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THE HISTORIANS'
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
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THE HISTORIANS'
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of
all ages : edited, with the assistance of a distinguished
board of advisers and contributors,
by
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.
PRI\)S
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DOCENDMMl
IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME I— PROLEGOMENA; EGYPT, MESOPOTAMIA
Outlook Company
f History Association
New York
London
1905
0
lo
1141398
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENBT SMITH WILLIAMS.
Ml rights reserved.
Press of I. J. Little & Co.
New York, U.S.A.
Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.
Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
Prof. Joseph Halevy, College of France.
Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
Prof. Andrew C. McLanghlin, University of Michigan.
Prof. David H. Mailer, University of Vienna.
Prof. Alfred Eambaud, University of Paria.
Capt. F. Brinkley, Tokio.
Prof. Edaard Meyer, University of Berlin.
Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
Prof. Theodor NSldeke, University of Strasbnrg.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
Dr. Paul BrSnnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.
Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Mollendorff, University of Berlin.
Prof. H. Marczali, University of Budapest.
Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Gottingen.
Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.
Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
Prof. A. Vamb6ry, University of Budapest.
Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
Dr. Frederick Robertson Jones, Bryn Mawr College.
Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
Dr. John P. Peters, New York.
Prof. Adolph Harnack, University of Berlin.
Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
Prof. C. W. C. Oman, Oxford University.
Prof. W. L. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna,
Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.
KEY TO THE AUTHORITIES.
The Historians' History of the World is in one sense of the word a compilation,
hut it is a compilation of unique character. The main bulk of the work is made up of
direct quotations from authorities, cited with scrupulous exactness; but so novel is
our method of handling this material that the casual reader might scan chapter after
chapter without suspecting that the whole is not the work of a single writer. Yet
every quotation, whatever its length, is explicitly credited to its source, and the reader
, who wishes to know the names of the authors and works quoted may constantly sat-
isfy his curiosity without the slightest difficulty. The key to identification of authori-
ties is found in the unobtrusive reference letters (called by the printer " superior let-
ters"), such as b, ', ", which are scattered through the text. These reference letters
refer in each case to a "Brief Reference-Lost" at the end of the book, where, chapter
by chapter, author and work are named. Should any work be quoted more than
once in a chapter, the same reference letter is used to identify that work in each case.
The reference letters are used in two ways : they are either (1) placed at the end
of a sentence, in which case they designate an actual quotation, or (2) they are placed
against the name of an author, in which case they designate an authority cited but
not necessarily quoted. Each reference letter at the end of a sentence refers to all
the matter that precedes it back to the last similarly placed reference letter. The quo-
tation thus designated may be of any length, — a few sentences or many pages. This
quotation may contain reference letters of the second type just explained, but, if so,
these may be altogether disregarded in determining the limits of the quotation ; the
context will make it clear that there is no change of authorship. On the other hand,
however continuous the narrative may seem, a reference letter at the end of a sen-
tence must always be understood to divide one quotation from another.
All this may seem a trifle complex as told here, but it will be found admirably
simple and effective in practice. The reader has but to make the experiment, to find
that he can trace the authorship of every line of the work without the slightest diffi-
culty. It may be well to add, however, that the reference letter « is reserved for edi-
torial matter, and that, very exceptionally, this letter is used in combination with
another letter, as °*, "", od, to give credit for matter that has been editorially adapted,
but not quoted verbatim. It is perhaps hardly necessary to explain that direct quota-
tions, such as go to make up the bulk of our work, are often given in an abbreviated
form through the omission of matter that is redundant or, for any reason, inad-
missible. The necessity for such change is obvious, since otherwise the varied mate-
rials could not possibly be made to harmonise or to meet the needs of our space. But,
beyond this, no liberty whatever is taken with matter presented as a direct quotation.
Where editorial modification is thought necessary, the use of reference letters makes
such modification feasible without introducing the slightest ambiguity. We repeat
that every line of the work is ascribed to its proper source with the utmost fidelity.
Any matter not otherwise accredited — as, for example, various introductions, chro-
nologies, bibliographies, and the like— will be understood to be editorial. Brackets
also indicate editorial matter.
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
PART I. PROLEGOMENA
BOOK I. HISTORY, HISTORIANS, AND THE WRITING OF HISTORIES
CHAPTER I
rig i
SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 1
The oriental period, 2. The classical historians, 3. The mediaeval and modern
histories, 4.
CHAPTER U
MATERIALS FOR THE WRITING OF HISTORY .... 5
CHAPTER m
THE METHODS OF THE HISTORIANS .... 8
CHAPTER IV
WORLD HISTORIES 18
CHAPTER V
THE PRESENT HISTORY 28
BOOK II. A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY . 88
CHAPTER II
COSMOGONY— ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS AS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD 33
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER III
PAGE
COSMOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY — ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS . . 38
CHAPTER IV
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE EARTH AND OF MAN . . .40
CHAPTER V
THE RACES OF MAN AND THE ARYAN QUESTION . . .43
CHAPTER VI
ON PREHISTORIC CULTURE 45
Language, 44. Clothing and housing of prehistoric man, 46. The use of fire,
46. Implements of peace and war, 47. The domestication of animals, 47. Agricul-
ture, 48. Government, 49. The arts of painting, sculpture, and decorative architec-
ture, 50. The art of writing, 50.
PAET II. EGYPT
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE. By Dr. Adolf Erman 57
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE (4400-332 B.C.) 65
CHAPTER I
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN .... 77
The country and its inhabitants, 81. Prehistoric Egypt, 88.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM (ca. 4400-2700 B.C.) ... 90
The first dynasty, 90. The second dynasty, 92. The third dynasty, 92. The
pyramid dynasty, 93. A modern account of the pyramids, 95. The builders of the
pyramids, 98. The beautiful Nitocris, 104.
CHAPTER in
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM (ca. 2700-1635 B.C.) . . .106
The eleventh dynasty, 106. The voyage to Punt, 108. The twelfth dynasty,
110. Monuments of the twelfth dynasty ; a classical view, 113. The ruins of Kar-
riak, 115. The fall of the Theban kingdom, 117. The foreign rule, 118. The Hyksos
rule ; the seventeenth dynasty, 121.
CONTENTS ,iii
CHAPTER IV
turn
THE RESTORATION (ca. 1635-1365 B.C.) . . . .120
Eighteenth dynasty, 126. The Hyksos expulsion : Aahmes and his successors,
127. Tehutimes II ; Queen Hatshepsu, 133. Triumphs of Tehutimes III ; his suc-
cessors, 136.
CHAPTER V
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY (ca. 1365-1285 B.C.) . . .141
King Seti, 142. Ramses (II) the Great, 144. The war-poem of Pentaur, 148.
The kingdom of the Kheta and the nineteenth dynasty, 150. Death of Ramses II, 153.
CHAPTER VI
THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMJOES . . . .155
How came these monarchs here ? 157.
CHAPTER VII
THE PERIOD OF DECAY (NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH DYNASTIES: ca. 1285-655 B.C.)
162
Meneptah, 162. From Setnekht to Ramses VIII and Meri-Amen Meri-Tmu, 166.
The sorrows of a soldier, 170. Egypt under the dominion of mercenaries, 171. The
Ethiopian conquest, 174. Table of contemporaneous dynasties, 179.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CLOSING SCENES (TWENTY-SIXTH TO THIRTY- FIRST DYNASTIES: 655-322 B.C.) 180
Psamthek, 180. The good king Sabach (Shabak) and Psammetichus, 184. The
restoration in Egypt, 185. The Persian conquest and the end of Egyptian autonomy,
188. The atrocities of Cambyses, 191.
CHAPTER IX
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS . . .196
The position of the king, 198. Weapons of war, 202. Battle methods, 205.
Social customs, 208. The Egyptians as seen by Herodotus, 212. Homes of the
people, 216.
CHAPTER X
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Religious festivals and offerings, 222. Gifts and riches of temples, 225. Dio-
dorus on animal worship, 228. A modern account of the worship of Apis, the sacred
bull, 232. The methods of embalming the dead, 236.
ziv CONTENTS
CHAPTER XI
PAGE
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 240
The hieroglyphics, 249. " By what characters, pictures, and images the learned
Egyptians expressed the mysteries of their mindes," 250. The riddle of the sphinx,
251. Literature, 257. The Castaway : a tale of the twelfth dynasty, 260.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUDING SUMMARY OP EGYPTIAN HISTORY . . .263
APPENDIX A
CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 267
Another ancient account of the Nile, 273. A Greek view of the origins of Egyp-
tian history, 278.
APPENDIX B
THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY . . 287
Manetho's table of the Egyptian dynasties, 291.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 293
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 295
PAET III. MESOPOTAMIA
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. THE RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER SEMITIC
COUNTRIES. By Joseph Halevy 309
MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE (6000-538 B.C.) . . . . . . 318
CHAPTER I
LAND AND PEOPLE 337
The land, 338. Original peoples of Babylon : the Sumerians, 342. The Semitic
Babylonians, 344. The original home of the Babylonian Semite, 347.
CHAPTER II
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY (ca. 4500-745 B.C.) . . . 349
The beginnings of history, 351. The rulers of Shirpurla, 351. Kings of Kish
and Gishban, 356. The first dynasty of Ur, 359. Kings of Agade, 360. The kings
of Ur, 363. Accession of a south Arabian dynasty, 363. The Kassite dynasty, 364.
Assyrian conquest of Babylon, 364.
CONTENTS „
CHAPTER HI
_ PMI
THE RISE OP ASSYRIA (ca. 3000-726 B.C.) . . . .366
Land and people, 369. Assyrian capitals: Asshur and Nineveh, 371. The rise of
Assyria, 372. The first great Assyrian conqueror, 377. The reign and cruelty of
Asshurnazirpal, 380. Shalmaneser II and his successors, 387. Tiglathpileser III
391. Shalmaneser IV, 395.
CHAPTER IV
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS (722-626 B.C.) . . 397
Sennacherib, 403. Esarhaddon and Asshurbanapal, 416. Esarhaddon's reign,
419. Asshurbanapal's early years, 425. The Brothers' War, 431. The last wars of
Asshurbanapal, 434.
CHAPTER V
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA (626-«06 B.O.) . . .438
Last years and fall of the Assyrian Empire, 440.
CHAPTER VI
RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON (655-538 B.C.) . . .446
Contemporary chronology, 448. Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar, 449. The
followers of Nebuchadrezzar, 453. The reign of Nabonidus, 455.
CHAPTER VH
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA . . .460
War methods, 460. Our sources, 461. Assyrian war costumes and war
methods, 468. The arts of peace in Babylonia- Assyria, 472. Babylon and its
customs described by an eye-witness, 473. A later classical account of Babylon, 479.
The commerce of the Babylonians, 484. Ships among the Assyrians, 491. Laws of
the Babylonians and Assyrians, 494. Sale of a slave, 496. Sale of a house, 497.
The code of Khammurabi, 498. The discovery of the code, 498. Miscellaneous reg-
ulations, 501. Regulations concerning slaves, 502. Provisions concerning robbery,
502. Concerning leases and tillage, 503. Concerning canals, 504. Commerce, debt,
504. Domestic legislation, divorce, inheritance, 505. Laws concerning adoption,
509. Laws of recompense, 509. Regulations concerning physicians and veterinary
surgeons, 510. Illegal branding of slaves, 510. Regulations concerning builders,
511. Regulations concerning shipping, 511. Regulations concerning the hiring of
animals, farming, wages, etc., 511. Regulations concerning the buying of slaves,
513.
CHAPTER VHI
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS . .515
The Assyrian story of the creation, 520. The Babylonian religion, 521. The
epic of Gilgamish, 525. Ishtar's descent into Hades, 530.
xvi CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
PAGE
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE . . . .534
Literature and science, 536. Epistolary literature, 539. Art, 543. Assyrian
art, 552. Assyrian sculpture and the evolution of art, 558. A classical estimate of
Chaldean philosophy and astrology, 563. The Babylonian year, 565. The Baby-
lonian day and its division into hours, 566. Assyrian science, 567.
APPENDIX A
CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 571
The Creation and the Flood, described by Polyhistor, 573. Other classical frag-
ments : of the Chaldean kings, 575. Of the Chaldean kings and the deluge, 576. Of
the tower of Babel, 577. Of Abraham, 577. Of Nabonassar, 577. Of the destruc-
tion of the Jewish Temple, 577. Of Nebuchadrezzar, 577. Of the Chaldean kings
after Nebuchadrezzar, 578. Of the feast of Sacea, 579. A fragment of Megasthenes
concerning Nebuchadrezzar, 579. Ninus and Semiramis, 580. Semiramis builds a
great city, 584. Semiramis begins a career of conquest, 588. Semiramis invades
India, 589. Another view of Semiramis, 593. Eeign of Ninyas to Sardanapalus,
594. The destruction of Nineveh, 598.
*
APPENDIX B
EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THEIR RESULTS . . .600
The ruins of Nineveh and M. Botta's first discovery, 600. Layard's discoveries
at Nineveh, 604. Later discoveries in Babylonia and Assyria, 610. The results of
the excavations, 612. Treasures from Nineveh, 613. The library of a king of Nine-
veh, 618. How the Assyrian books were read, 623.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 637
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY 629
PAKT I. PROLEGOMENA
BOOK I. HISTORY, HISTORIANS, AND THE WRITING
OF HISTORIES
CHAPTER I
SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
BROADLY speaking, the historians of all recorded ages seem to have had
the same general aims. They appear always to seek either to glorify some-
thing or somebody, or to entertain and instruct their readers. The observed
variety in historical compositions arises not from difference in general mo-
tive, but from varying interpretations of the relative status of these objects,
and from differing judgments as to the manner of thing likely to produce
these ends, combined, of course, with varying skill in literary composition,
and varying degrees of freedom of action.
As to freedom of selective judgment, the earliest historians whose records
are known to us exercised practically none at all. Their task was to glorify
the particular monarch who commanded them to write. The records of a
Ramses, a Sennacherib, or a Darius tell only of the successful campaigns, in
which the opponent is so much as mentioned only in contrast with the
prowess of the victor.
With these earliest historians, therefore, the ends of historical composi-
tion were met in the simplest way, by reciting the deeds, real or alleged, of a
king, as Ramses, Sennacherib, or David ; or of the gods, as Osiris, or Ishtar,
or Yahveh. As to entertainment and instruction, the reader was expected to
be overawed by the recital of mighty deeds, and to draw the conclusion that
it would be well for him to do homage to the glorified monarch, human or
divine.
A little later, in what may be termed the classical period, the historians
had attained to a somewhat freer position and wider vision, and they
sought to glorify heroes who were neither gods nor kings, but the representa-
tives of the people in a more popular sense. Thus the Iliad dwells upon
the achievements of Achilles and Ajax and Hector rather than upon the
deeds of Menelaus and Priam, the opposing kings. Hitherto the deeds of
all these heroes would simply have been transferred to the credit of
king. Now the individual of lesser rank is to have a hearing. More
the state itself is now considered apart from its particular ruler,
tories of Herodotus, of Xenophon, of Thucydides, of Polybius, in effect
for the glorification, not of individuals, but of peoples.
H. W. VOL. I. B
2 PROLEGOMENA
This shift from the purely egoistic to the altruistic standpoint marks a
long step. The writer now has much more clearly in view the idea of enter-
taining, without frightening, his reader ; and he thinks to instruct in matters
pertaining to good citizenship and communal morality rather than in defer-
ence to kings and gods. In so doing the historian marks the progress of
civilisation of the Greek and early Roman periods.
In the mediaeval time there is a strong reaction. To frighten becomes
again a method of attacking the consciousness ; to glorify the gods and lieroes
a chief aim. As was the case in the Egyptian and Persian and Indian
periods of degeneration, the early monotheism has given way to polytheism.
Hagiology largely takes the place of secular history. A constantly grow-
ing company of saints demands attention and veneration. To glorify these,
to show the futility of all human action that does not make for such glorifi-
cation, became again an aim of the historian. But this influence is by no
means altogether dominant ; and, though there is no such list of historians
worthy to be remembered as existed in the classical period, yet such names
appear as those of Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne ; De Joinville, the
panegyrist of Saint Louis ; Villani, Froissart, and Monstrelet, the chroniclers;
and Comines, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini.
In the modern period the gods have been more or less disbanded, the
heroes modified, even the kings subordinated. We hear much talk of the
" philosophy " of history, even of the " science " of history. Common sense
and the critical spirit are supposed to hold sway everywhere. Yet, after
all, it would be too much to suppose that any historian even of the most
modern school has written entirely without prejudice of race, of station, or of
religion. And in any event the same ideals, generally stated, are before the
historian of to-day that have actuated his predecessors — to glorify some-
thing or somebody, though it be, perhaps, a principle and not a person ; and
to entertain and instruct his readers.
The Oriental Period
The earliest historians whose writings have come down to us are the
authors of the records on the monuments of Egypt and of Mesopotamia.
We shall see later on that these records, made in languages a knowledge of
which has only been recovered in the past century, are full of historical
interest because of the facts they narrate, and the insiglu they give us into
the life of their times. For the moment, however, we are only concerned
with the method of their construction. They are parts of records dating
from many centuries before the beginning of the Christian era. Their
authors are utterly unknown by name. The narrative is, indeed, in some
cases, couched in the first person, but it is not to be supposed from this that
the alleged writer — who, of course, is the king whose deeds are g-lo rifled —
is the actual composer of the narrative. The actual scribes, mere adjuncls
of the royal manage, never dreamed of putting their own names on record
beside those of their royal masters. Yet their work has preserved to future
generations the names of kings that otherwise would have been absolutely
forgotten. For example, Tehutimes III of Egypt and Asshurbarapal of
Assyria, two of the most powerful monarchs of antiquity, had ceased to
be remembered even by name several centuries before the dawn of our era,
and for two thousand years no human being knew that such persons had
ever existed. Yet now, thanks to the monuments, their deeds arc almost as
fully known to us as the deeds of an Alexander or a Caesar.
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 3
There is, indeed, one regard in which these most ancient historical
records have an advantage over more recent works. They were for the
most part graven in stone or stamped in clay that was burned to stonelike
hardness, and they have come down to us with the assurances of authen-
ticity which must always be lacking in many compositions of more recent
periods. The Babylonian and Assyrian records lay buried with the ruins of
cities whose very location had been forgotten for ages. The most recent
of these records had been seen by no human eye for more than two thousand
years. Their unnamed authors seem thus to speak to us directly across the
centuries. However these earliest of historians may have dreamed of immor-
tality for their work, they can hardly have hoped to speak to eager audiences
in regions far beyond the limits of their world, twenty-five centuries after
the very nation to which they belonged had vanished from the earth, and
the language in which they wrote had ceased to be known to men. Yet
that unique glory was reserved for them.
The Classical Historian*
It requires but a glance at the historians of the classical period to see
how altered is the point of view from which they write. Here we have no
longer men commanded by a monarch, or impelled by religious fervour to
glorify a single person or epoch or country to the utter exclusion of every-
thing else. We have bounded from insularity of view to universality.
Even the Homeric legends deal with the events of two continents and of
several countries. Herodotus and Diodorus make the writing of their his-
tories a life-work. They travel from one country to another, and familiarise
themselves with their subject as much as possible at first hand. They
mingle with the scholars of many lands, and listen to their recitals of the
annals of their respective peoples. They weigh and consider, though in a
quite different mental balance from that which an historian uses in our day.
They spend thirty, forty, years in composing their books. From them, then,
we have, not simple chronicles of a single event, but universal histories.
These are in many ways different from the universal histories of our own
time ; but in their frank, human way of looking out upon the world, they
have a charm that is quite their own. In their interest for the general
reader, they have perhaps never been excelled. And in their citation of
fact and fable they become a storehouse upon which succeeding generations
of historians have drawn to this day.
There are other historians of the period no less remarkable, some of them
even superior, from some points of view, to these masters. The names of
Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius among the Greeks, of Tacitus, Livy, Czesar
among the Romans, to go no farther, are as familiar to every cultivated mind
of our own day as the names of Gibbon, Macaulay, or Bancroft. Several of
these were men who participated in the events they described, and, confining
themselves to limited periods, treated these periods in such masterly fashion,
with such breadth of view and discriminating judgment, that their verdicts
have weight with all succeeding generations of historians. Thucydides,
writing in the fifth century B.C., is regarded, even in our critical age, as a
matchless writer of history. An oft-repeated tale relates that Macaulay
despaired of ever equalling him, though feeling that he might hope to dupli-
cate the work of any other historian. Polybius and Tacitus are mentioned
with respect by the most exacting investigators. Clearly, then, this was a
culminating epoch in the writing of histories.
4 PROLEGOMENA
The Mediaeval and Modern Histories
We have seen that in the classical period the brief space of half a dozen
generations saw a cluster of great histories written. No such intellectual
activity in this direction marked the mediaeval period. Now for the space
of more than a thousand years there was no work produced that could bear
a moment's comparison with the great productions of the earlier periods.
One theme was now dominant in the Western world, and the intellects that
might have produced histories of broad scope under other circumstances
contented themselves with harping on the one string. So we have ecclesi-
astical records in place of histories.
In due time the reaction came, but it was long before the influence of
the dominant spirit was made subordinate to a saner view. Indeed, scarcely
before our own generation, since the classical period, have historians been
able to cast a clear and unbiased glance across the entire field of history.
Toward the middle of the eighteenth century a school of secular histo-
rians with broad views and high aims again arose. Now once more men
sought to write world histories not dominated by a single idea. The first
great exponents of the movement were Gibbon and Hume in England,
Schlozzer and Miiller in Germany. They have had a host of followers, of
whom the greater number have been Germans.
The attitude of these modern writers is philosophical ; they are disposed
to recognise in the bald facts of human existence an importance com-
mensurate solely with the lessons they can teach for the betterment of
humanity. In this modern view, each fact must be correlated with a multi-
tude of other facts before its true significance can be perceived. Events are,
in this view, meaningless unless we know something of the human motives
that led to their enactment. The task of the historian is to search for
causes, to endeavour to build up from the lessons of history a true philosophy
of living. It is really no different a task, as already pointed out, from
that which such ancient writers as Polybius had very prominently in
view; but there is an emphasis upon this phase of the subject in our
time that it did not generally receive in the earlier age. In other words, the
philosophy of history of our time is a more conscious philosophy. For a cen-
tury past the phrase, " philosophy of history," has been current, and it has
been the custom for men who were not primarily historians to discourse on
the subject. Latterly, following again the current of the times, we have
come to speak even of the " science " of history ; indeed, in Germany in par-
ticular, history to-day claims unchallenged position as a true science. The
word " science " is a very flexible term, yet there are those who deny that it
may be properly applied, as yet at any rate, to our aggregation of knowledge
of historical facts. The question resolves itself into a matter of definition,
the solution of which is not particularly important.
The essential thing is that the modern historical investigator is fully
actuated by the spirit of scientific accuracy and impartiality. And since
impartiality depends very largely upon breadth of view, it results rather
curiously that the minute investigations of the specialist make indirectly for
the comprehensive view of the World Historian. Professor Freeman well
expressed the idea when he said :
" My position is that in all our studies of history and language — and
the study of language, besides all that it is in other ways, is one most impor-
tant branch of the study of history — we must cast away all distinctions of
'ancient' and 'modern,' of 'dead' and 'living,' and must boldly grapple
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 5
with the great fact of the unity of history. As man is the same in all ages,
the history of man is one in all ages. No language, no period of his-
tory, can be understood in its fullness ; none can be clothed with its highest
interest and its highest profit, if it be looked at wholly in itself, without
reference to its bearing on those other languages, those other periods of
history, which join with it to make up the great whole of human, or at least
of Aryan and European, being."
Such a position as this, assumed by one of the most minute searchers
among modern historians, is highly interesting as illustrative of a reactionary
tendency which will probably characterise the historical work of the near
future. Hair-splitting analysis having been carried to ite limits of refinement,
there will probably come a reaction in the direction of a more comprehensive
study of historical events in their wider relations. The work of the specialist,
after all, is really important only when it furnishes material for wider general-
isations. All minute workers in the fields of biology, geology, and the allied
sciences, in the first half of the nineteenth century were unconsciously gather-
ing material which, interesting in itself, became of real importance chiefly
in so far as it ultimately aided in elucidating the great generalisation of
Darwin. Perhaps the minute historians of to-day are in similar position.
The special worker, imbued with enthusiasm for his subject, is apt to
forget the real insignificance of his labours. Entire epochs are dominated by
the idea of microscopic research, and the workers even come to suppose that
microscopic analysis is in itself an end ; whereas, rightly considered, it is
only the means to an end. We are just passing through such an epoch as
regards historical investigation. But, as just suggested, it seems probable
that we are approaching a new epoch when the work of the specialist will be
subordinated to its true purpose, while at the same time proving its real
value as a means to the proper end of historical studies — the comprehension
of the world-historical relations of events.
CHAPTER II
MATERIALS FOR THE WRITING OF HISTORY
IT is obvious that the materials for the writing of history consist for the
most part of written records. It is true that all manner of monuments, in-
cluding the ruins of buried cities, remains of ancient walls and highways,
and all other traces of a former civilisation, must be allotted their share as
records to guide the investigator in his attempt to reconstruct past condi-
tions. But for anything like a definite presentation of the events of bygone
days, it is absolutely essential, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis pointed out in
great detail, to have access to contemporary written records, either at first
hand, or through the medium of copyists, in case the original records them-
selves have been destroyed. Lewis reached the conclusion, as the result of
his exhaustive examination of the credibility of early Roman history, that
a tradition of a past event is hardly transmitted orally from generation to
generation with anything like accuracy of detail for more than a century.
Theoretically, then, no accurate history could ever be constructed of
events covering a longer period than about four generations before the intro-
duction of writing. In actual practice the scope of the strictly historic view
of man's progress is confined to very much narrower limits than this, for
the simple reason that the earliest written records that might otherwise serve
6 PROLEGOMENA
to give us glimpses of remote history have very rarely been preserved. The
destruction of ancient inscriptions with the lapse of centuries has led to a
great deal of difference of opinion as to the time when the art of writing
was introduced among various nations. In reference to the Greeks in par-
ticular, the dispute has been ardently waged, many scholars contending
that the art of writing was little practised in Greece until the sixth cen-
tury B.C.
Later discoveries, in particular a knowledge of the inscription on the
statue of Ramses at Abu Simbel, have made it clear that the earlier esti-
mates were much too conservative, and it now seems probable that the Greeks
had been acquainted with the art of writing for several, or perhaps many,
centuries before the one previously fixed upon. It is not to be supposed,
however, that the practice of the art of writing was universal in that early
day. On the other hand, it was doubtless very exceptional indeed for the
average individual to be able to write, and such difficulties as the lack of
writing material stood in the way of composition until a relatively late
period. But whether the art of writing was much or little practised in the
early days does not greatly matter so far as the present-day historian is con-
cerned, since practically all specimens of early writing in Greece disappeared
in the course of succeeding ages. No fragment of any book proper, no
scrap of parchment or papyrus, no single waxen tablet, from the soil of
classic Greece has been preserved to us.
The Greek authors are known to us only through the efforts of successive
generations of copyists; and, with the exception of a comparatively small
number of Egyptian papyri, there is almost nothing in existence represent-
ing the literature of classical Greece that is older than the middle ages.
There are, to be sure, considerable numbers of monumental inscriptions dat-
ing from classical times. These have the highest interest for the archaeolo-
gist, but in the aggregate they give but meagre glimpses into the history of
antiquity. If we were dependent upon these records for all that we know
of Greek history, the entire story of that people might be told, as far as we
could ever hope to learn it, in a few pages.
The case is somewhat different with Egypt and with Mesopotamia, since
the climate of the former and the resistant character of the writing materials
employed by the latter have permitted the modern world to receive direct
messages that, under other circumstances, must inevitably have been lost.
But even here the historical records are neither so abundant nor so compre-
hensive in their scope as might have been hoped. History-writing, in any-
thing like a comprehensive meaning of the words, is a relatively modern art.
The nearest approach to it among the nations of remote antiquity got no
farther than the recording of the personal deeds of individual kings. Such
records, indeed, are excellent materials for history, but they hardly constitute
history by themselves. The entire lists of Egyptian inscriptions, so far as
known, suffice merely to give glimpses of Egyptian history; and if the Meso-
potamian records are, in this regard, somewhat more satisfactory, it is only
in reference to a comparatively brief period of later Assyrian history that
they can be said to have anything like comprehensiveness. As to the other
nations of Oriental antiquity, — Indians, Persians, Syrians, the inhabitants
of Asia Minor, — the entire sum of the monumental records that have been
transmitted to us amounts to nothing more than a scattered series of vague
suggestions.
In the classical world Rome is but little better off than Greece in this
regard. As to both these countries, we depend for our knowledge almost
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 7
exclusively upon the works of historians of a relatively late period. Before
Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century B.C., there is almost no con-
secutive history proper of Greece; and despite all the efforts of archaeolo-
gists, records of Roman progress scarcely suffice to push back the prehistoric
veil beyond the time of the banishment of the kings. Indeed, even for
a century or two after this event transpired, the would-be historian finds
himself still on very treacherous ground. The reason for this is that there
were no contemporary historians in Rome in this early period ; and until such
contemporary chroniclers appear, no secure record of history is possible.
Once it became the fashion to write chronicles of events, the custom
rapidly spread and took a fixed hold upon the people. From the day of
Herodotus there was no dearth of Greek historians, and after Polybius there
is an unbroken series of Roman chroniclers.
Had all the writings of these various workers been preserved to us, we
should have abundant material for reconstructing the history of the entire
later classical epoch in much detail; but, unfortunately, the historian worked
with perishable materials. An individual papyrus or parchment roll could
hardly be expected on the average to be preserved for more than a few gen-
erations, and unless copies had been made of it in the meantime, the record
that it contained must inevitably be lost. Such has been the fate of the
great mass of historical writings, no less than of productions in other fields
of literature.
Many of the fragments of ancient writers have come down to us through
rather curious channels. In the later age of Rome it became the fashion to
make anthologies and compilations, and it is through such collections that
the majority of classical authors are known. One of the most curious of
these anthologies is that made by Athenaeus about the beginning of the third
century A.D. This author called his work Deipnosophista, or the Featt of
the Learned. He attempted to give it a somewhat artistic form, making it
ostensibly a dialogue in which the sayings of a company of diners were
related to a friend who was not present at the banquet. The diners were sup-
posed to have introduced quotations from the classical writers, so that the
book is chiefly made up of such quotations. The work has not come down
to us quite in its entirety, but, even so, no fewer than eight hundred authors
and twenty-five hundred different works are represented in the anthology.
Of these authors about seven hundred are known exclusively through the
excerpts of Athenseus.
Two or three centuries later another Greek named Stobaeus compiled a
set of extracts from the Greek writers of all accessible periods prior to his
own. The number of authors quoted in this anthology is more than five
hundred, and here again the major part of them are quite unknown to us
except through this single source. Yet another collection of excerpts was
made in the latter part of the ninth century by Photius, patriarch of Con-
stantinople, who made excerpts from about 280 authors with whose works
he had familiarised himself through miscellaneous reading. In addition
to these works of individual compilers there were two or three anthologies
compiled in the Byzantine period, including an important collection of
fragment! of the Greek poets which is still extant under the title of
The Greek Anthology, and the elaborate set of encyclopaedias made under
the direction of Constantino Porphyrogenitus. But for such collections
as these, supplemented by the biographical notices of such workers as
Suidas, and by fragments that have come to us through a few other chan-
nels, it would scarcely have been conceived that so many authors had
8 PROLEGOMENA
written in the entire period of Grecian activity, since only a fraction of
this number are represented by complete works that have come down to
us. Such facts as these give an inkling as to the mental activity of the old-
time author, while pointing a useful lesson as to the perishability of human
works. In this age of easy multiplying of books through printing, one is
prone to forget how precarious must have been the existence of a manuscript
of the elder day. It was a long, laborious task to produce an edition of a
single copy of any extended work, and each successive duplication was pre-
cisely as slow and as difficult as the first. Under these circumstances no
doubt a very considerable proportion of books were never duplicated at all,
and the circulation of a very large additional number most likely was lim-
ited to two or three copies. It was only works which were early recognised
as having an unusual intrinsic interest or value that stood any reasonable
chance of being copied often enough to insure preservation through many
succeeding generations.
As one considers the field of extant manuscripts, one is led naturally to
reflect on the quality of work that was likely thus to insure perpetuity, and
the more we consider the subject, limiting the view for our present purpose
to historical compositions, the more clear it becomes that the one prime qual-
ity that gave a lease of life to the composition of an author was the quality
of human interest. In other words, such historical compositions as were
works of art, rather than such as depended upon other merits, were the ones
which successive generations of copyists reproduced, and which ultimately
were enabled to pass the final ordeal imposed by the monks of the middle
ages, who made palimpsests of many an author deserving a better fate. The
upshot of this process of the survival of the fittest was that all Greek would-be
historians prior to Herodotus were allowed to sink into oblivion, causing
Herodotus himself to stand out as apparently the absolute creator of a new
art. In point of fact, could we know the whole truth, it would doubtless
appear that there was no real revolution of method effected by the writings
of Herodotus. He surpassed all of his predecessors in such a measure that
the future copyist saw no necessity for preserving any work but the one,
since this one practically covered the field of all the rest. It is, perhaps, an
ill method of phrasing, to say that these copyists saw no reason for preserv-
ing those earlier manuscripts. There was no thought in their minds of the
preservation of one book and the destruction of another ; they merely copied
the work which interested them, or which they believed would interest the
book-buying public. The disappearance of the works not copied was a mere
negative result, about which no one directly concerned himself.
