The History of Antiquity Volume I Part 14

Accounts of the great flood are also to be seen on tablets, copied from old Babylonian originals, which have been discovered in the ruins of the palace of a.s.surbanipal, king of a.s.syria. Disregarding the strange beginning, and still stranger close, we find on these tablets that the G.o.d Hea had commanded Sisit (Xisuthrus) of Surippak to build a s.h.i.+p, so many cubits in length, breadth, and height, and to launch it on the deep, for it was his intention to destroy sinners. "When the flood comes, which I will send, thou shalt enter into the s.h.i.+p, and into the midst of it thou shalt bring thy corn, thy goods, thy G.o.ds, thy gold and silver, thy slaves male and female, the sons of the army, the wild and tame animals, and all that thou hearest thou shalt do." Sisit found it difficult to carry out this command, but at last he yielded, and gathered together all his possessions of silver and gold, all that he had of the seeds of life, and caused all his slaves, male and female, to go into the s.h.i.+p. The wild and tame beasts of the field also he caused to enter, and all the sons of the army. "And Samas (the G.o.d of the sun) made a flood, and said: I will cause rain to fall heavily from heaven; go into the s.h.i.+p, and shut to the door. Overcome with fear, Sisit entered into the s.h.i.+p, and on the morning of the day fixed by Samas the storm began to blow from the ends of heaven, and Bin thundered in the midst of heaven, and Nebo came forth, and over the mountains and plains came the G.o.ds, and Nergal, the destroyer, overthrew, and Adar came forth and dashed down: the G.o.ds made ruin; in their brightness they swept over the earth. The storm went over the nations; the flood of Bin reached up to heaven; brother did not see brother; the lightsome earth became a desert, and the flood destroyed all living things from the face of the earth. Even the G.o.ds were afraid of the storm, and sought refuge in the heaven of Anu; like hounds drawing in their tails, the G.o.ds seated themselves on their thrones, and Istar the great G.o.ddess spake. The world has turned to sin, and therefore I have proclaimed destruction, but I have begotten men, and now they fill the sea, like the children of fishes. And the G.o.ds upon their seats wept with her. On the seventh day the storm abated, which had destroyed like an earthquake, and the sea began to be dry. Sisit perceived the movement of the sea. Like reeds floated the corpses of the evil-doers and all who had turned to sin.

Then Sisit opened the window, and the light fell upon his face, and the s.h.i.+p was stayed upon Mount Nizir, and could not pa.s.s over it. Then on the seventh day Sisit sent forth a dove, but she found no place of rest, and returned. Then he sent a swallow, which also returned, and again a raven, which saw the corpses in the water, and ate them, and returned no more. Then Sisit released the beasts to the four winds of heaven, and poured a libation and built an altar on the top of the mountain, and cut seven herbs, and the sweet savour of the sacrifice caused the G.o.ds to a.s.semble, and Sisit prayed that Bel (El) might not come to the altar.

For Bel (El) had made the storm and sunk the people in the deep, and wished in his anger to destroy the s.h.i.+p and allow no man to escape. Adar opened his mouth and spoke to the warrior Bel (El): Who would then be left? And Hea spoke to him: Captain of the G.o.ds, instead of the storm, let lions and leopards increase, and diminish mankind; let famine and pestilence desolate the land and destroy mankind. When the sentence of the G.o.ds was pa.s.sed, Bel (El) came into the midst of the s.h.i.+p and took Sisit by the hand and conducted him forth, and caused his wife to be brought to his side, and purified the earth, and made a covenant, and Sisit and his wife and his people were carried away like G.o.ds, and Sisit dwelt in a distant land at the mouth of the rivers."[322]

The correspondence to the Hebrew tradition of the flood, the coincidence of certain points, and striking contrast of others, both in the narrative of Berosus and in this account of the great flood, need not be pointed out. In number, at any rate, the ten kings whom Berosus places before the flood correspond to the ten patriarchs from Adam to Noah.[323] In Berosus the boat of Xisuthrus lands in Armenia on the mountains of the Gordyaeans; Noah's ark landed on the mountains of the land of Ararat. Like Sisit, Xisuthrus builds an altar and offers sacrifice; when he has left the boat he disappears, and bids his followers return to Chaldaea. They obey, and rebuild Babylon. Noah, after leaving the ark, builds an altar to the Lord and offers burnt sacrifice, and concludes the new covenant with Jehovah. Then Noah became a husbandman, and lived for three hundred and fifty years after the flood; but when the generations of his sons "journeyed from the East, they found a plain in the land of s.h.i.+nar, _i.e._ in Babylonia, and there they dwelt and built the city called Babylon."[324] It is clear that these legends formed an ancient common possession of the Semitic tribes of the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris. In the Scriptures of the Hebrews we find this in a purified and deepened form. The reason for the legend of the flood is found in the nature of the land of Babylon. As has been remarked, it is inundated yearly; it is also occasionally desolated by fierce floods, which change the whole of the lower land as far as the sea into a broad sheet of water. Similar legends are found in all regions exposed to floods, in Armenia, Thessaly, Boeotia, and in India.

