Sorry. Did I say 480 BC? Top of my head and on my way out the door. It was 490 BC.
But here's the thing, in Belshazzar's feast Daniel is summoned to interpret the dream of the supposed son of Nebuchadnezzar on the eve of the fall of Babylon to the Persians and Medes. Nebuchadnezzar's son was not reigning or acting as regent at the time. Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus the king who was off in Arabia most of the time doing cultural anthropology. And should Daniel have been doing any prophesying to Belshazzar - whatever his genealogy, he should have been quoting Isaiah, right? According to the fundamentalists Isaiah predicted Cyrus the Persian would take the city.
Cyrus is identified in Daniel - but in chapter 14, the Bel and the Dragon episode included in the Septuagint. It's a polemic against idolatry and introduces Daniel as a mystery solver in the court of Cyrus, figuring out how an idol consumes its offerings in the middle of the night. But it's no longer included in many Protestant Bible editions - too embarrassing, I guess.
14:1 "When King Astyages joined his ancestors, Cyrus of Persia succeeded him. Daniel was very close to the king who respected him more than any of his other friends."
But then in chapter 9 we start with, "It was the first year of Darius son of Artaxerxes, a Mede by race who assumed the throne of Chaldea..." Artaxerxes is the father of Darius II. Darius III got slain by Alexander the Great. None of them were Medes - except in the eyes of 5th century Greek historians.
It would appear that Daniel was supposed to have been captured in the late 7th century, judging by the text of chapter one - and then sent to Babylonian priest school. Surprisingly we learn little about what Babylonian priests do - which is record the positions of planets and stars. But we sure get word that they are supposed to interpret dreams of kings. Are we sure? When did formal astrology get underway - and what evidence is there?
But for some reason we are supposed to believe that Daniel had the same gifts in that regard as did Joseph in Genesis. Coincidence? Awful lot of chapter one is about resistance to Gentile eating habits - but evidently NOT to Gentile priestly training. Go figure. What's more, Daniel is so good at what he does, Nebuchadnezzar promotes him and compliments the God whom he serves - and turns around and destroys the First Temple anyway.
And that would make Daniel one of his first ministers during the occupation and captivity.
When the ceremony of the idol proceeds in chapter 3, Nebuchadnezzar calls out for "satraps, magistrates, governors, counsellors, treasurers, judges..." He starts the list with satraps, a Persian convention, set up by Cyrus. Though Chapter 6 of Daniel gives credit to Darius ( the Mede) to appoint 120. This chapter seems to begin in mid sentence with Chapter 5 trailing off about Darius the Mede receiving the kingdom at age of 62...
I encountered these stories as a child and was very confused. But once someone alerted to me that they were probably composed during the time of the Maccabees, a lot of things began to fall into place. I noted that some claim that Darius the Mede is unknown to history. Well, I discovered for myself when reading Thucydides that this is not true. Thucydides calls the invading Persians "Medes" about 50 times in his account of the later Peloponnesian Wars between Sparta and Athens.
It also strikes me that not just the JW translation team likes to obscure this matter. I would say that were it not for Daniel, most of the tele-evangelizers that clog US airwaves would have little or nothing to say.