The proof of the value of the work of Herodotus is found in the fact that
it has come down to us entire in numerous copies, something that can be said
of only three or four other considerable historical compositions of the entire
classical period ; two others of this select company being Thucydides and
Xenophon, both of whom were contemporaries of Herodotus, though consid-
erably younger, and therefore, properly enough, counted as belonging to the
next generation. Of the other Greek historians, the biographical works of
Plutarch, the works of Strabo and Pausanius, which are geographical rather
than strictly historical, and the Life of Alexander the Great by Arrian, are
the sole ones of the large number undoubtedly written that have come down
to us intact. A survey of the Roman historians furnishes an even more
striking illustration, for here no one of the great historical works has been
preserved in its entirety. Livy's monumental work is entire as to the earlier
books, which treat of the mythical and half-mythical period of Roman devel-
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 9
opment ; but the parts of it that treated of later Roman history, concerning
which the author could have spoken, and probably did speak, with first-hand
knowledge, are almost entirely lost. In other words, the copyists of the
middle ages preserved the least valuable portion of Livy, doubtless because
they found the hero tales of mythical Rome more interesting than the matter-
of-fact recitals of the events of the later republic and the early empire. We
can hardly suppose that Livy detailed the events of the later period with less
art than characterised his earlier work, but different conditions were imposed
upon him. He had now to deal with much fuller records than hitherto, and
no doubt he treated many subjects that seemed important to him, simply
because they were near at hand, but which another generation found tire-
some and not worth the trouble of copying. Thus we see emphasised again
the salient point that the interesting story rather than the important his-
torical narrative proved itself most fit for preservation in the estimate of
posterity.
Of the other great historians of Rome, Tacitus, Dionysius, Dion Cassius,
Polybius, have all fared rather worse than Livy, although a few briefer mas-
terpieces, like the two histories of Sallust and the (tallic Wan of Caesar,
and such biographies as the " Lives " of Suetonius and Cornelius Nepos, were
able to fight their way through the middle ages and gain the safe shelter of
the printing-press without material loss.
But perhaps the most suggestive example of all is furnished by the brief
world history of Justin, which, if not quite entire, has been preserved as to
its main structure in various manuscripts. This work is an artistic epitome
of a large, and in its day authoritative, history of the world, written by
Trogus Pompeius. Justin, when a student in Rome in the day of the early
Csesars, was led to make an epitome of this work, seemingly as proof to his
friends in the provinces that he was not wasting his time. He did his task
so well that future generations saw no reason to trouble themselves with the
prolixities of the original work, but were content to copy and re-copy the
epitome, pointing the moral that brevity, next to artistic excellence, is
the surest road to permanent remembrance for the historian, — a lesson which
many modern writers have overlooked to their disadvantage.
CHAPTER III
THE METHODS OF THE HI8TOEIAN8
IT is a curious fact, a seeming paradox, that the first two great his-
tories ever written — the histories, namely, of Herodotus and Thucydides —
should stand out pre-eminently as types of two utterly different methods of
historical writing. Herodotus, "the Father of History," wrote with the
obvious intention to entertain. There is no great logicality of sequence in
his use of materials ; he simply rambles on from one subject to another with
little regard for chronology, but with the obvious intention everywhere to
tell all the good stories that he has learned in the course of his journeyings.
It would be going much too far to say that there is no method in his collo-
cation of materials, but what method he has is quite generally overshadowed
and obscured in the course of presentation. Thus, for example, he is writ
ing the history of the Persian wars, and he has reached that time in the
history of Persia when Cambyses comes to the throne and prepares to invade
Egypt. The mention of Egypt gives him, as it were, the cue for an utterly
10 PROLEGOMENA
new discourse, which he elaborates to the extent of an entire book, detailing
all that he has learned of Egypt itself, its history, its people, and their
manners and customs, without, for the most part, referring in any way what-
ever to Cambyses. He returns to the Persian king ultimately, to be sure,
and takes up his story regardless of the digression, and seemingly quite
oblivious of any incongruity in the fact of having introduced very much
more extraneous matter in reference to Egypt than the entire subject matter
proper of the Persian Empire. The method of Herodotus was justified by
the results. There is every reason to believe that he was enormously popu-
lar in his own time, — as popularity went in those days, — and he has held
that popularity throughout all succeeding generations. But it has been
said of him often enough that this work is hardly a history in the narrower
sense of the word ; it is a pleasing collection of tales, in which no very close
attempt is made to discriminate between fact and fiction, the prime motive
being to entertain the reader. As such, the work of Herodotus stands at
the head of a class which has been represented by here and there a striking
example throughout all succeeding times.
Xenophon's Anabasis, detailing the story of Cyrus the Younger and his
ten thousand Greek allies, is essentially a history of the same type. It
differs radically, to be sure, from Herodotus, in that it holds with the clos-
est consistency to a single narrative, scarcely giving the barest glimpses
into any other field than that directly connected with the story of the ten
thousand. But it is like Herodotus in the prime essential that its motive
is to entertain the reader by the citation of the incidents of a venturesome
enterprise. Xenophon does indeed pause at the beginning of the second
book long enough to pronounce a eulogy upon the character of Cyrus, — a
eulogy that is distinctly the biased estimate of a friend, rather than the
calm judgment of a critical historian. But this aside, Xenophon, philoso-
pher though he is, concerns himself not at all with the philosophy of the
subject in hand. He quite ignores the immoral features of the rebellion of
Cyrus against his brother. Indeed, it seems never to occur to him that this
fratricidal enterprise has any reprehensible features, or could be considered
in any light other than that of a commendable proceeding of which a throne
was the legitimate goal. Doubtless the very fact of this banishment of the
philosophical from the work of Xenophon has been one source of its great
popularity, for, as every one knows, Xenophon shares with Herodotus the
credit of being the most widely read of classical authors. It would be quite
aside from the present purpose to emphasise the opinion that the intrinsic
merit of Xenophon's work does not fully justify this popularity. It suffices
here to note the fact that this famous work of the successor of Herodotus
belongs essentially to the same class with the work of the master himself.
Of the Roman historians doubtless the one most similar to Herodotus in
general aim was Livy. The author of the most famous history of Rome
does not indeed make any such excursions into the history of outlying
nations, as did Herodotus, but he details the history of his own people with
an eye always to the literary, rather than to the strictly historical, side ;
transmitting to us in their best form that series of beautiful legends with
which all succeeding generations have been obliged to content themselves
in lieu of history proper. There is little of philosophical thought, little
of search for motives, in such history-writing as this. It is essentially the
art of the story-teller applied to the facts and fables of history.
Returning now to Thucydides, we have illustrated, as has been said, an
utterly different plan and motive. Thucydides does indeed tell the story
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 11
of the Peloponnesian War ; tells it, moreover, with such wealth of detail as
no other historian of antiquity exceeded, and few approached. But in addi-
tion to narrating the plain facts, Thucydides searches always for the motives.
He gives us an insight into the causes of events as he conceives them. He
is obviously thinking more of this phase of the subject than of the mere
recital of the facts themselves. It is the philosophy of history, rather than
the story of history, that appeals to him, and that he wishes to make patent
to the reader.
Only two or three other writers of the entire classical period whose
works have come down to us followed Thucydides with any considerable
measure of success in this attempt to write history philosophically ; the two
most prominent exponents of this method being the Greek Polybius, who
told the story of Rome's rise to world power, and Tacitus, the famous
author of the Roman Annals and of the earliest history of the German
people. These three examples — Thucydides, Polybius, and Tacitus — stand
out at once in refutation of a claim which might otherwise be made that
philosophical, or, if one prefers, didactic, historical composition is essentially
a modern product. But for these exceptions one might be disposed to make
a sweeping generalisation to the effect that the old-time history was a col-
lection of tales intended to entertain the reader, and that the strictly modern
historical method aims at instruction rather than at entertainment. Such
generalisations, however, assuming, as they do, that the entire trend of
human thought has fundamentally changed within historical times, are sure
to be faulty. Quite possibly it may be true to say that the earliest his-
torians tended as a class to write entertaining narratives rather than
philosophical histories; and to say, on the other hand, that nineteenth
century historians as a class have reversed the order of motives : but it
must not be forgotten that our judgment here is based upon a mere fragment
of the entire output of ancient historians. We have already noticed, in
another connection, that the names of some hundreds of Greek writers have
been preserved to us solely through a single anthological collection or two ;
and now, speaking of the historical works, it must be remembered that a vast
number of these have perished altogether. Whole companies of historians
are known to us only by name, and there is every reason to suppose that
considerable other companies that once existed and wrote works of greater
or less importance have not left us even this memento. The scattered frag-
ments of Greek historical works that have come down to us, dissociated
from any considerable part of their original context, fill three large volumes
of the famous Didot collection of Greek classics, as edited by K. O. Miiller ;
some hundreds of authors being represented.
We have noted that all the predecessors of Herodotus were blotted put,
chiefly, perhaps, by the excellence of the work of Herodotus himself. Simi-
larly the entire histories of Alexander the Great, written by his associates
and contemporaries and his successors of the ensuing century, have without
exception perished utterly.
Doubtless the excellence of the work of Arrian, which summarised and
attempted to harmonise the contents of the more important preceding his-
tories of Alexander, was responsible for the final elimination of the latter.
One can hardly refer too often to that intellectual gantlet of the middh
ages, which all classical literature was called upon to pass, and from which
only here and there a work emerged. It is almost pathetic to consider the
number of works that made their way heroically almost through this
gantlet, only to succumb just before achieving the goal. One knows,
12 PROLEGOMENA
for example, that there was a work of Theopompus on later Grecian affairs,
in fifty odd books, which was extant in the ninth century, as proved by the
summary of its contents made then by a monk, but of which no single line
is in existence to-day. Even the works that have come down to us in a less
fragmentary condition have not usually been preserved entire in any single
manuscript, but, as presented to us now, are patched together from various
fragments, preserved often in widely separated collections. The explana-
tion is that the copying of a manuscript of great length was a somewhat
heroic task, and that hence the copyist would often content himself with
excerpting a single book from a work which he would gladly have repro-
duced entire but for the labour involved.
The point of all this in our present connection is that we know the his-
torians of antiquity very imperfectly, and that hence we are almost sure to
misjudge them as a class when we attempt generalisations concerning them.
In the very nature of the case, the historian who told a good story in a
pleasing style stood a far better chance of being perpetuated through the
efforts of copyists, than did the philosophical historian, however profound,
who put forward his theories at the expense of the narrative proper. Mak-
ing all due allowance for this, however, it can hardly be in doubt that the
last century and a half has seen a remarkable development of the scientific
spirit in its application to the work of the historian, and that the average
historical work of the nineteenth century is philosophically on a far higher
plane than the average historical work of antiquity. If we were to attempt
to characterise the most recent phases of historical composition, we should,
perhaps, not go far afield in saying that in regard to history-writing, as in
regard to many other subjects, this is pre-eminently the age of specialists.
In recent years no historical work could hope for any large measure of
recognition among historians, unless it were based upon personal investiga-
tion of the most remote sources bearing upon the period that could be made
accessible. The recent period has been pre-eminently a time of the searching
out of obscure or forgotten records ; the unburying of old letters and state
papers ; the delving into hitherto neglected archives ; and the critical analysis
of the conflicting statements of alleged authorities previously accessible.
The work began prominently — if any intellectual movement may prop-
erly be said to have an explicit beginning — with Gibbon and Niebuhr ; it
was continued by Grote and Mommsen and George Cornewall Lewis and
Clinton, and the host of more recent workers, whose specific labours will
claim our attention as we proceed. Naturally enough, since each generation
of specialists builds upon the labours of all preceding generations, the work
has become more and more minute and hair-splitting with each succeeding
decade. Gibbon, specialist though he was, covered a period of a thousand
years of European history, and left scarcely anything untouched that falls
properly within that period. Niebuhr specialised on the few centuries of
early Roman history, but his comprehensive view reached out also to Greece
and to the Orient, and he was accounted a master over the whole range of
ancient history. Mommsen's efforts have followed the Roman Republic
and Empire throughout the length and breadth of its wide domains, and
over the whole period of its existence, as well as into all the ramifications
of its political, commercial, and social life.
But there has been a tendency among most recent workers to confine
their attention to a narrower field. Macaulay's History of England attempts
the really detailed history of only about seventeen years. Carlyle devotes six
large volumes to the History of Frederick the Great, and such authorities as
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 13
Freeman and Stubbs and Gardiner and Gairdner gave years of patient
research to the investigation of single periods of English history. The
obvious result of all this minute and laborious effort is the piling up of a
mass of more or less incoordinate details as to the crude facts of history,
which only the specialist in each particular field can hope to master, and
the remoter bearings of which in their relations to world history are not
always clearly appreciable. It is rarely given to the same mind to have
a taste or a capacity at once for minute research and for broad and accurate
generalisation. Therefore much of the work of the specialist, admirable in
its kind, must still be regarded rather as crude material than as a finished
product. It is the work of the world historian to attempt to mass this crude
material, to visualise it in its relations to other similar masses, and to build
with it a unified structure of history, in which each portion shall appear in
its proper relations to all the rest.
Let us turn for a moment to the work of the world historians of the past,
and glance at the results of their various efforts to weld the individual his-
tory of men and of nations into a comprehensive history of mankind.
CHAPTER IV
WORLD HISTORIES
No historian worthy of the name can narrate the events even of a limited
period without at least an inferential reference to the world-historic import
of these events. Just in proportion as one fails to take a sweeping general
view, the force of his facts is weakened ; any narrow period of history, on
which the attention is fixed, assumes, for the time being, a disproportionate
interest, and is necessarily seen quite out of perspective. It is only when
the limited period is considered in reference to other periods that it can be
made to assume anything like its proper status. Something of this has been
understood by all writers from the earliest times, and accordingly we find
that very few of the ancient authors failed to take at least a sweeping view
of contemporaneous events, even when detailing specifically the incidents of
a restricted period ; and often, as in the case of Herodotus, the space devoted
to the history of events not strictly cognate to the main story is quite
out of proportion to that reserved for the main story itself. Thus in a
certain sense the history of Herodotus is a world history, inasmuch as i
deals more or less comprehensively with practically all nations known to the
Greeks of that time. Thucydides, as we have seen, confines himsell
more closely to a precise text ; yet even he devotes an introductory book to a
summary of the past history of the Greeks as a preparation for the full under-
standing of the Peloponnesian War.
But, after all, a somewhat sharp distinction should be drawn between
histories such as these, which ostensibly describe the incidents of a parti
period, and more comprehensive treatises, which set the explicit task <
dealing with the history of all nations in all times.
Of the works of this latter class, — World Histories proper, — the c
one that has come down to us is at the same time probably the most compn
hensive in scope, and the most extensive in point of matter, of any that wa
written in ancient times. This is the so-called Historical Library of J
the Sicilian. Diodorus was a Greek, a native of Sicily, who lived <
time of Julius Ciesar and of Augustus. He set himself the explicit task o
14 PROLEGOMENA
writing a comprehensive history of the world, and he devoted thirty years to
the accomplishment of this task. This history, as originally written, com-
prised forty books, which treated of the entire history of mankind from the
earliest times to the age of Augustus. Diodorus recognised the vagueness
of early chronology, and he made no attempt to estimate the exact age of the
world, but he computes the time covered by what he considers the historic
period proper, in the following terms :
" According to Apollodorus, we have accounted fourscore years from the
Trojan War to the return of Heraclides : from thence to the first olympiad,
three hundred and twenty-eight years, computing the times from the Lace-
daemonian kings : from the first olympiad to the beginning of the Gallic
War (where our history ends) are seven hundred and thirty years : so that
our whole work (comprehended in forty books) is an history which takes
in the affairs of eleven hundred and thirty-eight years, besides those times
that preceded the Trojan War."
In his preface Diodorus further explains the exact scope of his work and
the precise division in the books in the following words :
" Our first six books comprehend the affairs and mythologies of the ages
before the Trojan War, of which the three first contain the barbarian, and
the next following almost all the Grecian antiquities. In the eleven next
after these, we have given an account of what has been done in every
place from the time of the Trojan War till the death of Alexander. In the
three and twenty books following, we have set forth all other things and
affairs, till the beginning of the war the Romans made upon the Gauls ; at
which time Julius Csesar, the emperor (who upon the account of his great
achievements was surnamed Divus), having subdued the warlike nations of
the Gauls, enlarged the Roman Empire, as far as to the British Isles ; whose
first acts fall in with the first year of the hundred and eightieth olympiad,
when Herodes was chief magistrate at Athens. But as to the limitations of
times contained in the work, we have not bound those things that happened
before the Trojan War within any certain limits, because we could not find
any foundation whereon to rely with any certainty."
Of these forty books only fifteen have come down to us intact, namely,
the first five, which carry down the history only to the Trojan wars, and
books eleven to twenty, which cover the period from the invasion of Greece
by Xerxes to the subjugation of Greece by the Romans. The remaining
books are represented by considerable fragments, which, however, even in
the aggregate, are insignificant in bulk as compared with the fifteen books
that are preserved entire.
Considering the time when it was written, this work of Diodorus was
really an extraordinary production, though there has been a tendency on the
part of the modern critic to dwell rather upon its defects than its merits.
It has indeed become quite the fashion to speak of Diodorus as a weak-
minded, prejudiced person, who gathered together materials for history
from all sources indiscriminately, and gave them to the world, true and false
together, quite unsifted by criticism. Such an estimate, however, does Dio-
dorus a very great injustice, as the briefest perusal of his work must suffice
to demonstrate. Indeed, it is perhaps not saying too much to assert that
one would be nearer the truth were he to accept an estimate by Pliny, who
affirms that Diodorus was the first of the Greeks who wrote seriously and
avoided trifles. That Diodorus did write seriously, his work clearly testi-
fies ; that he largely avoided trifles, is shown by the mass of matter which
he crowded into a comparatively small space ; and that he was far from
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 15
using his materials without exercising selective judgment, should be evident
to any one who scans these materials themselves. It is quite true that he
made many mistakes. He sometimes accepted as fact what was only fable,
his chronologies are not always secure, his narratives of events not always
photographically accurate. But consider the task he had set himself. He
was endeavouring to write a history of the entire world so far as known in
his day and generation, including within the scope of his narrative all the
leading events of all the nations of the globe as known in that day. No
man can perform such a task, even in this day of multiplied records and
edited authorities, without making mistakes.
Whoever attempts to write history philosophically is brought, sooner or
later, face to face with the fact that all historical records are woven through
and through with fiction. To separate the threads of truth from the threads
of fable is the task of critical judgment. It will be perfectly clear to any
one who considers the case, that in making such selection the historian of
any generation must be biased and influenced by the prejudices and
preconceptions of his time. From such prejudices and preconceptions
Diodorus was, of course, not free. He looked out upon the world with
eyes of the first century B.C., not with eyes of the twentieth century
A.D. That century, no less than this, — perhaps not more than this, — was
an age of faith and superstition ; but the faith of that time was not the
faith of this time ; the superstitions of the Greek and Roman were not our
superstitions. They were a credulous people ; we are a credulous people :
but the exact type of their credulity differed in many ways from the type
of our credulity.
In judging Diodorus, then, one must judge him as a Roman of the first
century B.C., not as a European of the twentieth century A.D. And if we
bear this in mind, we shall find, after scanning his pages, that Diodorus was
by no means marked among his fellows by simple credulity of the unques-
tioning type which accepts whatever is told it without subjecting it to criti-
cism. Diodorus, to be sure, tells us fabulous tales as to the origin of the
world and the creation of its various peoples ; but he explicitly forewarns us
that he tells these tales, not as matters of his own belief, but in order to
make an historical record of the opinions current among the different nations
themselves as to their own origin.
These tales seem to us fabulous, grotesque, absurd ; but we have no
reason to doubt that many of them seemed equally mythical to Diodorus
himsolf; and modern criticism should not forget that there is one other
myth tale of the creation of the world and the origin of a particular
race, which, had Diodorus known it, he would doubtless have narrated with
the rest, and viewed with the same scepticism which he shows towards the
others, as being fabulous, grotesque, and absurd, but which would have been
accepted by the critics of all Christendom, in every age prior to our own, as
the authentic historical record of the actual creation of the earth, and as the
true account of its chosen people.
In a word, modern criticism should bear in mind, when reproaching
Diodorus and others like him for their credulity, that the accepted faith
of nineteenth-century Europe would have seemed to Diodorus as absurd
and fabulous and mythical as any tale which he has to tell us can seem !
to the twentieth-century critic.
And as to the mistakes of Diodorus in the more strictly historical por-
tions of his narrative, these also must be viewed with a certain toleration by
every candid critic when he reflects upon the vast preponderance of those
16 PROLEGOMENA
cases in which the records of Diodorus are worthy of the fullest credence.
In considering these matters, it is very easy, indeed, to generate myths that
befog our view of the true status of an ancient author. Thus, for example,
it was once traditional to regard Thucydides as the most candid, just,
and impartial historian who has ever lived ; but it can hardly be in doubt
that the real reason why this estimate has grown up about the name of
Thucydides is the fact that, as Professor Mahaffy points out, Thucydides is
the sole authority for the history of most of the period of which he treats.
It has even been admitted by Miiller that in the early portion of the first
chapter of Thucydides, where he treats on Grecian history in general, and
up to the Peloponnesian War, he does not manifest the same impartiality
which distinguishes him in the later portions of his narrative. But it is
precisely in this earlier chapter that Thucydides deals with events that are
recorded by other historians. It is here, and for the most part here alone,
that his story can be checked by data from other authors. Could we simi-
larly check the story of the Peloponnesian War in general, it can hardly be
in doubt that we should come across at least some discrepancies which
would have tended materially to modify the almost idolatrous estimate of
Thucydides that came to be, and long continued to be, unquestionably
associated with his name.
Making the application of this thought to Diodorus, it is evident at once
that the historian of a limited period of antiquity lays himself open to no
such range of comparison as he who undertakes to write the history of the
entire world. In the very nature of the case, such a writer pits himself
against the whole company of specialists ; and, after all, it is hardly surpris-
ing, should it be susceptible of proof, that in several, or all, fields there are
specialists whose accuracy excels the accuracy of Diodorus in each particu-
lar field. Surely the comprehensiveness of his task must count for some-
thing in the estimate, and, when all this is taken into consideration, it may
fairly be repeated that the general estimate of modern criticism has done
but scant justice to the author of the first attempt ever made to write a
complete and comprehensive history of the world.
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that in his use of authorities Dio-
dorus sometimes showed a selective judgment that is entitled to the fullest
praise. A notable instance is found in his treatment of that period of
Grecian history following the Peloponnesian War, when the Spartans and
the Thebans were contending for supremacy. It was treated by Xenophon
in his ffellenica, and as Xenophon was actual witness of many of the events
which he describes, the presumption would be that his authority for the
period might be considered incontestable. But in point of fact, Xenophon,
philosopher though he was and pupil of Socrates, was not above the influ-
ence of personal prejudice. He was a friend of Agesilaus, and his admira-
tion for that hero, as well as his fondness for the Spartans in general,
prejudiced his narrative to such an extent that he did very scant justice to
the merits of the great Epaminondas. Indeed, were we to trust to Xeno-
phon alone, the world never would have had in later times anything like a
just appreciation of the merits of the great Theban, and since Xenophon's
account of this period is the only contemporary one that has been preserved,
it was a rare chance, indeed, that preserved to posterity a just appreciation
of the greatest of the Thebans, whom some critics are wont to consider the
greatest of all the Greeks ; and it is Diodorus whom we must thank for
doing this historic justice to a great man whose merits might otherwise
have been obscured by the personal prejudice of a contemporary historian.
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 17
Diodorus, in treating this period, chose as his authority, not Xenophon,
but Aphorus. Just how he came to this decision is not known ; it suffices
that the decision was a good one. None but a prejudiced critic can doubt
that in many other cases his judgment was equally perspicuous in selecting
among divergent accounts the one of greatest verisimilitude.
A part of the relative neg^ct which has fallen to the lot of Diodorus
may be ascribed to the manner of his handling. He threw his work into
the form of annals, in which a chronological idea was predominant. He
gives the history of a nation in a given year, and then turns aside to other
nations, to follow the fortunes of each in turn over the same period. Neces-
sarily, under such a treatment, the whole plan lacks continuity. One must
break from one subject to another, must turn from Assyria to Egypt, from
Greece to Rome, in order to follow the story through constantly broken
chapters. Naturally, under such treatment, the reader's interest flags.
From a popular standpoint, such a treatment is clearly a mistake.
The plan of Herodotus, which took up the story of each nation, and
carried it through a long period uninterruptedly, has many advantages; is
infinitely more artistic. It is chiefly due to this treatment, rather than the
actual phrasing of his story, that Herodotus has gained so much more uni-
versal fame than Diodorus ; for in those parts of his history in which he
does attempt a continuous narrative, Diodorus shows much skill as a story-
teller. In the earlier portion of his work, that portion which, fortunately,
has in the main been preserved to us, when dealing with what he regards as
the fabulous history of the nations prior to the establishment of a fixed chro-
nology, his narrative runs on continuously, suggesting in many ways that of
the Father of History. It was so with his treatment of early Egypt, and
with his even more interesting history of ancient Assyria. These parts
alone of his work serve to make him one of the most important authors of
antiquity whose writings have been preserved to us, and we shall have
occasion to draw largely upon him for the history of this period.
What has just been said about the attitude of modern critics toward
Diodorus must not be taken to imply that this earliest of great world
historians has, on the whole, failed of an appreciative audience. The facta
of the case amply refute such a supposition as this. An author writes to be
read, and in the last resort the only valid criterion as to the value of his
work is found in the preservation or neglect of that work by successive
generations of readers.
Tested by this standard, very few of the ancient writers have obtained
such a measure of appreciation as has been accorded to Diodorus. Some-
thing like three-fourths of what he wrote has been lost, it is true ; but in
fairly estimating the import of this, one must consider the bulk of what
remains. The briefest comparison supplies us with some very interesting
data. It appears that, of the entire series of the predecessors of Diodorus,
no single historian has left us anything like a comparable bulk of extant
matter. Only one predecessor in any field of literature, namely, Aristotle,
greatly exceeds him in this regard, and a single other writer, Plato,
about equals him. Turning to the contemporaries of Diodorus and to his
successors in the use of the Greek language, a similar result is shown. A
single writer exceeds him in output. This is Plutarch, the biographer and
philosopher rather than historian proper. No other Greek writer in any
field equals Diodorus, though two historians, Dion Cassius and Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, are within hailing distance. When one reflects on the actual
labour implied by the preservation of any manuscript throughout the long
H. W. — VOL. I. 0
18 PROLEGOMENA
generations of the middle ages, these data speak volumes for the aggregate
judgment passed upon the work of Diodorus by posterity. Of the long list
of Greek historians, — a list mounting far into the hundreds, as proved by
fragmentary remains, — only three as ancient as Diodorus have fared better
than he, these three being Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. But
the entire bulk of the works of these three writers does not so very greatly
exceed the bulk of the extant writings of Diodorus. The works of
Herodotus and Thucydides together do not comprise more matter than is
contained in books eleven to twenty of Diodorus, which are preserved en bloc.
It would, of course, be absurd to imply that the mere bulk of the manu-
scripts preserved before the age of printing is a test of the value of an
ancient author's work ; but, on the other hand, bearing in mind always the
labour employed in the production of a single copy of a large work, it
would be equally absurd to deny that the bulk of manuscripts has a certain
bearing upon the value of the matter which they preserve. No doubt
many a scribe would be deterred from starting out to copy manuscript
by the great bulk of the work, and where he had no great preference,
would be influenced by this alone to choose a smaller book. Again, doubt-
less many a scribe wearied of his task in the case of the more ponderous
works, and gave it up after copying a few books. This common-sense
explanation no doubt accounts for the fact that quite generally the earlier
books rather than the later ones of works that have come down to us in
a fragmentary condition are the ones preserved. Had Herodotus and
Thucydides written forty books instead of eight or nine, it is very unlikely
that even their genius would have sufficed to preserve the entire number.
The case of Livy, whose work, despite the beauty of its style, has come
down to us so sadly mutilated, sufficiently sustains this supposition. It is
nothing against the merit of Diodorus, then, to reflect that half his work
is lost; the wonder is rather that so much of it has been preserved.
We have dwelt thus at length upon the work of Diodorus because it is a
work that may be taken as in many ways representative of world histories
in general. Certainly it was by far the greatest world history produced in
antiquity, of the exact merits of which we have any present means of judg-
ing. Indeed, there is only one other world history that has come down to
us, and this, the work of Justin, is in itself only an abridgment of the writ-
ing of another author, Trogus Pompeius. Considering when it was written,
this work of Trogus, if we may judge from the abridgment, was an admi-
rable production, and the abridgment itself is of great value in throwing
light on some periods that otherwise are not well covered by extant docu-
ments. As a whole, however, it is a compendium of history rather than a
comprehensive work like that of Diodorus. Of the works of the other
world historians of antiquity it is impossible to speak with any measure of
certainty. Polybius accredited Aphorus with being the only man who had
written a world history before his day. It is known that Aphorus lived in
the fifth century B.C., and that he was a fellow-pupil of another historian,
Theopompus, in the famous school of Isocrates at Athens ; but his work is
only known to us through inadequate fragments and the indirect quotations
of other authors. The same is true of the works of Theopompus just
referred to, and of Timseus, another Greek whose writing had something of
world historic comprehensiveness. But, even had these works been pre-
served, it may well be doubted whether any one of them would compare
favourably with the great history of Diodorus, which must stand out for all
time as the greatest illustration of the writing of world history in antiquity.
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 19
Diodorus, as we have seen, brought his work down to the time of tin-
Gallic wars of Caesar. There are references in his writing which imply
that he lived well into the time of Augustus. He probably died not
long before the beginning of the Christian era.
No Greek of later time and no Roman of any period produced a work
that supplanted the history of Diodorus, though most of the Byzantine
historians produced chronicles, many of which had more or less aspect of
world history in epitome. Several of these have been preserved, but no one
thinks of comparing them with the work of the older writer. The chrono-
logical work of Eusebius, however, deserves a word of special mention. It
was a mere epitome of world history, but a relatively comprehensive one, and
one which, through the loss of more pretentious works, has come to be of
great value to the modern historian. It was written originally in Greek,
but the most important copy of it that has come down to us is, curiously
enough, an Armenian translation. It is the Latin translation of this
Armenian manuscript that is the work usually referred to by modern
historians in speaking of Eusebius. The encyclopaedia of history compiled
for Constantino Porphyrogenitus, to which reference has already been made,
must also be mentioned as a world history of real importance. It was based
almost exclusively upon Greek authors, who were quoted at length, with
such abbreviations or modifications as were made necessary in adjusting the
various texts to one another. As a means of preserving the work of numer-
ous important Greek historians this collection had the utmost value, but,
unfortunately, it has come down to us in a much mutilated condition. During
the Byzantine period the minds of would-be historians of the Western world
were so occupied with ecclesiastical quarrels and the chronicles of local
princes, that no one thought of world histories in the broader sense. We
should be thankful that here and there a monk had interest and energy
enough to copy the ancient authors, and thus in part to preserve them.
Considering the intellectual atmosphere of the time, the wonder is, not
that so many of the pagan authors were lost, but rather that any of them
were preserved. Yet there were occasional gleams of light, even in
the so-called dark age. Such a one of peculiar interest to the English
reader is found in the fact that King Alfred translated into Anglo-
Saxon the compendious world history of Orosius, a work that otherwise
would be but little known to fame, but which, thanks to its brevity of
treatment, and to this very unusual distinction of translation into a " bar-
baric tongue," no doubt served a most excellent purpose in giving to the
Anglo-Saxons of the ninth century a glimpse of the events of ancient
times.
The best guide to the historic point of view of the generations that
ushered in what we are accustomed to think of as the modern period is
furnished by the History of the World which Sir Walter Raleigh wrote
toward the close of his life, late in the sixteenth century. Raleigh was not
an historian from choice, but was led to his task as a diversion during the
time of his imprisonment. The work as far as he completed it is in five
books, the titles of which are instructive. First book, " In treating of the
First Ages of the World, from the Creation to Abraham." Second book,
" Of the Times from the Birth of Abraham to the Destruction of the Temple
of Solomon." Third book, "From the Destruction of Jerusalem to the
Time of Philip of Macedon." Fourth book, "From the Reign of Philip of
Macedon to the Establishing of that Kingdom in the Race of Antigonus."
Fifth book, " From the Settled Rule of Alexander's Successors in the East,
20 PROLEGOMENA
until the Romans (prevailing over all) made Conquest of Asia and
Macedon."
