Читать книгу The History of the Ancient Civilizations - Duncker Max - Страница 23

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The neighbours of Egypt on the east were the Syrians and Arabians. Herodotus gives the name of Syrians to the inhabitants of the Syrian coasts and Mount Lebanon, the settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris, and the population of the eastern districts of Asia Minor. In Xenophon the Babylonians speak Syriac. Strabo remarks that the Syrians and Arabians are closely related in language, mode of life, and physique—that Syrians dwelt on both sides of the Taurus—that the same language was spoken on both sides of the Euphrates—that Babylon and Nineveh were cities of the Syrians—that the Assyrian kingdom was a kingdom of Syrians, and that the inhabitants of the kingdom of Babylon and Nineveh were called Syrians by their own historians.[306] As a fact tribes closely related in language and nature—which we denote by the general term Semitic—invaded with their armies the broad steppes of Arabia, and the Syrian desert, occupied the coasts of Syria and a part of Asia Minor, and inhabited the district of the Euphrates and Tigris, from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf on the south, and the tableland of Iran on the east. The languages of the Arabians, the Semitic tribes of the south, the Aramæans and Canaanites in the west, and the Babylonians and Assyrians in the east, are three ramifications springing from one and the same stem of language, which spreads from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to the Arabian and Persian Gulfs. Living under different conditions, the Semitic nations attained to different degrees of civilization. The tribes of the desert did not go beyond the simplest and most primitive forms, at which point a considerable portion of them still remain; but the inhabitants of more favoured districts developed independently, and in the course of time these developments operated on each other, and thus led to a far more varied, and, in certain directions, far more vigorous culture, than the isolated, exclusive, and self-concentrated civilization of Egypt.

The two rivers which determine the character and nature of the depression between the Syrian plateau and the tableland of Iran rise at no great distance from each other on the mountains of Armenia. The Euphrates rises to the north, the Tigris to the south. After leaving the mountains of Armenia—the Euphrates, by a broad circuit to the west, the Tigris by a direct course to the south—both rivers enter a tolerably lofty steppe, where the uniform surface is broken by ridges of rock, by ranges of hills, pastures, and fruitful strips of land, while the banks of the rivers are overgrown with forests of plane-trees, tamarisks, and cypresses, and shut in by meadows. As the soil becomes more level, these fruitful depressions by the rivers become somewhat broader, but the land between the streams becomes more sterile and treeless, and supports only nomad tribes and herds of wild asses, ostriches, and bustards.[307] When the Euphrates has left behind the last spurs of this desolate hill country, at the place where the two rivers approach each other most nearly—about 400 miles from their mouths—there commences a plain of brown rich soil. Through this the Euphrates passes with a quiet stream, but the Tigris hurries to the sea down a bed which is both narrower, and often inclosed by rocks, while at the same time the river is increased by copious additions from the western edge of the tableland of Iran. In spite of the excellent soil this flat would remain unfruitful unless the two rivers, year by year, when the snow melted on the Armenian mountains, overflowed their banks, and thus irrigated the land for the summer. In the Tigris the inundation commences about the beginning of June, in the Euphrates, whose sources lie far higher, about the beginning of July. But this inundation does not take place nearly so calmly and regularly as that in the Nile. Instead of fertilising water, the Tigris often sends down destructive floods over the plain, and changes it, down to the marshy Delta at the mouth, into a broad and rolling sea.