Let us now attempt to ascertain what may be gained historically from the fragments of Berosus. The seven Fish-men rise out of the sea of Babylonia, i.e., out of the Persian Gulf. They teach language, agriculture, the building of temples and cities, and writing; and what the first gave in general terms the others expound in detail. Hence it would appear that civilisation, culture, and writing came to the Chaldaeans from the south, from the sh.o.r.e of the Persian Gulf. The sevenfold revelation points to the seven sacred books of the priesthood, of which the last six explained by special rules the doctrine contained in the first. The fragments lay especial weight on the fact that the sacred books were already in existence before the flood, were saved from it, and again dug up at Sippara. Pliny remarks that the mysteries of the Chaldaeans were taught at Sippara.[325] Beside this city (the site is marked by the mounds at Sifeira, above Babylon, on the Euphrates) the fragments mention Larancha and Babylon. The first two kings before the flood were Chaldaeans of Babylon, the next five, Chaldaeans of Sippara, the last three, Chaldaeans of Larancha. If we set aside the time before the flood, we find that the first dynasty of eighty-six kings after the flood reigned for 34,080 years; more than 5,000 years are allotted to the first two kings; and about 29,000 are left for the remaining eighty-four. Looking at these numbers, and remembering that the Babylonians reckoned by certain cycles of years, sosses of 60 years, neres of 600, and sares of 3,600, we may suppose that the priests brought the times before and after the flood into a certain number of sares. The 432,000 years before the flood make up 120 sares (the 720,000 years of Pliny would make 200 sares). The period after the flood may have been fixed at a tenth part of that sum, _i.e._, at 12 sares, or 43,200 years. The 34,080 years allotted to the first dynasty after the flood do not come out in any round number of sares. If we suppose that these cycles were first inst.i.tuted after Babylon had succ.u.mbed to the attack of Cyrus, and that the fall of Babylon before his arms coincided with the end of the tenth sarus after the flood, then of the 36,000 years, which, according to the opinion we ascribe to the Babylonian priests, had elapsed from the flood to the conquest of Babylon in the year 538 B.C., 34,080 belong to the mythical dynasty after the flood, and 1,920 years are left for the historical times down to this date. The taking of Babylon is a known date, and if to it we add 1,920 years, we get the year 2458 B.C. as the first year of the historical period. The first ruler of the third dynasty of Berosus began to reign in the year 2458 B.C.[326] The same result and number of years comes out if we add up the separate items in the dynasties, given in the fragments, from the year 538 B.C. to the first king of the third dynasty, and leave out of sight the very striking fact that the fragments break off the a.s.syrian dynasty before Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Samuges, who certainly belong to it, and fill up the chasm thus made in the succession of dynasties by the 140 years which the canon of Ptolemy show to have preceded the accession of Nebuchadnezzar--a canon which has no historical object in view, no dynasties to tabulate, but is merely intended to fix the years from which observations made by the Chaldaeans were in existence. If this is the right method[327] of ascertaining the first established starting-point for the history of the lower land upon the two streams, the beginnings of civilisation in these districts may be placed not much below the year 3000 B.C. Life must have become richer in Babylonia before the tribes of the Iranian uplands were roused to obtain the sovereignty of that country. Still it remains a remarkable fact that the history of Babylonia begins with the dominion of strangers, and that the native tradition, as we can show from the fragments of it remaining to our times, had nothing to place before the strangers, except the two mythical dynasties of Babylonian princes before and after the flood. In the fragments the first native dynasty of historical times, the dynasty of the Chaldaean princes, comes in the fifth place; according to the calculation given above, their supremacy began in the year 1976 B.C., and already in 1518 B.C. it gave place first to the nine Arabian, and then to the a.s.syrian kings. The statement of the fragments, that forty-nine native kings reigned, in the 458 years from 1976 B.C. to 1518 B.C., is also remarkable, since it allows for the reign of each of the kings of this dynasty the brief average of a little more than nine years.