It will appear that Raleigh did not carry his history beyond the early
Roman period, yet, even so, it is a very bulky book, comprising more than
eight ^hundred enormous quarto pages, an actual bulk far exceeding the
extant portions of Diodorus. Raleigh very generally names his authorities
in the margin, but even had he failed to do so, it would be easy to under-
stand the sources on which he must have drawn. Obviously he depended
largely upon the Bible for the early history of mankind, and for the rest he
had access, no doubt, to the dozen or so of classical authors whose names
we have had occasion to mention again and again. Naturally enough, the
pages of Raleigh seem archaic to the modern reader, yet passages are not
wanting which show the shrewd practical insight of the courtier and states-
man. As a whole, the work had sufficient interest to be reprinted in 1687,
a century after the author's death. Indeed, until this time there was
practically no world history in the field in competition with Raleigh's that
had been written since classical times. It is a curious commentary on the
life of the post-classical times and of the middle ages that between the work
of Diodorus, written just before the beginning of the Christian era, and the
work altogether similar in scope of Sir Walter Raleigh, written sixteen hun-
dred years later, there was no world history produced that is strictly compara-
ble to either. Nor did the seventeenth century produce any marked change
in the situation as regards the literature of world' history.
The true renaissance of history writing came with the eighteenth cen-
tury. About 1730 an English publisher was led to notice the paucity of
recent literature in this field, and to project a universal history of the widest
scope. Such men as Archibald Bower, John Campbell, William Guthrie,
George Sale, George Psalmanazar, and John Swinton were associated in the
undertaking, and in the course of the following twenty years a long series
of volumes dealing with all phases of universal history, except, curiously
enough, the history of Great Britain, was brought to a close. A subsequent
edition, modified and improved as regards the earlier volumes, and supple-
mented with an account of English history, was published toward the close
of the eighteenth century, the editor being the famous Dr. Tobias Smollett.
This work, the first important history of the world produced in modern
times, excited great interest. It is odd to reflect in the light of more recent
events that the work was translated into various European languages,
including German. The production of this work was a notable achieve-
ment, but the various parts of the work had widely different degrees of
merit. A competent German critic, writing about the middle of the nine-
teenth century, conceded that the parts of the universal history referring
to antiquity were fairly well done, but noted that the treatment of the
middle ages was superficial, and the treatment of modern history even worse.
Inasmuch as the history of antiquity has been very largely reconstructed
within the past fifty years, it will be obvious that the universal history in
question cannot now be regarded with other than an antiquarian interest.
Nevertheless, it contains numberless descriptive passages, which are as his-
torically accurate and as interesting to-day as they were when written.
The impulse to historical composition, of which this universal history is
a monumental proof, found expression a little later in the great histories
of Hume and Robertson and Gibbon. Thanks to these writers, England
was easily in advance of all other countries at the close of the eighteenth
century in the matter of historical composition. Indeed, as to world
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 21
•
histories she was first, without a second. Early in the nineteenth century,
however, a great world history was produced in Germany. This was the work
of Schlosser. In its earliest form this work was completed in 1824 ; it was
a strictly technical production. But about twenty years later a pupil of
Schlosser, under the direction of the author himself, elaborated a popular
edition of the world history, which soon had an enormous circulation in
Germany, and which in recurring editions still finds a multitude of readers.
This work of Schlosser's would probably have been translated into English
were it not that the field had been preoccupied by another great universal
history. This was the work which Dr. Lardner edited, and which began to
appear in 1830, about a century after the inauguration of that first universal
history in English to which we have just referred. Dr. Lardner's work, like
its English predecessor, was produced by a company of specialists; but it dif-
fered from the other in that each volume or set of volumes dealing with a
period or country was written by a specialist whose authorship was acknow-
ledged on the title-page, whereas the previous work had been altogether
anonymous. In other words, it was essentially a collection of monographs,
each by a more or less distinguished authority, which, in the aggregate, consti-
tuted a history of the world. The work as a whole comprised a large num-
ber of volumes. Needless to say the component parts were of varying merit;
but as a whole the work was an excellent one, and many of the volumes still
have value, though necessarily much of their contents is antiquated.
The production of the popular edition of Schlosser's world history in
Germany marked an epoch in this class of literature. Almost contemporane-
ously with this production several other world histories saw the light in
Germany, and from that day to this world histories have come from the
German press in unbroken succession. These are varied in scope, from the
marvellously compressed and beautifully philosophical work of Rottock in
four small volumes, published about 1830, to the gigantic Oncken series,
which is just completed. In this list of German world histories the works
of Bekker, of Leo, and of Weiss hold conspicuous places, in addition to those
just named. But perhaps the most notable of all is the world history of
Dr. George Weber. This work of Dr. Weber occupied the author during
the best years of his life. It is in eighteen volumes, and occupied about
twenty years in passing through the press. We shall have occasion to refer
more at length to Dr. Weber's work in another place, as well a8 to quote from
it frequently. Suffice it here that Dr. Weber may justly be called the Dio-
dorus of modern times, his work being certainly the most complete and com-
prehensive exposition of world history that has ever issued from a single pen.
One other world history of German origin must be mentioned as holding
a place beside that of Weber. This is the work of Ranke. It is very dif-
ferent in plan from Weber's, in some ways more philosophical, and often
less detailed in its narrative of events. The author, recognised as almost
the greatest of German historians, began the work late in life, and brought
to bear upon it perhaps as full an equipment of historical knowledge in
divers fields as any single man has ever attained. Unfortunately, he did
not live to complete his work, which, as it stands, comes only to the close
of the middle ages, and which, therefore, cannot be compared in ita entirety
with the completed work of Weber.
The most recent of all the great German world histories, the Oncken
series, just referred to, is a work built essentially upon the plan of Dr. Lard-
ner's series of the early part of the century. Each volume of the Oncken
series is written virtually as an independent work by an authority, and there
22 PROLEGOMENA
is no close bond between the various component parts of the structure,
though doubtless an attempt was made on the part of the editor to have
the various authors conform somewhat to the same scheme of treatment.
The work comprises about fifty very large octavo volumes, being therefore the
bulkiest, as it is the most recent, of world histories.
CHAPTER V
THE PRESENT HISTORY
IT is a singular fact that since the publication of Dr. Lardner's series in
the first half of the nineteenth century, no satisfactory attempt has been
made to bring the entire story of the world's history to the attention of the
English reader in a single work. While the presses of Germany have sent
out their never ending stream of world histories, the English-speaking world
has remained utterly inactive, so that until now there has been no work in
English less than half a century old that could pretend to compete with any
one of the numerous German productions. Buckle's work would, to some
extent, have supplied the deficit had he lived to complete it, yet even his
effort was aimed rather at philosophical generalisations regarding human
evolution, than at a narrative of historical events.
If we attempt to explain this paucity of literature in so fascinating a
field as that of world history, the solution is not far to seek : it is found in
the very magnitude of the task. This is the age of specialists, and just in
proportion as one appreciates the full meaning of special knowledge of any
subject in its modern interpretation, must he feel the hopelessness of attempt-
ing to gain more than a general knowledge in a variety of fields. Yet some-
thing approaching the knowledge of the specialist should be brought to bear
upon each period of history by any one who attempts to write a comprehen-
sive history of the world. It is an appreciation of this fact that has led to
the production of such a symposium as the Oncken series, just referred to,
and contrariwise, it is the appreciation of the same fact that has led to the
relative neglect of so admirable a work as that of Weber. The modern
critic is disposed to feel that the writing of a really comprehensive world
history in this age is a task beyond the capacity of any single man. When
one considers the vast amount of research work in hitherto unexplored fields
that is being carried on in every department of history, it becomes patent
that no single mind can hope to cope at first hand with the ever increasing
flood of special literature. In almost every department of history special
bibliographies have been published of late years which are utterly bewilder-
ing, even to the specialist, in the wealth of material which they reveal.
To cite but a single instance, the bibliography of early English history,
down to about the year 1485, as recently collated by Professor Gross, com-
prises a large volume of small type. It would be the work of a lifetime
for any specialist to deal, even in a cursory way, with each and every one of
the works cited in this list ; yet this is only one little corner of the field
which the world historian must cover. Obviously, then, the world historian,
if he attempt personally to construct a narrative of the entire subject, must
content himself with a more or less superficial glance at each field ; his read-
ing may indeed be wide, but it cannot by any possibility be exhaustive.
Moreover, in the nature of the case, he must often read merely to gather
material for the day's task of writing, and no matter what his memory, he
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 23
will inevitably forget the greater part of the multitudinous details that he
has dealt with. In the case of a man of such wide scholarship and such
tenacity of purpose as Dr. Weber, it must be freely admitted that a view
of the entire range of world history may be attained, which it would be
rank injustice to pronounce really superficial. Yet even such a worker as
Weber must have depended very largely upon second-hand epitomes for his
facts. He cannot have read at first hand more than a fraction of the authors
upon whom he is obliged explicitly or inferentially to pass judgment. In a
word, great as is the value of works of the class of which Weber's is the
finest example, such works must, in the very nature of the case, be content
to be ranked as more or less successful compilations, lacking the authority
which the modern critic is unwilling to vouchsafe to anything but strictly
original work, — original work, that is, in the sense of work based upon a
first-hand examination of the most remote authorities, the only sense in
which the word " original " can properly be applied to any form of historical
composition.
If we turn from world histories of the one-man type to those produced by
a symposium of specialists, we are met with a quite different, but none the
less insistent, series of inherent defects.
In the first place, the intrinsic defect of the one-man treatment is not
altogether overcome, since specialism has nowadays been carried to such a
stage that few men feel altogether at home outside a comparatively limited
period, even of the history of a single nation. If, then, one man is asked to
write the entire history of, let us say, the Greeks, he necessarily passes over
ground that his special studies have not covered uniformly, and in certain
periods he must feel himself more or less in the position of the general his-
torian. It would, of course, be possible to meet this objection by having a
sufficient number of writers, so that each limited period should be covered
by a true specialist ; but the great difficulty in such a scheme as this is the
entire lack of harmony of view that must pertain to such a work.
A glance at the Oncken series will convince any one how very difficult it
is to attain even approximately to a true perspective of world history under
the symposial plan. Thus one finds in this series, to cite but a single illustra-
tion of disproportionate treatment, that various relatively insignificant periods
of modern German history are allowed to fill bulky volumes where a true
perspective would have relegated them to mere chapters. It is only from a
very prejudiced modern standpoint that the history of Frederick II can be
thought worth greater space than the entire history of the Greek world.
Where such inconsistencies are permitted there is a danger that the alleged
world history will become rather the history of a single nation in its rela-
tions to other nations, past and present, than an impartial presentation of
the history of nations as a whole.
In the present work an attempt has been made to avoid the pitfalls of
one-man treatment on the one hand, and of ill-adjusted specialist treatment
on the other. We have made sure of presenting special knowledge by draw-
ing upon the specialists of every field, and letting them present their infor-
mation in their own words ; but, at the same time, we have attempted to
avoid the prejudiced view from which the specialist is least of all men free,
by presenting the counter views of various students wherever there is failure
of agreement among those best competent to judge.
The authorities on whom historial compositions are necessarily based, and
who in other works are merely cited by name, or at most by volume and page
reference, are here quoted in detail in their own words wherever practicable.
24 PROLEGOMENA
always with full credit to the author, and with exact reference to the work
from which the excerpt is taken. Such authorities are quoted, not merely
from histories in English, but from the entire range of historical writings
of all ages. It is hoped that few important names are overlooked. The
aggregate number of different works thus quoted (not merely cited) will be
about one thousand. These quotations vary in length from illuminative
paragraphs to excerpts of many pages, averaging perhaps about two thousand
words each. Some fifteen hundred of such extensive quotations are made
from foreign languages, and by far the greater number of these have been
translated from the originals expressly for the present work, thus represent-
ing matter never before accessible to the reader of English. The languages
represented in this list of important historical works of foreign origin include
practically all the tongues of civilised nations, ancient and modern, — Egyp-
tian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and
the entire range of European languages from Greek, Latin, and Russian to
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, and Scandinavian.
From all of these the original words of the various authors have been trans-
lated into the most literal English consistent with our idiom. It is speaking
well within bounds to assert that seldom before has so varied an exposition
of cosmopolitan thought been collected in a single work.
But these excerpts are not given as random references crowded into foot-
notes or appendices ; they are woven into the text of the consecutive story
of world history so that they themselves constitute the bulk of that story.
Thus the history of Germany is mainly told in the words of German writers,
that of France in the words of French historians. To avoid the prejudiced
national view of history, however, the story of a nation thus told by the
native historian is always subject to the corrective views of foreigners.
Thus we gain both the sympathetic and the critical points of view. When
the authorities are not agreed as to any important fact of history, or where
there are important differences of opinion in estimating the influence of a
great event or the real status of a famous character, reliance is not placed
upon the estimate of a single historian, but counterviews are quoted, even
though they may be directly contradictory, each, of course, being ascribed to
its proper source.
To give unity to these various views and to weld the entire mass of
matter into a consistent and comprehensive history of the world, original
editorial passages are everywhere freely introduced as a part of the main
narrative, forming indeed the warp of the whole, and serving to elucidate
and harmonise the views of the authorities quoted. A feature of the
original editorial matter is that it comprises, first and last, critical esti-
mates of the work of important historians of every age, informing the reader
as to the status — even to the particular prejudice and bias — of the authority
he is asked to consult. Thus the novice is everywhere placed somewhat on
a par with the special student in his estimate of the authorities. Where
conflicting views are quoted of nominally equal authority, the reader is given
data on which to base an intelligent personal opinion as to the probabilities.
Moreover, elaborate additional bibliographies of works that may advantage-
ously be consulted are everywhere given, and these in the aggregate constitute
such a critical bibliography of the entire range of historical compositions as
cannot fail to interest even the general reader.
Our method of introducing critical bibliography, and the critical selec-
tion of the excerpts themselves, make it feasible to introduce quotations, not
pnly from the latest authority in any fieldj but also from the great historians
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 25
of the past. Thus in the case of ancient history, the classical authorities
themselves are drawn upon wherever available, — Herodotus for the Persian
wars, Thucydides for the Peloponnesian wars, Xenophon for later Greek
history, Sallust, Csesar, Livy, Dionysius, Dion Cassius, Tacitus, Ammianus,
and the rest for Roman history ; and so on indefinitely. Herodotus describes
the battle of Thermopylae ; Arrian tells of the glories of Alexander; Diony-
sius relates the story of Virginia ; Polybius shows us Hannibal crossing the
Alps ; Appiari pictures the fall of Carthage ; Josephus the fall of Jerusalem ;
Zosimus the fall of Palmyra. In this way a mass of first-hand matter, much
of it hitherto absolutely inaccessible to the reader of English, and much more
only to be found in rare and costly editions, is put within the reach of the
least scholarly. But — what is most essential — such matter as this is not
merely given by itself unsupported. It is supplemented by the verdicts
of the latest investigators in the various fields covered. Thus, to cite but
a single instance, in the history of early Greece, not merely Herodotus,
Thucydides, Diodorus, Pausanias, and other ancient authorities are quoted,
but the long range of modern students as well, from Mitford, Thirlwall, and
Grote to Curtius, Bezold, Busolt, Geddes, Schliemann, Mahaffy, Bury, and in
general the latest investigators in the field of classical archaeology.
Thanks to this system of checking ancient accounts with editorial
criticism and other recent expert evidence, it is even practicable to avail
ourselves sometimes of the writings of men who are not primarily histori-
ans, but who wrote, as so many other great authors have done, most im-
portant incidental essays on historical subjects ; thus matter in the highest
degree picturesque and interesting is often presented in a manner which
the technical historian, however great his scientific authority, is seldom able
to imitate.
Another peculiar merit of this system is that it enables us to preserve
specimens of the work of a large coterie of historians, whose influence was
great and whose writings were formerly standard, but whose books, as a
whole, have been superseded by more recent works. Some of the classical
authors are cases in point. A few of these are indeed read by students in
colleges everywhere, but the great bulk of them are as utterly unknown to
the average reader as if they had never existed. Who reads Pausanias, or
Diodorus, or Polybius, or Appian, or Dion Cassius, or Dionysius, or jKlianus,
or Arrian, or Quintus Curtius, or Zosimus ? Yet these men are the only
original authorities left us in many fields of ancient history. Their works
are the sources which moderns can do little more than paraphrase in writing
of those times. Surely, then, it is worth while to go to these authors them-
selves and hear their story at first hand, applying to it the corrective judg-
ment of later criticism, rather than to depend upon the mere paraphrase of
some modern compiler.
Much the same argument applies to parts of the work of once famous
historians of more recent times : such historians as Hume, Mitford, Thirl-
wall, and a host of others. Their work, as a whole, can no longer be com-
mended to the student who is to confine himself to a single authority, for
in many parts their writings have been superseded ; yet there are other parte
of their work that are to-day as valuable as when they were written, and
it seems regrettable that a great name should drop from public recognition
merely because the sweep of progress has dethroned it from supremacy.
It is inevitable that the present should always loom large before man-
kind, and that egotism should stamp with peculiar force the importance of
the Recent. " Each generation abandon the ideas of its predecessors like
26 PROLEGOMENA
stranded ships," says Emerson. Yet it must not be forgotten that posterity
often plays strange tricks with reputations. Herodotus was held up to ridi-
cule some centuries after his death by a " False Plutarch," who is only
known now because of his attack upon the master historian, while the work
criticised, though for some generations looked on with suspicion, is as fully
appreciated, after more than two thousand years, as it can have been in the
day when it was written.
Similarly, the judgments of our own age of specialism may be reversed by
posterity ; and in any event it would be regrettable if a once important his-
torical work should be quite forgotten. Yet such a fate threatens work of
every grade. Miiller's collection of the fragments of Greek historians gives
mere bits from the writings of more than five hundred authors about whom
nothing is known — not even the exact age in which they lived — beyond
the fact that they wrote works of which these fragments are the only
mementoes. Could any page of manuscript of any one of these authors be
recovered, it would to-day be considered worth many times its weight in gold.
Precisely the same process of decay is gradually removing the evidences
of the historical labours of the writers of recent generations even now.
The multiplication of books by the printing-press makes the process a
trifle slower, perhaps ; but it is no less sure. A goodly number of works
that were famous half a century ago are now absolutely inaccessible to the
would-be purchaser : the great book markets of Paris, Berlin, and London
cannot secure or supply them. A few copies of these works are still extant
in private collections and public libraries, but the fate of these is assured.
Libraries are constructed to be burned. Some day a lick of flame will wipe
out the last copy of any work issued only in a single edition, and the author
will become thenceforth merely a name and a memory; or if, perchance,
some latter-day Suidas or Stobams has quoted a sentence from him, such
sentence will be treasured in catalogues of fragments of eighteenth and nine-
teenth century historians. For many such an author, the present work
may perform the function of Suidas or Stobaeus, for a long list of these
obsolescent writers will be found represented in our pages, — not always
preserved for their antiquarian interest indeed, but quoted in regard to
events concerning which their authority is still standard, and because it
is believed that, in the cases selected, their treatment has not been excelled
by anymore recent performance; sometimes, on the other hand, — but more
rarely, — quoted because of the quaintness of their diction, because of the
archaic cast of thought through which they reflect the spirit of their times,
or because of their sheer whimsicality.
But while emphasising the catholicity of taste that judges matter on its
own merits, excluding nothing simply because it is old, it must be emphasised
also that in the main such selection leads to the inclusion of a preponderance
of recent matter. Each generation builds upon the shoulders of the last, and
the work, as a whole, is progressive. So we go not merely to the latest
books, but also to the recent numbers of periodicals, the publications of
learned societies and the like. And to put the cap-sheaf to modernity, the
greatest living experts in each field have contributed original essays and
characterisations expounding the latest developments. These contributions,
in which master workers summarise the results of years of investigation,
will be found not the least valuable part of our work.
Most that has been said thus far has tended to emphasise the variorum
or anthological features of our work. But it must be evident that there is
another and quite different point of view from which our historical structure
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 27
may be considered. This point of view regards our history not as a com-
pilation—an anthology — but as an altogether new and original work. A
moment's consideration will show how fully justified we are in referring
to this aspect of the subject. For it is obvious to the least attentive con-
sideration that the intrinsic materials which make up the story of history
might be never so abundant, never so valuable, without in the least pre-
supposing that the history composed of them will be an artistic or valuable
work ; any more than an abundant supply of bricks, marble, and mortar
necessarily determines the building of a beautiful edifice. The materials
are, indeed, prerequisites ; but an intelligent manipulation of the materials
is at least equally essential. There must be an architect to plan the structure
as a whole, and artists and artisans to select and manipulate the materials in
accordance with the plan, or the result will be, not an edifice, but a brick-heap.
Since, then, we have dwelt at some length upon the fundamental materials
of our historical structure, it is necessary that we should be equally explicit
regarding the shaping of the architectural design — to hold to our figure —
in accordance with which the materials have been first selected, and secondly
amalgamated with other materials; — each stone not only selected of proper
quality and size, but chiselled and polished to fit its proper niche.
The simile of an architect constructing a building, cheap and trite as it
is, cannot well be dispensed with if we are to give the reader a vivid picture
of our method of construction. It must be understood that whether our
result be good or bad, there is nothing fortuitous, nothing haphazard about
it. We did not start groping blindly for material, hoping to see an artistic
structure form itself out of chaos. Our entire plan was as fully precon-
ceived as the plan of any other architect. First, the kind of structure was
determined on : in other words the scope of our subject, — world history;
the entire sweep of important human events from the earliest times to the
present day. Secondly, the approximate size of the projected structure was
determined — its ground surface, its height, its total mass ; or, speaking in
the terminology of our specific structure, the number of volumes, the size
of each volume, the total mass or number of pages involved.
Next the proportions of the structure, the number of floors and of rooms
to each floor ; the relative size and dimensions of the various departments;
or, in book terms, the proportionate number of volumes or pages to be given
to each important department of history : so many volumes to the Old
Orient ; so many to the Classical World ; so many to the Middle Ages ; so
many to the important divisions of modern history.
All this, let it be repeated, was accurately predetermined before a single
block of material was explicitly selected for the building. It does not follow
that absolutely no changes have ever been made in the original plan — no
architect perhaps ever made a building of which this was quite true ; but it
is true that the original plan was so carefully thought out, so well con-
sidered, that the changes are utterly insignificant in comparison with the
unmodified portions of the structure. This point should be emphasised
and clearly borne in mind, because upon it depends a large measure of our
confidence that we have produced a structure not without artistic and cor-
rect proportions. It was the predetermination of the proportions, and
this alone, that could control the enthusiasm of unrestrained specialism,
and keep to anything like a true historical perspective. Over and over
again it has been proved that the special worker, when he came to focus
upon a given period, was in the position of a microscopist, viewing his
wonderfully interesting microcosm. All the rest of the world shut out for
28 PROLEGOMENA
the moment, the little circle of the microscopic field, which may be in reality
one hundredth of an inch in diameter, looms before the view at an angle
which literally makes it seem to eclipse the world itself.
And so the historical delver, when he finds himself in the midst of the
literature on any period whatever — be it a mere historical mole-hill — finds
himself surrounded by a heap of literary bricks which shuts out the very
mountain ranges of history from his vision. At once he demands — feels
that he must have — space for his magnified mole-hill ; and it is only the
predetermined editorial restrictions that keep him from filling entire volumes
with fascinating stories about some petty kingdom which, from the world-
historical standpoint, is entitled to pages only. It is a conservative estimate
of the facts to assert that there is no period of our history for which ten times
the amount of material has not been garnered than could possibly be used in
extenso. The chart of the architect has lain always open upon the editorial
desk, and rule and compass have been ever ready to restrain and check the
over-enthusiasm of the worker whose zeal would otherwise lead him to present
megaliths where the specification called for, and the plan permitted, only
tiny bricks.
As to whether the plans of the architect were intrinsically good ; whether
the specification called for bricks where bricks were logically needed, and for
megaliths in their proper place — these are questions that will not be entered
on here. But a word may be permitted as to the ruling motives which have
dominated the conception, and which, it is hoped, have never been lost sight
of. These ruling motives are two : first, the hope of attaining a high stand-
ard of historical accuracy in the most critical acceptance of the term ;
secondly, the desire to retain as much as possible of human interest in the
broadest and best sense of the words. To attain the first of these ends it is
necessary to be free from prejudice, to have unflagging zeal in collecting
testimony, to have scientific and critical acumen in weighing evidence; to
attain the second end it is essential that kindred faculties should be applied
not to the facts of history but to the literary presentations of these facts,
that the good and true story may not be spoiled in the telling.
The desire to be free from all prejudice in the judgment of historical
facts is, then, the key-note of all our philosophy of historical criticism ; and
the desire to retain interest — human interest — is the key-note of our phi-
losophy of historical composition.
To attain either end, what perhaps is most required is catholicity of
sympathies. There must be no race prejudice, no national prejudice. There
must be no attempt to blacken or whiten historical characters, in correspond-
ence with the personal bias. There must be no special pleading for or
against any form of government, any racial propensity, or any individual
deed. In a word, there must be freedom from prejudice in every field, —
except indeed that prejudice in favour of the broad principles of right,
regarding which all civilised nations of every age have been in virtual agree-
ment. But the deeds, the motives, the superstitions of all times and of all
races must be viewed, so far as such a thing is possible, through the same
clear atmosphere of impartiality. As between Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew,
Hindoo, Persian, Mongul — he who would produce a world history of truly
catholic scope should have no inherent prejudice or preconception.
Equally must there be freedom from prejudice regarding various classes
of ideas. " Whatever concerns mankind is of interest to me," must be the
editorial motto. Some persons are interested only in military events, in
battles, treaties, and the like ; others care only for constitutional and
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 29
governmental affairs ; yet others think most of literature and of art, or of
science. But the editorial spirit of a world history should show a catholicity
of taste that is receptive of each and all of these. Xerxes at Thermopylae
and jEschylus writing his tragedy " The Persians " ; Alexander mourning
for Hephffistion, and Phidias building the Parthenon ; Augustus Casar dis-
puting the mastery of the world with Antony, and Dionysius telling of the
myths of early Rome ; Richard of the lion heart prosecuting a crusade, and
Dante vitalising the Italian language ; each and all of these and kindred
topics up and down the scroll of history should equally, each in proportion
to its relative influence, excite the sympathetic attention of the historian.
With the same zeal he should tell of the alleged iniquities of a Messalina or
a Catherine de' Medici and of the noble self-abnegation of a Cornelia ; of the
self-seeking of a Caesar and of the self-abnegation of a Cincinnatus or a St.
Louis. With sound common-sense for a guide, he should strive to avoid on
the one hand the over-credulity of the untrained mind, and on the other the
dogmatic scepticism that so often perverts the judgment of the specialist.
But what then, it may be asked, of the moral of our story — of our drama?
Shall we be content to present the bare facts, and leave their philosophical
interpretation to chance ? To this it may be replied, that in the minds of
most of us a profound philosophical idea is one that accords with our own
preconception ; — other views are superficial, perverse, or obviously mistaken.
Hence a wise interpreter of history will be extremely chary of putting for-
ward his own more or less dogmatic interpretations of the events he relates.
It does not follow that no opinion can ever be expressed ; indeed, a tacit
expression of opinion is implied in the selection of almost every excerpt.
But witnesses from all sides must be given an impartial hearing in any case
where a clear balance of evidence is not attainable ; and where the evidence
is demonstrative it must be presented with all fairness, and without reserva-
tion or innuendo, regardless of its apparent bearing.
Fortunately the study of world history in itself tends to make for precisely
such impartiality. He who has attentively followed the story of the rise
and fall of nations will have learned that human" nature is everywhere at its
foundation much the same; that no race, no nation, no individual even is
ideally good or totally bad ; that the Past has always been a Golden Age for
the pessimist, the Future always Utopian for the dreamer, and that a broad
optimism regarding the Present — a belief that on the whole the conditions
of any given time are about as good as the character of the time permits —
is, perhaps, the safest philosophy of living.
In the main, then, we may rest content with the conviction that, however
unobtrusive our philosophy, the great lessons of history will not fail to make
themselves felt by any attentive reader of these pages. We greatly mistake
the purport of the story if it does not on the whole make for broader views,
for truer humanitarianism, for higher morals, personal and communal ; — in
a word, for better citizenship in the fullest and broadest meaning of the term.
Indeed, to attain the plane of the best citizenship, historical studies are
absolutely essential. No one can have a competent judgment regarding
the affairs of his own country without such studies ; no one is a fair judge
of the political principles of the party he supports or of the one that ne
opposes, who has not prepared himself by a study of the political systems of
the past. " Had I begun earlier and spent thirty years in reading history,^
said Schiller, "I should be far different and a far better man than I am."
Echoing these words, we may say that the outlook for every constitutional
government would be brighter if every youth and every man who exercises
30 PROLEGOMENA
or is about to exercise the responsibilities of a voter, and every woman whose
advice aids or stimulates a father, brother, husband, or son towards the per-
formance of his civic duties, could spend not thirty years, let us say, but as
many weeks in studying the history of nations. Little fear that the student
who has got such a start as this would willingly stop there. He would have
gained enough of insight to be keenly interested, and it would require no
urging to send him on ; for the panorama of history, once we gain a little
insight into it as it unfolds before us its never ending variety of scenes, can
hardly be viewed otherwise than with unflagging interest ; unless indeed the
view is befogged by the atmosphere through which it is presented. To
prevent such befogging, — to present the story through a clear medium, —
requires only that the narrative shall be true to the facts in its presentation
of topics of renl importance. This is what we had in mind when we said
that interest — human interest — is the key-note of our philosophy of historical
composition. It is the editorial conviction that attention, based upon interest,
is the foundation of mental development. A literary work that lacks in-
terest, might, indeed, subserve a useful purpose, but the scope of its influence
is curtailed from the outset if the reader must go to it as a task and not as to
a recreation. Interest breaks down the barriers between work and play.
Interest fixes attention, and fixed attention is the basis of memorising.
Let it freely be asserted, then, that in the selection of material for our work
the principle acted on has been that, other things being equal, the best account
of any historical event is the most picturesque and entertaining account, —
for what, after all, does picturesqueness imply, except an approach to the
vivid reproduction of the actualities? Written words are intended to be
read, and any writer who, like Polybius, despises the literary graces must
expect to be despised in turn, or, at least, neglected. Properly presented, the
narrative of history should have all the breathless interest of a novel, — for
what is so fascinating as a true story from human life ? In the present work
an attempt is made to raise history towards the level of fiction in point of
interest, without sacrificing anything of scientific accuracy. No account is
given here merely because it is picturesque, to the exclusion of a truer nar-
rative ; but the preference is always given to the graphic story as against
the dull, where the two have equal authority as to matters of fact. Further
to enhance the vividness of presentation, pictures are everywhere introduced.
There are thousands of these pictures in the aggregate, drawn from the most
varied sources, and constituting, it is believed, one of the most remarkable
series of historical illustrations ever collected.
All in all, then, one might describe our intention as the desire to dramatise
the story of history, — for, again, what is dramatisation but the mimicry of
life ? Our various books and sections are the settings for the acts and scenes
of the play, and it is hoped that, with the aid of the introductions by way of
proem, and the pictures to aid the eye, the characters are made to move
across the stage before the reader with something like the vividness of living
actors. One cannot quite dare promise that there shall be no dull scenes,
but it is hoped that, in the main, the play will be found to move lightly on,
as with words spoken "trippingly upon the tongue."
In particular, it is hoped that our dramatisation of history will present
the events of the long play in something like a true perspective, the large
events looming large in our story, the lesser ones forced into the background.
As an aid to this treatment, tables of chronology are everywhere introduced
before the curtain rises, if it be permissible to hold to our metaphor. These
are virtually the lists of dramatis personse. Even the minor characters will
HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 31
be named here, though they act only as chorus, or prate a few lines in tin-
play where the chief personages will dominate the situation as they dominated
it in real life, and as they dominate it in the memory of posterity. Alexander,
Ctesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon — such figures will loom large in our drama
of history ; yet it will never be forgotten that the play is not a monologue.
The minor actors will be given a fair hearing from first to last.
It follows from this that the main story of our history has to do with
the deeds of men of action. But here at the very outset an important ques-
tion may be raised : do the deeds of men of action then, after all, constitute
the great events of history ? An affirmative answer may be given with much
confidence. Great men of action carve out the contour of history. High
culture can only rise from soil fertilised by material prosperity. The swords
of Leouidas, Themistocles, and Pausanias must prune the tree of civilisation
before the flower of Periclesian culture can bloom at Athens. There are no
names like Livy, Horace, Ovid, and Virgil in the annals of Rome before
the conquests and the carnage of Marius, Sulla, and Cicsar. But let us
hasten to add that the deeds of men of action can never be rightly under-
stood unless they are considered in relation to the intellectual and social
surroundings in which these men of action moved. In other words, the
civilisation and culture of each succeeding period cannot be ignored. It will
be found to be as fully treated here in all its phases as the limitations of
space permit. It furnishes the atmosphere everywhere for our picture, or,
if you prefer, the setting for our stage.
