182 BABYLON-BABYLONIA BABYLON (the modern lillah) is the Greek form of about the destruction of the defences, while the monotheBabel or Bab-ili, "the gate of god" (or, as it is some- istic rule of Persia allowed the temples to fall into decay. times written, "of the gods"), which, again, is the Semitic Alexander found the great temple of Bel a shapeless ruin, rendering of Ca-dimirra, the ancient name of the city in and the rise of Seleucia in its neighbourhood drew away the Turanian language of the primitive Accadian popula- its population and completed its material decay. The tion of the country. It is doubtful whether the god buildings became a quarry, first for Seleucia and then for meant was Merodach or Anu, Merodach being the patron Ctesiphon, Al Modain, Baghdad, Kufa, Kerbelah, Hillah, and divinity of Babylon in the Semitic period, and Su-Anna, other towns, and our only cause for wonder is that the re"the valley of Anu" (Anammelech), being one of its mains of the great capital of Babylonia are still so extensive. oldest names. Another synonym of the place was The principal of these lie on the left bank of the E-ci, "the hollow," in reference to its situation, and it Euphrates, and consist of three vast mounds-the Babil was also known, down to the latest times, as Din-Tir, "the or Mujellibe, the Kasr, and the Amrám, which run from house of the jungle," though this seems properly to have north to south; two parallel lines of rampart east and been the designation of the town on the left bank of the west of them; and an isolated mass, together with a series Euphrates. Under the Cassite dynasty of Khammuragas, of elevations separated by the river westward of the Kasr,— it received the title of Gan-Duniyas or Gun-Duni, "the the whole being surrounded by a triangular rampart. Our Fortress of Duniyas," which was afterwards made to in- two chief authorities for the ancient topography of the clude the neighbouring territory, so that the whole of city are Herodotus and Ctesias; and though both were Babylonia came to be called by this name. Sir H. Rawlin- eye-witnesses, their statements differ considerably. The son has suggested that it was the origin of the Biblical city was built, we are told, on both sides of the river, in Gan Eden, or "Garden of Eden," to which a popular the form of a square, and enclosed within a double row etymology has given a Hebrew form. However this may of high walls. Ctesias adds a third wall, but the inscripbe, Babylon figures in the antediluvian history of Berosus, tions refer only to two, the inner enceinte, called Imgur-Bel, the first of his mythical monarchs, Alorus, being a native and its salkhu or outwork, called Nimitti-Bel. Ctesias of it. The national epic of the Babylonians, which grouped makes the outermost wall 360 stades (42 miles) in circumvarious old myths round the adventures of a solar hero, ference, while according to Herodotus it measured 480 knows of four cities only-Babylon, Erech, Nipur (Niffer) stades (56 miles), which would include an area of about 200 or Calneh, and Surippac or Larankha; and according to square miles! Pliny (M. H., vi. 26) follows Herodotus in Genesis x., Babylon was a member of the tetrapolis of his figures, but Strabo (xvi. 1, 5) with his 385 stades, Qu. Shinar or Sumir, where the Semite invaders of the Acca- Curtius (v. 1, 26) with his 368 stades, and Clitarchus dians first obtained permanent settlement and power. It (ap. Diod. Sic., ii. 7) with 365 stades, agree sufficiently seems, however, to have ranked below its three sister-cities, closely with Ctesias. Even the estimate of Ctesias, howamong which Erech took the lead until conquered by the ever, would make Babylon cover a space of about 100 Accadian sovereigns of Ur. It was not until the con- square miles, nearly five times the size of London. Such quest of Khammuragas that Babylon became a capital, a an area could not have been occupied by houses, especially position, however, which it never afterwards lost, except as these were three or four stories high (Hdt., i. 180). during the Assyrian supremacy. But it suffered severely Indeed Q. Curtius asserts (v. 1, 27) that even in the most at the hands of its northern neighbours. Tiglath-Adar flourishing times, nine-tenths of it consisted of gardens, drove the Cassi from it, and established an Assyrian parks, fields, and orchards. According to Herodotus, the dynasty in their place; and after being captured by height of the walls was about 335 feet, and their width 85 Tiglath-Pileser I. (1130 B.C.) and Shalmaneser (851 B.C.), feet; while Ctesias makes the height about 300 feet. Later it became a dependency of the Assyrian empire in the writers