Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 Part 24

Images of himself were erected on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean in token of his victories, and cities and palaces were built at home out of the spoils of the conquered lands. Elam and the northern part of Mesopotamia were also subjugated, and rebellions were put down both in Kazalla and in Babylonia itself. Contract tablets have been found dated in the years of the campaigns against Palestine and Sarlak, king of Gutium or Kurdistan, and copper is mentioned as being brought from Magan or the Sinaitic peninsula.

[Sidenote: Naram-Sin.]

Sargon's son and successor, Naram-Sin, followed up the successes of his father by marching into Magan, whose king he took captive. He a.s.sumed the imperial t.i.tle of "king of the four zones," and, like his father, was addressed as a G.o.d. He is even called "the G.o.d of Agad[=e]" (Akkad), reminding us of the divine honours claimed by the Pharaohs of Egypt, whose territory now adjoined that of Babylonia. A finely executed bas-relief, representing Naram-Sin, and bearing a striking resemblance to early Egyptian art in many of its features, has been found at Diarbekr.

Babylonian art, however, had already attained a high degree of excellence; two seal cylinders of the time of Sargon are among the most beautiful specimens of the gem-cutter's art ever discovered. The empire was bound together by roads, along which there was a regular postal service; and clay seals, which took the place of stamps, are now in the Louvre bearing the names of Sargon and his son. A cadastral survey seems also to have been inst.i.tuted, and one of the doc.u.ments relating to it states that a certain Uru-Malik, whose name appears to indicate his Canaanitish origin, was governor of the land of the Amorites, as Syria and Palestine were called by the Babylonians. It is probable that the first collection of astronomical observations and terrestrial omens was made for a library established by Sargon.

[Sidenote: Ur dynasty.]

Bingani-sar-ali was the son of Naram-Sin, but we do not yet know whether he followed his father on the throne. Another son was high-priest of the city of Tutu, and in the name of his daughter, Lipus-Eaum, a priestess of Sin, some scholars have seen that of the Hebrew deity Yahweh. The Babylonian G.o.d Ea, however, is more likely to be meant. The fall of Sargon's empire seems to have been as sudden as its rise. The seat of supreme power in Babylonia was s.h.i.+fted southwards to Isin and Ur. It is generally a.s.sumed that two dynasties reigned at Ur and claimed suzerainty over the other Babylonian states, though there is as yet no clear proof that there was more than one.

It was probably Gungunu who succeeded in transferring the capital of Babylonia from Isin to Ur, but his place in the dynasty (or dynasties) is still uncertain. One of his successors was Ur-Gur, a great builder, who built or restored the temples of the Moon-G.o.d at Ur, of the Sun-G.o.d at Larsa, of Ishtar at Erech and of Bel at Nippur. His son and successor was Dungi, whose reign lasted more than 51 years, and among whose va.s.sals was Gudea, the _patesi_ or high-priest of Lagash. Gudea was also a great builder, and the materials for his buildings and statues were brought from all parts of western Asia, cedar wood from the Ama.n.u.s mountains, quarried stones from Lebanon, copper from northern Arabia, gold and precious stones from the desert between Palestine and Egypt, dolerite from Magan (the Sinaitic peninsula) and timber from Dilmun in the Persian Gulf. Some of his statues, now in the Louvre, are carved out of Sinaitic dolerite, and on the lap of one of them (statue E) is the plan of his palace, with the scale of measurement attached. Six of the statues bore special names, and offerings were made to them as to the statues of the G.o.ds. Gudea claims to have conquered Anshan in Elam, and was succeeded by his son Ur-Ningirsu. His date may be provisionally fixed at 2700 B.C.

This dynasty of Ur was Semitic, not Sumerian, notwithstanding the name of Dungi. Dungi was followed by Bur-Sin, Gimil-Sin, and Ibi-Sin. Their power extended to the Mediterranean, and we possess a large number of contemporaneous monuments in the shape of contracts and similar business doc.u.ments, as well as chronological tables, which belong to their reigns.

[Sidenote: Khammurabi.]

After the fall of the dynasty, Babylonia pa.s.sed under foreign influence.