But perhaps the Scriptures of the Hebrews, and the monuments of Babylonia and a.s.syria, present sufficient material to supplement these meagre results in the way of confirmation or contradiction? According to Genesis, the sons of Shem, the eldest son of Noah, were "Elam and a.s.shur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram." And the eldest son of Ham, Noah's second son, was Cush, and Cush begat Nimrod; the same "began to be a mighty one in the earth, and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of s.h.i.+nar."[328]

From this we see not only the close relations.h.i.+p between the Hebrews and the population of Mesopotamia, but also the precedence in high antiquity allowed by the Hebrews to the tribes of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Hebrews derived their own origin from Noah, Shem, and Arphaxad; but before Arphaxad they place the two elder sons of Shem, Elam and a.s.shur.

The first is the representative of the nation and land of Elam on the lower Tigris, while a.s.shur represents the a.s.syrians of the upper Tigris.

But, strangely enough, the Babylonians were not reckoned in the generations of Shem, although, as we know perfectly well, the Chaldaeans were Semitic, and spoke a Semitic language closely resembling Hebrew. On the contrary, the founding of the kingdom of Babylon is ascribed to another stock, the eldest son of Cush, and grandson of Ham. As Genesis, like the Hebrews of later date, includes under the name of Cush the nations dwelling to the south, the Nubians, Ethiopians, and tribes of South Arabia, we may here take the son of Cush, who founded Babylon, to represent a southern tribe, dwelling perhaps on the sh.o.r.e of the Persian Gulf. Thus as the fragments of Berosus derive the civilisation of Babylon from the south sea and the south, so also does Genesis point to a southern origin for Babylonia. And at the same time Genesis calls a tribe dwelling on the lower Tigris, between the river and the mountains of Iran, the Elamites, the oldest son of Shem. Among the Greeks the land of the Elamites was known as Kissia, and afterwards as Susiana, from the name of the capital. It was also called Elymais, and, in the inscriptions of the Achaemenids, Uwazha. The Greeks describe this district as a hot but very fruitful plain, well watered by the tributaries of the Tigris from the mountains of Persia. There the land brought forth two or even three hundredfold. According to Strabo the land was inhabited by two tribes, the Kissians and Elymaeans. The chief city, Susa, lay between the Shapur and Dizful.[329] With the Greeks it pa.s.sed as the fortress of Memnon, the son of the Dawn, who came to the aid of the Trojans in their distress--"the ancient mighty city," as aeschylus calls it.[330] The inscriptions of the a.s.syrian kings give us some information of the fortunes of the kingdom of Elam, which is not contradicted by such isolated indications as we can gather from the inscriptions of Babylonia. This evidence shows that in Elam from the year 2500 B.C. a political const.i.tution was in existence, and that the kings of Elam invaded Babylonia before the year 2000 B.C., and about this time ruled over Babylonia and Mesopotamia as far as Syria. Hence before the year 2000 B.C. there was some kind of const.i.tution in Babylonia, and, as we shall see, it was accompanied by a certain amount of culture. The dominion of Elam over Babylon was of short duration, and Babylon soon recovered her independence. When, about the year 1500 B.C., a.s.syria rose into an independent state, and her power, after 900 B.C., became dangerous to the neighbouring states--when Babylonia, after the middle of the eighth century B.C., was no longer a match for a.s.syria,--Elam continued to maintain her independence in spite of numerous attacks from the a.s.syrians.

It was not till the subjection of Babylonia was complete that the a.s.syrian king a.s.surbanipal succeeded in reducing Elam, and in taking and destroying Susa, the ancient metropolis of the country.

In his inscriptions this king of a.s.syria informs us that King Kudur-Nanchundi[331] of Elam laid his hand on the temples of Accad (p.

257); two neres, seven sosses, and fifteen years,--_i.e._, 1,635 years previously, he carried away the image of the G.o.ddess Nana. He (a.s.surbanipal) brought her back; on the first of the month Kisallu (Kislev) the G.o.ddess was conducted back to Erech (p. 237); in Bithiliana he built for her a lasting sanctuary. As Elam was not completely subdued by a.s.surbanipal till the year 645 B.C., we may place the recovery of the statue of Nana in this year.[332] Hence the date of Kudur-Nanchundi of Elam, whom an inscription of Susa calls the son of Sutruk-Nanchundi, would fall in the year 2280 B.C., and if about this time it was possible to carry away images of G.o.ds from Babylonia, we cannot place the beginnings of civilisation in Babylonia later than the year 2500 B.C.