give smaller dimensions, but it is clear that they have reign of the son of the latter. The decline of the first merely tried to soften down the estimates of Herodotus Assyrian empire restored Babylon to independence; but (and Ctesias); and we seem bound, therefore, to accept the it had soon afterwards to submit to the Caldai, and from statement of the two oldest eye-witnesses, astonishing as the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II. to the death of Assur-bani- it is. But we may remember that the ruined wall of pal, it was a mere provincial town of Assyria, breaking Nineveh was 150 feet high, even in Xenophon's time now and then into fierce revolt under the leadership of (Anab., iii. 4, 10, and cf. ii. 4, 12), while the spaces bethe Caldai, and repeatedly taken and plundered by Sargon, tween the 250 towers irregularly disposed along the wall Sennacherib, and Assur-bani-pal. Sennacherib, indeed, of Babylon (Ctes. ap. Diod., ii. 7) were broad enough to razed the city to its foundations. After the defeat of allow a four-horse chariot to turn (Hdt., i. 179). The clay Suzub (690 B.C.), he tells us that he "pulled down, dug dug from the moat had served for the bricks of the wall, up, and burned with fire the town and the palaces, root which was pierced with 100 gates, all of brass, with and branch, destroyed the fortress and the double wall, brazen lintels and posts. The two inner enclosures were faced the temples of the gods and the towers of brick, and threw with coloured brick, and represented hunting-scenes. Two the rubbish into the Araxes," the river of Babylon. After other walls ran along the banks of the Euphrates and the this destruction it is not likely that much will ever be dis- quays with which it was lined, each containing 25 gates, covered on the site of Babylon older than the buildings of which answered to the number of the streets they led Essar-haddon and Nebuchadnezzar. It was under the into. Ferry-boats plied between the landing-places of the latter monarch and his successors that Babylon became gates; and a movable drawbridge (30 feet broad), supthe huge metropolis whose ruins still astonish the traveller, ported on stone piers, joined the two parts of the city and which was described by Greek writers. Of the older together. At each end of the bridge was a palace; the city we can know but little. The Babylon of Nebuchad- great palace of Nebuchadnezzar on the eastern side (the nezzar and his father, Nabopolassar, must have suffered modern Kasr), which Herodotus incorrectly transfers to when taken by Cyrus; but two sieges in the reign of the western bank, being the most magnificent of the two. Darius Hystaspis, and one in the reign of Xerxes, brought❘ It was surrounded, according to Diodorus (ii. 8, 4), by three walls, the outermost being 60 stades (7 miles) in circuit. The inner walls were decorated with hunting-scenes painted on brick, fragments of which have been discovered by modern explorers. Two of its gates were of brass, and had to be opened and shut by a machine; and Mr Smith has found traces of two libraries among its ruins. The palace, called "the Admiration of Mankind" by Nebuchadnezzar, and commenced by Nabopolassar, overlooked the Ai-ipur-sabu, the great reservoir of Babylon, and stretched from this to the Euphrates on the one side, and from the Imgur-Bel, or inner wall, to the Libil, or eastern canal, on the other. Within its precincts rose the Hanging Gardens, consisting of a garden of trees and flowers on the topmost of a series of arches at least 75 feet high, and built in the form of a square, each side measuring 400 Greek feet. Water was raised from the Euphrates by means, it is said, of a screw (Strab., xvi. 1, 5; Diod., ii. 10, 6). Some of the materials for the construction of this building may have been obtained from the old ruined palace of the early kings, now represented by the adjoining Amrám mound. The lesser palace in the western division of the city belonged to Neriglissar, and contained a number of bronze statues. The most remarkable edifice in Babylon was the temple of Bel, now marked by the Babil, on the north-east, as Professor Rawlinson has shown. It was a pyramid of eight square stages, the basement stage being over 200 yards each way. A winding ascent led to the summit and the shrine, in which stood a golden image of Bel 40 feet high, two other statues of gold, a golden table 40 feet long and 15 feet broad, and many other colossal objects of the same precious material. At the base of the tower was a second shrine, with a table and two images of solid gold. Two altars were placed outside the chapel, the smaller one being of the same metal. A similar