In a word, then, our work becomes, if its intent has been realised in actu-
ality, a Comprehensive History of Human Progress in all departments of
action and of thought, told dramatically and picturesquely, yet authorita-
tively, in the words of the great historical writers of every age. Recurring
to our metaphor, it is the book of a veritable Drama of History ; our unity
of action being Historic Truth; our unity of time, the Age of Man; our
stage, the World.
BOOK II. A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
A COMPLETE world history should, properly speaking, begin with the
creation of the world as man's habitat, and should trace every step of human
progress from the time when man first appeared on the globe. Unfortu-
nately, the knowledge of to-day does not permit us to follow this theoretical
obligation. We now know that the gaps in the history of human evolution
as accessible to us to-day, vastly exceed the recorded chapters ; that, in
short, the period with which history proper has, at present, to content itself,
is a mere moment in comparison with the vast reaches of time which, in
recognition of our ignorance, we term "prehistoric." But this recognition
of limitations of our knowledge is a quite recent growth — no older, indeed,
than a half century. Prior to 1859 the people of Christendom rested secure
in the supposition that the chronology of man's history was fully known,
from the very year of his creation. One has but to turn to the first chapter
of Genesis to find in the margin the date 4004 B.C., recorded with all confi-
dence as the year of man's first appearance on the globe. One finds there,
too, a brief but comprehensive account of the manner of his appearance, as
well as of the creation of the earth itself, his abiding-place. Until about
half a century ago, as has just been said, the peoples of our portion of the
globe rested secure in the supposition that this record and this date were a
part of our definite knowledge of man's history. Therefore, one finds the
writers of general histories of the earlier days of the nineteenth century
beginning their accounts with the creation of man, B.C. 4004, and coming on
down to date with a full and seemingly secure chronology.
Our knowledge of the world and of man's history has come on by leaps
and bounds since then, with the curious result that to-day no one thinks of
making any reference to the exact date of the beginnings of human history,
— unless, indeed, it be to remark that it probably reaches back some hundreds
of thousands of years. The historian can speak of dates anterior to 4004 B.C.,
to be sure. The Egyptologist is disposed to date the building of the Pyra-
mids a full thousand years earlier than that. And the Assyriologist is learn-
ing to speak of the state of civilisation in Chaldea some 6000 or 7000 years
B.C. with a certain measure of confidence. But he no longer thinks of these
dates as standing anywhere near the beginning of history. He knows that
man in that age, in the centres of progress, had attained a high stage of civil-
isation, and he feels sure that there were some thousands of centuries of
earlier time, during which man was slowly climbing through savagery and
barbarism, of which we have only the most fragmentary record. He does
not pretend to know anything, except by inference, of the " dawnings of
32
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 33
civilisation." Whichever way he turns in the centres of progress, such as
China, Kgypt, Chaldea, India, he finds the earliest accessible records, covering
at best a period of only eight or ten thousand years, giving evidence of a civ-
ilisation already far advanced. Of the exact origin of any one of the civili-
sations with which he deals he knows absolutely nothing. " The Creation
of Man," with its fixed chronology, is a chapter that has vanished from our
modern histories.
Nevertheless, it is important to a correct understanding of the develop-
ment of human thought, as well as of personal interest, to bear in mind the
attitude of our predecessors in the field of historical writing, regarding this
ever interesting problem of cosmogony. It was not alone the ancient He-
brews who thought that they had solved the problem. Indeed, as we shall
see, the Hebrews were rather the purveyors than the originators of the story
of cosmogony which they made current ; and every other nation, when it
had reached a certain stage of mental evolution, appears to have originated
or borrowed a set of chronicles which, as adapted to the use of each nation,
explained the creation of the earth and its human inhabitants in a way very
flattering to the self-love of the nation giving the recital. No one to-day
takes any of these recitals seriously, as a matter of course ; but, on the
other hand, they possess an abiding interest as historical documents. If for
nothing else, they have interest as illustrating the advance of human know-
ledge during the comparatively brief period since these strange recitals
found currency.
CHAPTER II
COSMOGONY — ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS AS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE
WORLD
No thinking man in any age can have failed to wonder about the origin
of the world. The answers that the ancients gave to this ever present ques-
tion were various, but they all had one quality in common, namely, extreme
vagueness. Even after men had attained a relatively high stage of civili-
sation, their ideas of the natural phenomena about them were so endued
with superstition, and so hedged about with ignorance as to the real causes,
that their explanations of cause and effect in the natural world belong to
the domain of poetry rather than to that of science. If this applies to such
phenomena as wind and clouds and rain and lightning, the manifestations
of which are constantly observed, it naturally applies with tenfold force to
the great mystery of the origin of things. Yet the human mind, childlike
in the simplicity of its questionings, demands always an answer, and accepts
the answer, if pronounced with a certain authority, in a spirit of childlike
faith. The great poets and prophets of every nation of antiquity had
supplied, each in his kind, the answers to the riddle of cosmogony, and
many of these alleged solutions have come down to us to give us an insight
into the mentality of their time. It is worth while to quote two or three of
these in brief epitome, if for nothing else, to show their similar trend, and
to emphasise their universal trait of vagueness.
Here is the cosmogonic scheme of the Phosnicians as transmitted to us
by Sanchoniathon :
" At the beginning of all things was a dark and windy air, or a breeze
of thick air and a turbid Chaos resembling Erebus ; and that these were
H. W. — Vol.. 1. 11
34 PEOLEGOMENA
unbounded, and for a long series of ages had no limit. But when this
wind became enamoured of its own first principles (the Chaos), and an
intimate union took place, that connection was called Pothos ; and this was the
beginning of the creation of all things. But it (the Chaos) knew not its own
production ; and from its embrace with the wind was generated Mot ; which
some call mud, but others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. And from
this sprung all the seed of the creation, and the generation of the universe.
" And there were certain animals without sensation, from which intelligent
animals were produced, and these were called Zophasemin, that is, beholders
of the heavens ; and they were formed in the shape of an egg : and from
Mot shone forth the sun, and the moon, and the less and the greater stars.
And when the air began to send forth life, by its fiery influence on the sea
and earth, winds were produced and clouds, and very great defluxions and
torrents of the heavenly waters. And when they were thus separated, and
carried out of their proper places by the heat of the sun, and all met again
in the air, and were dashed against each other, thunder and lightnings were
the result : and at the sound of the thunder, the before-mentioned intelligent
animals were aroused, and startled by the noise, and moved upon the earth
and in the sea, male and female."
This creation scheme of the Phoenicians has a peculiar interest for the
Western world, because of the intimate relations that existed between the
Phoenicians and the Jews. For a similar reason the ideas of the Babyloni-
ans and the Assyrians, as recorded on the so-called creation tablets exhumed
at Nineveh, have fascinated the Bible scholars.
Trending still further to the East, one finds with the Hindus a slightly
different cast of thought couched in a no less poetic diction. Thus in one
of the sacred books, Brahma, the Eternal Worker, is represented as creating
the earth while seeing his own reflection in the ocean of sw^at that had
fallen from his brow (Reclus).
The Chinese scheme of cosmogony is presented in the form of alleged
answers to questions, by Confucius. Here is a characteristic excerpt as
translated by M'Clatchie :
" At the beginning of Heaven and Earth, before chaos was divided, I
think there were only two things, Fire and Water ; and the sediment of
the water formed the Earth. When we ascend a height and look down, the
host of hills resemble the waves of the sea in appearance ; the Water just
flowed like this : I know not at what period it coagulated. At first it was
very soft, but afterward it coagulated and became hard. One asked whether
it resembled sand thrown up by the tide ? He replied, Just so : the coarsest
sediment of the Water became the Earth, and the most pure portion of the
Fire became Wind, Thunder, Lightning, Sun, and Stars.
" Being asked : From the commencement of Heaven and Earth to the
present time is not 10,000 years ; I know not how it was before that time ?
He replied, Before that there was another clear opening (i.e. another Heaven
and Earth) like the present one. Being further asked whether Heaven and
Earth cau perish altogether, he replied, They cannot : but, when mankind
totally degenerate, then the whole shall return to Chaos, and Men and things
shall all cease to exist ; and then the World shall begin again. Some one
asked how the first Man was generated ; and he replied by the transmuta-
tion of the Air ; the subtle portions of the Light and Darkness and the Five
Elements united and produced his form. The Buddhists call this transmut-
ing and generating. At present things are transmuted and generated in
abundance like lice.
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 36
" Before Chaos was divided the Light-Dark Air was mixed up and
dark, and when it divided, the centre formed an enormous and most brill-
iant opening, and the two E were established. Shaou Kang-tsee considers
129,600 years to be a Yuen (Kalpa) ; then, before this period of 129,600
years there was another opening and spreading out of the World ; and
before that again, there was another like the present ; so that, Motion and
Rest, Light and Darkness, have no beginning. As little things shadow
forth great things, this may be illustrated by the revolutions of Day and
Night. What Woo-Fung says about the Great Cessation of the entire Air,
the vast and boundless agitation of all things, the whole expanse of waters
changing position, the mountains bursting asunder, the channels being
obliterated, Men and things all coming to an end, and the ancient vestiges
all destroyed — all this refers to the utter destruction of the world by
Deluge. We frequently see, on lofty mountains, the shells of the sea-snail
and pearl-oyster, as it were generated in the middle of stones ; these stones
were (part of) the soil of the former world. The sea-snail and pearl-oyster
belong to the water ; so that that which was below changed and became
high ; that which was soft changed and became hard. This is a deep sub-
ject, and should be investigated.
" Being asked whether the multitude of things existed before Heaven
and Earth divided, he replied : There was merely the idea of each thing.
Heaven and Earth generate all things, and throughout all time, ancient and
modern, cannot be separated from all things."
It should be remarked as illustrating the difficulties of translating the
thought of one language into the words of another, that Mr. F. H. Balfour
questions certain of Canon M'Clatchie's renderings. Thus a sentence
which M'Clatchie interprets, " In the entire universe where there is no fate
there is no air, and where there is no air there is no fate," Mr. Balfour
would read instead of " fate " " mind," and instead of " air " " matter," the
sentence becoming, " In the entire universe where there is no mind there is
no matter, and where there is no matter there is no mind." Such divergent
renderings as this are to be expected in the case of any Oriental language.
It will not be forgotten how George Smith, one of the first great interpre-
ters of the Assyrian tablets, read the Hebrew story of the Garden of Eden in
the vague phrasing of the cuneiform document, where, as Menant quickly
demonstrated, the writer of the document had composed a quite different
story. This " reading into Homer that which Homer never knew " is much
too familiar a subject to require further elucidation ; but it is peculiarly
desirable to bear it in mind in dealing with the philosophical and religious
notions of any alien people.
Turning from the Orient, it is of interest to interrogate the Greek writers
as to the creation schemes that were current in classical times. In the his-
tories of Greece and Rome, we shall have occasion to examine these some-
what more in detail. For the present purpose, perhaps, an excerpt from
Diodorus, who wrote with a full knowledge both of Greek and Roman ideas
at about the beginning of our era, will be sufficiently illuminative.
Diodorus begins his history of the World with a brief account of the
current notions as to the creation. He says : " Of the origin, therefore, of
men there are two opinions amongst the most famous and authentic natural-
ists and historians. Some of these are of opinion that the world had neither
beginning nor ever shall have end, and likewise say that mankind was from
eternity and there never was a time when he first began to be. Others, on
the contrary, conceive both the world to be made, and to be corruptible.
36 PROLEGOMENA
and that there was a certain time when men had first a being; for,
whereas all things at the first were jumbled together, heaven and earth were
in one mass and had one and the same form. But afterward they say when
corporeal beings appeared one after another, the world at length presented
itself in the order we now see, and that the air was in continual agitation,
whose fiery parts ascended together to the highest place, its nature ' by rea-
son of its levity' trending always upward, for which reason both the sun
and that vast number of stars are contained within that orb ; that the gross
and earthy matter clotted together by moisture, by reason of its weight
sunk down below into which place by continually whirling about. The sea
was made of the humid, and the muddy earth of the more solid, as yet very
soft, which by degrees at first was made crusty by the heat of the sun, and
then, after the face of the earth was parched, and, as it were, fermented, the
moisture afterward in many places bubbled up, as may be seen in standing
ponds and marshy places, when, after the earth has been pierced with cold,
the air grows hot on a sudden without a gradual alteration, and whereas
moisture generates creatures from heat, things so generated by being enrapt
in the dewy mists of the night grew and increased, and in the day solidified
and were made hard by the heat of the sun, and thus the forms of all sorts
of living creatures were brought forth into the light, and those that had
most heat mounted aloft, and were fowls and birds of the air, but those that
had more of earth were numbered in the order of creeping things and other
creatures altogether suited to the earth. Then those beasts that were natu-
rally watery and moist, called fishes, presently hastened to the place natural
to them ; and when the earth afterward became more dry and solid by the
heat of the sun and the drying winds, it had not power at length to produce
any more of the greater living creatures. And Euripides, the pupil of
Anaxagoras, seems to be of the same opinion concerning the first generation
of all things, for in his Menilippe he has these verses :
" ' A mass confused
Heaven and Earth once were
Of one form ; but after separation
Then men, trees, beasts of the earth with fowls of the air
First sprang up in a generation.'
" But if this power of the earth to produce living creatures at the first
origin of all things seem incredible to any, the Egyptians bring testimonies
of this energy of the earth by the same things done there at this day ; for
they say that about Thebes in Egypt, after the overflowing of the river
Nile, the earth thereby being covered by mud and slime, many places pu-
trefy by the heat of the sun, and thence are bred multitudes of mice. It is
certain, therefore, that out of the earth when it is hardened, and the air
changed from its dew and natural temperament, animals are generated, by
which means it came to pass that in the first beginning of all things various
living creatures proceeded from the earth. And these are the opinions
touching the original of all things."
It would be difficult to say to what extent this Greek conception of crea-
tion had its origin in, or was influenced by, Oriental conception. Certainly
the resemblance between this description and the Mosaic accounts, as con-
tained in the first two chapters of Genesis, is noteworthy. Quite probably
the ideas of both Hebrews and Greeks had been moulded to some extent in
the pattern of Egyptian thought. Be that as it may, it was the scheme of
cosmogony expressed in the Hebrew legends that was to become dominant
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 37
in post-classical times, and to rule unchallenged in the Western world for
more than a thousand years. Indeed, this estimate of the time of real
supremacy of the Hebrew thought is much too low ; for that thought, though
challenged as to some of its features by the science of the Renaissance which
ushered in the period of modern history, was none the less to retain its
hold upon the thoughts of men, but little abated in force, for another half
millennium.
Not till well toward the close of the eighteenth century was an attempt
made to substitute a scientific guess at the riddle of creation for the old
poetic ones, and yet another century elapsed before the new explanations
availed fully to supplant the old ones. It was Laplace, the great French
mathematician, who elaborated toward the close of the eighteenth century a
so-called nebular hypothesis, which may fairly be considered the first meas-
urably scientific attempt ever made to explain the origin of the world.
The hypothesis conceives that, at a time indefinitely remote, the entire solar
system and space far beyond it was filled with a " fire mist," consisting of
the material in a gaseous state which now forms the sun and planets. This
gaseous body, contracting through loss of heat, and rotating on its axis,
left behind from time to time, successive rings of its own substance, that,
consolidating, became the planets ; the remaining core of substance contract-
ing finally to constitute the body that we call the sun.
Nineteenth century science elaborated, without essentially modifying, this
nebular hypothesis. Elaborate attempts have been made by Dr. Croll and
by Sir Norman Lockyer to explain the origin of the " fire mist " itself, from
which per hypothesis our solar system and an infinity of like stellar systems
were formed. The meteoritic hypothesis of Lockyer supposes that the pri-
meval fire mist was due to the collision of swarms of meteors ; Croll's theory
postulates the smashing together of dark stars : but the two theories are
essentially identical in their main thought, which is, that previously solidified
bodies of the universe are made gaseous through mutual impact, thus afford-
ing material for the operation of those changes outlined in the nebular hy-
pothesis of Laplace. True or false, this hypothesis stands to-day as the
expression of the profoundest cosmogonic scientific guess that modern thought
has been able to substitute for the poetic guesses of antiquity.
As to the creation of the living things on the globe, including man,
the Oriental idea, which amounted to no explanation at all, but was rather
the hiding of utter ignorance behind a screen of positive assertion, has been
supplanted in the latter part of the nineteenth century by the scientific
explanations of the evolutionists. The theory of evolution, as first formu-
lated in anything like scientific terms, about the close of the eighteenth cen-
tury, by the elder Darwin, the poet Goethe, and the French philosophical
zoologist Lamarck, and as given such amazing fertility by Darwin's Theory
of Natural Selection in 1859, has taken full possession of the field as an
explanation of the development of man through a series of lower organisms.
But it must not be forgotten that this theory, with all of its revolutionary
implications, does not as yet explain in clear scientific terms the origin of
that lowliest organism which is the first in its series of living beings. It is
for the science of the future to take this remaining step. Meantime, the
developmental theory of to-day suffices to substitute in precise terms a
scientific explanation of the origin of man for the vagaries of the old-time
dreamers ; and the more daring thinkers feel that the gap between the in-
organic world and the lowest of man's ancestors is not an impassable barrier
to the application of a theory of universal evolution.
38 PROLEGOMENA
CHAPTER III
COSMOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY — ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS
THE vague notions of the ancients as to the origin of the world were
inseparably linked with their restricted notions as to the present status of
the world itself.
It is curious to reflect how small a portion of the habitable globe was the
theatre of all those human activities, the record of which constitutes ancient
history. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, Greece, and Italy taken as a whole
constitute but a small patch of territory encircling the Mediterranean Sea.
Persia and India, stretching away to the East, lay vaguely at the confines of
the world as conceived even in relatively late classical times. From a very
early day, doubtless, there had been intercommunication between India and
the West. Nevertheless, the conquest of Alexander was regarded as ex-
tending into regions hitherto utterly unknown, and as opening up a new
world to Greek thought. Similarly two centuries later, Csesar's invasion of
Britain brought regions to the attention of the geographer concerning which
only the vaguest notions had been current.
Spain had long been known through the explorations and commercial
enterprises of the Phoanicians and Greeks, and when it became a part of
Roman territory, it was as familiarly known as Gaul or Britain. But these
bounds, India on the east, Britain at the north, Spain in the west, and
Upper Egypt toward the equator were the limits of the known world as
understood by the classical mind. The vague traditions probably based on
fact, as recorded by Herodotus, that a company of Phrenicians had sailed
out of the Red Sea and gone by water about all the southern continent, to
reappear from the west by way of the pillars of Hercules — or present
Gibraltar, — served to give support to the theory that all the continental
mass was encompassed in a universal sea, rather than to extend geographical
knowledge in any precise sense.
Considering, then, the limitations of ancient geographical knowledge, it
is wonderful how clear, precise, and correct an idea as to the shape, and even
in a general way, as to the size, of the earth were attained by the classical
geographers. To be sure, the Oriental thinkers applied the same poetical
conceptions to cosmology that dominated them in other fields. The Hindu
conceived the world as resting on the back of a mammoth elephant, which
stood in turn on the back of a tortoise, and was transported thus across a
boundless sea of milk. Greek mythology gives us the familiar picture of
a human giant, Atlas, supporting the world. But such poetic conceptions as
these, whatever their force may once have been with the Greeks, had been
supplanted before the close of the classical epoch by ideas of a strictly scien-
tific nature.
Not long after the beginning of the Christian era there lived a Greek
named Strabo, whose status as a truly scientific geographer is gladly ac-
knowledged to-day. Strabo's remarks on cosmology may well be quoted
here as showing the heights to which the science of geography had attained
among the Greeks. Making due allowance for the changed phraseology of
another age, these are such things as might be said by a geographer of to-day,
yet they were written over two thousand years ago :
" We have treated these subjects at length in the first Book of the
Geography. At present we shall make a few remarks on the operations of
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 39
nature and of Providence conjointly. On the operations of nature, that all
things converge to a point, namely, the centre of the whole, and assume a
spherical shape around it. The earth is the densest body and nearer the
centre than all others : the less dense and next to it is water : but both land
and water are spheres, the first solid, the second hollow, containing this
earth within it. On the operations of Providence, that it has exercised a
will, is disposed to variety, and is the artificer of innumerable works. In
the first rank, as greatly surpassing all the rest is the generation of animals,
of which the most excellent are gods and man, for whose sake the rest were
formed. To the gods Providence assigned heaven ; and the earth to men :
the extreme parts of the world ; for the extreme parts of the sphere are the
centre and the circumference. But since water encompasses the earth, and
man is not an aquatic, but a land animal, living in the air, and requiring
much light, Providence formed many eminences and cavities in the earth, so
that these cavities should receive the whole or a great part of the water
which covers the land beneath it ; and that the eminences should rise and
conceal the water beneath them, except as much as was necessary for the
use of the human race and the animals and plants about it.
" But as all things are in constant motion, and undergo great changes
(for it is not possible that such things of such a nature, so numerous and vast,
could be otherwise regulated in the world), we must not suppose the earth
or the water always to continue in this state, so as to retain perpetually the
same bulk, without increase or diminution, or that each preserves the same
fixed place, particularly as the reciprocal change of one into the other is
most consonant to nature from their proximity ; but that much of the land
is changed into water, and a great portion of water becomes land, just as
we observe great differences in the earth itself. For one kind of earth
crumbles easily, another is solid and rocky, and contains iron ; and so of
others. There is also a variety in the quality of water ; for some waters
are saline, others sweet and potable, others medicinal, and either salutary
or noxious ; others cold or hot. Is it therefore surprising that some parts
of the earth which are now inhabited should formerly have been occupied
by sea, and that what are now seas should formerly have been inhabited
land ? So also fountains once existing have failed and others have burst
forth ; and similarly in the case of rivers and lakes ; again, mountains and
plains have been converted reciprocally one into the other. On this subject
I have spoken before at length, and now let this be said :
"Geometry and astronomy, as we before remarked, seem absolutely
indispensable in this science. This in fact is evident, that without some
such assistance, it would be impossible to be accurately acquainted with the
configuration of the earth ; its climate, dimensions, and the like information.
" As the size of the earth has been demonstrated by other writers, we shall
here take for granted and receive as accurate what they have advanced.
We shall also assume that the earth is spheroidal, that its surface is likewise
spheroidal, and above all, that bodies have a tendency toward its centre,
which later point is clear to the perception of the most average understand-
ing. However, we may show summarily that the earth is spheroidal, from
the consideration that all things however distant tend to its centre, and that
everybody is attracted toward its centre of gravity ; this is more distinctly
proved from observations of the sea and sky, for here the evidence of the
senses, and common observation is alone requisite. The convexity of the
sea is a further proof of this to those who have sailed ; for they cannot per-
ceive lights at a distance when placed at the same level as their eyes, but if
40 PROLEGOMENA
raised on high, they at once become perceptible to vision, though at the
same time farther removed. So, when the eye is raised, it sees what before
was utterly imperceptible. Homer speaks of this when he says :
" ' Lifted up on the vast wave he quickly beheld afar.' Sailors, as they
approach their destination, behold the shore continually raising itself to
their view ; and objects which had at first seemed low, begin to elevate
themselves. Our gnomons, also, are, among other things, evidence of the
revolution of the heavenly bodies ; and common sense at once shows us, that
if the depth of the earth were infinite, such a revolution could not take place."
It is astounding in the light of present-day knowledge to reflect that
such correct and scientific views as to the form of the earth were subordi-
nated, and, at last, almost entirely supplanted, by the curiously faulty con-
ceptions of the Oriental dreamers. A chance phrase of the Hebrew writings
refers to the corners of the earth, and this sufficed to promulgate a false
conception of cosmology, which dominated the world for a millennium. The
old Greek conception never quite died out, as the faith of Columbus showed,
but it was so crushed beneath the weight of ecclesiastical authority, that it
maintained existence only with here and there a nonconformist to the ideas of
his time ; and when Columbus and Magellan had demonstrated the falsity
of the Oriental conception, and Copernicus and Galileo had further revolu-
tionised the Hebrew conception, the advocates of the false view fought tooth
and nail for a conception which had come to be intimately associated with
those religious tenets which, to them, were more sacred than life itself.
Truth prevailed in the end, of course ; but it was not till well into the
nineteenth century that the chief supporters of the old Hebrew cosmology
officially abandoned their position, and admitted that the world is round, and
is not the centre of the universe.
CHAPTER IV
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE EARTH AND OF MAN
GENERALLY speaking, the old-time nations rejoiced in their alleged
antiquity. Notions as to exact chronology for long periods of time were
practically non-existent. A full sense of the value of chronology as the
foundation stone of history was only acquired in relatively modern times.
The figures that the ancients used in referring to their national existence
were very sweeping, and suffered from the same defects of vagueness that
characterise their other thoughts.
Herodotus, basing his belief on what he learned in Egypt, ascribed to
the Egyptians a national existence of thirteen thousand years. Diodorus
extends this period to twenty-three thousand, and some other reports current
in classical times increase the figures by yet another ten thousand. Even
this is a meagre period compared with the claims made by the Babylonians,
who number the years of their own nation in hundreds of thousands ; and
it is said that the Chinese, in computing their own history, do not stop short
of millions of years.
The Babylonians were the astronomers of antiquity, and doubtless the
less scientific Greeks regarded their knowledge of the stars as something
quite occult, and were ready to believe almost any chronological statement
that the Babylonians put forward. The Romans, indeed, practical people
that they always were in the day of their prime, were disposed to look witli
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 41
more of scepticism upon such claims. Cicero announces himself as distinctly
sceptical regarding the allegation that the Babylonian records extend over a
period of two hundred and seventy thousand years. His scepticism, how-
ever, was probably based rather upon a shrewd common-sense estimate of
human affairs than upon any preconception as to the antiquity of man. In
a word, the ancients as a class had no fear of time, and most of them had no
religious or other preconception that limited their estimate as to the age of
a nation or the exact age of the world itself. The latter-day Hebrew was an
exception to this rule. He came at last to look upon the vague historical
records of his people as sacred books, inspired in their every word, and
detailing among other things the exact genealogy of the leaders of his race
from the creation to his own time. It is not, indeed, probable that the
ancient Hebrew made any great point of the exact period of time compassed
by his records, since, as has been said, questions of exact chronology
entered but little into the thoughts of man in that day ; but in a more
recent time students of Hebrew records have attempted to ascertain the
exact age of the earth and the exact period of human existence by aggregat-
ing the various disconnected records of the Hebrew scriptures, long after
the modern historical method had been applied acutely to all other accessible
writings of antiquity.
These writings of the Hebrews were held to constitute a class apart, and
were looked to as having an authenticity not to be claimed by any other
ancient documents ; and while no two scholars of authority, making indepen-
dent computations, were ever able to agree as to the exact facts connoted by
the Hebrew chronology, yet none the less, each prominent investigator clung
with full faith to his own estimate, and several of them found schools of fol-
lowers who battled as eagerly as the masters themselves for the exact dates
they believed to be represented by the vague Hebrew estimates. Generally
speaking, these estimates ascribe the creation of the world and of man to a
period about four thousand years before the Christian era ; the year of the
Deluge, which was supposed to have engulfed all the inhabitants of the earth
except a single family, being variously estimated between the years 3200
and 2300 B.C. That some such figures as these represented the truth regard-
ing a period of man's residence here on the earth came to be accepted
throughout Christendom as an article of fai£h, to question which was a rank
heresy.
The larger figures which the Greeks, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and
other nations had employed came to be regarded as absurd guesses, which it
were a sacrilege to countenance now that the truth was known ; and yet, as
every one nowadays knows, these larger figures, vague guesses though they
were, approach much nearer to the actual truth than the restricted numbers
that supplanted them.
The changed point of view with which the modern historian regards the
ancient chronology has been attained through a process of scientific develop-
ment extending over about a century. A truer knowledge of the cosmic
scheme did not bring with it as a necessary counterpart the correct concep-
tion as to the length of time that this scheme had been in operation.
Laplace, in formulating his nebular hypothesis, had nothing definite to
say as to the length of time required for its development, and there was
nothing in his computation to throw any light whatever upon the antiquity
of the earth as a habitable sphere.
Cuvier, the great contemporary of Laplace, no doubt accepted the nebular
hypothesis as a valid explanation of the origin of the world, but he held to
42 PROLEGOMENA
the conception of about six thousand years for the age of man as rigidly as
did any Middle Age monk. Cuvier was the first to demonstrate that certain
fossil skeletons belonged to no existing species of animal. In other words,
he believed that races of great beasts had once inhabited the earth, but no
longer have living representatives. This, however, did not suggest to him
that the earth had long been peopled, but only went to show, as he believed,
that a great catastrophe, as the universal flood was supposed to have been,
had actually taken place. It remained for Charles Lyell, the famous English
geologist, working along the lines first suggested by another great Eng-
lishman, James Hutton, to prove that the successive populations of the earth,
whose remains are found in fossil beds, had lived for enormous periods of
time, and had supplanted one another on the earth, not through any sudden
catastrophe, but by slow processes of the natural development and decay of
different kinds of beings.
Following the demonstrations of Lyell there came about a sudden change
of belief among geologists as to the age of the earth, until, in our day, the
period during which the earth has been inhabited by one kind of creature
and another is computed, not by specific thousands, but by vague hundreds
of thousands or even millions of years.
The last refuge for champions of the old chronology was found in the
claim that man himself had been but about six thousand years upon the
earth, whatever might be true of his non-human forerunners. But even
this claim had presently to be abandoned when the researches of the paleon-
tologists had been directed to the subject of fossil man.
The researches of Schmerling, of Boucher de Perth, of Lyell himself, and
of a host of later workers demonstrated that fossil remains of man were
found commingled in embedded strata and in cave bottoms under conditions
that demonstrated their extreme antiquity ; and in the course of the quarter
century after 1865, in which year Lyell had published his epoch-marking
work on the antiquity of man, the new idea had made a complete conquest,
until now no one any more thinks of disputing the extreme antiquity of man
than he thinks of questioning the great age of the earth itself. To be sure,
no one pretends any longer to put a precise date upon man's first appearance.
The new figures take on something of the vagueness that characterise the esti-
mates of the Babylonians ; but it is accepted as clearly proven that the racial
age of man is at least to be numbered in tens of thousands of years. The
only clues at present accessible that tend to give anything like definiteness
to the computations are the researches of Egyptologists and Assyriologists.
In Egypt remains are found, as we shall see, which carry the history of
civilisation back to something like 5000 B.C., and in Mesopotamia the latest
finds are believed to extend the record by yet another two thousand years.
Man then existed in a state of high civilisation at a period antedating the
Christian era by about twice the length of time formerly admitted for the
age of earth itself.
How much more ancient the remains of barbaric man, as preserved in the
oldest caves, may be, it would be but vague guess work and serve no useful
purpose, to attempt to estimate. History proper, as usually conceived, is
concerned only with the doings of civilised man ; and, indeed, in one sense,
such a restricted view is absolutely forced upon the historian, for it is only
civilised man who is able to produce records that are preserved through the
ages in such manner as to tell a connected story to after generations. The
arrow-heads and charred sticks of the stone age of man are indeed proofs
that this man existed, and that he led his certain manner of life, some clear
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 43
intimations as to which are given by these momentoes ; but they point to
no path by which we may hope to follow the precise history of those suc-
ceeding generations by which the man of the stone age was connected with,
for example, the builder of the Egyptian Pyramids. We can, indeed, trace
in general terms the course of human progress. We know that from using
rough stone implements chipped into shape, man came finally to acquire the
art of polishing stones by friction, thus making more finished implements.
We know that later on he learned to smelt metals, marvellous achievement
that it was ; and when this had been accomplished, we may suppose that he
pretty rapidly developed cognate arts that led to higher civilisation.
Reasoning from this knowledge, we speak of the palaeolithic or rough
stone age, of the neolithic or polished stone age, of the age of bronze, and
finally of the age of iron, as representing great epochs in human progress.
But it is only in the vaguest terms that we can connect one of these ages with
another, and any attempt at a definite chronology in relation to them utterly
fails us. This would not so much matter if we were sure in any given case
that we were tracing the history of the same individual race through the suc-
cessive periods; but, in point of fact, no such unity of race can be predicated.
There is every reason to believe that each and every race that ever attained
to higher civilisation passed through these various stages, but the familiar
examples of the American Indians, who were in the rough stone age when
their continent was discovered by Columbus, and of the African and
Australian races, who, even now, have advanced no farther, illustrate the
fact that different races have passed through these various stages of develop-
ment in widely separated periods of time, and take away all certainty from
any attempts to compute exact chronologies.
CHAPTER V
THE RACES OF MAN AND THE ARYAN QUESTION
THE question of races of mankind is one that has given rise to great
diversity of opinion among scientists and students of ethnology, and it may
as well be admitted at the outset that no very definite conclusions have as
yet been arrived at. One set of ethnologists have been disposed to look to
physical characters as the basis of a classification ; others have been guided
more by language. In the earlier stages of the inquiry the Biblical tradi-
tions have entered into the case with prejudicial effect, and with the ad-
vances of science this subject as a whole has seemed to grow more confused
rather than clearer. For a time there was a certain unanimity in regarding
the Egyptians and their allies as Karaites, the Babylonians, Hebrews, Phoe-
nicians, and their allies as Semites, and in bringing all other non-Aryan
races into a conglomerate class under the title of Turanians. Latterly, how-
ever, the artificial character of such a classification as this has been more
and more apparent, and a growing belief tends to consider all the peoples
grouped about the Mediterranean as forming a single race, including within
that race, as is apparent, members of the old races of Hamites, Semites, and
Aryans. Yet another classification would group the peoples of the earth
according to their several stages of civilisation. But, without attempting a
complete enumeration of all the various systems that have been suggested,
one may summarise them all by repeating that there is no complete uni
formity of classification accepted by all authoritative students of the subject.