Tiles found at Mugheir, at no great distance from the mouth of the Euphrates in Babylonia, belong to a second king with a name of similar formation--Kudur-Mabuk. His inscriptions tell us that Kudur-Mabuk, lord of the west-land (martu), had erected a shrine to the G.o.d "Sin, his king, for prolonging his own life and that of his son, Zikar-Sin."[333]

On a statuette of bronze, now in the Louvre, we also read the name of Kudur-Mabuk and his son. Babylonian inscriptions speak of battles of Hammurabi king of Babylon against Kudur-Mabuk and against Elam.[334] The tradition of the Hebrews tells us that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, the kings of Adama, Zeboiim, and Zoar, _i.e._ the princes of the land of Jordan, whose names are quoted, had served Kedor-Laomer, king of Elam, for twelve years, and when they revolted, Kedor-Laomer and the princes with him, Amraphel of s.h.i.+nar, Arioch and Tidal, had come down and conquered the Horites, the Amalekites, and the Amorites, _i.e._ the tribes of the Syrian desert, the land of Aram between Sinai and Hermon; and the kings of Jordan were defeated in the valley of Siddim. The first part of the name Kedor-Laomer corresponds to Kudur in the name Kudur-Nanchundi and Kudur-Mabuk. The second part recurs in the name Lagamar, which is the name of a G.o.d wors.h.i.+pped by the Elamites.[335]

According to this, the Kudurids, or kings of Elam, of whom Sutruk and Kudur-Nanchundi, Kudur-Mabuk, and Kudur-Lagamar are known by name, first attacked Babylonia, then became rulers of Babylonia, and at one time extended their dominion to the west as far as Syria. According to the computations of the Hebrews, the campaign of Kedor-Laomer to Syria would take place about the year 2100 B.C. The inscription would carry the beginning of the rule of the Kudurids in Elam to the year 2500 B.C., and consequently the beginning of a political const.i.tution in Elam may be a.s.sumed to be prior to the year 2300 B.C., and the sovereignty of the Kudurids over Babylon and in the west may be placed about the year 2000 B.C.

If Elam was once more powerful than Babylon it may have been also older--as among the Hebrews Elam is the eldest son of Shem--the civilisation of the Elamites may have developed earlier than that of the Babylonians. But although a number of names of kings have been handed down to us on a.s.syrian tablets, which also tell us of ceaseless battles with Elam, we are in almost total darkness about the nature and direction of the civilisation of Elam. Our first notice is the a.s.syrian account of the fall of the kingdom and the capture of the capital, and from this we learn that the conditions and mode of life in the capital of the Elamites were not very different from those of Babylon and Nineveh. A picture of the city (found in the palace of a.s.surbanipal), shows it to us between the two rivers (p. 249), oblong in shape, and surrounded by high walls with numerous towers. Outside the city, between the walls and the rivers are palms, and some dwelling-houses.[336]

a.s.surbanipal narrates: "Shushan, the great city, the abode of their G.o.ds, the seat of their oracle, I took. I entered into their palaces and opened their treasure-houses. Gold and silver, and furniture, and goods, gathered together by the kings of Elam in times past and in the present, the bra.s.s and precious stones with which the kings of Accad, Samuges, and those before him had paid their mercenaries--the treasures on which no enemy before me had laid a hand, I brought forth to a.s.syria. I destroyed the tower of Shushan. The G.o.d of their oracles, who dwelt in the groves, whose image no man had seen, and the images of the G.o.ds Sumudu, Lagamar and the others (nineteen are mentioned), which the kings of Elam wors.h.i.+pped, I conveyed with their priests to a.s.syria. Thirty-two statues of the kings in silver, bra.s.s, and alabaster, I took from Shushan. Madaktu and Huradi, and the statues of Ummanigas, of Istar-Nanchundi, Halludus, and Tammaritu the younger, I carried to a.s.syria. I broke the winged lions and bulls which guarded the temple, and removed the winged bulls which stood at the gates of the temples of Elam. Their G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses I sent into captivity."[337] More than a hundred years after this time the Elamites had not forgotten their independence, and they attempted to recover it by repeated rebellions against the Persians.