By its simple structure and the absence of any internal limitations, this low-lying land on the Euphrates and Tigris was favourable to the development of great kingdoms, and was hardly behind the Nile in incentives and instigations to a civilised life. The writers of antiquity celebrate the fruitfulness and natural wealth of these flats. While on the other side of the Euphrates, so writes a Babylonian historian of his own home, the land as far as Arabia is without water and fruits, and on the other side of the Tigris the land is indeed fruitful but rocky; in the land between the streams wheat and barley, linseed beans and sesame grow wild; both in the marshes and the reeds of the river nourishing roots are found in abundance, as valuable for food as barley. Besides these there are dates, and apples, and other different fruits, and abundance of fish and birds in the marsh and on the land. Herodotus commends the wealth of the land in wheat and palms in the strongest terms; Xenophon speaks in admiration of the size and beauty of the dates.[308] Even now the palm-forests which run without interruption along the lower course of both rivers produce dates in abundance, and with their slender forms and lofty tops give a picturesqueness to the otherwise uniform landscape. This vigorous vegetation, together with the peculiar character of the land, must have early incited a capable population to a regular cultivation and a higher civilization. The protection of the land against the rapid overflow, the conducting of the water to the higher districts, and the removal of water from the marshes, must have led to measures calculated to produce and develop a fertility of technical resources. Basins were required of more considerable extent, longer canals, and stronger dams against the violent inundations, and more extensive conduits, in order to convey the water into the middle of the land, than were necessary in Egypt. Long before Egypt had reached the height of her power and prosperity under the Tuthmosis and Amenophis and the early Ramessids, the inhabitants of this plain had attained to a peculiar culture and civilisation.

The accounts which the Greeks have handed down to us of the fortunes of these districts in ancient times are meagre and defective. The power of the Semitic empires on the Euphrates and Tigris had fallen long before inquisitive Greeks penetrated the East, and the Persians, who were the rulers at that time, had little interest in instructing the Greeks in the former splendour of their opponents and ancient masters. Herodotus intended to write the history of the Assyrians; if ever composed, it has not come down to our times. On the other hand, he has described the land, manners, and customs of the Babylonians; of their history, however, he only tells us that many kings and two queens ruled over Babylon.[309] Aristotle remarks that in Babylon astronomical observations were said to exist extending back 31,000 years from the time of Alexander the Great.[310] Diodorus tells us that the priests of Babylon declared that they had observed the heavens for 473,000 years. Cicero speaks of the shamelessness of the Chaldæans in boasting that they possessed records for more than 470,000 years. Julius Africanus gives 480,000 years, and Pliny even 720,000 years as the period for which observations of the heavens burnt upon tiles were in existence.[311]

About the time when Manetho compiled his list of Egyptian sovereigns, under the rule of Antiochus Soter (281–262 B.C.) Berosus, a priest of the temple of Bel at Babylon, composed a history of his country in Greek in three books.[312] Only a few fragments of this work have come down to us. Berosus commenced with the creation of the world. "Once all was darkness and water. In this chaos lived horrid animals, and men with two wings, and others with four wings and two faces, and others again with double organs male and female. Others had the thighs of goats, and horns on their heads; others had horses' feet, or were formed behind like a horse and in front like a man. There were bulls with human heads, and horses and men with the heads of dogs, and other animals of human shape with fins like fishes, and fishes like sirens, and dragons, and creeping things, and serpents and wild creatures, the images of which are to be found in the temple of Bel. Over all these ruled a woman of the name of Omorka. But Bel divided the darkness and clove the woman asunder, and of one part he made the earth, and of the other the sun and moon and planets, and he drew off the water,[313] and apportioned it to the land, and prepared and arranged the world. But those creatures could not endure the light of the sun, and became extinct. When Bel saw the land uninhabited and fruitful, he smote off his head and bade one of the gods mingle the blood which flowed from his head with earth, and form therewith men and animals and wild creatures, who could support the atmosphere. A great multitude of men of various tribes inhabited Chaldæa, but they lived without any order, like the animals. Then there appeared to them from the sea, on the shore of Babylonia, a fearful animal of the name of Oan. Its body was that of a fish, but under the fish's head another head was attached, and on the fins were feet like those of a man, and it had a man's voice. Its image is still preserved. The animal came at morning and passed the day with men. But it took no nourishment, and at sunset went again into the sea, and there remained for the night. This animal taught men language and science, the harvesting of seeds and fruits, the rules for the boundaries of land, the mode of building cities and temples, arts and writing, and all that pertains to the civilisation of human life."[314]