Sumuabi ("Shem is my father"), from southern Arabia (or perhaps Canaan), made himself master of northern Babylonia, while Elamite invaders occupied the south. After a reign of 14 years Sumuabi was succeeded by his son Sumu-la-ilu, in the fifth year of whose reign the fortress of Babylon was built, and the city became for the first time a capital. Rival kings, Pungun-ila and Immerum, are mentioned in the contract tablets as reigning at the same time as Sumu-la-ilu (or Samu-la-ilu); and under Sin-muballidh, the great-grandson of Sumu-la-ilu, the Elamites laid the whole of the country under tribute, and made Eri-Aku or Arioch, called Rim-Sin by his Semitic subjects, king of Larsa. Eri-Aku was the son of Kudur-Mabug, who was prince of Yamutbal, on the eastern border of Babylonia, and also "governor of Syria." The Elamite supremacy was at last shaken off by the son and successor of Sin-muballidh, Khammurabi, whose name is also written Ammurapi and Khammuram, and who was the Amraphel of Gen. xiv. 1. The Elamites, under their king Kudur-Lagamar or Chedor-laomer, seem to have taken Babylon and destroyed the temple of Bel-Merodach; but Khammurabi retrieved his fortunes, and in the thirtieth year of his reign (in 2340 B.C.) he overthrew the Elamite forces in a decisive battle and drove them out of Babylonia. The next two years were occupied in adding Larsa and Yamutbal to his dominion, and in forming Babylonia into a single monarchy, the head of which was Babylon. A great literary revival followed the recovery of Babylonian independence, and the rule of Babylon was obeyed as far as the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated in the reigns of Khammurabi and other kings of the dynasty, have [v.03 p.0104] been discovered, as well as autograph letters of the kings themselves, more especially of Khammurabi. Among the latter is one ordering the despatch of 240 soldiers from a.s.syria and Situllum, a proof that a.s.syria was at the time a Babylonian dependency. Constant intercourse was kept up between Babylonia and the west, Babylonian officials and troops pa.s.sing to Syria and Canaan, while "Amorite" colonists were established in Babylonia for the purposes of trade. One of these Amorites, Abi-ramu or Abram by name, is the father of a witness to a deed dated in the reign of Khammurabi's grandfather. Ammi-ditana, the great-grandson of Khammurabi, still ent.i.tles himself "king of the land of the Amorites," and both his father and son bear the Canaanitish (and south Arabian) names of Abesukh or Abishua and Ammi-zadok.

One of the most important works of this "First Dynasty of Babylon," as it was called by the native historians, was the compilation of a code of laws (see BABYLONIAN LAW). This was made by order of Khammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. A copy of the Code has been found at Susa by J. de Morgan and is now in the Louvre, The last king of the dynasty was Samsu-ditana the son of Ammi-zadok. He was followed by a dynasty of 11 Sumerian kings, who are said to have reigned for 368 years, a number which must be much exaggerated. As yet the name of only one of them has been found in a contemporaneous doc.u.ment. They were overthrown and Babylonia was conquered by Ka.s.sites or Kossaeans from the mountains of Elam, with whom Samsu-iluna had already come into conflict in his 9th year. The Ka.s.site dynasty was founded by Kandis, Gandis or Gaddas (about 1780 B.C.), and lasted for 576 years. Under this foreign dominion, which offers a striking a.n.a.logy to the contemporary rule of the Hyksos in Egypt, Babylonia lost its empire over western Asia, Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high-priests of a.s.sur made themselves kings of a.s.syria. The divine attributes with which the Semitic kings of Babylonia had been invested disappeared at the same time; the t.i.tle of "G.o.d" is never given to a Ka.s.site sovereign. Babylon, however, remained the capital of the kingdom and the holy city of western Asia, where the priests were all-powerful, and the right to the inheritance of the old Babylonian empire could alone be conferred.

_Rise of a.s.syria_.--Under Khammurabi a Samsi-Hadad (or Samsi-Raman) seems to have been va.s.sal-prince at a.s.sur, and the names of several of the high-priests of a.s.sur who succeeded him have been made known to us by the recent German excavations. The foundation of the monarchy was ascribed to Zulilu, who is described as living after Bel-kapkapi or Belkabi (1900 B.C.), the ancestor of Shalmaneser I. a.s.syria grew in power at the expense of Babylonia, and a time came when the Ka.s.site king of Babylonia was glad to marry the daughter of a.s.sur-yuballidh of a.s.syria, whose letters to Amenophis (Amon-hotep) IV. of Egypt have been found at Tell el-Amarna. The marriage, however, led to disastrous results, as the Ka.s.site faction at court murdered the king and placed a pretender on the throne.

a.s.sur-yuballidh promptly marched into Babylonia and avenged his son-in-law, making Burna-buryas of the royal line king in his stead. Burna-buryas, who reigned 22 years, carried on a correspondence with Amenophis IV. of Egypt.

[Sidenote: Shalmaneser I.] After his death, the a.s.syrians, who were still nominally the va.s.sals of Babylonia, threw off all disguise, and Shalmaneser I. (1300 B.C.), the great-great-grandson of a.s.sur-yuballidh, openly claimed the supremacy in western Asia. Shalmaneser was the founder of Calah, and his annals, which have recently been discovered at a.s.sur, show how widely extended the a.s.syrian empire already was. Campaign after campaign was carried on against the Hitt.i.tes and the wild tribes of the north-west, and a.s.syrian colonists were settled in Cappadocia. His son Tukulti-In-aristi conquered Babylon, putting its king Bitilyasu to death, and thereby made a.s.syria the mistress of the oriental world. a.s.syria had taken the place of Babylonia.