temple, represented by the modern Birs Nimrud, stood at Borsippa, the suburb of Babylon. It consisted of seven stages, each ornamented with one of the seven planetary colours, the azure tint of the sixth, the sphere of Mercury, being produced by the vitrifaction of the bricks after the stage had been completed. The lowest stage was a square, 272 feet each way, its four corners exactly corresponding to the four cardinal points, as in all other Chaldean temples, and each of the square stages raised upon it being placed nearer the south-western than the north-eastern edge of the underlying one. It had been partly built by an ancient monarch, but, after lying unfinished for many years, like the Biblical tower of Babel, was finally completed by Nebuchadnezzar. The amount of labour bestowed upon these brick edifices must have been enormous, and gives some idea of the human force at the disposal of the monarch. If any further illustration of this fact were needed, it would be found in the statement made by Nebuchadnezzar in one of his inscriptions (and quoted also from Berosus), that he had finished the Imgur-Bel in fifteen days. The same monarch also continued the embankment of the Euphrates for a considerable distance beyond the limits of Babylon, and cut some canals to carry off the overflow of that river into the Tigris. The great reservoir, 40 miles square, on the west of Borsippa, which had been excavated to receive the waters of the Euphrates while the bed of its channel was being lined with brick, was also used for a similar purpose. The reservoir seems to have been entered by the Arakhtu or Araxes, "the river of Babylon," which flowed through a deep wady into the heart of Northern Arabia, as Wetzstein has pointed out. Various nomad tribes, such as the Nabathæans or the Pekod, pitched their tents on its banks; but, although it is not unfrequently mentioned in early Babylonian history, we hear no more of it after the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It is possible, therefore, that it was drained by the western reservoir. (A. H.S.) BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. Geographically, as well as ethnologically and historically, the whole district enclosed between the two great rivers of Western Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates, forms but one country. The writers of antiquity clearly recognised this fact, speaking of the whole under the general name of Assyria, though Babylonia, as will be seen, would have been a more accurate designation. It naturally falls into two divisions, the northern being more or less mountainous, while the southern is flat and marshy; and the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends still more completely to separate them. In the earliest times of which we have any record, the northern portion was comprehended under the vague title of Gutium (the Goyim of Gen. xiv. 1), which stretched from the Euphrates on the west to the mountains of Media on the east; but it was definitely marked off as Assyria after the rise of that monarchy in the 16th century B.C. Aram-Naharaim, or Mesopotamia, however, though claimed by the Assyrian kings, and from time to time overrun by them, did not form an integral part of the kingdom until the 9th century B.C., while the region on the left bank of the Tigris, between that river and the Greater Zab, was not only included in Assyria, but contained the chief capitals of the empire. In this respect the monarchy of the Tigris resembled Chaldea, where some of the most important cities were situated on the Arabian side of the Euphrates. The reason of this preference for the eastern bank of the Tigris was due to its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend upon the streams which flowed into the Euphrates. This vast flat, the modern El-Jezireh, is about 250 miles in length, interrupted only by a single limestone range, rising abruptly out of the plain, and branching off from the Zagros mountains under the names of Sarazúr, Hamrin, and Sinjar. The numerous remains of old habitations show how thickly this level tract must once have been peopled, though now for the most part a wilderness. North of the plateau rises a well-watered and undulating belt of country, into which run low ranges of limestone hills, sometimes arid, sometimes covered with dwarf-oak, and often shutting in, between their northern and north-eastern flank and the main mountain-line from which they detach themselves, rich plains and fertile valleys. Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Niphates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan. The name Assyria itself originally denoted the small territory immediately surrounding the primitive capital "the city of Asur" (al Asur, the Ellasar of Genesis), which was built, like the other chief cities of the country, by Turanian tribes, in whose language the word signified "water-meadow." It stood on the right bank of the Tigris, midway between the Greater and the Lesser Zab, and is represented by the modern Kalah Sherghat. It remained the capital long after the Assyrians had become the dominant power in Western Asia, but was finally supplanted by Calah (Nimrùd), Nineveh (Nebi Yunus and Kouyunjik), and Dur-Sargina (Khorsabad), some 60 miles further north. See NINEVEH. In contrast with the arid plateau of Mesopotamia, stretched the rich alluvial plain of Chaldea, formed by the deposits of the two great rivers by which it was enclosed.* The soil was extremely fertile, and teemed with an industrious population. Eastward rose the mountains of Elam, southward were the sea-marshes and the ancient kingdom of Nituk or Dilvun (the modern Bender-Dilvun), while on the west the civilisation of Babylonia encroached beyond the banks of the Euphrates, upon the territory of the Semitic nomades (or Suti). Here stood Ur (now in regard to our classical sources of information, the only ones hitherto available. The principal of these is Berosus, the Manetho of Babylonia, who flourished at the time of Alexander's conquests (though see Havet, Mémoire sur la Date des Ecrits qui portent les noms de Bérose et de Manethon). He was priest of Bel, and translated the records and astronomy of his nation into Greek. His works have unfortunately perished, but the second and third hand quotations from them, which we have in Eusebius and other writers, have been strikingly verified by inscriptions so far as regards their main facts. The story of the flood taken from Berosus, for instance, is almost identical with the one preserved on the cuneiform tablets. Numerical figures, however, as might be expected, are untrustworthy. According to Berosus, ten kings reigned before the Deluge for 120 saroi, or 432,000 years, beginning with Alorus of Babylon and ending with Otiartes (Opartes) of Larankha, and his son Sisuthrus, the hero of the flood. Then came eight dynasties, which are given. as follows: (1.) 86 Chaldean kings (7.) * (8.) 6 Chaldean' .34,030 years. 224 458 245 Mugheir), the earliest capital of the country; and Babylon, | doing so, however, it would be well to say a few words with its suburb, Borsippa (Birs Nimrùd), as well as the two Sipparas (the Sepharvaim of Scripture, now Mosaib), occupied both the Arabian and Chaldean side of the river. (See BABYLON.) The Araxes, or "River of Babylon," was conducted through a deep valley into the heart of Arabia, irrigating the land through which it passed; and to the south of it lay the great inland fresh-water sea of Nedjef, surrounded by red sandstone cliffs of considerable height, 40 miles in length and 35 in breadth in the widest part. Above and below this sea, from Borsippa to Kufa, extend the famous Chaldean marshes, where Alexander was nearly lost (Arrian, Exp. Al., vii. 22.; Strab., xvi. 1, § 12,); but these depend upon the state of the Hindiyah canal, disappearing altogether when it is closed. Between the sea of Nedjef and Ur, but on the left side of the Euphrates, was Erech (now Warka), which with Nipur or Calnch (now Niffer), Surippac (Senkereh ?), and Babylon (now Hillah), formed the tetrapolis of Sumir or Shinar. This north western part of Chaldea was also called Gan-duniyas or Gun-duni after the accession of the Cassite dynasty. Southeastern Chaldea, on the other hand, was termed Accad, though the name came also to be applied to the whole of Babylonia. The Caldai, or Chaldeans, are first met with in the 9th century B.C. as a small tribe on the Persian Gulf, whence they slowly moved northwards, until under Merodach-Baladan they made themselves masters of Babylon, and henceforth formed so important an element. in the population of the country, as in later days to give. their name to the whole of it. In the inscriptions, however, Chaldea represents the marshes of the sea-coast, and Teredon was one of their ports. The whole territory was thickly studded with towns; but among all this "vast number of great cities," to use the words of Herodotus, Cuthah, or Tiggaba (now Ibrahim), Chilmad (Kalwadah), Is (Hit), and Dur-aba (Akkerkuf) alone need be mentioned, The cultivation of the country was regulated by canals, the three chief of which carried off the waters of the Euphrates towards the Tigris above Babylon,-the "Royal River," or Ar-Malcha, entering the Tigris a little below Baghdad, the Nahr-Malcha running across to the site of Seleucia, and the Nahr-Kutha passing through Ibrahim. The Pallacopas, on the other side of the Euphrates, supplied an immense lake in the neighbourhood of Borsippa. So great was the fertility of the soil that, according to Herodotus (i. 193), grain commonly returned two hundredfold to the sower, and occasionally three hundredfold. Pliny, too (H. N., xviii. 