The first sovereign of Babylon was Alorus, a Chaldæan of the city of Babylon, whom the god had himself pointed out to the nation as a shepherd. His reign continued for 36,000 years. After the death of Alorus, his son Alaparus ruled for 10,800 years. He was succeeded by Almelon from the Chaldæans, of the city of Sippara, for 46,800 years, and Almelon by Ammenon, a Chaldæan of the same city for 43,200 years. Under his rule there came out of the sea an animal, combining, like Oan, the shape of a fish and a man, and called Idotion.[315] After Ammenon came Amegalarus, of the city of Sippara, for 64,800 years, and after him Daonus, also from Sippara, for 36,000 years. In his reign there again appeared from the Red Sea four animals in the shape of men and fish. These were Euedokus, Eneugamus, Eneubulus, and Anementus. Daonus was followed by Edorankhus, from Sippara, who ruled for 64,800 years, and in his time appeared another monster of the same kind, named Odakon. These explained in detail what Oan had given in the sum. After Edorankhus came Amempsinus, a Chaldæan of Larancha for 36,000 years,[316] and after him Otiartes (Ubaratulu),[317] a Chaldæan of the same city for 28,000 years. Otiartes was followed by his son Xisuthrus who reigned 64,800 years.

From the first year of Alorus to the last year of Xisuthrus 432,000 years had elapsed. "In this year the god Bel revealed to Xisuthrus in a dream that in the fifteenth year of the month Daësius there would be a great storm of rain, and men would be destroyed by the flood of waters. He bade him bury all written records, the ancient, mediæval, and modern, in Sippara, the city of the sun, and build a ship and embark in it with his kindred and nearest friends. He was also to take food and drink into the ship, and carry into it all creatures winged and four-footed. Xisuthrus did as he was bidden, and built a boat fifteen stadia long,[318] and two stadia in breadth, and placed in it his wife and child, his relations and friends. Then the inundation came. When the rain ceased, Xisuthrus sent out some birds, but they returned back to the ship, as they could find nothing to eat and no place of rest. After a few days he sent out other birds. These also returned, but with mud on their feet. Then Xisuthrus sent yet others, and they never returned. Xisuthrus knew that the earth had appeared. He took out a part of the roof of his boat, and perceived that it had settled down on a mountain. Then he went out with his wife and daughter and the architect of the boat. He worshipped the earth, and built an altar, offered sacrifice to the gods, and then disappeared together with those whom he had brought out of the boat. When his companions, whom he had left in the boat, had gone out, and were in search of Xisuthrus, his voice called to them out of the air, saying that the gods had carried him away in reward for his piety; that he with his daughter and the architect were dwelling among the gods. But the others were to return from Armenia, where they then were, to Babylon, and, in obedience to the command of the gods, dig up the books buried at Sippara, and give them to mankind. They obeyed these instructions. They sacrificed to the gods, and returned by land to Babylon. They dug up the sacred books, erected many cities and temples, and rebuilt Babylon. On the Gordyæan mountains, where it settled, remains of the boat of Xisuthrus were in existence for a long time afterwards.[319] In Lucian Xisuthrus is called Sisythes; and he with wives and children is said to have escaped, in the great ark, the flood which destroyed everything else.

After the flood Euexius reigned over the land of the Chaldæans for 2,400 years. He was followed by his son Chomasbelus, who reigned 2,700 years; and after him came eighty-four kings, who, if we reckon in the reigns of Euexius and Chomasbelus, ruled for 34,080 years.[320] Then the Medes gathered together an army against Babylon, and took the land, and set up tyrants from among their own people. These, eight in number, reigned over Babylon for 234 years. After that eleven kings reigned for 248 years; then followed the Chaldæans, with forty-nine kings, who ruled over Babylon for 458 years. These were followed by nine Arabian kings for 245 years, and then came forty-five Assyrian kings for 526 years. These were followed by Sennacherib, Asordan, Samuges, and his brother, and afterwards by Nabopolassar. After Nabopolassar, Nabukudurussar (Nebuchadnezzar) and his successor reigned for sixty-seven years.[321]