44 PROLEGOMENA
Here as elsewhere, however, there is a tendency for old systems and old
names to maintain their hold, and notwithstanding the disavowals of the
most recent schools of ethnology, the classification into Karaites, Semites,
Aryans, and Turanians is doubtless the one that has still the widest vogue.
In particular the Aryan race, to which all modern European races belong,
has seemed more and more to make good its claims to recognition. Thanks
to the relatively new science of comparative philology, it has been shown,
and has now come to be familiarly understood, that the languages of the
Hindu and the Persian in the far East are based upon the same principles
of phonation as the Greek and Latin and their daughter languages, and the
language of the great Teutonic race.
It is this affinity of languages that is the one defining feature of the
Aryan race. Since historical studies have made it more and more plain that
a nation in its wanderings, whether as a conquering or a conquered people,
may adopt the language of another nation, it has become clear that a classi-
fication of mankind based on ethnic features would have no necessary cor-
respondence with a classification based upon language. The philologists,
therefore, who cling to the word " Aryan," or to the idea which it connotes,
have latterly been disposed to urge, as for example Professor Max Miiller
does in the most strenuous terms, that in contending for an Aryan race they
refer solely to a set of people speaking the Aryan language, quite regardless
of the physical affinities of these people. And it is in this sense of the word,
and this alone, that the dark-skinned race of India is to be considered brother
to the fair-skinned Scandinavian ; that, in short, all the nations of modern
Europe and the classical nations of antiquity are to be jumbled together in
an arbitrary union with the people of far-off Persia and India.
While this classification establishing an Aryan race on the basis of lan-
guage has the support of all philologists, and, indeed, is susceptible of the
readiest verification, there is a growing tendency to frown upon the use of
the word " Aryan " itself. The word came into vogue at a time when it
was supposed on all hands that the original home of the people to whom
it was applied was Central Asia ; that this was the cradle of the Aryan race
was long accepted quite as a matter of course — hence the general accept-
ance of the name. But, in the course of the last century, the supposed fact
of the Asiatic origin of the Aryans has been placed in dispute, and there is
a seemingly growing school of students, who, basing their claims on the
evidence of philology, are disposed to believe that the cradle of this race —
if race it be — was not Central Asia, but perhaps Western or Northwestern
Europe. We must not pause to discuss the evidence for this new view here;
suffice it that the evidence seems highly suggestive, if not conclusive.
To many philologists, including some who still hold that the probabilities
favour an Asiatic origin of the race, it now seems advisable to adopt a name
of less doubtful import, and of late it has become quite usual to substitute
for the word " Aryan " the compound word " Indo-European," or, what is
perhaps better, "Indo-Germanic." Such a word, it is clear, summarises the
fact that the Indians in the far East and the Germanic race in the far West
have a language that is fundamentally the same, without connoting any
theory whatever as to the origin or other relations of these widely scattered
peoples. The name thus has an undoubted scientific status that makes it
attractive, but nevertheless it is too cumbersome to be accepted at once as
a substitute for the word "Aryan" in ordinary usage. Nor, indeed does there
seem to be any good reason why such substitution should be made. Words
very generally come in the course of time to have an application which their
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 45
original derivation would not at all justify, and there is no more reason for
ruling out the word " Aryan," even should it be proven absolutely that Asia
was not the original cradle of the Indo-Germanic race, than there would be
for discarding a very large number of words of Greek and Latin derivation
that are familiarly employed in the various modern European languages.
Indeed, it may be taken for granted that the generality of people to whom
the word " Aryan " is familiar have no such preconception aroused in their
minds by the word as it conveys to the mind of special scholars, and in any
event where a distinct disavowal is made of any ethnological preconceptions
in connection with the word, one is surely justified for convenience sake in
continuing to use the word "Aryan" as a synonym for the more complicated
term "Inao-Germanic."
CHAPTER VI
ON PREHISTORIC CULTURK
IT has been said that history proper is usually regarded as having to do
solely with the deeds of civilised man, but in point of fact the scope of his-
tory as written at the present day necessarily falls far short of comprehend-
ing the entire history of civilisation. Before the dawn of recorded history
man had evolved to a stage in which the greater number of the greatest arts
had been attained. That is to say, he was possessed of articulate language.
He had learned to clothe and to house himself. He knew the use of fire. He
could manufacture implements of war and of peace. He had surrounded
himself with domesticated animals. He added to his food supply by prac-
tising agriculture. He had established systems of government. He knew
how to embellish his surroundings by the practice of painting and of decora-
tive architecture, and last, and perhaps greatest, he had invented the art of
writing, and carried it far toward perfection.
With the development of these arts history proper is not concerned, but
this is not because the development of these arts would not constitute true
history if its course were known, but simply because of our entire ignorance
of all details of the subject.
In order to gain a clearer idea, however, of the status of human culture
at the dawn of history proper, it may be worth while to glance in the most
cursory way at each of the great inventions and developments upon which
the entire structure of civilisation depends.
First. Language.
Perhaps the greatest single step ever made in the history of man's upward
progress was taken when the practice of articulate speech began. It would
be contrary to all that we know of human evolution to suppose that this
development was a sudden one, or that it transformed a non-human into a
human species at a sudden vault. It is well known that many of the lower
animals are able to communicate with one another in a way that implies at
least a vague form of speech, and it has been questioned whether the higher
species of apes do not actually articulate in a way strictly comparable to the
vocalisation of man. Be that as it may, the clear fact remains that one spe-
cies of animal did at a very remote time in the past develop the power of
vocalisation in the direction of articulate speech to a degree that in coure
of time broadened the gap between that species and all others, till it became
an impassable chasm.
46 PROLEGOMENA
Without language of an explicit kind not even the rudiments of civili-
sation would be possible. No one perhaps ever epitomised the value of
articulate speech in a single phrase more tellingly than does Herder when
he says : " The lyre of Amphion has not built cities. No magic wand has
transformed deserts into gardens. Language has done it, — that great source
of sociality."
Obviously, then, could we know the history of the evolution of articulate
speech it would be one of the very greatest chapters in all human records ;
but it is equally obvious that we can never hope to know that history except
inferentially. When the dawn of history proper came, man had so long
practised speaking that he had developed countless languages so widely
divergent from one another that they are easily classified into several great
types. From the study of these languages the philologist draws more or
less valid inferences as to the later stages of linguistic growth and develop-
ment. But he gains no inklings whatever as to any of those earlier devel-
opments which constituted the origin or the creation of language.
Second. Clothing and Housing of Prehistoric Man.
Nothing is more surprising to the student of antiquity than to find at
what seems the very beginning of civilisation such monuments as the Pyra-
mids and the great sculptures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. But a moment's
reflection makes it clear that man must have learned to house himself, as
well as to clothe himself, before he can have started on that tour of conquest of
the world which was so far advanced before the dawn of history. Doubt-
less the original home of man must have been in a tropical or subtropical
climate, and he cannot well have left these pampering regions until he had
made a considerable development, almost the first step of which required
that he should gain the means of protecting himself from the cold. The
idea of such protection once acquired, its elaboration was but a question of
time. It is amazing to observe how closely, both as regards attire and build-
ing, man had approximated to the modern standards at the time when he
first produced monumental or other records that have come down to us.
Third. The Use of Fire.
Quite as fundamental as the matter of housing and clothing, and even
more marvellous, considered as an invention, was the recognition of the
uses of fire, and the development of the methods of producing fire at will.
It is conceivable that some individual man at a relatively early stage of
human progress developed and elaborated this idea, becoming the actual
inventor of fire as applied to human uses. If such was really the case, no
greater inventor ever lived. But the wildest flight of speculative imagina-
tion does not suffice to suggest where or when this man may have lived. It
cannot well be doubted, however, that the use of fire must have been well
known to the earliest generations of men that attempted to wander far from
the tropics. Clothed, housed, and provided with fire, man was able to
undertake the conquest of all regions, but without fire he dare not have
braved the winters even of the middle latitudes, to say nothing of Arctic
regions.
No doubt the earliest method of producing fire practically employed was
by friction of dry sticks, much after the manner still in use among certain
savage tribes. Obviously the flint and steel, which for so many thousands
of years was to be the sole practical means of producing fire among the civ-
ilised races, could not have come into vogue until the age of iron. The
lucifer match, which was finally to banish flint and steel, was an invention
of the nineteenth century.
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 47
Fourth. Implements of Peace and War.
A gigantic bound was made when man first learned to use a club habitu-
ally, and doubtless the transition from a club to a mechanically pointed spear
constituted a journey as long and as hard as the evolution from the spear to
the modern repeating rifle. But before the dawn of history there had been
evolved from the club the battle-axe of metal, and from the crude spear the
metal-pointed javelin, the arrow, the sword, and the dagger ; the bow, too,
of which the arrow was the complement, had long been perfected, and from
it had evolved various other implements of warfare, culminating in the
gigantic battering-ram.
Of implements of a more pacific character, boats of various types fur-
nished means of transportation on the water, and wagons with wheel and
axle, acting on precisely the same principle which is still employed, had been
perfected, both of these being used in certain of their types for purposes of
war as well as in the arts of peace. Manufacture included necessarily the
making of materials for clothing from an early stage, and this had advanced
from the crude art of dressing skins to the weaving of woollen fabrics and
fine linens that would bear comparison with the products of the modern loom.
Stones were shaped and bricks made as materials for building. The princi-
ple of the pulley was well understood as an aid to human strength ; and the
potter's wheel, with which various household utensils were shaped, was
absurdly like the ones that are still used for a like purpose. In all of these
arts of manufacture, indeed, a degree of perfection had been attained upon
which there was to be singularly little advance for some thousands of years.
It was not until well toward the close of the eighteenth century that the
series of great mechanical advances began with the application of steam to
the propulsion of machinery, which has revolutionised manufacture and for the
first time made a radical change from the systems of transportation that
were in vogue before the dawn of history ; and it was only a few centuries
earlier that the invention of gunpowder metamorphosed the methods of war-
fare that had been in vogue for a like period.
Fifth. The Domestication of Animals.
It is not difficult, if one considers the matter attentively, to imagine how
revolutionary must have been the effect of the domestication of animals.
Primitive man can at first have had no idea of the possible utility of the
animals about him, except as objects of pursuit ; but doubtless at a very
early stage it became customary for children to tame, or attempt to tame,
such animals as wolves, foxes, and cats of various tribes when taken young,
much as children of to-day enjoy doing the same thing. This more readily
led to the early domestication or half-domestication of such animals as that
species of wolf from which the various races of dogs sprang. It is held
that the dog was the first animal to become truly domesticated. Obviously
this animal could be of advantage to man in the chase, even in very early
stages of human evolution ; and it is quite possible that a long series of gen-
erations may have elapsed before any animal was added to the list of man's
companions. But the great step was taken when herbivorous animals, use-
ful not for the chase, but as supplying milk and flesh for food, were made
tributary to the use of man. From that day man was no longer a mere
hunter and fisher ; he became a herdsman, and in the fact of entering upon
a pastoral life, he had placed his foot firmly on the first rung of the ladder
of civilisation. An obvious change became necessary in the life of pastoral
people. They could still remain nomads, to be sure, but their wanderings
were restricted by a new factor. They must go where food could be found
48 PROLEGOMENA.
for their herds. Moreover, economic features of vast importance were
introduced in the fact that the herds of a people became a natural prey of
less civilised peoples of the same region. It became necessary, therefore, to
make provision for the protection of the herds, and in so doing an in-
creased feeling of communal unity was necessarily engendered. Hitherto
we may suppose that a single family might live by itself without greatly
encountering interference from other families. So long as game was abun-
dant, and equally open to the pursuit of all, there would seem to be no
reason why one family should systematically interfere with another, except
in individual instances where quarrels of a strictly personal nature had
arisen. But the pastoral life introduced an element of contention that must
necessarily have led to the perpetual danger of warfare, and concomitantly
to the growing necessity for such aggregate action on the part of numerous
families as constituted the essentials of a primitive government. It is curi-
ous to reflect on these two opposite results that must have grown almost
directly from the introduction of the custom of domesticating food animals.
On the one hand, the growth of the spirit of war between tribes ; on the
other, the development of the spirit of tribal unity, the germs of nationality.
Much thought has been given by naturalists to the exact origin of the
various races of domesticated animals. Speaking in general terms, it may
be said that Asia is the great original home of domesticated animals as a
class. Possibly the dog may be the descendant of some European wolf, and
he had perhaps become the companion of man before that great hypotheti-
cal eastward migration of the Aryans took place, which the modern ethnol-
ogist believes to have preceded the Asiatic settlement of that race. The
cat also may not unlikely be a descendant of the European wild cat, but
the sheep, the cow, the donkey, and the horse, as well as the barnyard fowl,
are almost unquestionably of Asiatic origin. Of these the horse was prob-
ably the last to be domesticated, since we find that the Egyptians did not
employ this animal until a relatively late stage of the historic period,
namely, about the twentieth century B.C. This does not mean that the
horse was unknown to the Asiatic nations until so late a period, but it
suggests a relatively recent use of this animal as compared, for example,
with the use of cattle, which had been introduced into Egypt before the
beginning of the historic period. No animal of importance and only one
bird — the turkey — has been added to the list of domesticated creatures
since the dawn of history.
Sixth. Agriculture.
The studies of the philologists make it certain that long periods of time
elapsed after man had entered on a pastoral life before he became an agri-
culturist. The proof of this is found, for example, in the fact that the
Greeks and Romans use words obviously of the same derivation for the names
of various domesticated animals, while a similar uniformity does not per-
tain to their names for cultivated cereals or for implements of agriculture.
Theoretical considerations of the probable state of pastoral man would lead
to the same conclusion, for the gap between the wandering habits of the
owners of flocks, whose chief care was to find pasture, and the fixed abode
of an agricultural people, is indeed a wide one. To be sure, the earliest agri-
culturist may not have been a strictly permanent resident of any particular
district ; he might migrate like the bird with the seasons, and change the
region of his abode utterly from year to year, but he must in the nature of
the case have remained in one place for several months together, that is to
say, from sowing to harvest time ; and to people of nomadic instincts this
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 49
interference with their desires might be extremely irksome, to say nothine
of the work involved in cultivating the soil. But once the advantages of
producing a vegetable food supply, according to a preconceived plan,
instead of depending upon the precarious supply of nature, were fully
understood and appreciated, another great forward movement had been
made in the direction of ultimate civilisation. Incidentally it may be
added that another incentive had been given one tribe to prey upon another,
and conversely another motive for strengthening the bonds of tribal unity.'
Agricultural plants, like domesticated animals, are practically all of
Asiatic origin. There are, however, three important exceptions, namely,
maize among cereals and the two varieties of potato, all of which are
indigenous to the Western hemisphere, and hence were necessarily unknown
to the civilised nations of antiquity. With these exceptions all the impor-
tant agricultural plants had been known and cultivated for numberless
generations before the opening of the historic period.
Seventh. Government.
We have just seen how the introduction of domesticated animals and
agricultural plants must have influenced the communal habits of primitive
man in the direction of the establishment of local government. There are
reasons to believe that, prior to taking these steps, the most advanced form
of human settlement was the tribe or clan consisting of the members of a
single family. The unit of this settlement was the single family itself with
a man at its head, who was at once provider, protector, and master. As the
various members of a family held together in obedience to the gregarious
instinct, which man shares with the greater number of animals, it was
natural that some one member of the clan should be looked to as the leader
of the whole. In the ordinary course of events, such leader would be the
oldest man, the founder of the original family ; but there must have been a
constant tendency for younger men of pronounced ability to aspire to the
leadership, and to wrest from the patriarch his right of mastery.
Such mastery, however, whether held by right of age, or of superior capac-
ity, must have been in the early day very restricted in scope, for of necessity
primitive man depended largely on his own individual efforts both for
securing food, and for protection of himself and his immediate family
against enemies, and under such circumstances an independence of character
must have been developed that implies an unwillingness to submit to the
autocratic authority of another. Only when the pastoral and agricultural
phases of civilisation had become fully established, would communities
assume such numerical proportions as to bring the question of leadership
of the clan into perpetual prominence ; and no doubt a very long series of
internal strifes and revolutionary dissensions must have preceded the final
recognition of the fact that no large community of people can aspire to any-
thing like integrity without the clear recognition of some centralised
authority. Under the conditions incident to the early stages of civilisation,
where man was subject to the marauding raids of enemies, it was but natural
that this centralised authority should be conceded to some man whose recog-
nised prowess in warfare had aroused the respect and admiration of his
fellows. Thus arose the system of monarchial government, which we find
fully established everywhere among the nations of antiquity when they
first emerge out of the obscuration of the prehistoric period. The slow steps
of progress by which the rights of the individual came to strike an evener
balance, as against the all-absorbing usurpations of the monarch and a small
coterie of his adherents, constitute one of the chief elements of the story of
H. W. — VOL. I.
50 PROLEGOMENA
history that is to be unfolded in our pages. But when the story opens,
there is no intimation of this reaction. The monarch is all dominant ; his
individual subjects seem the mere puppets of his will.
Eighth. The Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Architecture.
The graven fragments of ivory and of reindeer horn, found in the cave
deposits of the stone age, give ample proof that man early developed the
desire and the capacity for drawing. Doubtless there was a more or less
steady advance upon this art of the cave-dweller throughout succeeding
generations, though the records of such progress are for the most part lost.
The monuments of Egypt and of Mesopotamia, however, have been pre-
served to us in sufficient completeness to prove that the graphic arts had
reached a really high stage of development before the close of the prehis-
toric period. It is but fair to add, however, that in this direction the
changes of the earlier centuries of the historic period were far greater than
were the changes in the practical arts.
As early as the ninth century B.C. the Assyrians had developed the art
of sculpture in bas-relief in a way that constituted a marvellous advance
upon anything that may reasonably be believed to have been performed by
prehistoric man, and only three centuries later came the culminating period
of Greek art, which marked the stage of almost revolutionary progress.
Ninth. The Art of Writing.
One other art remains to be mentioned even in the most cursory survey.
This is the latest, and in some respects the greatest of them all — the art
of writing. In one sense this art is only a development of the art of draw-
ing, but it is a development that has such momentous consequences that it
may well be considered as distinct. Moreover, it led to results so important
for the historian, and so directly in line of all our future studies, that we
shall do well to examine it somewhat more in detail.
All the various phases of prehistoric culture at which we have just
glanced have left reminiscences, more or less vague in character, for the
guidance of students of later ages ; but the materials for history proper only
began to be accumulated after man had learned to give tangible expression
to his thoughts in written words. No doubt the first steps toward this
accomplishment were taken at a very early day. We have seen that the
cave-dweller even made graphic though crude pictures, including hunting
scenes, that are in effect the same in intent, and up to a certain point the
same in result, as if the features of the event were described in words.
Doubtless there was no generation after the stone age in which men did not
resort, more or less, to the graphic delineation of ideas.
The familiar story that Herodotus tells of the message sent by the
Scythians to Darius is significant. It will be recalled that the Scythian
messenger brought the body of a bird, a mouse, and a frog, together with
a bundle of five arrows. Interrogated as to the meaning of this strange
gift, the messenger replied that his instructions were to present the objects
and retire. Darius and his officers were much puzzled to interpret the mes-
sage, Darius himself being disposed to regard it as an admission on the
part of the Scythians that they conceded him lord of their territory, the land,
water, and air ; but one of the officers of the great king gave a different
interpretation, which was presently accepted as the correct one. As he read
the message it implied that unless the Persians could learn to fly through
the air like birds, or to burrow through the earth like a mouse, or to dive
through the water like a frog, they should not be able to escape the arrows
of the Scythians. Miss Amelia B. Edwards, in her delightful book on
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 51
Egypt, has hazarded some conjectures as to the exact way in which the
bird and mouse and frog and arrows were presented to Darius. She believes
that they were fastened to a piece of bark, or perhaps to a fragment of hide,
in fixed position, so that they became virtually hieroglyphics. The question
is interesting, but of no vital importance, since the exact manner of presen-
tation would not in any way alter the intent, but would only bear upon
the readiness of its interpretation. The real point of interest lies in the
fact of this transmission of ideas by symbols, which constitutes the essence
of the art of writing.
It may be presumed that crude methods of sending messages, not unlike
this of the Scythians, were practised more or less independently, and with
greater or less degrees of elaboration, by barbaric and half-civilised tribes
everywhere. The familiar case of the American Indians, who were wont to
send a belt of wampum and an arrow as a declaration of war, is an illustration
in point. The gap between such a presentation of tangible objects and the
use of crude pictures to replace the objects themselves would not seem, from
a civilised standpoint, to be a very wide one. Yet no doubt it was an enor-
mously difficult gap to cross. Granted the idea, any one could string
together the frog, the bird, the mouse, and the arrows, but only here and
there a man would possess the artistic skill requisite to make fairly recog-
nisable pictures of these objects. It is true that the cave man of a vastly
earlier period had developed a capacity to draw the outlines of such animals
as the reindeer and the mammoth with astonishing verisimilitude. Professor
Sayce has drawn the conclusion from this that the average man dwelling in
the caves of France at that remote epoch could draw as well aa the average
Frenchman of to-day ; but a moment's consideration will make it clear that
the facts in hand by no means warrant so sweeping a conclusion. There is
nothing to show, nor is there any reason to believe, that the cave-dweller
pictures that have come down to us are the work of average men of that
period. On the contrary, it is much more likely that they were the work,
not of average men, but of the artistic geniuses of their day, — of the Michel-
angelos, Raphaels, or if you prefer, the Landseers, the Bonheurs, and Corots
of their time.
There is no more reason to suppose that the average cave dweller could
have drawn the reindeer hunting scene or the famous picture of the mam-
moth, than that the average Frenchman of to-day could have painted the
Horse Fair. There is no reason then to suppose that the average Scythian
could have made himself equally intelligible to Darius by drawing pictures
instead of sending actual objects, though quite possibly there were some
men among the Scythian hordes who could have done so. The idea of such
pictorial ideographs had seemingly not yet come to the Scythians, but that
idea had been attained many centuries before by other people of a higher
plane of civilisation. At least four thousand years before the age of Darius,
the Babylonians, over whose descendants the Persian king was to rule, had
invented or developed a-picture-writing and elaborated it until it was able
to convey, not merely vague generalities, but exquisite shades of meaning.
The Egyptians, too, at a period probably at least as remote, had developed
what seems an independent system of picture-writing, and brought it to an
astonishing degree of perfection.
At least three other systems of picture-writing in elaborated forms are
recognised, namely, that used by the Hittites in Western Asia, that of the
Chinese, and that of the Mexican Indians in America. No dates can be
fixed as to when these were introduced, neither is it possible to demonstrate
52 PROLEGOMENA
the entire independence of the various systems ; but all of them were devel-
oped in prehistoric periods. There seems no reason to doubt that in each
case the picture-writing consisted originally of the mere graphic presenta-
tion of an object as representing an idea connected with that object itself,
precisely as if the Scythians had drawn pictures of the mouse, the bird, the
frog, and the arrows in order to convey the message to Darius. Doubtless
periods of incalculable length elapsed after the use of such ideograms as this
had come into vogue before the next great step was taken, which consisted
in using a picture, not merely to represent some idea associated with the
object depicted, but to represent a sound. Probably the first steps of this
development came about through the attempt to depict the names of men.
Since the name of a man is often a combination of syllables, having no inde-
pendent significance, it was obviously difficult to represent that 'name in a
picture record, and yet, in the nature of the case, the name of the man
might often constitute the most important part of the record. Sooner or
later the difficulty was met, as the Egyptian hieroglyphics prove to us, by
adopting a system of phonetics, in which a certain picture stands for the
sound of each syllable of the name. The pictures selected for such syllabic
use were usually chosen because the name of the object presented by the pic-
ture began with the sound in question. Such a syllabary having been intro-
duced, its obvious utility led presently to its application, not merely to the
spelling of proper names, but to general purposes of writing.
One other step remained, namely, to make that final analysis of sounds
which reduces the multitude of syllables to about twenty-five elementary
sounds, and to recognise that, by supplying a symbol for each one of these
sounds, the entire cumbersome structure of ideographs and syllables might be
dispensed with. The Egyptians made this analysis before the dawn of his-
tory, and had provided themselves with an alphabet ; but strangely enough
they had not given up, nor did they ever relinquish in subsequent times, the
system of ideographs and syllables that mark the stages of evolution of
the alphabet. The Babylonians at the beginning of their historic period had
developed a most elaborate system of syllables, but their writing had not
reached the alphabet stage.
The introduction of the alphabet to the exclusion of the cruder methods
was a feat accomplished within the historic period by the Phoenicians, some
details of which we shall have occasion to examine later on. This feat is
justly regarded as one of the greatest accomplishments of the entire historic
period. But that estimate must not blind us to the fact that the Egyptians
and Babylonians, and probably also the Chinese, were in possession of their
fully elaborated systems of writing long before the very beginnings of that
historic period of which we are all along speaking. Indeed, as has been
saio?., true history could not begin until individual human deeds began to be
recorded in written words.
PART II
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES
H. C. BRUGSCH, E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, C. K. J. BUNSEN, J. F. CHABAS, ADOLF
ERMAN, K. R. LEPSIUS, A. E. MARIETTE, G. C. C. MASPERO, EDUARD
MEYER, W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, J. GARDNER WILKINSON
TOGETHER WITH A CHARACTERISATION OF
EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE
BT
ADOLF ERMAN
WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM
CLAUDIUS ^ELIANUS, WM. BELOE, THE HOLY BIBLE, J. B. BIOT, SAMUEL
BIRCH, J. F. CHAMPOLLION, DIODORUS SICULUS, GEORG EBERS, AMELIA
B. EDWARDS, ROBERT HARTMANN, A. H. L. HEEREN, HERODOTUS,
FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, H. LARCHER, J. P. MAHAFFY, MANETHO,
AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, MELA POM-
PONIUS, L. M£NARD, PAUSANIAS, PETRONIUS, PLINY,
PLUTARCH, R. POCOCKE, PETER LE PAGE RENOUF,
I. ROSELLINI, E. DE ROUGE, C. SAVARY, F. VON
SCHLEGEL, G. SERGI, SOLINUS, STRABO, ISAAC
TAYLOR, THE TURIN PAPYRUS AND THE
DYNASTIC LISTS OF KARNAK, ABYDOS,
AND SAQQARAH, A. WIEDEMANN,
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, AND
THOMAS YOUNG
53
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
All right! reserved.
EGYPT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE.
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE ....
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XII.
APPENDIX A.
APPENDIX B.
PAOI
BY DR. ADOLF ERMAN 57
65
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN .... 77
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM 90
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 108
THE RESTORATION 126
THE XIXTH DYNASTY 141
THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES 166
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 182
THE CLOSING SCENES 180
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OP THE EGYPTIANS 196
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 219
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 240
CONCLUDING SUMMARY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY .... 263
CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 267
THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 287
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 298
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY , 295
ERRANBAN
SEA
ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT
EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE
A CHARACTERISATION OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOB THB PRESENT WORK
BY DR. ADOLF ERMAN
Professor of Egyptology in the University of Berlin ; Director of the Berlin Egyptian Museum ;
Member of the Royal 1'russian Academy of Sciences, Berlin, etc.
THE countries that laid the foundation of our civilisation are not of
those through which traffic passes on its way from land to land. Neither
Babylon nor Egypt lies on one of the natural highways of the world ; they
lie hidden, encircled by mountains or deserts, and the seas that wash their
shores are such as the ordinary seafarer avoids rather than frequents.
But this very seclusion, which to us, with our modern ideas, seems a
thing prejudicial to culture, did its part toward furthering the development
of mankind in these ancient lands ; it assured to their inhabitants a less
troublous life than otherwise falls to the lot of nations under primitive con-
ditions. Egypt, more particularly, had no determined adversary, nor any
that could meet her on equal terms close at, hand. To west of her stretched
a desert, leading by interminable wanderings to sparsely populated lands.
On the east the desert was less wide indeed, but beyond it lay the Red Sea,
and he who crossed it did but reach another desert, the Arabian waste.
Southward for hundreds of miles stretched the barren land of Nubia, where
even the waterway of the Nile withholds its wonted service, so that the races
of the Sudan are likewise shut off from Egypt. And even the route from
Palestine to the Nile, which we are apt to think of as so short and easy,
involved a march of several days through waterless desert and marshy ground.
These neighbour countries, barren as they are, were certainly inhabited, but
the dwellers there were poor nomads ; they might conquer Egypt now and
again, but they could not permanently injure her civilisation.
Thus the people which dwelt in Egypt could enjoy undisturbed all the good
things their country had to bestow. For in this singular river valley it was
easier for men to live and thrive than in most other countries of the world.
Not that the life was such as is led in those tropic lands where the fruits of
earth simply drop into the mouth, and the human race grows enervated in a
pleasant indolence ; the dweller in Egypt had to cultivate his fields, to tend
his cattle, but if he did so he was bounteously repaid for his labour.
year the river fertilised his fields that they might bring forth barley and
spelt and fodder for his oxen. He became a settled husbandman, J
grave and diligent man, who was spared the disquiet and hardships endi
by the nomadic tribes. Hence in this place there early developed a civilisa-
tion which far surpassed that of other nations, and with which only that <
67
68 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
far-off Babylonia, where somewhat similar local conditions obtained, could
in any degree vie. And this civilisation, and the national characteristics of
the Egyptian nation which went hand in hand with it, were so strong that
they could weather even a grievous storm. For long ago, in the remote
antiquity which lies far beyond all tradition, Egypt was once overtaken by
the same calamity which was destined to befall her twice within historic
times — she was conquered by Arab Bedouins, who lorded it over the country
so long that the Egyptians adopted their language, though they altered and
adapted it curiously in the process. This transplantation of an Asiatic
language to African soil is the lasting, but likewise the only, trace left by
this primeval invasion ; in all other respects the conquerors were merged
into the Egyptian people, to whom they, as barbarians, had nothing to offer.
There is nothing in the ideas and reminiscences of later Egyptians to
indicate that a Bedouin element had been absorbed into the race ; in spite
of their language the aspect they present to us is that of the true children of
their singular country, a people to whom the desert and its inhabitants
are something alien and incomprehensible. It is the same scene, mutatis
mutandis, that was enacted in the full light of history at the rise of Islam ;
then, too, the unwarlike land was subdued by the swift onset of the Bedouins,
who also imposed their language on it in the days of their rule ; and yet the
Egyptian people remains ever the same, and the people who speak Arabic
to-day in the valley of the Nile have little in common with the Arabs of
the desert.
Long before the period at which our historical knowledge begins, these
Egyptian husbandmen had laid the foundations of their civilisation. They
still went unclad and delighted to paint their bodies with green pigment ;
their ruler still wore a lion's tail at his girdle and a strange savage-looking
top-knot on his head ; his sceptre was still a staff such as may be cut from the
tree ; but these staves already ruled a wide domain full of townships large
and small. And in each of these there were already nobles, responsible to
the king for the government thereof, looking with reverence toward his
" great house," and paying him tribute of their corn and cattle. And in the
midst of the clay huts in every place stood a large hut, with wattled walls,
the entrance adorned with poles ; no other than the sanctuary of their god.
Already they carved his image in wood and carried it round the town at
festivals. Manifold are the accomplishments which the Egyptians have
acquired by this time. They fashion the flint of the desert into knives and
weapons of the utmost perfection of workmanship, they make cords, mats,
and skiffs out of the rushes from the marshland, they are acquainted with the
art of manufacturing tiles and earthen vessels from the clay of the soil.
They carve in wood and ivory, and their carvings have already a peculiar
character wholly their own. Moreover, they have prepared the way for the
greatest of their achievements and have learned to record their ideas by
drawing small pictures ; the character is still for the most part pictographic,
but even now certain particular pictures are used to denote sounds.
On this primitive period of the Egyptian nation we can only gaze from
afar ; we do not meet it face to face until the time when the two kingdoms,
into which the country had hitherto been divided, were united for the first
time by King Menes ; this may have taken place after the middle of the
fourth millennium. The union must have given a strong impulse to the life
of the nation, and but a few generations after the days of King Menes the
monuments that have come down to us exhibit most of the features charac-
teristic of Egyptian civilisation in the later centuries. The might of
EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE 69
Egypt waxes apace ; a few centuries more — at the period we are in the
habit of speaking of as the Old Kingdom — and its development has pro-
gressed so far that nothing now seems beyond its strength. The gigantic
buildings of the IVth Dynasty, whose great pyramids defy the tooth of time,
bear witness to this. How proudly self-conscious must the race have been
which strove thus to set up for itself a perpetual memorial ! And if this
passion for the huge is relinquished in succeeding centuries, it is merely a
token of the further development of the nation; it has wearied of the
colossal scale, and turns its attention to a greater refinement of life, the
grace of which still looks forth upon us from the monuments of the Vth
Dynasty.