17), says that wheat was cut twice, and afterwards was good keep for sheep; and Berosus remarked that wheat, barley, sesame, ochrys, palms, apples, and many kinds of shelled fruit grew wild, as wheat still does in the neighbourhood of Anah. A Persian poem celebrated the 360 uses of the palm (Strab., xvi. 1, 14), and Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiv. 3) states that from the point reached by Julian's army to the shores of the Persian Gulf was one continuous forest of verdure. Such a country was well fitted to be one of the primeval seats of civilisation. Where brick lay ready to hand, and climate and soil needed only settled life and moderate labour to produce all that man required, it was natural that the great civilising power of Western Asia should take its rise. The history of the origin and development of this civilisation, interesting and important as it is, has but recently been made known to us by the decipherment of the native monuments. The scanty notices and conflicting statements of classical writers have been replaced by the evidence of contemporaneous documents; and though the materials are still but a tithe of what we may hope hereafter to obtain, we can sketch the outlines of the history, the art, and the science of the powerful nations of the Tigris and Euphrates. Before Next to Berosus, the authority of Herodotus ranks highest. His information, however, is scanty, and he had to trust to the doubtful statements of ciceroni. Herodotus was controverted by Ctesias of Cnidus, the physician of Artaxerxes Mnemon. But Ctesias mistook mythology for history, and the Ninus and Semiramis, the Ninyas and Sardanapalus, of Greek romance were in great measure his creations. We may yet construct an Assyrian epopee, like the Shahnameh of Firdusi, out of his pages, but we must not look to them for history. Other historical notices of Assyria and Babylonia, of more or less questionable value, are to be gathered from Diodorus and one or two more writers, but beyond Berosus and, to a limited extent, Herodotus, our only ancient authority of much value upon this subject is the Old Testament. Ethnology and History. The primitive population of Babylonia, the builders of its cities, the originators of its culture, and the inventors of the cuneiform system of writing, or rather of the hieroglyphics out of which it gradually developed, belonged to the Turanian or UralAltaic family. Their language was highly agglutinative, approaching the modern Mongolian idioms in the simplicity of its grammatical machinery, but otherwise more nearly related to the Ugro-Bulgaric division of the Finnic group; and its speakers were mentally in no way inferior to the Hungarians and Turks of the present day. The country was divided into two halves, the Sumir (Sungir, or Shinar) | in the north-west, and the Accad in the south-east, corresponding most remarkably to the Suomi and Akkara-k, into which the Finnic race believed itself to have been separated in its first mountain home. Like Suomi, Sumir signified "(the people) of the rivers," and just as Finnic tradition makes Kemi a district of the Suomi, so Came was another name of the Babylonian Sumir. The Accadai, or Accad, were "the highlanders" who had descended from the mountainous region of Elam on the east, and it was to them that the Assyrians ascribed the origin of Chaldean civilisation and writing. They were, at all events, the dominant people in Babylonia at the time to which our earliest contemporaneous records reach back, although the Sumir, or "people of the home language," as they are sometimes termed, were named first in the royal titles out of respect to their prior settlement in the country. A survey of the syllabary has led to the conclusion that the first attempts at writing were made before the Accad had descended into the plains and exchanged papyrus as a writing material for clay; other considerations, however, go to show that although the system of writing may have been invented before they had entered Babylonia, it was not completed until after they had done so. In harmony with this, we find Berosus ascribing the culture of "the mixed population of Chaldea" to Oannes and other similar creatures from the Persian Gulf. So far as we can judge, the civilisation of Elam is at least coeval with that of