For 7 years Tukulti-In-aristi ruled at Babylon with the old imperial t.i.tle of "king of Sumer and Akkad." Then the Babylonians revolted. The a.s.syrian king was murdered by his son, a.s.sur-n.a.z.ir-pal I., and Hadad-nadin-akhi made king of Babylonia. But it was not until several years later, in the reign of the a.s.syrian king Tukulti-a.s.sur, that a reconciliation was effected between the two rival kingdoms. The next a.s.syrian monarch, Bel-kudur-uzur, was the last of the old royal line. He seems to have been slain fighting against the Babylonians, who were still under the rule of Hadad-nadin-akhi, and a new dynasty was established at a.s.sur by In-aristi-pileser, who claimed to be a descendant of the ancient prince Erba-Raman. [Sidenote: Tiglath-pileser I.] His fourth successor was Tiglath-pileser I., one of the great conquerors of a.s.syria, who carried his arms towards Armenia on the north and Cappadocia on the west; he hunted wild bulls in the Lebanon and was presented with a crocodile by the Egyptian king. In 1107 B.C., however, he sustained a temporary defeat at the hands of Merodach-nadin-akhi (Marduk-nadin-akh[=e]) of Babylonia, where the Ka.s.site dynasty had finally succ.u.mbed to Elamite attacks and a new line of kings was on the throne.

[Sidenote: a.s.sur-n.a.z.ir-pal III.]

Of the immediate successors of Tiglath-pileser I. we know little, and it is with a.s.sur-n.a.z.ir-pal III. (883-858 B.C.) that our knowledge of a.s.syrian history begins once more to be fairly full. The empire of a.s.syria was again extended in all directions, and the palaces, temples and other buildings raised by him bear witness to a considerable development of wealth and art.

Calah became the favourite residence of a monarch who was distinguished even among a.s.syrian conquerors for his revolting cruelties. [Sidenote: Shalmaneser II.] His son Shalmaneser II. had a long reign of 35 years, during which the a.s.syrian capital was converted into a sort of armed camp.

Each year the a.s.syrian armies marched out of it to plunder and destroy.

Babylon was occupied and the country reduced to va.s.salage. In the west the confederacy of Syrian princes headed by Benhadad of Damascus and including Ahab of Israel (see JEWS, -- 10) was shattered in 853 B.C., and twelve years later the forces of Hazael were annihilated and the amba.s.sadors of Jehu of Samaria brought tribute to "the great king." The last few years of his life, however, were disturbed by the rebellion of his eldest son, which well-nigh proved fatal. a.s.sur, Arbela and other places joined the pretender, and the revolt was with difficulty put down by Samsi-Raman (or Samsi-Hadad), Shalmaneser's second son, who soon afterwards succeeded him (824 B.C.). In 804 B.C. Damascus was captured by his successor Hadad-nirari IV., to whom tribute was paid by Samaria.

[Sidenote: Nabu-n.a.z.ir.]

With Nabu-n.a.z.ir, the Nabona.s.sar of cla.s.sical writers, the so-called Canon of Ptolemy begins. When he ascended the throne of Babylon in 747 B.C.

a.s.syria was in the throes of a revolution. Civil war and pestilence were devastating the country, and its northern provinces had been wrested from it by Ararat. In 746 B.C. Calah joined the rebels, and on the 13th of Iyyar in the following year, Pulu or Pul, who took the name of Tiglath-pileser III., seized the crown and inaugurated a new and vigorous policy.

[Sidenote: Tiglath-pileser III.]

_Second a.s.syrian Empire._--Under Tiglath-pileser III. arose the second a.s.syrian empire, which differed from the first in its greater consolidation. For the first time in history the idea of centralization was introduced into politics; the conquered provinces were organized under an elaborate bureaucracy at the head of which was the king, each district paying a fixed tribute and providing a military contingent. The a.s.syrian forces became a standing army, which, by successive improvements and careful discipline, was moulded into an irresistible fighting machine, and a.s.syrian policy was directed towards the definite object of reducing the whole civilized world into a single empire and thereby throwing its trade and wealth into a.s.syrian hands. With this object, after terrorizing Armenia and the Medes and breaking the power of the Hitt.i.tes, Tiglath-pileser III.

secured the high-roads of commerce to the Mediterranean together with the Phoenician seaports and then made himself master of Babylonia. In 729 B.C.

the summit of his ambition was attained, and he was invested with the sovereignty of Asia in the holy city of Babylon. Two years later, in Tebet [v.03 p.0105] 727 B.C., he died, but his successor Ulul[=a], who took the name of Shalmaneser IV., continued the policy he had begun. Shalmaneser died suddenly in Tebet 722 B.C., while pressing the siege of Samaria, and the seizure of the throne by another general, Sargon, on the 12th of the month, gave the Babylonians an opportunity to revolt. [Sidenote: Merodach-baladan.] In Nisan the Kald[=a] prince, Merodach (Marduk)-baladan, entered Babylon and was there crowned legitimate king. For twelve years he successfully resisted the a.s.syrians; but the failure of his allies in the west to act in concert with him, and the overthrow of the Elamites, eventually compelled him to fly to his ancestral domains in the marshes of southern Babylonia. Sargon, who meanwhile had crushed the confederacy of the northern nations, had taken (717 B.C.) the Hitt.i.te stronghold of Carchemish and had annexed the future kingdom of Ecbatana, was now accepted as king by the Babylonian priests and his claim to be the successor of Sargon of Akkad acknowledged up to the time of his murder in 705 B.C.