Thus, even under the Old Kingdom, Egypt is a country in a high state of
civilisation ; a centralised government, a high level of technical skill, a
religion in exuberant development, an art that has reached its zenith, a
literature that strives upward to its culminating point, — this it is that we
see displayed in its monuments. It is an early blossom, put forth by the
human race at a time when other nations were yet wrapped in their winter
sleep. In ancient Babylonia alone, where conditions equally favourable pre-
vailed, the nation of the Sumerians reached a similar height. Any one
who will compare these two ancient civilisations of Babylonia and Egypt
cannot fail to see that they present many similarities of custom ; thus in
both the seal is rolled upon the clay, and both date their years according
to certain events. The idea that some connection subsisted between them,
and that then, as in later times, the products of both countries were dis-
persed by commerce through the world about them, is one that suggests
itself spontaneously. But substantial evidence in support of this conjecture
is still lacking and will probably ever remain so.
The great age of the Old Kingdom ends in a collapse, the body politic
breaks up into its component parts, and the level of civilisation in the
provinces sinks rapidly. But it rises again no less rapidly, when, at the
close of the third millennium B.C., Egypt is once more united under a single
sovereign.
The Middle Kingdom, as we customarily call this epoch, is a second
season of efflorescence ; indeed, it is the time upon which the Egyptians of
succeeding generations looked back as the classic period of their literature ;
and many centuries later, boys at school were still patiently copying out the
wise lessons which the first king of the period imparted to his son, or the adven-
tures of his contemporary, Sinuhe, and thereby learning the elegance of style
in which the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom were such adepts. This,
moreover, is the epoch in which, so far as we know, the Egyptian arms were
first carried to remoter lands ; at this time Nubia became an Egyptian prov-
ince, and the gold of its desert thenceforth belonged to the Pharaohs. The
memory of this extension of the sway of Egypt survived among the Egyp-
tians of later days, embodied in the semi-mythical figure of the great King
Sesostris. When legend reports that this monarch likewise subjugated dis-
tant lands to the north, we have now no means of judging how much truth
there may be in the tale. But this we can see, that at that time Egypt
maintained commercial relations with the countries of the Mediterranean ;
for their dainty vases are found in Egyptian rubbish heaps of the period,
and may have been imported into the Nile valley then, as later, as vessels
for containing delicate foreign oils.
These palmy days of the second period of Egyptian history lasted for
barely two hundred years, and then a time of political decadence again set in,
60 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
and Egypt for some centuries passes almost out of sight. One thing only do
we know of its fortunes during this interval, namely, that it once more fell
a prey to barbarian conquerors. The Hyksos — presumably a Bedouin tribe
from the Syrio- Arabian desert — long reigned in Egypt as its lords. But the
sway of these barbarians was naturally lax, and while the foreign great king
abode in his camp on the Delta, Egyptian princes ruled as his vassals in the
great cities of Egypt. And when, as was inevitable, the might of the bar-
barians waned, the might of these dynasts increased, till one of them, who
ruled in the little city of Thebes in distant Upper Egypt, rose to such a height
of power as to gain the mastery, not only over the other princes, but ultimately
over the Hyksos themselves. About the year 1600 B.C. we find Egypt free
once more, and under the sceptre of this same upper Egyptian line which has
rendered the names of Thebes, its city, and Amen, its god, forever famous.
The New Kingdom, the greatest age that the Nile Valley ever saw, has
dawned.
The power of the kingdom waxed apace beyond its borders. Tehutimes I
and his son, the indefatigable warrior, Tehutimes III, subdued a region that
extended northward to northern Syria and southward to the Sudan; Egypt
became the neighbour of the kingdom of Mitani [or Mitanni] on the Euphra-
tes, of the rising power of Assyria, of ancient Babylonia. The two ancient civ-
ilisations which had been developing for thousands of years in Mesopotamia
and the valley of the Nile were thus brought into direct contact, and we shall
hardly be wrong in saying that during these centuries a great part of the
civilised world whose heirs we are, met together in a common life. A brisk
trade must have developed as a result of this new relation of country to
country. The countries of the Mediterranean, where the so-called Myce-
naean civilisation was then in its prime, had their part in it, as is proved
by the discovery of numerous Mycenaean vessels in the tombs and ruins
of the New Kingdom, and no less by the productions of Egyptian tech-
nical art which have been brought to light from the seats of Mycenaean
civilisation.
The effect of these altered relations upon Egypt is easy to see. Vast
wealth pours into the country and enables the Pharaohs to erect the gigantic
fabric of the Theban temples. But at the very time when the spirit of
ancient Egypt finds its most splendid transfiguration in these buildings, it
begins to suffer loss and change. The old simple garb no longer beseems
the lords of so great an empire ; it must give place to a costlier. The anti-
quated literary language handed down from days of old is gradually super-
seded by the vulgar tongue. And if the Egyptians had up to this time
looked proudly down upon all other nations as wretched barbarians, they must
have found this narrow-minded view untenable when once they had met
face to face the equally ancient civilisation of Babylonia and the vigorous
growth of Syrian and Mediterranean cultures. The sons of Egypt's Asiatic
vassals attend her king, their daughters sit in his harem ; Syrian mercenaries
form one regiment of his bodyguard, foreign captives work on the edifices
he builds. His officers, military and civil, have all made some stay on
Asiatic soil, and his " letter-scribe " can read and write the cuneiform
characters of Babylonia. The commerce which led foreign merchants to
Egypt must have acted no less powerfully ; they brought in silverware,
wood of various kinds, horses and oxen, wine, beer, oil, and unguents,
and carried away in return the manifold products of Egyptian industry
and Egyptian crafts. In the long result not only does their traditional fear
of foreigners pass away, but Asiatic fashions actually come into vogue
EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE 61
among cultured Egyptians. They coquet with foreign Canaanitish phrases,
and think it permissible to offer up prayer to Baal [Bel] Astarte, and other
gods of alien peoples. Asiatic singing-girls set the lyre of their native land
in place of the old Egyptian harp, and many an intellectual possession may
have migrated into Egypt with their songs.
It is far harder to gauge in detail the effect of Egyptian supremacy on
Asia and Europe. We can see from the discoveries made in these countries
what a quantity of small Egyptian wares in glass and faience, silver and
bronze, was exported during this period, and we may further conclude that
this was the time when the industrial art of Syrio-Phcenicia acquired its
Egyptianised style. Similarly we may conjecture that it was then that our
civilisation adopted all those things which were undoubtedly invented or
perfected on Egyptian soil, and which we meet with even in the very oldest
Greek and Etruscan times — the forms of household furniture, of columns,
statues, weapons, seals, and many other things which still play their part
in our daily life, though we are all unconscious of their Egyptian origin.
At that period, when Egypt held the first place in Asia and Europe, a stream
of Egyptian influence must have flowed out upon the whole world — a
stream of which we still can guess the force only from these traces it has left.
As for the most precious lore that other nations might have learned
from the Egyptians, we have no information concerning it whatever ; though
it is certain that their intellectual riches, their religion and poetry, their
medical and arithmetical skill, can have been no less widely spread abroad
than these productions of their technical dexterity. If, for example, our
religion tells us of an immortality of the soul more excellent than the melan-
choly existence of the shades, the conception is one first met with in ancient
Egypt ; and Egyptian, likewise, is the idea that the fate of the dead is deter-
mined by the life led upon earth. These conceptions come to us by way of
the Jewish religion. But may not the Jews have obtained them from Egypt,
the land that bore its dead so needfully in mind ? The silent paths by which
such thoughts pass from nation to nation are, it is true, beyond all showing.
Or, if much in the gnomic poetry of the Hebrews reminds us strikingly of the
abundant proverbial literature of Egypt, the idea of seeking its origin in the
Nile Valley is one that occurs almost spontaneously. Here, too, of course,
we have no proof to offer ; connections of the kind can be no more than
guessed at.
Thus the first part of the New Kingdom, or what we are in the habit of
calling the XVIIIth Dynasty, is one of those periods which are pre-eminent
as having advanced the progress of the world. To Egypt herself this
co-operation with other nations might have brought a new and loftier devel-
opment, had she been able really to assimilate the influx of new ideas. But
of this the old nation was no longer capable ; it had not vigour enough to
shake off the ballast wherewith its thousands of years of existence had
laden it.
About 1400 B.C. one of the Pharaohs — it was Amenhotep IV — did
indeed make a serious attempt to break with custom and tradition and adapt
the faith and thought of his people to the new conditions. He tried to
create a new religion, in which only one god should be worshipped — the
Sun, a divinity which could be equally adored by all peoples within his
kingdom. And it sounds strangely un-Egyptian when the hymns to this
new god insist that all men, Syrians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, are alike
dear to him ; he has made them to differ in colour and speech, and has placed
them in different lands, but he takes thought for all alike.
62 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
But this attempt of the fourth Amenhotep came to naught, and the spirit
of ancient Egypt triumphed over the abominable heretic. And with this
triumph the fate of Egypt was sealed. True, in the next century, under the
Sethos and the Ramses she enjoyed a period of external splendour, to which
the great temples of Karnak, Luxor, and Medinet Habu still testify. But it
was an illusory glory. Egypt was outworn and exhausted ; she could no
longer maintain her political ascendency, her might falls to pitiable ruin
while younger and more vigorous nations in anterior Asia take the place
that once was hers. And therewith begins the long and mournful death
struggle of the Egyptian nation. The chief authority passes from the hands
of the kings to those of the priests, from them to the commanders of the
Syrian mercenaries ; and then Egypt falls a prey to the Ethiopian barbari-
ans, with whom the Assyrians next dispute it. For five long centuries the
wretched nation is whelmed beneath these miseries, and yet, so far as we can
see, they work no change in it; it is, in truth, exhausted utterly.
Once more, after the fall of the Assyrian empire, the political situation
changes in Egypt's favour, and Psamthek I and his successors won back
wealth and power for her. But the aged nation had no longer the skill to
take wise advantage of propitious fortune; it had no thoughts of its own,
nor could it find fitting form for its new splendour. The Egyptians rested
content with imitating in whimsical fashion, in all things, the Old Kingdom,
the earliest period of their national glory, and the contemporaries of Neku
and Apries [Uah-ab-Ra] took pleasure in feigning themselves the subjects
of Cheops, in bearing the titles of his court, and writing in a language and
orthography which had been in use two thousand years before. Learned
antiquarianism is the distinguishing feature of this latest Egyptian develop-
ment.
The end of the sixth century brought fresh calamities upon the land.
Cambyses conquered it, and it became a Persian province. And although,
after many a vain attempt at revolt, it shook off the foreign yoke for awhile,
about 400 B.C., yet in a few decades it again fell into the hands of the Per-
sians. Since those days Egypt has never had a ruler of her own blood ; she
has been the hapless spoil of any who chose to take her.
Alexander the Great was the first to whom the country fell, and at his
death it became the heritage of his general, Ptolemy. In his family it was
handed down, to become at length a province of the Roman Empire in the
year 30 B.C. Throughout its length and breadth there is but one spot that
thrives during this period, the new port of Alexandria, founded by the great
king in the barren west of the Delta ; this becomes a metropolis of the Greek
world, and its merchants and manufacturers extend their trade by land and
sea to every quarter. But this same Alexandria was ever something of an
alien in Egypt, and the rest of the country took no part in the busy life that
ran its round there ; it grew corn and flax and wine and supplied them to the
Roman world, it throve, but less for its own profit than that of the empire.
Greek culture made its way but slowly there, and even in the great cities of
the interior the Greek language and the Greek religion were never strong
enough to displace the native idiom and the old faith. They influenced it by
degrees, much as the European culture of to-day influences the ancient civili-
sation of the far East, but even as the Chinese remain Chinese in spite of
railroads and the telegraph, so the Egyptians of the Graeco-Roman period
clung tenaciously to their own ways. They held fast all points of the
national customs they only half understood ; above all, they held to their
ancient faith. And yet by that time the religion of Egypt was as degenerate
EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE 63
and debased as it could possibly be. As is apt to be the case with antiquated
beliefs, its mere singularities had flourished at the expense of its wholesome
side ; cats, snakes, and crocodiles had now become the most sacred of beings
in the eyes of the vulgar, and every kind of superstition was rampant. The
depositaries of .this religion were the members of a stereotyped hierarchy
that had long lost touch with the outer world ; they worshipped their gods
according to the old tradition, used the ample wealth of the temples to build
them new shrines in the old style, and enjoyed their fat benefices under the
benevolent protection of the foreign government.
Thus the Egypt of this later day had long been empty of all vital force ;
it continued to exist, but only because the aged nation had lost the power of
adapting itself to the new world. And yet this decrepit Egyptian character,
with its dead religion, cast a singular spell over the sated spirit of the Roman
world. The worship of Isis and Serapis spread far and wide ; everywhere
Egyptian sorcerers found a willing public for their superstitions. Roman
tourists visited the ancient land, gazed in amazement at its wonders, while
at home the nobles built themselves villas in the Egyptian style and adorned
them with statues from Memphis. Even the most highly educated looked
upon Egypt as a holy land, where everything was full of mystery and mar-
vel, and piety and the true worship of the gods had their dwelling place from
of old. And even after the fashionable predilection for things Egyptian had
passed away, this notion of the mysterious and sacred land of Egypt remained
fixed in men's minds, and was handed on from generation to generation.
Whenever ancient Egypt is mentioned in later days it suggests ideas of mys-
tery, symbolism, and esoteric wisdom. And so anything to which it is desired
to lend an air of mystery claims derivation preferably from Egypt, the secret
lodges of the eighteenth century no less than the spiritualists and quacks of
our own day. Ancient Egypt has acquired this reputation, and though, now
that we know it better, we perceive that it is but little in accordance with
her true character, all our researches will not be able to dispel the illusion of
two thousand years. In the future, as in the past, the feeling with which
the multitude regards the remains of Egyptian antiquity will be one of awe-
struck reverence. Nevertheless, another feeling would be more appropriate,
a feeling of grateful acknowledgment and veneration, such as one of a later
generation might feel for the ancestor who had founded his family and endowed
it with a large part of its wealth. For though we are seldom able to say with
certainty of any one thing in our possession that it is a legacy we have inher-
ited from the Egyptians, yet no one who seriously turns his attention to such
subjects can now doubt that a great part of our heritage comes from them.
In all the implements which are about us nowadays, in every art and craft
which we practise now, a large and important element has descended to ua
from the Egyptians. And it is no less certain that we owe to them many
ideas and opinions of which we can no longer trace the origin, and which
have long come to seem to us the natural property of our own minds.
This legacy of ideas, no less than of technical dexterity and artistic
form, which the Egyptians have bequeathed to us, constitutes the service
they have done to the human race. They cannot vie with the Greeks in
intellectual gifts, and they never possessed the force that determines the
course of history ; but they were able to develop their capabilities earlier
than other nations, and thus secured for the world the substantial ground-
work of civilisation.
Thirty centuries have passed since ancient Egypt accomplished 1
real mission for the world ; since then she has hardly done more than till her
64
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
soil in its service. Silently her existence has flowed on, and all the catastro-
phes which have befallen her since Roman times have not been able to stir
her to fresh vigour. Christianity spread in Egypt early, but the philosophic
labours accomplished there in connection with it are the work of the edu-
cated Hellenistic classes, not of the Egyptians proper. What these last added
to Christianity, the anchoretic and monastic life, cannot be counted among
its advantages. And when, in the fifth century, the Egyptians broke away
from the Catholic Church, the barbarian element to which the nation suc-
cumbed thenceforward finally triumphed. The tie that had bound the
Egyptians to European civilisation was severed, and the Arab conquest had
only to set the seal to this divorce.
This same Arab conquest, which, in the course of centuries, went so far
as to rob the ancient nation of its ancient language, and imposed a new faith
upon the great majority of its inhabitants, was powerless to inspire it with
new life. Outwardly Egypt has become Arab, but the Egyptians had but
a very small share in the intellectual life of the Arab Middle Ages, a share
probably not much larger than that which they had taken in Alexandrian
culture.
Once again, in our own days, the opportunity of rousing itself afresh is
offered to the Egyptian nation. It is once more linked with Europe, and its
prosperity has advanced with astounding rapidity. From all sides new influ-
ences stream in upon the ancient people, and we would fain indulge in the
hope that now at length it might awake to new life. But, unhappily, this
hope has but little prospect of fulfilment, and all things will but run again
the course they ran long ago in Graco-Roman days. The foreigner will
prosper in Egypt and invest it with a tinge of his own civilisation, the work
of European civilisation will inspire an Egyptian here and there with a pro-
found sympathy. But the nation itself will remain untouched, it will rise
up no more, it has lived itself out and its intellectual capabilities are
exhausted. In time to come, the Egyptian nation will probably do no more
for the human race than diligently provide it with cotton and onions, as it
does to-day.
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SOURCES
OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY, THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A TABLE OF
CHRONOLOGY
UNTIL somewhat recently it has been customary to think of Egyptian
history as constituting a single uniform period. Before our generation it
was quite impossible for any one to realise the extreme length of time which
this history involves ; or if a certain few did realise it, a consensus of opinion
among the many forbade the acceptance of their estimate. Now, however,
limitations of time are no longer a bugbear to the historian, and we are com-
ing to realise the full import of the fact that when one speaks of historic
Egypt he is referring to an epoch at least four thousand years in extent.
Prior to the nineteenth century discoveries, the historian had only the most
meagre supply of material dealing with any epoch prior to that age of
the Trojan War which marked the extreme limits of the historic view in
Greece ; but now we understand that the men who built the Pyramids in
Egypt were at least as far removed from Homer as Homer is removed from
us : and it is but the expression of an historical platitude to say that a vast
stretch of Egyptian history must lie back of the Pyramids ; for no one any
longer supposes that a people recently emerged from barbarism could have
created such structures.
Throughout classical times very little was known of the history of
Egypt, except what was contained in the fragmentary remains of Manetho
and the more lengthy descriptions of Herodotus and Diodorus. There
were other references, of course, but for anything like a comprehensive
knowledge of the history of the country it would have been necessary to
understand the Egyptian language and decipher the hieroglyphics ; and no
person throughout classical times had such understanding.
There were practically no additions to the world's knowledge of ancient
Egyptian history from classical times till about the beginning of the nine-
teenth century. The stimulus to the new knowledge that was then acquired
came about chiefly through the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon. The
French expedition included various scientists who made a concerted effort to
study the antiquities, and to transport as many of them as might be to Paris.
In the latter regard the expedition failed, as in some more important partic-
ulars, through the interference of the British, with the result that some of
the most important antiquities, including the since famous Rosetta stone,
II. W. — VOL. I. F 66
66 THE HISTOEY OF EGYPT
found their way to the British Museum. A large amount of material, how-
ever, was transported to Paris, and gave occupation to the savants of France
for about a generation before the final publication of results in a monu-
mental work.
But before this publication, thanks to the efforts of Thomas Young in
England, and Champollion in France, the hieroglyphics had been deciphered,
and at last the almost inexhaustible word treasures of Egypt were made
available as witnesses for history. Very naturally, a large number of explor-
ers entered the field, and from that day till this there has been no dearth of
Egyptologists either in the field of exploration or of interpretation. Promi-
nent among these in the first half of the century were the pupils of
Champollion, the Italians, Rossellini and Salvolini. But the most impor-
tant work, perhaps, was done by the German, Lepsius, who came to be recog-
nised as the foremost Egyptologist of his time, and whose Denkmaler au»
Aegypten und Aethiopien is still one of the most monumental works on
the subject. In England, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson took up the study
of Egyptian life in particular, and deduced from the inscriptions of the
monuments and from the pictures a comprehensive understanding of Egyptian
manners and customs. The various workers at the British Museum, begin-
ning with Birch and continuing with Renouf and with E. A. Wallis Budge,
have added an ever increasing complement to our knowledge of Egyptian
archaeology.
The country of Champollion has been ably represented in more recent
time by Mariette and Maspero ; while in Germany, Diimichen, Meyer, and
Wiedemann have worked and written exhaustively, the former with special
reference to archaeology, the two latter with reference to history. But no
one else perhaps has given quite such attention to the language of old Egypt
as Professor Adolf Erman. The field that Wilkinson occupied earlier in
the century has also been entered by Professor Erman, and the most recent
and authoritative studies of Egyptian manners and customs are those that he
has deduced from the papyri and the monumental inscriptions. Wilkinson
depended largely upon pictorial representations for his information, but
Erman has been able to go beyond these to the subtler and sometimes more
illuminative written records.
As to the early history of Egypt, no one else has made such exhaustive
studies as Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, whose publications cover a
wide range, from the most technical to the relatively popular. For a
strictly popular presentation of the subject, however, the works of George
Ebers, of Baron Bunsen, and of Amelia B. Edwards should be consulted,
together with the books of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson and the works of
Professor Adolf Erman.
A more comprehensive account of these writers and their labours,
together with reasonably complete bibliographies of the entire subject,
will be found at the close of the history of Egypt. The character
of the materials with which the Egyptologists have worked in creat-
ing a new history of one of the oldest civilisations, will be revealed as we
proceed.
The Egyptians of history are probably a fusion of an indigenous white
race of northeastern Africa and an intruding people of Asiatic origin. In
the Archaic period independent kings ruled in the Delta region (Kings of
the Red Crown) and in Upper Egypt (Kings of the White Crown). Under
King Menes the two crowns were probably first united, and the Dynastic
period begins. According to Egyptian traditions the pre-dynastic ages were
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 67
filled with dynasties of gods and demigods, who were perhaps primeval
chiefs or tribal leaders. Monuments of the pre-dynastic period are
earthenware vases, jars, sculptured ivory objects, and flint implements.
The dynasties which formed the foundation of all classifications of Egyp-
tian history are based upon the lists of the Egyptian priest Manetho, who
wrote a history of Egypt in the time of the Ptolemies. The original work
of Manetho has not come down to us, and it is quite impossible to restore it
in extenso from the fragmentary excerpts that are preserved. The writings
of Josephus and of Eusebius are our chief sources for Manetho's lists, but
Josephus copied the lists only in part, and Eusebius seemingly knew them
only at second or third hand, when, it is suspected, they had been somewhat
perverted in the interests of Hebrew chronology. Nevertheless, the dynasties
of Manetho as we now know them probably do not very radically differ from
the original lists. Beyond question these are based upon authentic Egyptian
documents, but there is a good deal of confusion and much difference of
opinion among Egyptologists, as to whether some of the dynasties were not
contemporaneous ; and for many periods the lists are only provisional.
It is notable, however, that the somewhat recent discoveries of origi-
nal Egyptian lists, such as the so-called Turin Papyrus and the dynastic
lists of Karnak and Abydos, tend to corroborate the lists of Manetho, and
show that he was an historian of very great merit. It is convenient also
to regard the grand divisions of Egyptian history noted by Manetho,
namely, the Old Memphis Kingdom, comprising the first ten dynasties ;
the Middle Kingdom or Old Theban Kingdom, comprising the Xlth to
the XVIIth Dynasties ; and the New Theban Kingdom, comprising the
remaining dynasties.1
As to the dates employed in the following chronology, a word of explana-
tion is necessary. Neither Manetho's lists nor any other available sources
enable us at present to supply exact dates for the earlier periods of Egyptian
history with any precision. Authorities differ as to the early period to
the extent of more than three thousand years. Thus Champollion gives the
date 5867 B.C. for the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, while Wilkinson
supplies for the same event the date 2320 B.C. Later authorities are pretty
fully agreed that such a date as that of Wilkinson is much too recent.
Meyer fixes upon 3180 B.C. as the minimum date, and no doubt he would
very willingly admit that the probable date is much more remote. For our
present purpose it has been thought well to adopt an intermediate date,
as in some sense striking an average among divergent opinions. The dates
of Brugsch, which agree rather closely with those of Mariette and Petrie,
have in the main been followed here, with certain modifications made neces-
sary by recent discoveries, chiefly with reference to synchronism with known
dates of the Assyrian empire and other countries. It will be understood,
therefore, that all the earlier dates of this chronology are accepted as merely
approximative, the approximation becoming closer and closer as we come
down the centuries. At the middle of the XVIIIth Dynasty the dates can-
not be more than twenty years out of the way, while from the XXIInd
onward the probable error is very small indeed, vanishing entirely with the
accession of Psamthek I of the XXVIth Dynasty.
For present purposes it is undesirable to give a complete list of the
names of Egyptian kings. Fuller details as to monarchs and events will
be given elsewhere in our text. But the purposes of our preliminary
[l For a full discussion of Egyptian chronology, see Appendix B.]
68 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
view are better subserved by confining attention to the more important
Pharaohs, and to the principal events that give picturesqueness and interest
to Egyptian history.
We take up now the synoptical view of the successive dynasties. Such
a survey will, it is believed, furnish the reader with the best possible prepa-
ration for the full comprehension of the more detailed presentation that is
to follow.
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM
IST DYNASTY, 4400-4133 B.C.
4400 Accession of Menes. 1st Dynasty founded. Tradition ascribes to him
the foundation of Memphis, the capital of the Old Memphite King-
dom, whither it was moved from This or Thinis ; and states that he
was killed by a hippopotamus in a campaign against the Libyans.
Monument. — A tomb discovered by De Morgan (1897) is believed to
be that of King Menes, or of his wife Nit-hotep.
4366 Teta. — Second king, said to have written a work on anatomy.
Monument. — A papyrus bought in Thebes by Ebers refers to a poma-
tum made for Teta's mother, Shesh.
4266 Hesepti (Semti). — Fifth king. Several passages in the Book of the
Dead refer to him. King Senta of the Ilnd Dynasty owned a medi-
cal work which once belonged to Semti.
Monument. — His tomb has been discovered by Amelineau at Abydos.
It contained among other things an ebony tablet representing the
king dancing before Osiris. (Now in the British Museum.)
4233 Merbapen. — Sixth king.
Monument. — Tomb at Abydos, discovered by Amelineau.
4200 Semen-Ptah (Semau). — Seventh king. Manetho says : "In his reign
a terrible pestilence afflicted Egypt."
HND DYNASTY, 4133-3900 B.C.
4133 Neter-b'au. — First king. Manetho says : " During his reign a chasm
opened near Bubastis and many persons perished."
Monument. — Tomb discovered by Amelineau in 1897 at Abydos.
4100 Ka-ka-u. — Second (?) king ; establishes or expands the worship of
Apis ; also of Mnevis and the Mendesian goat.
4066 Ba-en-neter. — Third (?) king; establishes the right of female succession.
IIlBD DYNASTY, 3900-3766 B.C.
3900 Neb-ka. — First or third king. According to Manetho a revolt of the
Libyans in which they submitted "on account of an unexpected
increase in the moon," took place in this reign.
3866 Zeser (T'er-aa). — Second or fourth king. Builder of the Step Pyramid
of Saqqarah. Dr. Budge says of this : " It is certainly the oldest of
all the large buildings which have successfully resisted the action of
wind and weather, and destruction by the hand of man."
Monuments. — The Step Pyramid ; the Great Sphinx of Gizeh.
Rapid development of civilisation during the first three dynasties.
IViH DYNASTY, 3766-3566 B.C.
3766 Sneferu. — First king. He wars against the robber-like tribes of the
desert. He is said, on a monument of the Xllth Dynasty, to have
THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 69
founded Egyptian dominion in the peninsula of Sinai, which he con-
quered for its mineral wealth.
Monuments. — A number of carved stones, a baa-relief at Wady Magh-
arah showing him smiting an enemy.
3733 Khufu or 'Cheops. — Builder of the Great Pyramid, Khut — "The
Horizon."
3666 Khaf-Ra. — Builder of the pyramid Ur, — " The Great."
3633 Men-kau-Ra. — Builder of the pyramid Her, — "The Supreme." He
enlarges it after it is built. He afterward builds another pyramid
at Abu Roash, and was probably buried there.
A peaceful dynasty. Brilliant age of art and literature.
VTH DYNASTY, 3566-8300 B.C.
3566 A new house from Elephantine " of priestly character " founded by
Us-kaf.
3533 Sahu-Ra. — One of the most renowned rulers of the Old Memphis King-
dom. Wars in Sinai.
Monument. — Pyramid Khaba, at Abusir.
3433 Usen-en-Ra. — First Pharaoh to adopt a second cartouche with his pri-
vate name, An. He holds the rule over the peninsula of Sinai.
Monuments. — The pyramid Menasu; a victory tablet at Wady Magh-
arah ; two statues, etc.
3366 Tat-ka-Ra (Assa). — He continues to wage war with even greater activity
in the peninsula of Sinai.
Monuments. — The oldest papyri of authentic date belong to this reign.
They are : " The Papyrus of Accounts " found at Saqqarah and the
" Proverbs of Ptah-hotep."
Ptah-hotep was probably the uncle and tutor of the king, under whose
patronage the work was given to the world.
3333 Close of dynasty and first period of Egyptian history with King Una*.
Monument. — Pyramid Nefer-asu, at Saqqarah.
No great monuments in this dynasty. An age of decline. The
art of building shows a great falling off from that of the IVth
Dynasty. Methods are careless ; decoration becomes formal, coarse,
and flat.
Monument of Vth Dynasty. — The Palermo stele, containing, among
others, names of some of the pre-dynastic kings of Lower Egypt.
VlTH DYNASTY, 3300-3000 B.C.
3300 A new line of vigorous Memphite kings founded by T*u.
Monument. — Pyramid Tat-asu at Saqqarah, one of the first and worst
despoiled by plunderers.
3233 Pepi 1st. — Most important ruler of this dynasty. He has left more
monuments than any other ruler before the Xllth Dynasty. Great
and successful wars against the Aamu and Herusha, inhabiting the
desert east of the Delta. War against the people of Terebah,
a 'country of doubtful location, probably in western Asia.
Monuments. — The long inscription on the tomb of Una, Pepi's general,
is our source of the history of this reign. Pyramid Men-nefer, at
Saqqarah ; the red granite sphinx of Tanis ; statuettes, etc.
3066 Queen Men-ka-Ra. — The Nitocris of Herodotus. The early part of t
dynasty is characterised by foreign conquest and exploration, but
70 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
toward the end internal troubles have brought the kingdom to a
state of disorganisation. Architecture rapidly declines.
VIIiH, VIIlTH, IXTH, AND XTH DYNASTIES, 3000-2700 B.C.
3000-2700 A long era of confusion. Rapid decay of the Memphite power
in the Vllth and VHIth Dynasties, while that of Thebes is rising.
The Delta invaded and occupied by Syrian tribes, which drive the
capital from Memphis south to Heracleopolis. A great wall is built
across the Isthmus of Suez to keep the invaders out. Dynasties
IX and X at Heracleopolis in constant conflict with the Theban
princes, in which the latter gradually attain their independence and
establish the Xlth (First Theban) Dynasty. For about a century
the Xth and Xlth Dynasties probably reign contemporaneously.
Monuments. — Mainly scarabs.
THE OLD THEBAN (MIDDLE) KINGDOM
XIiH DYNASTY, 2700-2466 B.C.
2700 Beginning of the Old Theban (Middle) Kingdom. Antef I (?), first of
nine (?) kings. They are all buried at the foot of the Western
Mountain of the Theban Necropolis.
Monument. — The coarsely carved coffin of Antef I, rudely painted in
red, blue, and yellow. (Now in the Louvre.)
2600 Mentuhotep II (Neb-taul-Ra).
Monuments. — A tablet at Konosso relating his conquest of thirteen
tribes ; inscriptions in the quarries of Hammamat.
2550 Metuhotep m. — The greatest king of the dynasty, judging from the
number of his monuments. A patron of art. His worship con-
tinues till a late day.
Monuments. — Pyramid Khut-asu, at Thebes; sandstone tablet at
Silsilis; tablets at Assuan; a temple at Thebes.
2500 Bankh-ka-Ra. — Last king of dynasty. The first voyage to Punt and
Ophir under the leadership of Hannu takes place in his reign.
Monuments. — Inscriptions at Hammamat recording the voyage to
Punt ; a statue found at Saqqarah.
XIIiH DYNASTY, 2466-2250 B.C.
2466 The power of Thebes is now firmly established, and the country enters
upon a period of greatness with Amenemhat I, the first king, who
shows remarkable vigour. Expedition against the Libyans, Herusha,
Mazau, and Sati (Asiatics).
Monuments. — The great temple of Amen at Thebes; statues; inscrip-
tions ; the papyrus containing the famous " Instructions to his
Son" ; and the memoirs of Sineh (Sinehat or Sinhue).
2446 Usertsen I. — Took charge of foreign campaigns in his father's reign.
Asserts his power in the Sinaitic peninsula. Warlike expedition
to Nubia as related on the Tomb of Ameni. Enlarges temple at
Karnak. Order re-established in the land.
Monuments. — Obelisk of Heliopolis ; a portrait bust and statues ; the
tomb of Ameni.
2400 Amenemhat H. — Works the mines of Sarbut-el-Khadem. Manetho
says he was slain by his chamberlains.