The inscriptions in which the kings of Persia spoke to the nations of their wide empire are of a triple character. Three different kinds of cuneiform writing repeat the same matter in three different languages.

The first gives the inscription in the Persian language, the language of the king and dominant people, the third repeats it in the Babylonian-a.s.syrian language. The second, we may suppose, gives the inscription in the language of Elam, for the Persian kings resided in Susa, and in the enumeration of the subject territories, Susiana and Babylonia as a rule come after Persia. The forms of the language in cuneiform inscriptions on bricks and tiles discovered in the ruins of Susa are closely related to the language of the cuneiform inscriptions of the second kind in the inscriptions of the Achaemenids.[338] So far as these have been deciphered the language contained in them seems for the most part to be closely related to the Turkish-Tatar languages,[339]

while the names of the Elamite G.o.ds preserved in a.s.syrian inscriptions, although different from those of Babylonia and a.s.syria, and also the names of the kings of Elam, have more of a Semitic than a Turkish-Tatar sound.

On a.s.syrian tablets, beside the a.s.syrian and Babylonian names of the month, which are also the Hebrew names, we find names in another language unknown to us;[340] and the symbols of the a.s.syrian cuneiform writing are not only explained by the addition of the phonetic value and actual meaning, but before the substantives, verb-forms, and declensions of the Babylonian-a.s.syrian language are placed the corresponding words and inflections of another language, which is decidedly of a non-Semitic character, and also seems to belong to the Turkish-Tatar branch of language.[341] If it was considered necessary in Babylonia and a.s.syria to place another language before or beside their own, the relation of this language to that spoken by the Babylonians and a.s.syrians must have been very close. The most probable supposition is that it was the language of the ancient population of the land about the lower course of the two streams, which afterwards became subjected to Semitic immigrants. Whatever be the value of this supposition, we may in any case a.s.sume that the Semitic races found older inhabitants and an older civilisation on the lower Euphrates and Tigris. This older population was even then in possession of a system of writing, and this civilisation and writing was adopted by the Semitic races, just as at a later time the Armenians, Medes, and Persians borrowed their cuneiform writing from the inhabitants of Babylonia, a.s.syria, and Susiana.

The precedence of Elam in Hebrew tradition, the statement of Berosus that civilisation came from the Persian Gulf, the ancient supremacy of Elam over Babylonia, which we can discover from the Hebrew tradition, and more plainly from the inscriptions, are so many proofs that the oldest seats of culture in the lower lands of the Euphrates and Tigris lay at the mouths of the two rivers. And this conclusion receives further support from the fact that the oldest centres of the Babylonian state were nearer the mouth of the Euphrates. Perhaps we may even go a step further. The Hebrews ascribe the foundation of the Babylonian kingdom to a son of the south. The language and religious conceptions of the Babylonians and a.s.syrians show a close relations.h.i.+p with the language and religion of the tribes of South Arabia; some of these tribes are in Genesis variously enrolled among the descendants of Shem and of Cush. Hence we may perhaps a.s.sume that Arabian tribes on the sea-sh.o.r.e forced their way eastward, to the land at the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris, and then, pa.s.sing up the stream, settled in the valley of the two rivers, as far as the southern offshoots of the Armenian mountains.[342] Of these Semitic tribes those which remained on the lower Tigris and subjected the old population of Susiana, could not absorb the conquered Kissians (p. 249). The old language retained the upper hand, and developed; and the ruling tribe, the Semitic Elamites, were amalgamated with the ancient population. It was otherwise on the lower Euphrates, where the Semitic immigrants succeeded--probably in a long process of time, since it was late and by slow degrees that they gained the upper hand--in absorbing the old Turanian population, and formed a separate Semitic community, when they had borrowed from their predecessors the basis of civilisation and the system of cuneiform writing which was invented for another language.

