The account given by the prophet Daniel of the fall of Babylon has been said to be incorrect, inasmuch as good authorities asserted that at the time of the city's overthrow there reigned a king called Nabonedus, and not Belshazzar; moreover that he was absent at the time, and was not killed, but kindly treated by his captors. But a cylinder discovered some eight years since clears up this difficulty by proving that Bel-shar-ezer, as he is thereon denominated, was the eldest son of this Nabonedus, and associated with him in the government. Mr. Rawlinson says, “The fact that the Babylonian throne was at this time occupied conjointly by two monarchs is indicated in the sacred narrative by a curious casual touch. Belshazzar, anxious to obtain the interpretation of the miraculous ‘hand-writing upon the wall,’ proclaims that whoever reads it shall be made ‘the third ruler in the kingdom.’ (Dan. 5: 7.) In every other similar case, the reward is the elevation of the individual who does the service to the second place in the kingdom, the place next to the king. The only reason that can be assigned to the variation in this instance is that the first and second places were both filled, and that therefore the highest assignable reward was the third place.”