[Sidenote: Sennacherib.] His son Sennacherib, who succeeded him on the 12th of Ab, did not possess the military or administrative abilities of his father, and the success of his reign was not commensurate with the vanity of the ruler. He was never crowned at Babylon, which was in a perpetual state of revolt until, in 691 B.C., he shocked the religious and political conscience of Asia by razing the holy city of Babylon to the ground. His campaign against Hezekiah of Judah was as much a failure as his policy in Babylonia, and in his murder by his sons on the 20th of Tebet 681 B.C. both Babylonians and Jews saw the judgment of heaven.

[Sidenote: Esar-haddon.]

Esar-haddon, who succeeded him, was of different calibre from his father.

He was commanding the army in a campaign against Ararat at the time of the murder; forty-two days later the murderers fled from Nineveh and took refuge at the court of Ararat. But the Armenian army was utterly defeated near Malatia on the 12th of Iyyar, and at the end of the day Esar-haddon was saluted by his soldiers as king. He thereupon returned to Nineveh and on the 8th of Sivan formally ascended the throne.

One of his first acts was to restore Babylon, to send back the image of Bel-Merodach (Bel-Marduk) to its old home, and to re-people the city with such of the priests and the former population as had survived ma.s.sacre.

Then he was solemnly declared king in the temple of Bel-Merodach, which had again risen from its ruins, and Babylon became the second capital of the empire. Esar-haddon's policy was successful and Babylonia remained contentedly quiet throughout his reign. In February (674 B.C.) the a.s.syrians entered upon their invasion of Egypt (see also EGYPT: _History_), and in Nisan (or March) 670 B.C. an expedition on an unusually large scale set out from Nineveh. The Egyptian frontier was crossed on the 3rd of Tammuz (June), and Tirhaka, at the head of the Egyptian forces, was driven to Memphis after fifteen days of continuous fighting, during which the Egyptians were thrice defeated with heavy loss and Tirhaka himself was wounded. On the 22nd of the month Memphis was entered by the victorious army and Tirhaka fled to the south. A stele, commemorating the victory and representing Tirhaka with the features of a negro, was set up at Sinjirli (north of the Gulf of Antioch) and is now in the Berlin Museum. Two years later (668 B.C.) Egypt revolted, and while on the march to reduce it, Esar-haddon fell ill and died (on the 10th of Marchesvan or October).

[Sidenote: a.s.sur-bani-pal.] a.s.sur-bani-pal succeeded him as king of a.s.syria and its empire, while his brother, Samas-sum-yukin, was made viceroy of Babylonia. The arrangement was evidently intended to flatter the Babylonians by giving them once more the semblance of independence. But it failed to work. Samas-sum-yukin became more Babylonian than his subjects; the viceroy claimed to be the successor of the monarchs whose empire had once stretched to the Mediterranean; even the Sumerian language was revived as the official tongue, and a revolt broke out which shook the a.s.syrian empire to its foundations. After several years of struggle, during which Egypt recovered its independence, Babylon was starved into surrender, and the rebel viceroy and his supporters were put to death.

Egypt had already recovered its independence (660 B.C.) with the help of mercenaries sent by Gyges of Lydia, who had vainly solicited aid from a.s.syria against his Cimmerian enemies. Next followed the contest with Elam, in spite of the efforts of a.s.sur-bani-pal to ward it off. a.s.syria, however, was aided by civil war in Elam itself; the country was wasted with fire and sword, and its capital Susa or Shushan levelled with the ground. But the long struggle left a.s.syria maimed and exhausted. It had been drained of both wealth and fighting population; the devastated provinces of Elam and Babylonia could yield nothing with which to supply the needs of the imperial exchequer, and it was difficult to find sufficient troops even to garrison the conquered populations. a.s.syria, therefore, was ill prepared to face the hordes of Scythians--or Manda, as they were called by the Babylonians--who now began to hara.s.s the frontiers. A Scythian power had grown up in the old kingdom of Ellip, to the east of a.s.syria, where Ecbatana was built by a "Manda" prince; Asia Minor was infested by the Scythian tribe of Cimmerians, and the death of the Scythian leader Dugdamm[=e] (the Lygdamis of Strabo i. 3. 16) was regarded by a.s.sur-bani-pal as a special mark of divine favour.