Babylonia, and the capture of Babylon by the Medes, with whom the historical dynasties of Berosus are commonly supposed to begin, must be explained by an Elamite conquest. Media was the Accadian Mada, "the land" par excellence; and Accadian tradition looked back upon the mountainous district to the south-west of the Caspian as the cradle of their race. Among these "mountains of the east," and in the land of Nisir (the furthermost division of Gutium beyond the Lesser Zab), rose "the mountain of the world," the Turanian Olympus, on which the ark of the Chaldean Noah was believed to have rested. From this centre Turanian tribes spread in all directions, meeting Alarodians on the north, and Semites on the south-west. The Aryans had not yet penetrated across the great Sagartian desert. The numerous tribes of Susiana, both civilised and uncivilised, spoke languages more closely Ugrian than even that of the Accadians; the oldest towns of Northern Syria, where the Semite afterwards reigned supreme, bore Accadian names, and, as in the case of Haran, were mythologically connected with Babylon; while the chief cities of Assyria were founded by Accadians, were denoted by Accadian symbols, and were ruled by Accadian princes, in strict accordance with the statement of Genesis that out of Babylonia "went forth Asshur." An Elamite conqueror of Chaldea, like Chedorlaomer (Gen. xiv. 1), imposed his authority not only over Shinar, but over Assyria and Gutium as well. The earliest geographical lists know only of Nuvva, or Elam, on the east, the Khani on the west, Martu, the land of "the path of the setting sun," Subarti, or Syria, with its four races, and Gutium, which stretched across Mesopotamia from the Euphrates on the one side to the mountains of Media on the other. To these must be added Anzan, or southern Elam, with its capital Susa, Dilvun, or Nituk, on the Persian Gulf, and, at a considerably later date, the Hittites, with their chief city Carchemish. The first monarchs whose monumental records we possess had their seat at Ur, on the right bank of the Euphrates. Ur, in Accadian, signified "the city" par excellence, and so bore testimony to the supremacy claimed by its rulers over the rest of Babylonia. The great temple of the Moon-god there was one of the oldest buildings in the country, and its erection was due to a prince who claimed sovereignty over the whole of Babylonia, and adorned Erech, Nipur, Larsa, and other cities with temples of vast size, dedicated to the sun, to Istar, and to Bel. He seems to have been the first great Babylonian builder; and this would imply that it was under him that Ur rose to its prominent position, and united the numerous principalities of Chaldea under one head. The enormous brick structures were cemented with bitumen in the place of lime mortar; but the use of the buttress, of drains, and of external ornamentation, shows that architectural knowledge was already advanced. The cuneiform system of writing had attained its full development, signet stones were carved with artistic skill, and the amount of human force at the disposal of the monarch may be estimated from the fact that the Bowariyeh mound at Warka, on the site of the temple of the Sun-god, is 200 feet square and 100 feet high, so that above 30,000,000 bricks must have been employed upon its construction. The vicinity of Ur to the Semitic tribes of Arabia implies that the Accadian sovereigns had been turning their attention in that direction, and we find nothing surprising therefore in the Scriptural account of Abraham's migration from this place, or the Phoenician tradition of the original home of the Canaanitish race on the shores of the Persian Gulf (Strab., i. 2, 35, xvi. 3, 4, 27; Justin, xviii. 3, 2; Pliny, N. H., iv. 36). Indeed, we have clear evidence that Semitic was spoken in Ur itself at this remote epoch. Although the ruling caste were Accadian, and generally wrote their inscriptions in that language, Dungi, one of their earliest monarchs, in spite of his Turanian name, has left us a short legend in Semitic; and it is more than probable that the imperial title of "Sumir and Accad" was soon to be assumed to mark a linguistic as well as a geographical distinction. The brick legends of the various viceroys who governed the cities of Chaldea under this dynasty are all, however, in Accadian. The supremacy of Ur had been disputed by its more ancient rival Erech, but had finally to give way before the rise of Nisin or Karrak, a city whose site is uncertain, and Karrak in its turn was succeeded by Larsa. Elamite conquest seems to have had something to do with these transferences of the seat of power. In 2280 B.C.