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 71
2370 TTsertaen II.
Monuments. — A curious and unusual temple at Illahun ; a bust of
Queen Nefert; the tomb of Khnum-hotep with historical records.
2340 Usertaeii HI. — A famous name. The conqueror of Ethiopia after many
campaigns. He makes the conquest secure by fixing the frontier of
Egypt above the Second Cataract and building the fortresses of Sem-
neh and Kummeh. Afterward revered as -the founder of Ethiopia.
Monuments. — A papyrus containing a long hymn to the king ; statues ;
pyramid at Dahshur ; tomb of Princess Set-hathor, which contained
some remarkable jewellery.
2305 Amenemhat HI. — Constructs Lake Moeris as a storage reservoir for the
Nile overflow. Also the Labyrinth palace. These are his monuments.
2265 Amenemhat IV. — The dynasty begins to decline.
2255 Queen 8ebek-nefeni-Ra, sister of Amenemhat IV.
The Xllth Dynasty a great age for art and literature. Immense
activity in building. The literary style is the model for future
ages. Valuable historic records on the tombs.
THE XIIlTH, XIViH, XVTH, XVlTH, AND XVHra DYNASTIES, 2260-1686 B.O.
2250-1635 A period the length of which is unknown, and which has been
variously estimated at from four hundred to nearly a thousand
years. (See Chapter III, pages 120, 121.) The Xlllth Dynasty
reigns at Thebes, and Sebekhotep I is its first king. Before its close
the Hyksos invaders have gained rapidly in power, and the new
dynasty (XlVth) is driven to Xois in the western Delta. The
Hyksos establish their rule, and the later kings of the XlVth are
probably provincial governors with a short tenure of office, retained
by the Hyksos for purposes of internal government. The XVth
Dynasty is that of the great Hyksos kings, Balatis, Bnon, Apaohnan,
AphobiB, Annas, Asseth, and marks the climax of their power.
Their principal towns are Ha-Uar (Avaris), Pelusium, and Tanis.
They adopt the customs, language, and writings of the Egyptians.
Their chief god is Sutekh, " the Great Set," to whom they build a
great temple at Tanis. The XVth Dynasty is in part contempo-
raneous with the XlVth and XVIth Egyptian ; in the latter the
provincial governors gradually have their tenure of power length-
ened. The XVIIth is of both Hyksos and Egyptians, in which the
former begin to lose their power.
Monuments. — Many statues, inscriptions, implements of war, etc.
1800 A new house from the south gradually regains Egypt from the Hyksos.
Its principal kings are named Beqenen Ra. Seqenen Ra m marries
Aah-hotep, a princess of pure Egyptian blood. By the time her son
by a former marriage, Aahmes I, comes to the throne, the Hyksos
have been driven ^nd confined to the district around Avaris, where
they prepare to make a final stand.
1730 Descent of the Hebrews into Egypt.
THE NEW THEBAN KINGDOM
XVHlTH DYNASTT, 1636-1366 B.C.
1635 Aahme. I. — Founds the New Theban Kingdom. Defeats and drives
the Hyksos from Avaris; pursues them into Asia. Campaign agai
72 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Nubia, whose people again need repelling. Rebuilds temples in the
principal cities. Thebes embellished. Marries Nefert-ari.
Monuments. — Coffins and mummies of the king and queen; statues;
jewellery from coffin of Aah-hotep.
1610 Amenhotep I. — Campaign against Gush and Libya. Historical rec-
ords on the tomb of Admiral Aahmes.
Monuments. — His coffin and mummy ; temple at Thebes ; statues.
1590 Tehutimes I. — Penetrates into Asia as far as the Euphrates. Cam-
paign in Libya.
Monuments. — Coffin and mummy ; obelisks, pylons, and pillars at Kar-
nak ; many statues, etc. ; tomb of Admiral Aahmes.
1565 Tehutimes II.
Monuments. — Coffin and mummy; part of temples of Deir-el-Bahari
and Medinet Habu ; statues.
1552 Queen Hatshepsu, a reign of peaceful enterprise. Mining industries
developed, also potteries and glass works. Sends expedition of dis-
covery to Punt.
Monuments. — The Great Temple of Deir-el-Bahari ; statues ; a sculp-
tured account of the voyage to Punt; furniture; a draughtboard
and draughtmeii, etc.
1530 Tehutimes in. — Begins his independent reign. The Great Conqueror
of Egyptian history. Southern Syria had rebelled some time before
and, 1529, he begins operations at Zaru. Second year of indepen-
dent reign, battle of Megiddo in campaign against the Ruthennu.
In the following years campaigns in Syria, fifteen in all ; cities
reduced and the Kharu, Zahi, Ruthennu, Kheta and Naharaina
made tributary. Great activity in temple building. The influence
of Syrian culture now begins to be felt in Egypt. Art and manners
lose their distinctive characteristics, and a decline sets in.
Monuments. — Coffin and mummy; obelisks ; part of temple at Karnak,
etc. ; numerous statues and relics of all kinds, and very full annals.
1500 Amenhotep II. — Campaign in Asia to check revolt among his vassals.
Monuments. — Portrait statues ; obelisks and columns at Karnak.
1470 Tehutimes IV. — Continues work of keeping together the empire of
Tehutimes III. Marries a Mitannian princess.
Monuments. — Statues, scarabs, fine private tombs.
1455 Amenhotep III. — With the exception of one campaign in fifth year in
Egypt, rests secure in his supremacy abroad. Trade and art are de-
veloped at home. Close relations between Egypt and Syria. Mar-
ries Thi, perhaps of Syrian origin (mother of Amenhotep IV), also
Gilukhipa (or Kirgipa), daughter of the king of Mitanni (Naharain).
He becomes the ally of the king of Mitanni. He also seems to have
married a daughter of the king of Kardunyash (Babylon).
Monuments. — Very numerous. The Avenue of Sphinxes between
Karnak and Luxor ; temple of Mentu at Karnak ; great temple of
Luxor ; the famous colossi of the Nile ; tomb of Amenhotep the
architect and administrator, etc.
1420 Amenhotep IV (Khun-aten). — Early in this reign the king and court
renounce the national religion, and substitute a strictly monotheistic
worship of Aten, the sun's disk, — a conception that tallies marvel-
lously with modern knowledge of the sun as a source of power and
energy. The whole movement shows an intellectual stride of tre-
mendous proportions. In the hymns of the new sun-god we seem
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 73
to have the first trace of the idea of the brotherhood of man. War
is no longer glorified. The king changes his name to Khun-aten
("Splendour of the Sun's disk"), and builds a new capital.
Monuments. — Palace and tomb at Tel-el-Amarna ; temple of Aten ;
statues, including one perfect statuette now in the Louvre ; the
great hymn to Aten. To this and the former reign belongs the
correspondence in the Babylonian language and the cuneiform
character. These tablets were discovered at Tel-el-Amarna, whither
Amenhotep IV carried them from Thebes. They deal principally
with the relations of the kings of Egypt with those of Babylonia
and Assyria, concerning the marriages of Mesopotamian princesses,
etc. ; troubles and loss of power in northern Syria and Palestine.
1400 Saa-nekht.
1390 Tut-ankh-Amen.
1380 Al.
1368 Hor-em-heb. — Suppresses the solar religion; reconquers Ethiopia.
Monuments. — His private tomb ; numerous steles, etc.
The XVIIIth Dynasty is a period in which the progress of the world
pre-eminently advanced.
XIXTH DYNASTY, 1386-1235 B.C.
1365 Ramses I. — The power of the Kheta begins to make itself felt.
1355 Set! I. — Wars with the Shasu, Kharu, and Kheta. Capture of Kadesh
and defeat of the Kheta. Wars with the Libyans. Patron of
art.
Monuments. — Hall of Columns at Karnak; temple of Osiris at Abydos ;
the Memnonum at Gurnah ; the Tablet of Abydos.
1345 Ramses n, the Great. — The Pharaoh of the Oppression. A noted
builder. Fierce war with the Kheta and their allies breaks out
(yearV). Battle of Kadesh. Continual warfare and victories in
the land of Canaan. Treaty of peace with the Kheta. Subjugates
small tribes of Ethiopia and Libya. Semitic influence is felt in the
customs and language.
Monuments. — Northern court of temple of Ptah at Memphis. New
temples at Abydos and Memphis. Temples and statues at Abu Simbel
— on the knee of one of the statues, some Greek mercenaries of
Psamthek I cut an inscription in archaic Greek. It is the most
ancient piece of non-Semitic alphabetical writing extant. The
Ramesseum ; the poem of Pentaur ; treaty with the Kheta, etc. ;
the Tablet of Saqqarah.
1285 Meneptah. — The Libyans and their allies invade Egypt and are re-
pulsed. Battle of Proposis (year V). The Pharaoh of the Exodus
(circa 1270). To this king belonged the papyrus containing the
"Tale of the Two Brothers."
1250 Sett n. — A troubled reign at Pa-Ramessu, worried by a claimant to the
throne, Amenmes, who reigned as rival king, probably at Thebes.
Monuments. — Fine sepulchre and a small temple.
DYNASTY, 1236-1075 B.C.
1235 Set-nekht. — Succeeds his father Seti II. Siptah-Meneptah succeeds his
father Amenmes, as rival king. The kingdom is now practically r
a state of anarchy. The power rests chiefly with the nomarchs, and
74 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
one of them, Arisu, a Phoenician, becomes their leader and seizes the
throne. Set-nekht drives him out and restores the monarchy.
1225 Ramses III (sometimes reckoned as the founder of the XXth Dynasty).
— Succeeds to a united Egypt but a disorganised empire. The prov-
inces have ceased to pay tribute. The king begins a reconquest of
foreign territory. Defeats Libyans in the west (year V) and the
great confederation of tribes in the east (year VIII). A land and
sea war. Great naval battle near Pelusium. Second campaign
against Libyans (year XI). Eastern provinces and tributary states
recovered. The harem conspiracy. Later years peaceful. Mining
and trade encouraged. The last of the great kings of Egypt.
Monuments. — The Turin and Harris papyri; effigies of conquered
kings; temples, etc.; the account of the harem conspiracy.
1195-1075 The successors of Ramses III have short reigns. There were
some military expeditions but no great wars. The kingdom is main-
tained, but the power of the high priests comes more and more into
prominence, until in the reign of Ramses IX it begins to exceed that
of the Pharaohs. The structure of the kingdom begins rapidly to
decay. Ramses XIII, last king of dynasty.
XXIsT DYNASTY, 1076-945 B.C.
1075 Her-Hor. — High priest of Amen of Thebes, attains to royal power.
The Ramessides are banished.
A new house arises at Tanis. Its chief, Se-Amen, soon overthrows
the dominion of the high priests, and Her-Hor's son (Piankhi) and
grandson (Palnet'em I) have uncontrolled power as high priests
only in the neighbourhood of Thebes. The land is governed simul-
taneously by the Tanites and the high priests. The Ramessides
attempt to regain the throne in the Thebaid. The Tanites crush
this rebellion, and Men-kheper-Ra, one of the family, is made high
priest at Thebes. Solomon marries the daughter of the Tanite king,
probably Fasebkhanu II. The army has since the time of Seti I been
composed chiefly of Libyan mercenaries, out of which a separate class
has now been developed. The chief authority gradually passes from
the Tanites and high priests to the commanders of these mercenaries,
and one of them, Shashanq of Bubastis, by some means gains the
crown of Egypt. The high priests and their adherents retire to
Ethiopia and found a new kingdom whose capital is at Napata.
XXIlND DYNASTY, 945-750 B.C.
945 Shashanq I. — Rules at Bubastis. The high-priesthood of Amen is given
to princes of the reigning family.
Monuments. — The hall of the Bubastites at Karnak ; inscriptions, etc.
925 Shashanq invades Judah, captures and sacks Jerusalem.
920-750 Under Shashanq's successors, the high places in the government
and army are filled with members of the royal family, who found
princedoms for themselves, and the Pharaoh becomes a nominal ruler.
Egypt is a land of petty kings, into which condition of affairs the
kings of Ethiopia (Napata) now intrude.
XXIIlKD AND XXIVTH DYNASTIES, 750-728 B.C.
800 In the reign of Shashanq m, Thebes falls into the hands of the Ethio-
pians. Their conquests gradually extend to Hermopolis under their
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 75
king, Piankhi. At the same time Tefnekht, Prince of Sals, subjects
the western Delta and Memphis, comes in contact with Piankhi but
ends by giving the Ethiopian his allegiance. Piankhi's power over
Egypt not complete, for the XXIIIrd Dynasty of three kings (Uuu-
ken ro among them) seems to have ruled in the Delta, probably at
Bubastis^and is succeeded by the XXI Vth Dynasty, composed of
Tefnekht's son, Bakenranf, who is conquered by Piankhi's grand-
son, Shabak.
Monuments. — The memorial stele of Piankhi, with account of his reign.
XXVfH DYNASTY, 728-656 B.C.
728 Shabak. — Ethiopian rule over Egypt complete. He puts his sister
Ameniritis and her husband to rule over Egypt. A uniform and
strict dominion is not practised ; the local princes still retain their
power. Shabak advises Hoshea of Israel to withhold tribute from
Shalmaneser IV. First connection of Egypt with the Sargonides.
717 Shabatak.
704 Tirhaqa. — Joins Syrian coalition against the Assyrians.
701 The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, invades Palestine. Tirhaqa hastens
to Hezekiah's assistance. Sennacherib compelled by pestilence to
retire. 673, The Assyrian monarch, Esarhaddon, marches as far as
the Egyptian frontier, but withdraws. 670, Esarhaddon appears
again, and captures and destroys Memphis. Tirhaqa flees to Nubia.
The whole country surrenders to Esarhaddon, who reorganises the
government with a native prince over each nome. Neku of Sais la
the chief one. 668, Esarhaddon abdicates. Tirhaqa attempts to
win back the country ; retakes Memphis. 667, Asshurbanapal sends
an army and defeats Egyptians. Conspiracy of several Egyptian
Erinces to restore Tirhaqa. They are taken and punished. 664, Tir-
aqa dies ; Tanut-Amen, his stepson (son of Shabak), succeeds. Is
beaten by Assyrians at Kipkip. Thebes is sacked. End of Ethi-
opian rule.
664-655 The country is ruled by petty princes. In the Delta there are
twelve of these who form the Dodecarchy. Psamthek of Sais
becomes the leader. He throws off the Assyrian yoke with the help
of Carian and Ionian mercenaries, and declares himself Pharaoh.
XXVIiH DYNASTY, 666-627 B.C.
655 (Sometimes dated from 666-4) — Psamthek I makes his rule legitimate
by marrying an Ethiopian princess, Shepenapet. Invasion of Syria.
Capture of Ashdod after a long siege. Commercial treaties with
the Greeks. Two hundred thousand of his Egyptian and Libyan
soldiers desert to Ethiopia through jealousy of the mercenaries.
He restores Thebes.
610 Neku n. — Endeavours to reconstruct the canal between Nile and Red
Sea, attempted by Seti I. and Ramses II. By his orders Phoenician
navigators circumnavigate Africa. Attempts to recover Egypt's
rule in the east, and marches into Syria. 608, Encounters Josiah
at Megiddo. The king of Israel is slain in the battle. Neku marches
toward the Euphrates. 605, Defeat of Neku by Nebuchadrezzar at
Carchemish. End of Egyptian rule in Egypt.
76 THE HISTORY OP EGYPT
594 Psamthek II. — Makes an expedition against the king of Ethiopia.
589 Uah-ab-Ra. — Allies himself with Zedekiah and king of Phoenicia against
Nebuchadrezzar, who afterward invades Egypt. The coalition is
unsuccessful, but his fleet helps Tyre to hold out for thirteen years.
Goes to war with the Greeks of Cyrene, and is defeated. His
troops fear he will destroy and replace them by mercenaries ; they
revolt and choose Aahmes, an officer, to be king.
570 Aahmes II. — Defeats Uah-ab-Ra and strangles him; marries the daugh-
ter of Psamthek II, to legitimise his pretensions. He encourages com-
mercial relations with Greeks. Allies himself with Croesus against
Cyrus of Persia. Cambyses attacks Egypt on death of Cyrus.
526 Fsamthek III. — In his second year he was defeated by Cambyses at
Pelusium and Memphis. Egypt a Persian province, 525-405 B.C.
XXVIlTH DYNASTY, 525-405 B.C.
525 The Persian Cambyses tolerates the religion, maintains temples, and
does all he can to conciliate the people. Leaves Egypt in charge of
the first satrap Aryandes. Cambyses, in his rage, after an unsuccess-
ful expedition against Napata, orders destruction of temples, etc.
521 Darius I. — Works hard to conciliate the people.
488 Egyptians revolt and expel Persians. Set up a native ruler, Khab-
bosh, who holds out for three years.
485 The Persian Xerxes I. — Reconquers Egypt and appoints Achsemenes,
• his brother, governor.
464 Artaxerxes I.
460 Inarus, King of Libya, aids Egyptians to rise against Persia. Battle
of Papramis. Memphis captured, but Persians regain supremacy.
424 Xerxes II. \ Continued endeavours of Egyptians to throw off Persian
" Darius II. /yoke.
XXVniTH DYNASTY, 405-399 B.C.
405 Amen-Rut. — A native prince in revolt against Persia, on death of
Darius II becomes practically independent. At his death the gov-
ernment passes to the prince of Mendes.
XXIXiH DYNASTY, 399-378 B.C.
399 Nia-faa-urut I. 393 Haker. 380 F«a-mut. — Ally themselves with ene-
mies of Persia.
379 Nia-faa-urut n.
XXXiH DYNASTY, 378-340 B.C.
378 Nectanebo I. — Defeats Persians and Greeks at Mendes. This victory
secures peace for some years. Revival of art.
364 Tachus. — Wars with Persia.
361 Nectanebo II. — The Persians again invade Egypt, at first unsuccessfully.
XXXIsT DYNASTY, 340-332 B.C.
340 Ochus( Artaxerxes III).— Defeats Nectanebo at Pelusium. Nectanebo
flees to Napata. Ochus proves a cruel governor.
332 Alexander the Great appears at Pelusium. The Persians surrender
without a struggle. Beginning of Greek dominion.
A
CHAPTER I. THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN
Egypt is a long Contree ; but it is streyt, that is to seye narrow ; for
thei may not enlargen it toward the Desert, for defaute of Watre. And
the Contree is sett along upon the Ry vere of Nyle ; be als much aa that
Eyvere may serve be Flodes or otherwise that whanne it flowethe it
may spreden abrood thorghe the Contree ; so is the Contree large of
Lengthe. For there it reyneth not but litylle in the Contree ; and for
that Cause, they have no Watre, but zif it be of that Flood of that
Ryvere. And for als moche as it ne reyeneth not in that Contree, but
the Eyr is alwey pure and clear, therefor in that Contree ben the gode
Astronomyeres ; for thei fynde there no Cloudes to letten hem. — The
voyage and travile of Sir John Maundeville, Kt.
Two theories as to the origin of the Egyptians have been prominent, the
one supposing that they came originally from Asia, the other that their racial
cradle lay in the upper regions of the Nile, particularly in Ethiopia. Even
to-day there is no agreement among Egyptologists as to which of these the-
ories is correct. Among the earlier students of the subject, Heeren was
prominent in pointing out an alleged analogy between the form of skull of
the Egyptian and that of the Indian races. He believed in the Indian origin
of the Egyptians.
One of the most recent authorities, Professor Flinders Petrie, inclines to
the opinion that the Egyptians were of common origin with the Phoenicians,
and that they came into the Nile region from the land of Punt, across the Red
Sea. Professor Maspero, on the other hand, inclines to the belief in the
African origin of the race; and the latest important anthropological theory, as
propounded by Professor Sergi, contends for the Ethiopic origin of the entire
Mediterranean race, of which the Egyptians are a part. According to this
theory, a race whose primitive seat of residence was in the upper regions of
the Nile spread gradually to the north, finally invading Asia by way of the
Isthmus of Suez, and crossing to the peninsulas of southern Europe by way
of Crete and Cyprus and Sicily, and perhaps also, after a long journey to
the west along the Mediterranean coast of Africa, by way of the Straits of
Gibraltar.
The true scientific status of the matter amounts merely to a confession
of almost entire ignorance. The theory of Sergi, just referred to, finds a
certain support in the data of cranial measurements, but it would be going
77
78
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
much beyond warrantable conclusions to affirm anything like certainty for the
inferences drawn from all the observations as yet available. The historian is
obliged, therefore, to fall back upon the simple fact that for a good many
thousands of years before the Christian era, a race of people of unknown ori-
gin inhabited the Nile Valley, and had attained a very high state of civilisa-
tion. Whatever the origin of this people, and however diversified the racial
elements of which it was composed, the climatic conditions of Egypt had long
since imposed upon the entire population an influence that welded all the
diverse elements into a single racial mould, so that, as Professor Maspero
points out, at the very dawn of Egyptian history the inhabitants of the
entire land of Egypt constituted a single race, speaking one language and
showing very little diversity of culture.
It is one of the standing surprises for the student of antiquity that the
most massive structures ever built by man should be found in Egypt, dating
from a period so remote as to be almost prehistoric. One finds it hard to
MUMMY OF THE PBB-DTNASTIC PERIOD DISCOVERED RECENTLY IN EGYPT
(Now iu the British Muaeum)
avoid the feeling that there was a race sprung suddenly to a very high plane
of civilisation, as if by a sheer leap from barbarism ; but, of course, no modern
student of the subject considers the matter in this light. It is uniformly
accepted that a vast period of time lies back of the Pyramids, in which the
Egyptians were slowly working their way upward. Professor Maspero
estimates that for at least eight or ten thousand years the people had
inhabited this land, all along developing their peculiar civilisation. Of
course such an estimate makes no claim to historical accuracy ; it is only
a general conclusion based upon what seems a reasonable rate of progress.
The recent explorations in Egypt have endeavoured to penetrate the
mysteries of what has hitherto been the prehistoric period, and these efforts
have met with a certain measure of success. In the Fayum, Professor Petrie
has made excavations that revealed the remains of a much earlier period
than that of the first dynasties hitherto recognised. Among other interest-
ing relics, sarcophagi were found containing mummified bodies in a marvel-
lous state of preservation. One of these now exhibited at the British
Museum in London shows the body of a man of full proportions lying on
his side with knees folded up against his body. Unlike the mummies of
the later Egyptian period, this ancient effigy has no wrappings of any kind,
but so remarkable are the results of the processes of embalming to which
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN 79
it has been subjected, that the form of the various members, and the
features even, have been preserved with marvellously little shrinkage or
distortion. The skin is indeed dry and dark, yet its resemblance to the
skin of a living person of a dark-hued race is so striking that one can
hardly realise, in looking at it, that the corpse before him is the body of a
person who lived perhaps eight or ten thousand years ago.
As to other remains found by the later explorations, among the most in-
teresting and suggestive are flint implements chipped in the manner charac-
teristic of the Palaeolithic or rough stone age. We are guarded, however,
against drawing too sweeping inferences from these antiquities by Professor
Petrie's assurance that the Egyptians continued to use such chipped flint
implements throughout the period from the IVth to the Xth Dynasty. It
has been doubted whether any of these stone implements can be regarded
as of strictly prehistoric origin, or whether, indeed, any of the antiquities
discovered in Egypt evidence an uncivilised stage of racial history. The
latest opinion, however, is that the makers of the pottery and flint imple-
ments were the aborigines of the country, who were displaced by the inva-
sion of the Egyptians of history.
The most important excavations of the last eight or ten years, carried on
by Amelineau, Petrie, and De Morgan have had for their object the collec-
tion of remains of this pre-dynastic era.
We are not likely to hear more of the contention that the archaic objects
found at Naqada and other places were the work of a " New Race " of
invaders that had intruded somewhere in those dark ages between the Vlth
and Xlth Dynasties, for this long and bitter controversy is now replaced
by a state of complete agreement among the authorities that the people
who could lay claim to the pottery and flint objects were the aborigines,
living in Egypt when the Egyptians of history invaded the country.
In their possession of the country these aborigines were ousted by the
race which gradually loomed upon the historic horizon and to whom it has
long been the custom to assign Menes as the first king, treating the pre-
ceding periods as the time of the gods and demigods, to whose rule tradition
assigns an epoch which varies from 1000 to nearly 40,000 years. But the
indications are that within a few years there will be much light thrown on
the period preceding King Menes. Just why this king should have been
placed at the head of the 1st Dynasty now seems quite clear. He was the
first " Lord of the Two Lands " — the united Upper and Lower Egypt.
It must be recognised by any one who would gain a clear idea of national
existence, that the character of a race is enormously influenced by the physi-
cal and climatic features of its environment. There have been differences
of opinion among students of the subject as to the amount of change that
may be effected by altered surroundings. But whoever considers the matter
in the light of modern ideas, can hardly be much in doubt as to the answer
to any question thus raised.
If it be admitted that all the races of mankind sprang originally from
a single source, — an hypothesis upon which students of the most diverse
habits of thought are agreed, — then in the last analysis it would appear
that we must look to such environing conditions as soil and climate for
the causes of all the differences that are observed among the different races
of the earth to-day. The man inhabiting equatorial regions has a dark
skin and certain well-marked traits of character, simply because his ances-
tors for almost endless generations have been subjected to the influences of
a tropical climate ; and the light-skinned inhabitant of northern Europe
80 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
owes his antagonistic characteristics to the widely different climatic con-
ditions of high latitudes. And what is true of these extreme instances, is
no less true of all intermediate races.
In a word, then, the Egyptian would not have been the individual that
we know, had he not lived in the valley of the Nile. The Mesopotamian
required the environment of the Tigris and Euphrates to develop his typical
characteristics, and similarly with the Greek and Roman, and with the mem-
bers of every other race.
But, in accepting this view, one must not be blinded to the fact that the
changes wrought by environment in the character of a race, are of necessity
extremely slow. The peculiar traits that give racial distinction to any com-
pany of people have not been attained except through many generations of
slow alteration ; and such is the conservative power of heredity that the char-
acteristics thus slowly stamped upon a race are well-nigh indelible. How
pertinacious is their hold is best illustrated in the case of the modern Jews,
who retain their racial identity though scattered in all regions of the globe.
With this illustration in mind, it cannot be matter for surprise that any race
that remains in the same environment, and as a rule does not mingle with other
races, shall have retained the same essential characteristics throughout the
historic period. That such is really the historic fact regarding any particular
race of antiquity, might not at first sight be obvious. It might seem, for
example, that the modern Egyptian, who plays so insignificant a part in the
world-history of the nineteenth century, must be a very different person in-
deed from his ancient progenitor, who maintained for many centuries the
dominant civilisation of the world.
But it must not be forgotten that national standards are relative ; in other
words, that the status of a people depends, not alone upon the plane of civili-
sation of that people itself, but quite as much upon the relative plane of
civilisation of its neighbours. When the Egyptians sank from power,
it was not so much that they lost their inherent capacity for progress,
as that other nations outstripped them in the race, and came presently
to dominate and subjugate them, and thus to stamp out their ambition.
In support of this view, note the fact that the Egyptians again and again,
at intervals of many centuries, were able to rouse themselves from a
lethargy imposed by their conquerors, and to regain for a time their old
position of supremacy. But the best tangible illustration of the fixity of
the character of a race is furnished by the modern historians, who have at
the same time most profoundly studied the ancient conditions as recorded
on the monuments, and, while doing so, have been brought in contact with
the present inhabitants of the Nile Valley.
No other scholars of the present generation have made more profound
investigations than Professor Petrie and Professor Erman, both of whom
have been led to comment on the extraordinary similarity of manner and
custom and inherent characteristics between the ancient and the modern
Egyptians. Here is Professor firman's? verdict:
" The people who inhabited ancient Egypt still survive in their descend-
ants, the modern Egyptians. The vicissitudes of history have changed both
language and religion, but invasions and conquests have not been able to
alter the features of this ancient people. The hundreds and thousands of
Greeks and Arabs who have settled in the country seem to have been ab-
sorbed into it ; they have modified the race in the great towns, where their
numbers were considerable, but in the open country they scarcely produced
any effect. The modern fellah resembles his forefather of four thousand
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN 81
years ago, except that he speaks Arabic, and has become a Mohammedan.
In a modern Egyptian village, figures meet one that might have walked out
of the pictures in an ancient Egyptian tomb. We must not deny that this
resemblance is partly due to another reason besides the continuance of the old
race. Each country and condition of life stamps the inhabitants with certain
characteristics. The nomad of the desert has the same features, whether he
wanders through the Sahara or the interior of Arabia ; and the Copt, who
has maintained his religion through centuries of oppression, might be mis-
taken at first sight for a Polish Jew, who has suffered in the same way.
The Egyptian soil, therefore, with its ever constant conditions of life, has
always stamped the population of the Nile Valley with the same seal.
"As a nation the Egyptians appear to have been intelligent, practical,
and very energetic, but lacking poetical imagination ; this is exactly what
we should expect from peasants living in this country of toilsome agricul-
ture. 'In his youth the Egyptian peasant is wonderfully docile, sensible,
and active ; in his riper years, owing to want and care, and the continual
work of drawing water, he loses the cheerfulness and elasticity of mind
which made him appear so amiable and promising.' This picture of a race,
cheerful by nature, but losing the happy temperament and becoming selfish
and hardened, represents also the ancient people."
But, however freely it may be admitted that soil and climate put their
seal upon a race, opinions will always differ as to just how the racial charac-
teristics are to be interpreted. In the case of all Oriental nations the
European mind has found such interpretation peculiarly difficult. The
Egyptians are no exception to this rule, as we shall see.*
THE COUNTRY AND ITS INHABITANTS
The whole of North Africa is covered by a great desert, bordered only
on the northwest by a considerable arable district, which at present forms
the states of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. Except for this, if we set aside
a single strip of coast land in the country between the two Syrtes (Tripolis,
Leptis) and in Cyrenaica (Bengari), this whole territory is totally destitute
of all higher civilisation. It forms the natural frontier of the Mediterranean
world, beyond which not even ancient civilisation ever penetrated. The
interior of Africa was practically unknown to the Greek and Roman world.
The formidable desert land, embracing more than three million square
miles, contains a series of depressed levels in which springs are harboured,
and vegetation, especially the date-palm, thrives. These are the oases.
Here, and here only, are permanent human settlements possible. At the
same time the oases form stations in the wearisome and difficult way
through the desert, where the trader who wants to acquire goods in the coun-
tries on the other side is exposed not only to the dangers that threaten hun
from want of water, loss of his way, and sand-storms, but also to the attacks
of vagrant robber hordes that traverse the desert in nomadic confusion.
East of the great desert, at a distance of a few days' journey from the
Arabian Gulf, lies a straggling fruitful valley, which in some sense may I
regarded as an oasis of colossal dimensions. This is Egypt, the valley of
the Lower Nile. On both sides it is bounded by desert land.
rises the plateau of the Libyan Desert, flat, absolutely barren, covered wil
impenetrable sand-banks. On the east a rocky highland of solid qua
and chalk rises in a gradual slope, at the back of which the cryst
masses of the so-called Arabian Mountains ascend to a height of about i
II. W. — VOL. I. O
82
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
thousand feet. In geological structure the two territorial districts are en-
tirely different, but, although it is true that nomadic hordes can, at a pinch,
keep body and soul together in the eastern desert, and that they are not
entirely cut off from vegetation, from springs and cisterns in which the rain-
water is gathered up from storm and tempest, civilisation
is as much sealed to them as it is to the Libyan waste,
through which it is impossible to penetrate, and which is
habitable only in the oases.
Between the two deserts, occupying a breadth of from
fifteen to thirty-three miles, lies the depression forming
the valley of Egypt. It forms the bed which the river has
dug for itself in the soft chalky soil with untiring activity.
Formerly, thousands of years ago, — thousands indeter-
minate, — it poured through the country in riotous cascades,
the traces of which are still clearly recognisable in many
spots. Gradually the river cleaned out the whole bed and
established a regular surface level. When the historical
period begins, the creative career of the river has already
long been completed ; from this time forward, the Nile
flows in manifold curves and with numerous
tributaries through the wrinkled valley,
which it floods to a considerable degree only
in midsummer, when the Ethiopian snow
melts and seeks an outlet. The fertile land
extends precisely as far as the waters of the
Nile penetrate, or are guided by the hand
of man in the flood season ; a sharp line of
demarcation separates the black fertile land
formed of the muddy deposit left by the
river, from the gray-yellow of the bordering
desert. The breadth of the fertile territory
is variable ; on an average it covers eight,
rarely more than ten, miles. Only at the
mouth of the Nile it expands to the
wide marsh lands of the Delta, in-
tersected by numerous swamps and
lakes.
Also on the south the border-land
of Egypt has a sharp natural line of
demarcation. A little above the
24th degree of latitude, at Gebel Silsilis, the sandstone plateau joins right
on the river, higher up covering the whole of Nubia. The narrow neck of
river at Gebel Silsilis is the southern boundary of fertile Egypt. A signifi-
cant saga rising from the Arabian name of the mountain range (Silsilis
means " the chain ") tells how once upon a time the stream was cut off by
a chain that connected the opposite mountains. About eight miles higher up,
at Assuan (Syene) a mountain range of granite and syenite opposes the
course of the river like a cross-rail. True, the river has broken through the
hard stone, but it has not had the power to rub it away, as it has done with
the chalk-stone of Egypt ; in numerous rapids it forces a passage between
neighbouring rocks and innumerable islands raised from its bed. Without
doubt, however, the torrent has continued to make its bed deeper here also.