Such is the essential information contained in the fragments of Berosus which have come down to us. They give us a tolerably clear view of the system of cosmogony set up by the priests of Babylon, of the way in which order and civilisation arose among men by successive revelations from divine creatures coming out of the sea, and a sketch, though a very meagre one, of the dynasties which reigned over Babylon down to the time of Cyrus. The enormous number of 432,000 years, which the fragments allot to the ten rulers of the first dynasty, and the 34,080 years of the second dynasty, which came immediately after the flood, show that the statements of Diodorus, Cicero, and Pliny are not mere imagination, though these totals are perhaps scarcely intended to give the period during which observations were made by the Chaldæans, but the antiquity ascribed by the Babylonian priests to the existence of the world before and after the flood.

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 Assurbanipal, king of Assyria. Disregarding the strange beginning, and still stranger close, we find on these tablets that the god Hea had commanded Sisit (Xisuthrus) of Surippak to build a ship, 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 ship, and into the midst of it thou shalt bring thy corn, thy goods, thy gods, 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 ship. The wild and tame beasts of the field also he caused to enter, and all the sons of the army. "And Samas (the god of the sun) made a flood, and said: I will cause rain to fall heavily from heaven; go into the ship, and shut to the door. Overcome with fear, Sisit entered into the ship, 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 gods, and Nergal, the destroyer, overthrew, and Adar came forth and dashed down: the gods 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 gods were afraid of the storm, and sought refuge in the heaven of Anu; like hounds drawing in their tails, the gods seated themselves on their thrones, and Istar the great goddess 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 gods 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 ship was stayed upon Mount Nizir, and could not pass 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 gods to assemble, 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 ship 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 gods, 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 gods was passed, Bel (El) came into the midst of the ship 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 gods, 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 Gordyæans; 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 Chaldæa. 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 Shinar, 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, Bœotia, 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 Chaldæans from the south, from the shore 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 Chaldæans 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 Chaldæans of Babylon, the next five, Chaldæans of Sippara, the last three, Chaldæans 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 instituted after Babylon had succumbed 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 Assyrian 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 Chaldæans 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 Chaldæan 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 Assyrian 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 Assyria, 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 Asshur, 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 Shinar."[328] From this we see not only the close relationship 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 Asshur. The first is the representative of the nation and land of Elam on the lower Tigris, while Asshur represents the Assyrians of the upper Tigris. But, strangely enough, the Babylonians were not reckoned in the generations of Shem, although, as we know perfectly well, the Chaldæans 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 shore 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 Achæmenids, 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 Elymæans. The chief city, Susa, lay between the Shapur and Dizful.[329] With the Greeks it passed 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 Æschylus calls it.[330] The inscriptions of the Assyrian 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 constitution 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 constitution 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., Assyria 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 Assyria—Elam continued to maintain her independence in spite of numerous attacks from the Assyrians.

It was not till the subjection of Babylonia was complete that the Assyrian king Assurbanipal succeeded in reducing Elam, and in taking and destroying Susa, the ancient metropolis of the country. In his inscriptions this king of Assyria 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 goddess Nana. He (Assurbanipal) brought her back; on the first of the month Kisallu (Kislev) the goddess was conducted back to Erech (p. 237); in Bithiliana he built for her a lasting sanctuary. As Elam was not completely subdued by Assurbanipal 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 gods 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 god "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 Shinar, 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 god worshipped 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 constitution in Elam may be assumed 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 Assyrian 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 Assyrian 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 Assurbanipal), 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] Assurbanipal narrates: "Shushan, the great city, the abode of their gods, 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 brass 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 Assyria. I destroyed the tower of Shushan. The god of their oracles, who dwelt in the groves, whose image no man had seen, and the images of the gods Sumudu, Lagamar and the others (nineteen are mentioned), which the kings of Elam worshipped, I conveyed with their priests to Assyria. Thirty-two statues of the kings in silver, brass, 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 Assyria. 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 gods and goddesses 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-Assyrian 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 Achæmenids.[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 gods preserved in Assyrian inscriptions, although different from those of Babylonia and Assyria, and also the names of the kings of Elam, have more of a Semitic than a Turkish-Tatar sound.