-the date is fixed by an inscription of Assur-bani-pal's-Cudur-nankhundi, the Elamite, conquered Chaldea at a time when princes with Semitic names appear to have been already reigning there, and Cudur-mabug not only overran "the west," or Palestine, but established a line of monarchs in Babylonia. His son and successor took an Accadian name, and extended his sway over the whole country. Twice did the Elamite tribe of Cassi or Kossæans furnish Chaldea with a succession of kings. At a very early period we find one of these Kossæan dynasties claiming homage from Syria, Gutium, and Northern Arabia, and rededicating the images of native Babylonian gods, which had been carried away in war, with great splendour and expense. The other Cassite dynasty was founded by Khammuragas, who established his capital at Babylon, which henceforward continued to be the seat of empire in the south. The dynasty is probably to be identified with that called Arabian by Berosus, and it was during its domination that Semitic came gradually to supersede Accadian as the language of the country. Khammuragas himself assumed a Semitic name, and a Semitic inscription of his is now in the Louvre. A large number of canals were constructed during his reign, more especially the famous Nahr-Malcha, and an embankment built along the banks of the Tigris. The king's attention seems to have been turned to the subject of irrigation by a flood which overwhelmed the important city of Mullias. 1 If so, the number of reigns to be assigned to it, as well as its duration, will have to be corrected, as we know of at least nineteen kings belonging to this Cassite dynasty. first conquests were in the north of Babylonia, and from | between his restoration of the temple of Anu and Rimmon this base of operations he succeeded in overthrowing at Kalah Sherghat and its foundation by the dependent Naram-Sin (or Rim-Acu?) in the south, and making himself viceroys of the city of Assur. master of the whole of Chaldea. Naram-Sin and a queen had been the last representatives of a dynasty which had attained a high degree of glory both in arms and in literature. Naram-Sin and his father Sargon had not only subdued the rival princes of Babylonia, but had successfully invaded Syria, Palestine, and even, as it would seem, Egypt. At Agane, a suburb of Sippara, Sargon had founded a library, especially famous for its works on astrology and astronomy, copies of which were made in later times for the libraries of Assyria. Indeed, so prominent a place did Sargon take in the early history of Babylonia, that his person became surrounded with an atmosphere of myth. Not only was he regarded as a sort of eponymous hero of literature, a Babylonian Solomon, whose title was "the deviser of law and prosperity," popular legends told of his mysterious birth, how, like Romulus and Arthur, he knew no father, but was born in secrecy, and placed by his mother in an ark of reeds and bitumen, and left to the care of the river; how, moreover, this second Moses was carried by the stream to the dwelling of a ferryman, who reared him as his own son, until at last the time came that his rank should be discovered, and Sargon, "the constituted king," for such is the meaning of his name, took his seat upon the throne of his ancestors. It was while the Cassite sovereigns were reigning in the south, and probably in consequence of reverses that they suffered at the hands of the Egyptians, who, under the monarchs of the 18th dynasty, were pushing eastward, that the kingdom of Assyria took its rise. Its princes soon began to treat with their southern neighbours on equal terms; the boundaries of the two kingdoms were settled, and intermarriages between the royal families took place, which led more than once to an interference on the part of the Assyrians in the affairs of Babylonia. Finally, in the 14th century B.C., Tiglath-Adar of Assyria captured Babylon, and established a Semitic line of sovereigns there, which continued until the days of the later Assyrian empire. From this time down to the destruction of Nineveh, Assyria remained the leading power of Western Asia. Occasionally, it is true, a king of Babylon succeeded in defeating his aggressive rival and invading Assyria; but the contrary was more usually the case, and the Assyrians grew more and more powerful at the expense of the weaker state, until at last Babylonia was reduced to a mere apanage of Assyria. We possess an almost continuous list of Assyrian kings; and, as from the beginning of the 9th century downwards there exists a native canon, in which each year is dated by the limmu or archon eponymos, whose name it bears, as well as a portion of a larger canon which