[Sidenote: Scythian influence.]

When a.s.sur-bani-pal died, his empire was fast breaking up. Under his successor, a.s.sur-etil-ilani, the Scythians penetrated into a.s.syria and made their way as far as the borders of Egypt. Calah was burned, though the strong walls of Nineveh protected the relics of the a.s.syrian army which had taken refuge behind them; and when the raiders had pa.s.sed on to other fields of booty, a new palace was erected among the ruins of the neighbouring city. But its architectural poverty and small size show that the resources of a.s.syria were at a low ebb. A contract has been found at Sippara, dated in the fourth year of a.s.sur-etil-ilani, though it is possible that his rule in Babylonia was disputed by his Rab-shakeh (vizier), a.s.sur-sum-lisir, whose accession year as king of a.s.syria occurs on a contract from Nippur (Niffer). The last king of a.s.syria was probably the brother of a.s.sur-etil-ilani, Sin-sar-iskun (Sin-sarra-uzur), who seems to have been the Sarakos (Saracus) of Berossus. He was still reigning in Babylonia in his seventh year, as a contract dated in that year has been discovered at Erech, and an inscription of his, in which he speaks of restoring the ruined temples and their priests, couples Merodach of Babylon with a.s.sur of Nineveh. Babylonia, however, was again restless. After the over throw of Samas-sum-yukin, Kandalanu, the Chineladanos of Ptolemy's canon, had been appointed viceroy. [Sidenote: Nabopola.s.sar.] His successor was Nabopola.s.sar, between whom and the last king of a.s.syria war broke out.

The Scythian king of Ecbatana, the Cyaxares of the Greeks, came to the help of the Babylonians. Nineveh was captured and destroyed by the Scythian army, along with those cities of northern Babylonia which had sided with Babylonia, and the a.s.syrian empire was at an end.

[Sidenote: Nabonidus.]

The seat of empire was now transferred to Babylonia. Nabopola.s.sar was followed by his son Nebuchadrezzar II., whose reign of 43 years made Babylon once more the mistress of the civilized world. Only a small fragment of his annals has been discovered relating to his invasion of Egypt in 567 B.C., and referring to "Phut of the Ionians." Of the reign of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, however, and the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, we now have a fair amount of information.[4] This is chiefly derived from a chronological tablet containing the annals of Nabonidus, which is supplemented by an inscription of Nabonidus, in which he recounts his restoration of the temple of the Moon-G.o.d at Harran, as well as by a proclamation of Cyrus issued shortly after his formal recognition as king of Babylonia. It was in the sixth year of Nabonidus (549 B.C.)--or perhaps in 553--that Cyrus, "king of Anshan" in Elam, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, king of "the Manda" or Scythians, at Ecbatana. The army of Astyages betrayed him to his enemy, and Cyrus (_q.v._) established himself at Ecbatana, thus putting an end to the empire of the Scythians, [v.03 p.0106] which the Greek writers called that of the Medes, through a confusion of Mad[=a] or "Medes" with Manda. [Sidenote: Invasion by Cyrus.]

Three years later we find that Cyrus has become king of Persia and is engaged in a campaign in the north of Mesopotamia. Meanwhile Nabonidus has established a camp at Sippara, near the northern frontier of his kingdom, his son--probably the Belshazzar of other inscriptions--being in command of the army. In 538 B.C. Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June, in which the Babylonians were defeated, and immediately afterwards Sippara surrendered to the invader. Nabonidus fled to Babylon, whither he was pursued by Gobryas, the governor of Kurdistan, and on the 16th of Tammuz, two days after the capture of Sippara, "the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting." Nabonidus was dragged out of his hiding-place, and Kurdish guards were placed at the gates of the great temple of Bel, where the services continued without intermission.

