reinforced by the power and wealth of empire, the Babylonian elite's regard for Babylon persisted even after Babylon fell to Cyrus and the Neo-Babylonian Empire was superseded by the Persian Empire. Babylon's decline was gradual and precipitated by only a slight shift in its imperial centrality, but even under Achaemenid Persian rule, the new status of the city was a departure from the one it had enjoyed during Nebuchadnezzar rule. The historical memory of Nebuchadnezzar would have been strand in the rich tradition that celebrated Marduk as the head of the pantheon and envisioned Babylon as the locus of his power on earth. The chapter argues for the relevance of the literary traditions centering on Nebuchadnezzar and the return of Marduk.