In the fragments of Berosus the inhabitants of Babylonia are called Chaldees, a name which Western writers give especially to the priests of Babylon, though even to them a district on the lower Euphrates is known as Chaldaea.[343] The inscriptions of the a.s.syrian kings name the whole land Kaldi, and the inhabitants Kaldiai.[344] To the Hebrews, as has been observed (p. 248), Erech, Accad, and Calneh were the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod. In the fragments of Berosus, Babylon, the Bab-Ilu of the inscriptions, _i.e._ "Gate of Il (El)," Sippara and Larancha are supposed to be in existence before the flood. Erech, the Orchoe of the Greeks, and Arku of the inscriptions, is the modern Warka, to the south of Babylon on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, where vast heaps of ruins remain to testify to the former importance of the city. The site of Calneh and of the Larancha mentioned in the fragments cannot be ascertained, unless the latter city is the same as the Larsam mentioned in the inscriptions. In these the name Accad occurs very frequently. The kings of Babylon, and after them the kings of a.s.syria, who ruled over Babylon, called themselves kings of Babel, of Sumir, and Accad, names which are used to denote the districts (perhaps Upper and Lower Babylonia) and their inhabitants. Sippara, the city of the sacred books and mystic lore of the Chaldaeans (p. 246), is called by the Hebrews, Sepharvaim, _i.e._ "the two Sepher." Sepher means "writing." It was therefore the Babylonian City of Scriptures. The Hebrews were aware that this city wors.h.i.+pped the G.o.ds Adar and Anu, Adrammelech and Anammelech. The inscriptions also mention two cities of the name of Sippara, or as they give the word, s.h.i.+par; they distinguish the s.h.i.+par of the G.o.d Anu from the s.h.i.+par of Samas, the sun-G.o.d. The cuneiform symbol for Sippara means "City of the sun of the four quarters of the earth," and the Euphrates is denoted by a symbol which means "River of Sippara."[345] From this it is clear what position this city once took in Babylonia. The Ur Kasdim, _i.e._ "Ur of the Chaldaeans" in the Hebrew Scriptures, is the modern Mugheir, south-east of Babylon; on clay-tablets discovered in the ruins of this place we find cuneiform symbols, which are to be read as "Uru."[346] The Kutha and Tela.s.sar of the Hebrews also recur in the Kuthi and Tel a.s.sur of the inscriptions.

In his inscriptions Sennacherib boasts that in the year 704 B.C. he took eighty-nine fortified cities and 820 places in Babylonia, beside Babylon itself.[347]

The tumuli covering the ruins of these cities and the a.s.syrian inscriptions have preserved for us the names of more than fifty of the kings who once ruled over Babylon. The fragments of Berosus limit the period of the independence of Babylon to the 458 years from 1976 B.C., to 1518 B.C. (p. 248), and after the Chaldaean kings of this period they place Arabian kings down to 1273 B.C., who in turn are followed by the a.s.syrian kings. These statements are flatly contradicted by the inscriptions of Babylonia and a.s.syria. We have already seen that in the period from about the year 2300 B.C. to 2000 B.C., Elam had the preponderance, and in part the sovereignty, over Babylonia. Afterwards Babylon became independent, and maintained her position even against a.s.syria, until, after the ninth century before Christ, the latter gained the upper hand; and then, from the beginning of the seventh century, for a period of seventy or eighty years, the independence of Babylon was entirely destroyed.

As yet it is not possible to arrange the names preserved in the inscriptions in a definite order. We can only perceive that in the oldest period Babylon was not yet the capital of the kingdom. Erech, Ur, and Nipur, _i.e._ cities lying to the south, were the seat of government. We find also that the power of the ancient princes must have extended to the mouth of the Euphrates, and afterwards over a part of Mesopotamia, and over the a.s.syrian district on the upper Tigris, till a.s.syria, about the year 1500 B.C., became an independent kingdom. That the region of the upper Euphrates did not belong to Babylonia, but was the seat of independent princes, more especially at Karchemish, is shown by the campaigns of the Pharaohs against Naharina, _i.e._ Mesopotamia, which fall in the period between 1650 B.C. and 1350 B.C., and the a.s.sistance which was rendered at this time by the princes of the upper Euphrates to the Syrians against the Egyptians.[348] Afterwards the a.s.syrians forced their way over the upper Euphrates towards Syria, without coming in conflict with the Babylonians. At a later period the lower part of Chaldaea separated from Babylon, and independent princes established themselves on the lower Euphrates--a fact which obviously was of great a.s.sistance to the a.s.syrians in gaining the upper hand over Babylon.