On Assyrian tablets, beside the Assyrian 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 Assyrian 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-Assyrian 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 Assyria to place another language before or beside their own, the relation of this language to that spoken by the Babylonians and Assyrians 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 assume 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, Assyria, 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 Assyrians show a close relationship 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 assume that Arabian tribes on the sea-shore forced their way eastward, to the land at the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris, and then, passing 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 Chaldæa.[343] The inscriptions of the Assyrian 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 Assyria, 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 Chaldæans (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 worshipped the gods Adar and Anu, Adrammelech and Anammelech. The inscriptions also mention two cities of the name of Sippara, or as they give the word, Shipar; they distinguish the Shipar of the god Anu from the Shipar of Samas, the sun-god. 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 Chaldæans" 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 Telassar of the Hebrews also recur in the Kuthi and Tel Assur 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 Assyrian 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 Chaldæan kings of this period they place Arabian kings down to 1273 B.C., who in turn are followed by the Assyrian kings. These statements are flatly contradicted by the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria. 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 Assyria, 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 Assyrian district on the upper Tigris, till Assyria, 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 assistance which was rendered at this time by the princes of the upper Euphrates to the Syrians against the Egyptians.[348] Afterwards the Assyrians forced their way over the upper Euphrates towards Syria, without coming in conflict with the Babylonians. At a later period the lower part of Chaldæa separated from Babylon, and independent princes established themselves on the lower Euphrates—a fact which obviously was of great assistance to the Assyrians 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 goddess 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 god 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 goddess, and that his son Ilgi completed it. At Nipur (Niffer), Urukh built temples to Bel and Bilit, and a temple to the god 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-god 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 entitled 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-god is great") discovered at Babylon, Zerghul, and Tell Sifr, tell us that the gods 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 canal 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 canal, 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 Assyrian list of the kings of Babylon, belonging to the times of Assurbanipal, we find, after Hammurabi, the names of more than fifteen kings, and opposite the last of these, king Binsumnasir of Babylon, two kings of Assyria, Assurnirar and Nabudan, are placed as contemporaries (between 1500 and 1450 B.C.; see below).[354] Then Karatadas, of Babylon, makes an alliance with Assurbel-nisi, king of Assyria, and the friendship was continued under their successors, Purnapuryas of Babylon, and Busurassur of Assyria (about 1450 to 1400 B.C.) Assuruballit, the successor of Busurassur, made war upon Nazibugas, 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-god Samas. Tiles are found at Ur (Mugheir) with the name Kurigalzu; and the fortress Dur-Kurigalzu (Akerkuf), which is often mentioned in later Assyrian 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 Assyria, 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 Assyria 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 Assyria, Assur-ris-ilim, king of Assyria (between 1150–1130 B.C.), succeeded in repulsing him, and Nebuchadnezzar lost forty war-chariots and a standard. Tiglath Pilesar I. (Tuklat-habal-assar, about 1120 B.C.), the successor of Assur-ris-ilim, fought against the Babylonians, and, like Tiglath Adar, he was at first successful. Assyrian 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 gods from Assyria to Babylon.[358] Assur-bel-kala of Assyria (1110–1090 B.C.) had to fight against another Marduk of Babylon. Two hundred years later Nebubaladan of Babylon repulsed the attacks of Assurnasirpal of Assyria (883–859 B.C.) Then Shalmaneser II. of Assyria 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 Assyria.