Cyrus did not arrive till the 3rd of Marchesvan (October), Gobryas having acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon, and a few days afterwards the son of Nabonidus, according to the most probable reading, died. A public mourning followed, which lasted six days, and Cambyses accompanied the corpse to the tomb. Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Bel-Merodach, who was wrathful at the impiety of Nabonidus in removing the images of the local G.o.ds from their ancestral shrines to his capital Babylon. Nabonidus, in fact, had excited a strong feeling against himself by attempting to centralize the religion of Babylonia in the temple of Merodach (Marduk) at Babylon, and while he had thus alienated the local priesthoods the military party despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes. He seems to have left the defence of his kingdom to others, occupying himself with the more congenial work of excavating the foundation records of the temples and determining the dates of their builders. The invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus was doubtless facilitated by the existence of a disaffected party in the state, as well as by the presence of foreign exiles like the Jews, who had been planted in the midst of the country. One of the first acts of Cyrus accordingly was to allow these exiles to return to their own homes, carrying with them the images of their G.o.ds and their sacred vessels. The permission to do so was embodied in a proclamation, in which the conqueror endeavoured to justify his claim to the Babylonian throne. The feeling was still strong that none had a right to rule over western Asia until he had been consecrated to the office by Bel and his priests; and from henceforth, accordingly, Cyrus a.s.sumed the imperial t.i.tle of "king of Babylon." A year before his death, in 529 B.C., he a.s.sociated his son Cambyses (_q.v._) in the government, making him king of Babylon, while he reserved for himself the fuller t.i.tle of "king of the (other) provinces" of the empire. It was only when Darius Hystaspis, the representative of the Aryan race and the Zoroastrian religion, had re-conquered the empire of Cyrus, that the old tradition was broken and the claim of Babylon to confer legitimacy on the rulers of western Asia ceased to be acknowledged (see DARIUS). Darius, in fact, entered Babylon as a conqueror; after the murder of the Magian it had recovered its independence under Nidinta-Bel, who took the name of Nebuchadrezzar III., and reigned from October 521 B.C. to August 520 B.C., when the Persians took it by storm. A few years later, probably 514 B.C., Babylon again revolted under the Armenian Arakha; on this occasion, after its capture by the Persians, the walls were partly destroyed. E-Saggila, the great temple of Bel, however, still continued to be kept in repair and to be a centre of Babylonian patriotism, until at last the foundation of Seleucia diverted the population to the new capital of Babylonia and the ruins of the old city became a quarry for the builders of the new seat of government.[5]

VI. _a.s.syria and Babylonia contrasted._--The sister-states of Babylonia and a.s.syria differed essentially in character. Babylonia was a land of merchants and agriculturists; a.s.syria was an organized camp. The a.s.syrian dynasties were founded [v.03 p.0107] by successful generals; in Babylonia it was the priests whom a revolution raised to the throne. The Babylonian king remained a priest to the last, under the control of a powerful hierarchy; the a.s.syrian king was the autocratic general of an army, at whose side stood in early days a feudal n.o.bility, and from the reign of Tiglath-pileser III. onwards an elaborate bureaucracy. His palace was more sumptuous than the temples of the G.o.ds, from which it was quite separate.

The people were soldiers and little else; even the sailor belonged to Babylonia. Hence the sudden collapse of a.s.syria when drained of its fighting population in the age of a.s.sur-bani-pal.

VII. _a.s.syro-Babylonian Culture_.--a.s.syrian culture came from Babylonia, but even here there was a difference between the two countries. There was little in a.s.syrian literature that was original, and education, which was general in Babylonia, was in the northern kingdom confined for the most part to a single cla.s.s. In Babylonia it was of very old standing. There were libraries in most of the towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write, and in Semitic times this involved a knowledge of the extinct Sumerian as well as of a most complicated and extensive syllabary. A considerable amount of Semitic Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Chaldaea. Vocabularies, grammars and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists of them were drawn up. The literature was for the most part inscribed with a metal stylus on tablets of clay, called _laterculae coctiles_ by Pliny; the papyrus which seems to have been also employed has perished. Under the second a.s.syrian empire, when Nineveh had become a great centre of trade, Aramaic--the language of commerce and diplomacy--was added to the number of subjects which the educated cla.s.s was required to learn. Under the Seleucids Greek was introduced into Babylon, and fragments of tablets have been found with Sumerian and a.s.syrian (_i.e._ Semitic Babylonian) words transcribed in Greek letters.

_Babylonian Literature and Science_.--There were many literary works the t.i.tles of which have come down to us. One of the most famous of these was the _Epic of Gilgamesh_, in twelve books, composed by a certain Sin-liqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh. The whole story is a composite product, and it is possible that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure. (See GILGAMESH, EPIC OF.)

Another epic was that of the Creation, the object of which was to glorify Bel-Merodach by describing his contest with Tiamat, the dragon of chaos. In the first book an account is given of the creation of the world out of the primeval deep and the birth of the G.o.ds of light. Then comes the story of the struggle between the G.o.ds of light and the powers of darkness, and the final victory of Merodach, who clove Tiamat asunder, forming the heaven out of one half of her body and the earth out of the other. Merodach next arranged the stars in order, along with the sun and moon, and gave them laws which they were never to transgress. After this the plants and animals were created, and finally man. Merodach here takes the place of Ea, who appears as the creator in the older legends, and is said to have fas.h.i.+oned man out of the clay.

The legend of Adapa, the first man, a portion of which was found in the record-office of the Egyptian king Amenophis IV. (Akhenaton) at Tell-el-Amarna, explains the origin of death. Adapa while fis.h.i.+ng had broken the wings of the south wind, and was accordingly summoned before the tribunal of Anu in heaven. Ea counselled him not to eat or drink there. He followed the advice, and thus refused the food which would have made him and his descendants immortal.

