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Nidintu-Bel

Babylonian who took the name Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled against Darius, 522 BCE

Nidintu-Bel was a Babylonian who seized the throne of Babylon in the autumn of 522 and ruled as Nebuchadnezzar, the third king of that name. Darius defeated him in two battles and killed him at Babylon, probably within about two months. The episode is known chiefly from Darius's own Behistun inscription and from Babylonian dated tablets.

In the game: The game names him only in the event articles on the revolt of Nidintu-Bel and the revolts of 522-521. He has no unit, building or mechanic of his own.

Darius's version at Behistun

In the record

Darius says a Babylonian named Nidintu-Bel, son of Aniri, lied to the people of Babylon and claimed to be Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus. According to the inscription, all Babylon went over to him. The text is the King's own account, and it presents every rebel as a liar.

DB §16

The battles on the Tigris and at Zazana

In the record

Darius says Nidintu-Bel held the bank of the Tigris with ships. Darius's army crossed the river and defeated him there. A second battle followed at a place called Zazana on the Euphrates, after which Nidintu-Bel fled to Babylon with a few horsemen. Darius then took Babylon and killed him there.

DB §18-20

Babylonian documents under a new king

In the record

Business tablets from Babylon and some other Babylonian cities were dated to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar for a few weeks in late 522. They show that scribes and local people treated the rebel as a real king. Darius's text is the only source for the claim that he was Nabonidus's son.

Dated Babylonian business tablets of 522; Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002

Who was he, and why Babylon followed him

Disputed

Darius calls him an impostor, but modern historians doubt that this tells the whole story. The revolt came when Persian rule was shaken by the death of Cambyses and the rise of Darius, and the throne name recalled the great Babylonian king. Whether Nidintu-Bel had any real link to Nabonidus's family cannot be settled from the surviving evidence.

Kuhrt, The Persian Empire, 2007

Herodotus and the siege of Babylon

Disputed

Herodotus does not mention Nidintu-Bel. He tells of a long siege of Babylon under Darius, ended by the stratagem of Zopyrus. Most historians connect that story with the later revolt of Arakha in 521, which Darius also records, and not with the revolt of Nidintu-Bel.

Herodotus 3.150-160; DB §49-50