s to the inhabitants of the Syrian coasts and Mount Lebanon, the settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris

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 Aram?ans 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

comes 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 addition

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

erodotus 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

ins 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 mul

ule 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

uthrus 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

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 Chald?ans, with forty-nine kings, who ruled over Babylon for 458 years. These were fol

t 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,

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

e; when he has left the boat he disappears, and bids his followers return to Chald?a. 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 legen

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 succes

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 Ach?menids, 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 Elym?ans. The chief city, Susa, lay be

sation 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

s 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 grove

e, 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 inscriptio

n-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 Se

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

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 Chald?ans (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,

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

n 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 pri

tly 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

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 A

TNO

" 7, 5; Strabo, pp. 4

b." 1, 5, 1 ff.; G. Hertzberg, "Fe

nc. p. 28; Herod. 1

rod. 1,

e C?lo,"

Afric. ap. Syncell. p. 17; Plin. "Hist. Nat." 7,

0 B.C. Clinton, "Fas

ni Fragm. 9

i Fragm. 1,

. 1, 2, ed. Mülle

sebius, p. 10, ed. Sch?n

th, "Bibl. A

bius; in Syncellus it is five

ncell. p. 30; Abydeni Fragm. 3 ed.

is the correct one, or must be replaced by 34,091. The basis of the calculation which Syncellus has adopted in

n kings, is filled up to 248 years from the margi

-195. I retain the reading "Sisit" as against

, the Hebrews originally were acquainted with on

ix. 20, 2

. Hipparenum can be nothing bu

. 241, note 2), the year 2447 B.C. would

t by Von Gutschmid in

. x. 22;

für classiche Philo

sch. "Pe

ccurs also in the compound

quotation of the Neres and Sosses, this number must be kept in the third passage instead of 1,535 years.

, 479; Oppert, "Empires de C

iscov." p. 234; "E

v. 1-12; G. Smith

nant, "Les Achém

, "Assurbanipa

ansact. Bibl. Ar

mann, "Zeitschrift d. d. M. G." 1

ris, "Dic

o the opinion of

ung und Ursitze der Chal

65, 767; Pliny, "Hist.

sought for in the valley of the Lycus, and are known to the Armenians as Chalti: Kiepert, "Monats-Berichte der B. Akad. d. W." 1869. Arphaxad, i. e. the high mountain district Albak (Kiepert, loc. cit. s. 200), on the Upper Zab, was on the other

h-babyl. Keilschriften,"

eilschriften und A

script. des Sargo

, among other things, forty-seven tiles of lead, forty-five pounds of

Rawlinson, "Five Monarchies," 1, 63, 64,

," p. 36; G. Rawlinson, "Five

rt, "Empir

-babylonische Keilschriften," s. 162; Sayce, "Zeitschrift f

rt, "Empir

nt, "Lettres

s," p. 28; Ménant, "B

n, "Five Monarchi

s a deed of gift of Merodach-Baladan, the

"Babylone,"