Among the other legends of Babylonia may be mentioned those of Namtar, the plague-demon, of Urra, the pestilence, of Etanna and of Zu. Hades, the abode of Nin-erisgal or Allat, had been entered by Nergal, who, angered by a message sent to her by the G.o.ds of the upper world, ordered Namtar to strike off her head. She, however, declared that she would submit to any conditions imposed on her and would give Nergal the sovereignty of the earth. Nergal accordingly relented, and Allatu became the queen of the infernal world. Etanna conspired with the eagle to fly to the highest heaven. The first gate, that of Anu, was successfully reached; but in ascending still farther to the gate of Ishtar the strength of the eagle gave way, and Etanna was dashed to the ground. As for the storm-G.o.d Zu, we are told that he stole the tablets of destiny, and therewith the prerogatives of Bel. G.o.d after G.o.d was ordered to pursue him and recover them, but it would seem that it was only by a stratagem that they were finally regained.

Besides the purely literary works there were others of the most varied nature, including collections of letters, partly official, partly private.

Among them the most interesting are the letters of Khammurabi, which have been edited by L. W. King. Astronomy and astrology, moreover, occupy a conspicuous place. Astronomy was of old standing in Babylonia, and the standard work on the subject, written from an astrological point of view, which was translated into Greek by Berossus, was believed to go back to the age of Sargon of Akkad. The zodiac was a Babylonian invention of great antiquity; and eclipses of the sun as well as of the moon could be foretold. Observatories were attached to the temples, and reports were regularly sent by the astronomers to the king. The stars had been numbered and named at an early date, and we possess tables of lunar longitudes and observations of the phases of Venus. In Seleucid and Parthian times the astronomical reports were of a thoroughly scientific character; how far the advanced knowledge and method they display may reach back we do not yet know. Great attention was naturally paid to the calendar, and we find a week of seven and another of five days in use. The development of astronomy implies considerable progress in mathematics; it is not surprising, therefore, that the Babylonians should have invented an extremely simple method of ciphering or have discovered the convenience of the duodecimal system. The _ner_ of 600 and the _sar_ of 3600 were formed from the _soss_ or unit of 60, which corresponded with a degree of the equator. Tablets [v.03 p.0108] of squares and cubes, calculated from 1 to 60, have been found at Senkera, and a people who were acquainted with the sun-dial, the clepsydra, the lever and the pulley, must have had no mean knowledge of mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Layard at Nimrud along with gla.s.s vases bearing the name of Sargon; this will explain the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the a.s.syrian tablets, and a lens may also have been used in the observation of the heavens.

_Art and Architecture_.--The culture of a.s.syria, and still more of Babylonia, was essentially literary; we miss in it the artistic spirit of Egypt or Greece. In Babylonia the abundance of clay and want of stone led to the employment of brick; the Babylonian temples are ma.s.sive but shapeless structures of crude brick, supported by b.u.t.tresses, the rain being carried off by drains, one of which at Ur was of lead. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, as well as of frescoes and enamelled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with bronze or gold as well as with tiles. Painted terra-cotta cones were also embedded in the plaster. a.s.syria in this, as in other matters, the servile pupil of Babylonia, built its palaces and temples of brick, though stone was the natural building material of the country, even preserving the brick platform, so necessary in the marshy soil of Babylonia, but little needed in the north. As time went on, however, the later a.s.syrian architect began to shake himself free from Babylonian influences and to employ stone as well as brick. The walls of the a.s.syrian palaces were lined with sculptured and coloured slabs of stone, instead of being painted as in Chaldaea. We can. trace three periods in the art of these bas-reliefs; it is vigorous but simple under a.s.sur-n.a.z.ir-pal III., careful and realistic under Sargon, refined but wanting in boldness under a.s.sur-bani-pal. In Babylonia, in place of the bas-relief we have the figure in the round, the earliest examples being the statues from Tello which are realistic but somewhat clumsy. The want of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious and led to a high perfection in the art of gem-cutting. Nothing can be better than two seal-cylinders that have come down to us from the age of Sargon of Akkad. No remarkable specimens of the metallurgic art of an early period have been found, apart perhaps from the silver vase of Entemena, but at a later epoch great excellence was attained in the manufacture of such jewellery as ear-rings and bracelets of gold. Copper, too, was worked with skill; indeed, it is possible that Babylonia was the original home of copper-working, which spread westward with the civilization to which it belonged. At any rate the people were famous from an early date for their embroideries and rugs. The ceramic history of Babylonia and a.s.syria has unfortunately not yet been traced; at Susa alone has the care demanded by the modern methods of archaeology been as yet expended on examining and separating the pottery found in the excavations, and Susa is not Babylonia. We do not even know the date of the spirited terra-cotta reliefs discovered by Loftus and Rawlinson. The forms of a.s.syrian pottery, however, are graceful; the porcelain, like the gla.s.s discovered in the palaces of Nineveh, was derived from Egyptian originals. Transparent gla.s.s seems to have been first introduced in the reign of Sargon. Stone as well as clay and gla.s.s were employed in the manufacture of vases, and vases of hard stone have been disinterred at Tello similar to those of the early dynastic period of Egypt.