Among the ancient princes of Babylon one of the first places must be allotted to a king whose name is read as Urukh. On tiles discovered at Warka (Erech) we find that the "king of Ur, king of Sumir and Accad, has built a temple to his Lady, the G.o.ddess Nana;" on tiles discovered at Mugheir (Ur), it is said that "Urukh has built the temple and fortress of Ur in honour of his Lord, the G.o.d Sin;" and finally on an inscription of Nabonetus, the last king of Babylon, which he had surrendered as far as Ur, we are told that Urukh began to build a temple here to the great G.o.ddess, and that his son Ilgi completed it. At Nipur (Niffer), Urukh built temples to Bel and Bilit, and a temple to the G.o.d Samas at the modern Senkereh.[349] On a cylinder of Urukh we find three beardless forms, apparently the king, his son, and the queen, holding up their hands to an aged long-bearded and seated figure, which the new moon visible above him denotes as the moon-G.o.d Sin; the inscription, written in the older form of cuneiform writing (see below), runs thus: "Of Urukh, the mighty Lord, the King of Ur,..." Another cylinder belongs to the time of his son Ilgi. It bears the inscription: "For saving the life of Ilgi, from the mighty Lord, the king of Ur, son of Urukh. May his name continue!" Inscriptions on tiles inform us that he built a temple at Mugheir.[350] King Ismidagon (_i.e._ "Dagon hears"), whose name is also found on tiles of Mugheir, is ent.i.tled on them, "Lord of Nipur,[351] king of Sumir, and Accad." Of king Sarruk (_i.e._ "strong is the king") an inscription tells us that he built the city of Agane, and the tablets of prognostication announce to him, that he will conquer Elam, and subjugate the whole of Babylonia and Syria.[352] The inscriptions of king Hammurabi (_i.e._ "the sun-G.o.d is great") discovered at Babylon, Zerghul, and Tell Sifr, tell us that the G.o.ds El and Bel had delivered the inhabitants of Sumir and Accad to his dominion, that he had overthrown Elam, and conquered Mabuk (p. 251), and that he had caused the river Hammurabi (_i.e._ the ca.n.a.l of that name) to be dug for the benefit of the Babylonians, and had provided a constant supply of water for Sumir and Accad. At the command of Merodach he had erected a fortress on this ca.n.a.l, of which the towers were as high as mountains, and had named it after the name of his father Dur-Ummubanit.[353]

Hammurabi is the first who, according to his inscriptions, resided at Babylon. If Sarrukin and he succeeded in breaking down the supremacy of Elam, we must put Hammurabi at the head of the dynasty which reigned over Babylon, according to Berosus, from 1976-1518 B.C. (p. 248). In an a.s.syrian list of the kings of Babylon, belonging to the times of a.s.surbanipal, we find, after Hammurabi, the names of more than fifteen kings, and opposite the last of these, king Binsumnasir of Babylon, two kings of a.s.syria, a.s.surnirar and Nabudan, are placed as contemporaries (between 1500 and 1450 B.C.; see below).[354] Then Karatadas, of Babylon, makes an alliance with a.s.surbel-nisi, king of a.s.syria, and the friends.h.i.+p was continued under their successors, Purnapuryas of Babylon, and Busura.s.sur of a.s.syria (about 1450 to 1400 B.C.) a.s.suruballit, the successor of Busura.s.sur, made war upon n.a.z.ibugas, the usurper who succeeded Purnapuryas, and raised to the throne in his place Kurigalzu, a son of Purnapuryas (about 1400 B.C.) Tiles at Senkereh inform us that Purnapuryas, "king of Babylon, of Sumir and Accad," restored the great temple which Urukh had built for the sun-G.o.d Samas. Tiles are found at Ur (Mugheir) with the name Kurigalzu; and the fortress Dur-Kurigalzu (Akerkuf), which is often mentioned in later a.s.syrian inscriptions, and spoken of as "the key of Babylonia," was built, as is proved by the stamp on the tiles, in the reign of this king.[355] An ornament, now in the British Museum, has the inscription: "Kurigalzu, son of Purnapuryas, king of Babel."[356] The grandson of Kurigalzu was Merodach-Baladan (Marduk-habaliddina, _i.e._ "Merodach presented the son").[357] Then about the year 1300 B.C., Tiglath Adar (Tuklat Adar), of a.s.syria, attacked the Babylonians, at first, as it seems, with success, but at last he lost his seal in this war, and for 600 years it was preserved in the treasury at Babylon. Still more unfortunate was Belkudurussur of a.s.syria in his attempt on Babylon. He was defeated, and fell himself in the battle (about 1200 B.C.); his successor also, Adarpalbitkur, barely succeeded in defending himself from the attacks of the Babylonians. When afterwards the first Nebuchadnezzar (Nabukudurussur) of Babylon twice invaded a.s.syria, a.s.sur-ris-ilim, king of a.s.syria (between 1150-1130 B.C.), succeeded in repulsing him, and Nebuchadnezzar lost forty war-chariots and a standard. Tiglath Pilesar I. (Tuklat-habal-a.s.sar, about 1120 B.C.), the successor of a.s.sur-ris-ilim, fought against the Babylonians, and, like Tiglath Adar, he was at first successful.