records the chief events of each eponymy, it is evident that our chronology of the later period of Assyrian history is at once full and trustworthy. Similar chronological lists once existed for the earlier period also, since an inscription of a king of the 14th century B. C. is dated by one of these eponymies; and the precise dates given in the inscriptions for occurrences which took place in the reigns of older monarchs cannot otherwise be accounted for. How far back an accurate chronological record extended it is impossible to say; but astronomical observations were made in Babylonia from a remote period, and the era of Cudur-nankhundi was known, as we have seen, more than 1600 years afterward; while in Assyria not only can Sennacherib state at Bavian that Tiglath-Pileser I. was defeated by the Babylonians 418 years before his own invasion of that country, but the same Tiglath-Pileser can fix 701 years as the exact interval This Tiglath-Pileser, in spite of his subsequent defeat by the Babylonians, was one of the most eminent of the sovereigns of the first Assyrian empire. He carried his arms far and wide, subjugating the Moschians, Comagenians, Urumians, and other tribes of the north, the Syrians and Hittites in the west, and the Babylonians (including their capital) in the south. His empire, accordingly, stretched from the Mediterranean on the one side to the Caspian and the Persian Gulf on the other; but, founded as it was on conquest, and centralised in the person of a single individual, it fell to pieces at the least touch. With the death of Tiglath-Pileser, Assyria seems to have been reduced to comparative powerlessness, and when next its claims to empire are realised, it is under Assur-natsir-pal, whose reign lasted from 883 to 858 B.C. The boundaries of his empire exceeded those of his predecessor, and the splendid palaces, temples, and other buildings raised by him, with their elaborate sculptures and rich painting, bear witness to a high development of wealth and art and luxury. Calah, which had been founded by Shalmaneser I. some four or five centuries previously, but had fallen into decay, became his favourite residence, and was raised to the rank of a capital. His son Shalmaneser had a long reign of 35 years, during which he largely extended the empire he had received from his father. Armenia and the Parthians paid him tribute; and under the pretext of restoring the legitimate monarch he entered Babylon, and reduced the country to a state of vassalage. It is at this time that we first hear of the Caldai or Chaldeans,-carefully to be distinguished from the Casdim or Semitic "conquerors" of Scripture,-who formed a small but independent principality on the sea-coast. In the west Shalmaneser succeeded in defeating in 854 B.C. a dangerous confederacy, headed by Rimmon-idri or Ben-hadad of Damascus and including Ahab of Israel and several Phoenician kings. Later on in his reign he again annihilated the forces of Hazael, Benhadad's successor, and extorted tribute from the princes of Palestine, among others from Jehu of Samaria, whose servants are depicted on the black obelisk. The last few years of his life, however, were troubled by the rebellion of his eldest son, which well-nigh proved fatal to the old king. Assur, Arbela, and other places joined the pretender, and the revolt was with difficulty put down by Shalmaneser's second son, Samas-Rimmon, who shortly after succeeded him. Samas-Rimmon (824-811) and Rimmon-nirari (811-782) preserved the empire of Assyria undiminished; but their principal exploits were in Babylonia, which they wasted with fire and sword, and converted into an Assyrian province. The first Assyrian empire came to an end in 744, when the old dynasty was overthrown by a usurper, TiglathPileser, after a struggle of three or four years. Once settled on the throne, however, Tiglath-Pileser proceeded to restore and reorganise the empire. Babylonia was first attacked; the Assyrian monarch offered sacrifices and set up his court in its chief cities; and the multitudinous Arab tribes who encamped along the banks of the Euphrates were reduced to subjection. The Caldai in the south alone held out, and to them belonged the first four kings given in Ptolemy's canon. Indeed, it may be said that from the invasion of Tiglath-Pileser to the revolt of Nabopolassar, Babylonia ceased to have any separate existence. It was governed by Assyrian kings or the viceroys they appointed, and the only attempts to recover independence were made under the leadership of the "Caldean " chiefs. It becomes nothing more than an important province of Assyria. The second Assyrian empire differed from the first in its |