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Finding on arrival that the affairs (of the empire) were administered by the Chaldaeans and that the kingship was maintained by the best of them, he gained possession of his father’s entire realm.
Nebuchadnezzar, it now appears, relied on two distinct élites: the friends who went on campaign with him and helped him secure his conquests; and the Chaldaeans who stayed behind in Babylon to “maintain the kingship.” Berossos does not describe the Chaldaeans as “friends” of the king, but gives them equally good Seleucid credentials when using the expressions τὰ πράγματα διοικεῖν (“administering the affairs”) and τὴν βασιλείαν διατηρεῖν (“maintaining the kingship”) to outline their activities.7 Clearly, this group too is conceived in a Seleucid mold. In fact, it is not difficult to recognize in the “friends” of Nebuchadnezzar, and his Chaldaeans, a historical blueprint for the Seleucids’ reliance on (Greco-Macedonian) military and administrative élites on the one hand, and on the priestly élites of Babylon on the other (Haubold 2016).