Читать книгу Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading - George Park Fisher - Страница 34

EARLY HISTORY.—The history of ancient Babylonia is still very obscure, and the chronology only tentative. We see at first a number of independent cities, each ruled by a petty king, who was also a priest. Then appear groups of cities, one of which exercised sway over a more or less extended district. The center of power was now in Erech, now in Ur, or Babylon, or some other city, whose king ruled supreme over numerous vassal kings. Among the first important names known to us are those of Sargon I. (3800 B.C.), king of Agade, a great conqueror and builder, and his son, Naram-sin. Another great builder was Gudea, king of Shirpurla. Most conspicuous of all is Hammurabi (2250 B.C.), king of Babylon, who is probably the "Amraphel" of Gen. xiv. His kingdom included not only the whole of Babylonia proper, but also Assyria, and probably even the "West Land" as far as the Mediterranean. The records show him to have been a truly great ruler, both in war and in peace. He is known to us chiefly from a collection of his Letters to certain officials of his kingdom, and from his elaborate Code of civil laws, found at Susa in 1899, and first published in 1902; perhaps the most important single monument of early civilization which has thus far come to light. The laws, written in the Babylonian (Semitic) language, and engraved on a stele of hard black stone, were about two hundred and eighty in number, and bear an interesting general resemblance to the old Hebrew laws, especially those preserved in Exodus xxi. and xxii.

In the time of the kings Kadashman-bel and Burnaburiash II. (about 1400 B.C.) falls the Amarna Correspondence (see p. 40). At Tell el-Amarna, in upper Egypt, were unearthed, in 1887, more than three hundred clay tablets containing diplomatic dispatches, written in the cuneiform character, and nearly all in the Babylonian language. They were addressed to the Egyptian king, or to his ministers, and had been sent from various officials and royal personages in Babylonia, Assyria, Palestine (including a number of letters from Abdi-khiba of Jerusalem), and other districts. They furnish a large amount of important information as to conditions in western Asia at that early period.

An important Kassite dynasty occupied the throne of Babylon from the eighteenth century to the twelfth century B.C. Under these Kassite rulers, the kingdom at length declined, while the neighboring Assyrian state had increased in power. Later still, apparently not earlier than the ninth century B.C., the Chaldoeans (of Semitic stock?) pushed north-westward into Babylonia from their district about the mouth of the Euphrates, and eventually made themselves masters of the land.

RELIGION AND SCIENCE.—If the events connected with old Babylon are less known, more is ascertained respecting its civilization. The groundwork, as was stated, was laid by the earlier conquered people. The religion of the Babylonians rested on the basis of the old Sumerian worship. There was homage to demons, powerful for good or for evil, who were brought together into groups, and were figured now as human beings, now as lions or other wild animals, or as dragons and that sort of monsters. Of the great gods, Anu, the god of the sky, was the father and king of all. Sin, the moon-god, a Sumerian divinity, at the outset had the highest rank. Bel, or Baal, however, a Semitic divinity, was the god of the earth, and particularly of mankind. Ea was the god of the deep, and of the underworld. The early development of astrology and its great influence in old Babylon were closely connected with the supposed association of the luminaries above with the gods. The stars were thought to indicate at the birth of a child what his fortunes would be, and to afford the means of foretelling other remarkable events. Ishtar, a goddess of war and of love, was worshiped also under the name Beltis, the Greek Mylitta. This deity embodied the generative principle, the spring of fertility, whose beneficent agency was seen in the abundant harvest. She was clothed with sensual attributes, and propitiated with unchaste rites. It was in the worship of this divinity that the coarse and licentious side of the Semitic nature expressed itself. At the same time, there was an opposite ascetic side in the service of this deity. Her priests were eunuchs: they ministered at her altar in woman's attire. On the relation of the human soul to the gods, and its condition after death, there was little speculation. In general, the Babylonians were more interested in religion and worship, than the Assyrians. The former erected temples; the latter, palaces.

The attainments of the early Babylonians in mathematics and astronomy were far beyond those of the Egyptians. They divided the year into twelve months, and arrived at the signs of the ecliptic or zodiac. The week they fixed at seven days by the course of the moon. They divided the day into twelve hours, and the hour into sixty minutes. They invented weights and measures, the knowledge of which went from them to the other Asiatic nations. Architecture, as regards taste, was in a rude state. In pottery, they showed much skill and ingenuity, and invented the potter's wheel. In the engraving of gems, and in the manufacture of delicate fabrics—linen, muslin, and silk—they were expert. Trade and commerce, favored by the position of Babylon, began to flourish. As regards literature, the libraries of Nineveh and Babylon, at a later day, contained many books translated from the early Sumerian language. Among them are the "Gilgamesh legends," in which is contained a story of the flood that resembles in essential features the account in Genesis.