a.s.syrian tablets boast that in two successive years he had taken Dur-Kurigalzu, both Sipparas (p. 257), and even Babylon. But the result of the war was that Marduknadinakh, king of Babylon, about the year 1110 B.C., carried off images of G.o.ds from a.s.syria to Babylon.[358]

a.s.sur-bel-kala of a.s.syria (1110-1090 B.C.) had to fight against another Marduk of Babylon. Two hundred years later Nebubaladan of Babylon repulsed the attacks of a.s.surnasirpal of a.s.syria (883-859 B.C.) Then Shalmaneser II. of a.s.syria made such excellent use of a contention for the throne of Babylonia, that in the year 850 B.C. he offered sacrifice at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha. But it was not till the year 703 or 689 B.C. that the seal of Tiglath Adar and the images lost by Tiglath Pilesar I. were carried back to a.s.syria.

FOOTNOTES:

[306] Xenoph. "Cyrop." 7, 5; Strabo, pp. 41, 84, 544, 736, 737.

[307] Strabo, p. 748; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 5, 1 ff.; G. Hertzberg, "Feldzug der Zehntausend," s. 139 ff.

[308] Beros. ap. Sync. p. 28; Herod. 1, 193; "Anab." 2, 3.

[309] Herod. 1, 178-200.

[310] "De Coelo," p. 503.

[311] Diod. 3, 31; Cic. "De Divin." 1, 19; Jul. Afric. ap. Syncell. p.

17; Plin. "Hist. Nat." 7, 57; cf. H. Martin, "Revue Archeol." 1862, 5, 243.

[312] Between 280-270 B.C. Clinton, "Fasti h.e.l.l." ad ann. 279.

[313] Abydeni Fragm. 9, ed. Muller.

[314] Berosi Fragm. 1, ed. Muller.

[315] Abyd. Fragm. 1, 2, ed. Muller; Berosi Fragm. 5.

[316] In the Armenian Eusebius, p. 10, ed. Schoene, the name is Lancharis.

[317] G. Smith, "Bibl. Arch." 3, 531.

[318] So in the Armenian Eusebius; in Syncellus it is five stadia, _i.e._ 3,000 feet long.

[319] Eusebius, p. 14, ed. Mai; Syncell. p. 30; Abydeni Fragm. 3 ed.

Muller; Lucian, "De Dea Syria," 12.

[320] Eusebius gives 33,091. As Syncellus enumerates the sares, neres, and sosses, the number given in the text is the correct one, or must be replaced by 34,091. The basis of the calculation which Syncellus has adopted in the four first dynasties of Berosus has been thoroughly established by Lepsius ("Chronol. der aegypter," s. 78).

[321] The period of the fourth dynasty, the eleven kings, is filled up to 248 years from the marginal note on the Armenian ma.n.u.scripts of Eusebius.

[322] G. Smith, "a.s.syrian Discoveries," p. 185-195. I retain the reading "Sisit" as against Hasisadra because of the "Sisythes" of Lucian.

[323] According to Bunsen, "aegypt." 5, 2, 61 ff., the Hebrews originally were acquainted with only seven patriarchs before the flood; see below.

[324] Gen. ix. 20, 28; xi. 2-9.

[325] Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 30. Hipparenum can be nothing but Sipparenum, or Sipparenorum.

[326] If the number 34,091 be correct (p. 241, note 2), the year 2447 B.C. would be the first year of the historical era.

[327] It is pointed out by Von Gutschmid in the Rhein. Mus. 8, 252.

[328] Gen. x. 22; x. 8, 10.

[329] Menke, "Jahrb. fur cla.s.siche Philologie," 1862, s. 545.

[330] Aesch. "Pers." 16.

[331] The name Nanchundi occurs also in the compounds Istar-Nanchundi, p. 253.