_Social Life_.--Castes were unknown in both Babylonia and a.s.syria, but the priesthood of Babylonia found its counterpart in the military aristocracy of a.s.syria. The priesthood was divided into a great number of cla.s.ses, among which that of the doctors may be reckoned. The army was raised, at all events in part, by conscription; a standing army seems to have been first organized in a.s.syria. Successive improvements were introduced into it by the kings of the second a.s.syrian empire; chariots were superseded by cavalry; Tiglath-pileser III. gave the riders saddles and high boots, and Sennacherib created a corps of slingers. Tents, baggage-carts and battering-rams were carried on the march, and the _tartan_ or commander-in-chief ranked next to the king. In both countries there was a large body of slaves; above them came the agriculturists and commercial cla.s.ses, who were, however, comparatively little numerous in a.s.syria. The scribes, on the other hand, formed a more important cla.s.s in a.s.syria than in Babylonia. Both countries had their artisans, money-lenders, poets and musicians.

The houses of the people contained but little furniture; chairs, tables and couches, however, were used, and a.s.sur-bani-pal is represented as reclining on his couch at a meal while his wife sits on a chair beside him. After death the body was usually partially cremated along with the objects that had been buried with it. The cemetery adjoined the city of the living and was laid out in streets through which ran rivulets of "pure" water. Many of the tombs, which were built of crude brick, were provided with gardens, and there were shelves or altars on which were placed the offerings to the dead. As the older tombs decayed a fresh city of tombs arose on their ruins. It is remarkable that thus far no cemetery older than the Seleucid or Parthian period has been found in a.s.syria.

AUTHORITIES.--See A. H. Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_ (1853); E. de Sarzec and L. Heuzey, _Decouvertes en Chaldee_ (1884 foll.); H. V. Hilprecht, _The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania_ (1893 foll.); J. P. Peters, _Nippur_ (1897); E. Schrader, _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_ (1889-1900); _Records of the Past_ (new series, 1888-1892); Th. G. Pinches, "The Babylonian Chronicle," in _Journ. R. A. S._ (1887); H. Winckler, _Altorientalische Forschungen_ (1893 foll.), and _The Tell-el-Amarna, Letters_ (1896); G. Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_ (1896), _Struggle of the Nations_ (1897), and _Pa.s.sing of the Empires_ (1900); L. W. King, _Letters of Khammurabi_ (1898-1900); H. Radau, _Early Babylonian History_ (1900); R. W. Rogers, _History of Babylonia and a.s.syria_ (1900); F. Hommel, _Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients_ (1904); _Mitteilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft_ (1899).

(A. H. S.)

VIII. _Chronological Systems_.--The extreme divergence in the chronological schemes employed by different writers on the history of Babylonia and a.s.syria has frequently caused no small perplexity to readers who have no special knowledge of the subject. In this section an attempt is made to indicate briefly the causes which have led to so great a diversity of opinion, and to describe in outline the principles underlying the chief schemes of chronology that have been suggested; a short account will then be given of the latest discoveries in this branch of research, and of the manner in which they affect the problems at issue. It will be convenient to begin with the later historical periods, and then to push our inquiry back into the earlier periods of Babylonian and Sumerian history.

Up to certain points no difference of opinion exists upon the dates to be a.s.signed to the later kings who ruled in Babylon and in a.s.syria. The Ptolemaic Canon (see sect. II.) gives a list of the Babylonian, a.s.syrian and Persian kings who ruled in Babylon, together with the number of years each of them reigned, from the accession of Nabona.s.sar in 747 B.C. to the conquest of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. The accuracy of this list is confirmed by the larger List of Kings and by the princ.i.p.al Babylonian Chronicle; the latter, like the Canon, begins with the reign of Nabona.s.sar, who, it has been suggested, may have revised the calendar and have inaugurated a new epoch for the later chronology. The Ptolemaic Canon is further controlled and its accuracy confirmed by the a.s.syrian Eponym Lists, or lists of _limmi_ (see sect. II.), by means of which a.s.syrian chronology is fixed from 911 B.C. to 666 B.C., the solar eclipse of June 15th, 763 B.C., which is recorded in the eponymy of Pur-Sagale, placing the dead reckoning for these later periods upon an absolutely certain basis.

Thus all historians are agreed with regard to the Babylonian chronology back to the year 747 B.C., and with regard to that of a.s.syria back to the year 911 B.C. It is in respect of the periods anterior to these two dates that different writers have propounded differing systems of chronology, and, as might be imagined, the earlier the period we examine the greater becomes the discrepancy between the systems proposed. This variety of opinion is due to the fact that the data available for settling the chronology often conflict with one another, or are capable of more than one interpretation.