We know from old Egyptian accounts of the Nile levels that about four
STATUE OP THE GODDESS SEKHET
(NOW in the British Museum)
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN
83
thousand years ago, at the time of the Xllth Dynasty, the Nile at the for-
tresses of Semneh and Kumneh, above the second cataract, must have been
at least eight metres higher than it is at the present day. This can be ex-
plained only by supposing that, since then, the river must have burrowed
an equivalent depth in the rocks of the cataract district.
This " First Cataract," which makes real navigation very nearly an im-
possibility,— a vessel can be steered through the rapids
only with considerable difficulty and danger, — has always
formed the southern boundary of Egypt. Above it, the
Nile flows in a great curve through the Nubian sandstone
plateau. At numerous places its way is blocked by hard
stone material, through which it digs a bed in cata-
racts. The river valley has throughout no more than
a breadth of from five to nine miles. The fertile land,
which at the time of the old empire was pretty
thickly wooded, confines itself, where it does not cease
altogether, to a narrow seam on the
banks, so that the inhabitants, in order
to leave as little as possible of it un-
utilised, formed their villages on the
barren, unfruitful heights above it.
The whole stretgh of 1000 miles from
Khartum to the first cataract contains
at the present day only 1125 square
miles of laid-out land. South of the
Tropic only, the country on the Red
Sea is gradually becoming capable of
fertilisation ; for the most part, here it
bears the character of the Steppes.
Also in the Nile, therefore, Egypt is
almost totally shut off from Africa.
The campaign of the English against
the Mahdi has again given us a vigorous
picture of how wearisome and
difficult is the connection here ;
of the dangers that a tropical
sun, a deficiency of habitations,
and the difficulties of communi-
cation offer to a small army
that tries to advance here.
Egypt is the narrowest country in the world ; embracing an expanse of
570 miles in length, it does not contain more than 12,000 square miles of
fertile land, that is to say, it is not larger than the kingdom of Belgium.
It is necessary to keep this fact clearly in view, especially as the maps accessi-
ble may only too easily convey quite a false impression, because they include
the desert land within the boundary line of Egypt, and as a rule do not dis-
tinguish it by any sign from the fertile land. The ancient indigenous con-
ception is in complete accordance with the geographical character of the
land. Egypt, or Kamit, as the country is termed in the indigenous lan-
guage (the name certainly signifies "the dark country "\ is only the fertile
valley of the Nile. Here only do the Egyptians dwell. The oases in tl
west and the "red country" (Tasherit) in the east, i.e. the naked, reddish,
glimmering plateaus of the Arabian Desert, are reckoned as foreign with
STATCK OF MKKKPTAH II, XlXra DYKASTT
(Now In the Brltlth Museum)
84 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
consistent regularity, and they are not inhabited by Egyptians. The true
state of affairs is quite accurately portrayed in the oracle which decreed,
" Egypt is all the country watered by the Nile, and Egyptians are all those
who dwell below the town Elephantine and drink Nile water."
Herodotus defines Egypt accurately as a " bequest of the river " ; to
the river alone it owes its fertility and its well-being. But for the flowing
river, the sand of the Libyan Desert would cover that whole wrinkled valley,
which, with the aid of the river, has become one of the most fertile and most
thickly populated countries on the earth.
At the time in which our historical information begins, we find the
Lower Nile Valley inhabited by a race which, after the precedent of the
Greeks, we call Egyptians. Whence the word comes, we know not ; we
can only say that Aigyptos in the first instance denotes the river — almost
without exception in the Odyssey it is thus. The word was then trans-
ferred to the country and its inhabitants, and the river received the name
of Neilos (Nile), the origin of which is equally obscure. An indigenous
name of the population did not exist; the Egyptians denoted themselves,
in distinction from foreigners, simply as " men " (rometu). Their coun-
try, as we have already mentioned, they called Kamit, "Black Country";
the river was named Ha-pi. Semitic people called Egypt, we know not why,
Mior or Musr (Hebrew Mizraim, the termination being a very common one
with the names of localities). In its Arabian form, Masr, this word, at the
present day, has become the indigenous name of the country and of its capi-
tal, which we call Cairo. From the name Egyptians, on the contrary, was
developed the modern denotation of the Christian successors of the old
indigenous population, the Copts.
Controversy has been abundant and vigorous with regard to the ethno-
graphical place of the Egyptians. While philologists and historians assume
a relation with the neighbouring Asiatic races, separating the Egyptians by
a sharp line of distinction from the negro race, ethnologists and biologists,
Robert Hartmann pre-eminent amongst them, have defined them as genuine
children of Africa who stood in indisputable physical relation with the races
of the interior of the continent. And certainly in the type of the modern
Egyptian there are points of contact with the typical negro, and we shall
not here dispute the validity of the possible contention that a gradual transi-
tion from the Egyptians to the negroes of the Sudan can be demonstrated,
and that in the Nile Valley we never are confronted with an acute ethno-
logical contrast.
We should note, however, that an acute contradiction in races is no-
where on earth perceptible. Everywhere may be found members to bridge
over the gap, and the classification which we so much need does not ever
start with the intermediate stages, but with the extremes in which the racial
type finds its purest illustration.
Moreover, the type of the modern Egyptian cannot straightway deter-
mine the question as to the origin of the ancient Egyptian population, even
if we do not take into account the difficult problem of how far climate
and soil exercise a moderating influence upon a race. The inhabitants of
the Lower Nile Valley at the time of the New Kingdom, and from that
time forward in the whole course of history, have mingled so extensively
with pure African blood, that it would have been a miracle if no assimilation
had taken place. It is an undoubted fact that the Turks belong to the
peoples resembling the Mongolians; but who will put the modern Osman
in the same line with the Chinaman, or fail to recognise the assimilation to
THE EGYPTIAN EACE AND ITS ORIGIN 86
the Armenian, Persian, Semitic, Greek type? The same is true, for
example, of the Magyars. A strictly analogous state of things is found in
Egypt. It has been proved that, in the skull-formation of the modern
Egyptian, the influence of the African element is more clearly discernible
than in the days of the ancients. Moreover, a careful comparison leads to
the conclusion that in ancient, as in modern Egypt, there are two co-existent
types: one resembling the Nubian more closely, who is naturally more
strongly represented in Upper Egypt than in Memphis and Cairo; and one
sharply distinguished from him whom we may define as the pure Egyptian.
Midway between these two stands a hybrid form, represented in numerous
examples and sufficiently accounted for by the intermixture of the two races.
While the Nubian type is closer akin to the pure negro type and is indig-
enous in Africa, we must regard the purely Egyptian type as foreign to
this continent ; this directs us toward the assumption that the most ancient
home of the Egyptian is to be sought in Asia. The Egyptians have depicted
themselves, times out of number, on monuments, and enable us clearly
enough to recognise their type.
For the most part, they are powerful, close-knit figures, frequently
with vigorous features. Not infrequently, as Erman has sagaciously sug-
gested, the heads have a " clever, witty expression just like what we are
accustomed to meet with in cunning old peasants." We have a recurrence
of the same trait in several early Roman portraits. Side by side with this
we have finely cut features: for instance, we are reminded of the almost
effeminate expression in the head of Ramses II. The Egyptian type is
altogether different from the negro type; the structure of tie nose, for in-
stance, is delicate for the most part, and there is no trace of prognathismus,
or the protrusion of the lower part of the face.
On the monuments the colour of the skin in male Egyptians, who in
ancient days went totally naked but for a loin cloth, is a red-brown. On
the other hand, the women, who were clad in a long robe and were not
equally exposed to the effects of air and sun, are painted in a lighter brown
or yellow. In quite similar fashion the Greeks of old represented men on
their vases as red and women as white. We should not forget that the art
of depicting the finer shades of colours in paint had not yet been learnt.
Just as the Egyptians are distinguished from the population of the in-
terior of Africa, so they have their nearest kinsmen in the inhabitants of the
northern zone of the continent. West of them, on the coast lands on the
Mediterranean as well as in the oases of the desert, dwell races which are
comprehended by Egyptians under the term Thuhen. Following the prece-
dent of the Greeks, we have transferred to all of them the name of the
Libyans, that race which was settled in the territory of Gyrene, where the
Greeks first learned of their existence. In Egyptian memorials we find them
again under the name of Rebu (we should observe here, once for all, that
neither Egyptian speech nor Egyptian writing has an L, and so in foreign
words every R may be read as an L). The name Rebu, as the Greek form
of the name tells us, was pronounced Lebu [Libu]. To the east of these
Libyans proper, in the desert plateau of the country of Mannarica, dwell the
Tuhennu, who spread as far as the borders of Egypt, and even also settled
in the western portion of the Delta. Further westward, presumably in the
neighbourhood of the Syrtes, we find the Mashauasha. The Greeks,
especially Herodotus, have preserved for us a great number of other names.
All these tribes, to which the dwellers in the oases also belong, are most
closely related to one another, and form, together with the inhabitants of
86 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
western North Africa, the Numidians and the Moors, a great group of
nations, which we denote by the term Libyan or Moorish, or in modern
terminology the group of Berber nations. The Libyans are light in colour;
on the Egyptian monuments they are represented by a white-gray skin
tint.
In the Moors the old type is to some extent still preserved. They
are warlike, brave tribes, not without talent. But none of them, it is
true, developed a high civilisation, although they adopted certain ele-
ments of civilisation from the Egyptians, and later on, in Mauretania,
from the Carthaginians. According to the representations on the monu-
ments, the custom of tattooing their arms and legs ruled amongst them ;
among the engraved signs we also meet with the symbol of Nit, the patron
goddess of Sals, whose population would appear to have consisted chiefly
of Libyans.
As in the west, Libyans and Moors, to judge from their language, are
connected with the Egyptians, so this is true in the south of a great number of
tribes east of the Nile Valley. These are the ancestors of the modern Bedia
tribes (i.e. of the Ababde, the Bischarin, and others, dwelling in the deserts
and steppes east of the Upper Nile Valley), and of their relations, the Fa-
laschas, the Gallas, the Somali. Among them the country and people of
Gush attained particular pre-eminence in antiquity ; they were the south-
eastern neighbours of the Egyptians, who had their original settlements in
the wastes and steppes of the mountain country east of the Nile. In the
course of history they press forward against the negroes of the Nile Valley,
the ancestors of the modern Nubians, and finally establish here a powerful
empire.
The Hebrews and the Assyrians are accustomed to call this country
Gush, and we too are in the habit of using this name Cushite instead of
Egyptian. The Greeks call them Ethiopians. In the Christian era this
name was adopted by a people living much farther south, the Semitic in-
habitants of the great highlands of Habesh (Abyssinia), and this people and
its language (Ge-ez) are therefore to-day called Ethiopian. But care must
be taken not to transfer this term of modern usage in its modern significance
to the circumstances of antiquity. The Ethiopia of 'antiquity is geographi-
cally about coterminous with modern Nubia.
A still more bewildering confusion has been engendered by the term
Cushites. In the Old Testament, in the review of the races taking their
departure from Noah, the name Cusli has been transferred to Babylonia
(Gen. x. 8 ; possibly also in the story of the Fall, ii. 13). This is to be
explained by the fact that the robber mountain horde of the Kossseans, or, as
they called themselves, the Kasshu, maintained supremacy for centuries
in Babylonia ; this name was identified by the Hebrew narrator with that
denoting the African tribe. Recent experts have derived the most illusory
consequences from this misunderstanding. In consequence of it the Cushites
have become for them an Asiatic-African aboriginal people of wide extent,
appearing everywhere and never at home ; and wherever we encounter
riddles in the matter handed down to us, or a bold combination has to be
made possible, these Cushites are trotted out, only to sink again into noth-
ingness as soon as they have done their work. Conceptions of this character
have found their way into ethnographical, philological, and historical works
of high merit.
From the abortion that has grown out of the amalgamation of the
Babylonian robber and warrior hordes with an African tribe, originally
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN 87
of quite a low grade of cultivation and the scantiest mental endow-
ment, has been manufactured a people to whom the beginning of all
civilisation has been referred, to whose inspiration the great monuments of
Egypt, as of Babylonia, are supposed to owe their origin, but whose person-
ality ceases to b'e tangible anywhere from the moment that positive histori-
cal evidence begins.
In the face of this we must again dwell on the fact that the Kossaeans
and the Cushites have not the slenderest historical connection with each
other. The latter is a very real people that gradually absorbed a certain
degree of external civilisation from the Egyptians.
With these East African nationalities on the one side, and the Libyans
and Moors on the other, the Egyptians form a great group of nations
whose languages are closely related to one another, and whom one may
designate as North Africans. The North African languages again, in their
grammatical structure as well as in their vocabulary, reveal a kindred
spirit, however distant, with that in the language of their eastern Asiatic
neighbours, the Semites, i.e. the inhabitants of Arabia, Syria, Assyria,
and Babylonia. Especially in the most ancient form of Egyptian handed
down to us, in the language of the time of the Pyramids, are we every-
where confronted with this kindred spirit. It is impossible to resist the
conclusion that there was a time when the forefathers of the Egyptians
and of the rest of the North Africans enjoyed a community of speech
with the Semites.
Such being the case, we are inclined to conclude that the North Afri-
cans belong to the so-called Caucasian race of men, and that they reached
their later domicile in prehistoric times, after their detachment from the
Semites.
If this assumption can claim for itself a high degree of probability, \ye
have not advanced a very great deal toward the understanding of the his-
torical development of Egypt. For these wanderings and migrations belong in
any case to times remote — ay, very remote — from all historical evidence,
and they provide us with no new disclosures from any direction as to the
character and the development of the Egyptians. A further inference has
been expressed that the immigrants into Egypt found it occupied by an
indigenous population, which they subdued, and that from this population
came the bondmen whom we find in ancient Egypt, while the immigrants
went to make the lords and the aristocracy.
Possibly this assumption is just ; in support of it we may cite the
agreement subsisting between the nature of the Egyptian animal worship
and the religious conceptions of several of the African peoples. But we
must never lose sight of the fact that the Egyptians themselves have no
knowledge of any such theory.
If an immigration and an amalgamation of peoples took place, at
time of the Pyramids it had already long been buried in oblivion ;
Egyptians regard themselves as autocthonous, and --with the exception
of a part of the population in the lower lands of Nubia, Libya, and
Asia — as a single nation, within which there can be no question of
a clash of mental conceptions, and within which the proud and
humble, the lord and the bondman, have nothing to distinguish them
externally.
Historical presentation demands that we should treat
throughout as one people, whatever may be the number of different
that settled in the Nile Valley in prehistoric time.&
88 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
The earliest stage of man that is known in Egypt is the Palaeolithic ;
this was contemporary with a rainy climate, which enabled at least some
vegetation to grow on the high desert, for the great bulk of the worked
flints are found five to fifteen hundred feet above the Nile, on a tableland
which is now entirely barren desert. Water-worn palseoliths are found in the
beds of the stream courses, now entirely dried up, and flaked flints of a rather
later style occur in the deep beds of Nile gravels, which are twenty or thirty
feet above the highest level of the present river. This type of work, how-
ever, lasted on to the age of the existing conditions, for perfectly sharp and
fresh palseoliths are found on the desert as low down as the present high
Nile.
PREHISTORIC EGYPT
The date of the change of climate is roughly shown by the depth of the
Nile deposits. It is well known by a scale extending over about three
thousand years, that in different parts of Egypt the rise of the Nile bed has
been on an average about four inches per century, owing to the annual de-
posits of mud during the inundation. And in various borings that have been
made, the depth of the Nile mud is only about twenty-five or thirty feet.
Hence an age of about eight or nine thousand years for the cultivable land
may be taken as a minimum, probably to be somewhat extended by slighter
deposit in the earlier time.
The continuous history extends to about 5000 B.C., and the prehistoric age
of continuous culture known to us covers probably two thousand years more ;
hence our continuous knowledge probably extends back to about 7000 B.C.,
or to about the time when the change of climate took place. At that time we
find a race of European type starting on a continuous career, but with re-
mains of a steatopygous race of " Bushman " (Koranna) type known and
represented in modelled figures. We can hardly avoid the conclusion that
this steatopygous race was that of Palaeolithic man in Egypt, especially as
that equivalence is also known in the French cave remains. It is noticeable
that all the figures known of this race — in France, Malta, and Egypt — are
women, suggesting that the men were exterminated by the newer people, but
the women were kept as slaves, and hence were familiar to the pioneers of
the European race. These Palaeolithic women were broadly built, with deep
lumbar curve, great masses of fat on the hips and thighs, with hair along the
lower jaw and over most of the body.
The fresh race which entered Egypt was of European type — slender,
fair-skinned, with long, wavy brown hair. The skull was closely like that
of the ancient and modern Algerians of the interior ; and as one of the
earliest classes of their pottery is similar in material and decoration to the
present Kabyle pottery, we may consider them a branch of Algerians. They
seem to have entered the country as soon as the Nile deposits rendered it
habitable by an agricultural people. They already made well-formed pottery
by hand, knew copper as a rarity, and were clad in goatskins. Entering a
fertile country, and mixing probably with the earlier race, they made rapid
advance in all their products, and in a few generations they had an able
civilisation. Their work in flint was fine and bold, with more delicate
handiwork than that of any other people except their descendants ; their
stone vases were cut in the hardest materials with exquisite regularity ;
their carving of ivory and slate was better than anything which followed
for over a thousand years ; and they had a large number of signs in use,
which were probably the first stages of our alphabet.
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN 89
After some centuries of this culture a change appears, at the same point
of time in every kind of work. A difference of people seems probable, but
no great change of race, as the type is unaltered. The later people show
some Eastern affinities ; and it seems as if a part of the earlier Libyan people
had entered Syria or North Arabia and had afterward flowed back through
Egypt, modified by their Semitic contact. It is perhaps to this influx that
the Semitic element in the Egyptian language is due.
This later prehistoric people brought in new kinds of pottery and more
commerce, which provided gold, silver, and various foreign stones ; they also
elaborated the art of flint-working to its highest pitch of regularity and
beauty, and they generally extended the use of copper, and developed the
principal tools to full size. But they show even less artistic feeling than
the earlier branch, for all figure-carving quickly decayed, both in ivory and
in stone. The use of amulets was brought in, and also forehead pendants
of shell. And the signs which were already in use almost entirely disappeared.
This prehistoric civilisation was much decayed when it was overcome by a
new influx of people, who founded the dynastic rule. These came apparently
from the Red Sea, as they entered Egypt in the reign of Coptos, and not
either from the north or from the Upper Nile. They were a highly artistic
people, as the earliest works attributable to them — the Min sculptures at
Coptos — show better drawing than any work by the older inhabitants ; and
they rapidly advanced in art to the noble works of the 1st Dynasty. They
also brought in the hieroglyphic system, which was developed along with their
art. It seems probable that they came up from the Land of Punt, at the south
of the Red Sea, and they may have been a branch of the Punic race in its
migration from the Persian Gulf round by sea to the Mediterranean. They
rapidly subdued the various tribes which were in Egypt, and at least five
different types of man are shown on the monuments of their earliest
kings.** Of these there were two distinct lines, the kings of Upper and
the kings of Lower Egypt. The Palermo stone gives us the names of
seven independent kings of Lower Egypt who ruled before the time of
Menes — Seker, Tesau, Tau, Thesh, Neheb, Uat'-nar, and Mekha, while
within the past few years the names of three pre-dynastic kings of Upper
Egypt have been revealed — Te, Re, and Ka. To discover when and where
these early monarchs reigned is probably the most interesting and important
problem engaging the Egyptologist to-day.*
CHAPTER II. THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM
THE FIRST DYNASTY
Thinites
Years In
Manetho
Afr.
Euseb.
1
Menes . .
Mena . . .
Mena .
Menes . .
62
60
2
Athothis . .
Atu . . .
Teta . . .
Teta . . .
67
27
3
Kenkenes .
Ateth . . .
. .
31
39
4
. . .a .
Ata . . .
23
42
5
Usapha'ides .
» Hesep-ti . .
Hesep-ti . .
Hesep-ti . .
20
20
6
Miebidos
Mer-ba-pen .
Mer-ba-pa .
Mer-ba-pen .
26
26
7
Semempses .
Men-sa-nefer
Sem-en-Ptah
Sem-en-Ptah
18
18
8
Bieneches .
. . .buhu . .
Kebh . . .
Keb-hu . .
26
26
Total 253 (L. 263) 252 or 253 (L. 258)
THE first human king who, according to Greek authors as well as accord-
ing to the Egyptian lists of kings, ruled over the Nile Valley was Menes, called
Mena in Egyptian. His family came from Teni, a spot in Middle Egypt,
the Greek This [or Thinis] in Abydos, a place which formed a certain
religious centre of the kingdom down to a late period. Menes himself, it is
true, soon quitted the place and built his residence on another more favoura-
bly situated spot, the place where the fruitful plains of the Delta began.
This new capital is Memphis, the city that nourished down to the latest
periods of Egyptian history as a royal residence and a commercial centre.
The foundation of the place is to-day exposed to the flooding of the Nile ;
this was already the case in ancient days, and the king was forced to protect
the ground from this danger by a powerful dam. The dike which he con-
structed is in the neighbourhood of the place called Cocheiche. And this
dike to this day secures the whole province of Gizeh from the floods.
This danger of flooding is less to be apprehended from the Nile itself
than from the natural canal, called Bahr Yusuf [" River of Joseph "],
which skirts the Libyan Desert. Thus the topographical conditions of this
place have hardly varied at all from the time of Menes. The ruined site of
ancient Memphis is now traced by only a few monuments, and the excava-
tions here have been very unproductive, while even in the days of the Arabs
the remnants of the town aroused the highest admiration in Arabian authors.
At all events the name has remained, and to this day the great mound at
Mitraheni is called Tel-el-Monf, the mound of Monf. The ancient Egyp-
90
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM 91
[ca. 4400-1133 B.C.]
tian name was Men-nefer, " the good place," the sacred name Ha-kha-Ptah,
" the house of the divine person of Ptah," just as Ptah has remained for all
time the chief god of the city. From this name, with but little right, it has
been sought to derive the Greek name of the country of Egypt.
The acts, which for the rest are ascribed to Menes, are just those with
which the first prince of a country is usually accredited. According to the
Greeks he founded in Memphis the great temple of Ptah, the very first tem-
ple in Egypt ; he regulated the service in the temple and the honouring of
the god ; he further was responsible for the introduction of the cult of Apis.
Finally, he even discovered the alphabet, according to Anticlides, fifteen years
(it would probably be more reasonable to read it 15,000) before Phoroneus,
the architect of Argos.
Diodorus obliges us with the additional information that King Menes
once was pursued by his own dogs, that he fled into Lake Mceris and
was carried to the opposite shore on the back of a crocodile. In gratitude
for, and in memory of, his marvellous deliverance he founded, so goes
the tale, the town of Crocodilopolis, and introduced the veneration of croco-
diles, to whom he surrendered the use of the lake. For himself he raised
here a memorial pyramid and founded the famous Labyrinth. As for his
character, according to the legend, he was a luxurious prince, who dis-
covered the art of dressing a meal, and taught his subjects to eat in a reclin-
ing posture. In conflict with this is the account of Manetho, which depicts
him as the first warrior-prince, and makes him fight the Libyans. Accord-
ing to Manetho he met his death through being swallowed by a hippopota-
mus. According to a widely spread but quite unauthentic story, he had
in earlier life lost his only son Maneros, and the nation had composed a dirge
on the subject entitled " Maneros," of which text and melody are supposed
to have survived for long.
Down to a late period Menes was honoured as a god in Egypt. In this
capacity he appears on the Tablet of Abydos as the first of the kings ; his
statue is carried round in a procession in the Ramesseum, and even in the
time of the Ptolemies, a priest of the statues of Nectanebo I, by the name
of Un-nefer, was entrusted with his worship. His name lasted in Egypt
even longer than his worship ; it was borne by one of the most important
Coptic saints, who lived at the beginning of the fourth century and to whom
a church in old Cairo is yet dedicated.
Teta : Styled Athothis I by Eratosthenes, he is supposed to have ruled
for fifty-nine years. According to Manetho, he constructed the royal castle
of Memphis and wrote a work on anatomy, being particularly occupied with
medicine. The latter supposition is rendered more complete to a certain
extent by the account, due to the Ebers papyrus, that a method for making
the hair grow described accurately therein, was supposed to have been dis-
covered by our king's mother, Shesh. For the rest we have no information of
his period, except that in the reign of the son of Menes a double-headed crane
revealed itself ; this was supposed to be a sign of long prosperity for Egypt.
We may possibly explain this legend from the circumstance that the names of
the two successors of Menes are formed with the names of the crane-headed or
ibis-headed god, Tehuti.
Ata : A great plague broke out in his reign.
Hesep-ti : [Within the past few years the correct reading of this name
has been shown to be Sem-ti. His Horus name is Ten.]
Sem-en-ptah : [This name is also read Semsu.] According to Manet
there was a great pestilence in this reign.
92
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 4135-3766 B.C.]
THE SECOND DYNASTY
Tliinites
Manetho
Turin Papyrus
Abydos
Saqqarah
Monuments
Tears in Manetho
Afr.
Euseb.
1
Boethos . .
. . . .ba-u . .
Be-t'a-u . .
Neter-ba-u .
38
2
Chaiechos .
. . . .ka-u . .
Ka-ka-u . .
Ka-ka-u . .
, ,
29
29
3
Binothris
. . . .neter-en
Ba-neter-en .
Ba-neter-en .
47
47
4
Tlas . . .
t t
Uat'nes . .
Uat'nes . .
. .
17
6
Sethenes . .
Senta . . .
Senta . . .
Sent . . .
Sent . . .
41
. .
6
Chaires . .
. . . .ka . .
. .
Per-ab-sen ? .
17
7
Nef ercheres .
. .
. .
Nefer-ka-Ra
25
8
Sesochris
* •
, .
. .
48
9
Cheneres
..
..
..
30
..
Total
302
[There is a king whose Horus name is read Hotep-Sekhemui, and who
is placed by some authorities early in the Ilnd Dynasty, but as yet we do
not even know his name as king of United Egypt.] Ka-ka-u. [Under
this king the worship of the Apis bulls was instituted.] Baneter-en.
This is the Biophis of Eusebius. Of high importance for the whole of
Egyptian history is the observation of Manetho that this king declared
female succession to be legitimate. In the course of the history of Egypt
we shall indeed frequently have occasion to note what immense weight this
people attached to female succession, and how it is this which in innumerable
instances gives the colour of legitimacy to the assumption of the throne by a
sovereign or a dynasty. John of Antioch makes the Nile flow with honey
for eleven days in the reign of Binothris, while Manetho postpones this mira-
cle until the reign of Nef ercheres. d
THE THIRD DYNASTY
Memphites
Manetho
Turin Papyrus
Abydos
Saqqarah
Monuments
Tears in Manetho
Afr.
Euseb.
1
Necherophes
Seker-nefer-ka
..
Seker-nefer-ka
..
28
2
Tosorthros .
t'efa .
T'efa . . .
29
8
Tyre'is . . .
T'at'ai . .
T'at'ai . .
Bebi . . .
7
4
Mesocbris
Neb-ka. . .
Neb-ka . .
Neb-ka-Ra .
17
. .
5
Soiiphis . .
T'er . . .
T'er-sa . .
T'er . . .
T'er . . .
16
6
Tosertasis .
T'er-teta . .
Teta . . .
T'er-teta . .
19
7
Aches . . .
. .
42
8
Sephuris .
Set'es . . .
Ra-neb-ka?
30
9
Cherpheres .
Huni . . .
Ra-nefer-ka
Huni . . .
Huni . . .
26
NOTE. — T' is to be pronounced tch or z. Total . . . 214
Unfortunately we cannot as yet positively identify Necherophes on the
tablets and monuments. A new arrangement, and one that has much in its
[ca. 3766 B.C.]
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM
favour, is to connect him with Neb-ka or Neb-ka-Ra (No. 4, in Wiedemann's
table). This would join Seker-nefer-ka with Sesochris (No. 8, Ilnd Dynasty)
with the additional support that " ochris " is plainly the Greek equivalent of
"Seker"; and T'efa with Cheneres, although the latter assumption is ad-
mittedly the merest guesswork. This brings T'er-sa (or Zeser, as it is more
often spelled) opposite Tosorthros. We know that Zeser built the step-
pyramid of Saqqarah and Manetho says that Tosorthros "built a house of
hewn stones." He is the most important sovereign of the dynasty. Manetho
further credits him with bringing the art of writing to perfection ; he is also
supposed to have been a physician, and for this reason the divine JEsculapius
of the Greeks. From Tosertasis to the end of the dynasty there are differ-
ences of opinion in regard to order or identification, and consequently we
are still at sea with regard to Tyreis, Mesochris, and Soiiphis.
THE PYRAMID DYNASTY
The IVth Dynasty has a peculiar and unique interest
for the casual observer of Egyptian history, because it was
the time when the world-famous pyramids were erected, the
pyramids which were accounted among
wonders of the world in classical
antiquity, and the name of which has
stood almost as a synonym of Egypt for
all succeeding generations. If one were
to list the wonders of the world in our
day, the legitimate number would swell
far beyond the classical estimate of
seven ; but it may be doubted if among
them all there would be any more justly
accounted wonderful than these same
pyramids. Even if constructed to-day,
they would be accounted marvellous
structures ; and, dating as they do
from remotest antiquity, when the de-
vices of the modern mechanic were yet
undreamed of, they seem almost miracu-
lous. Nothing that any other land can
show at all rivals or duplicates them;
they are unique, like Egypt herself.
What adds to the unique interest of the pyramids is the fact that we
know almost nothing of their builders, except what these structures them-
selves relate. The pyramids epitomise the history of an epoch. They are
the standing witness that Egypt in that epoch was inhabited by a highly
civilised people. But practically all that we know of this people is that they
were the builders of the pyramids. Even that is much, however, and we
shall advantageously dwell at length upon these monuments, viewing them
from as many standpoints as possible — through the eyes of Diodorus on
the one hand, and of the most recent European explorers on the other."
Diodorus, voicing the traditions of his time, gives the following enter-
taining account of these marvels : 1
tion.]
Here and in subsequent excerpts from Diodorus we use a seventeenth-century transla-
94 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 3733-3633 B.C.]
" Chemmis [Khufu or Cheops], the Eighth King from Remphis, was of
Memphis, and reign'd Fifty Years. He built the greatest of the Three Pyra-
mids, which were accounted amongst the Seven Wonders of the World.
They stand towards Lybia a Hundred and Twenty Furlongs from Memphis,
and Five and Forty from Nile. The Greatness of these Works, and the ex-
cessive Labour of the Workmen seen in them, do even strike the Beholders
with Admiration and Astonishment. The greatest being Four-square, took
up on every Square Seven Hundred Foot of Ground in the Basis, and above
Six Hundred Foot in height, spiring up narrower by little and little, till it
come up to the Point, the Top of which was Six Cubits Square. It's built
of solid Marble throughout, of rough Work, but of perpetual Duration : For
though it be now a Thousand Years since it was built (some say above
Three Thousand and Four Hundred) yet the Stones are as firmly joynted, and
the whole Building as intire and without the least decay, as they were at the
first laying and Erection. The Stone, they say, was brought a long way off,
out of Arabia, and that the Work was rais'd by making Mounts of Earth ;
Cranes and other Engines being not known at that time. And that which
is most to be admir'd at, is to see such a Foundation so imprudently laid, as
it seems to be, in a Sandy Place, where there's not the least Sign of any
Earth cast up, nor Marks where any Stone was cut and polish'd ; so that the
whole Pile seems to be rear'd all at once, and fixt in the midst of Heaps of
Sand by some God, and not built by degrees by the Hands of Men. Some
of the Egyptians tell wonderful things, and invent strange Fables concern-
ing these Works, affirming that the Mounts were made of Salt and Salt-
Peter, and that they were melted by the Inundation of the River, and being
so dissolv'd, everything was washt away but the Building itself. But this
is not the Truth of the thing ; but the great Multitude of Hands that rais'd
the Mounts, the same carry'd back the Earth to the Place whence they dug
it, for they say there were Three Hundred and Sixty Thousand Men imploy'd
in this Work, and the Whole was scarce compleated in Twenty Years time.
" When this King was dead, his Brother Cephres [Khaf-Ra] succeeded
him, and reign'd Six and Fifty Years : Some say it was not his Brother, but
his Son Chabryis that came to the Crown : But all agree in this, that the
Successor, in imitation of his Predecessor, erected another Pyramid like to
the former, both in Structure and Artificial Workmanship, but not near so
large, every square of the Basis being only a Furlong in Breadth.
" Upon the greater Pyramid was inscrib'd the value of the Herbs and
Onions that were spent upon the Labourers during the Works, which
amounted to above Sixteen Hundred Talents.
" There's nothing writ upon the lesser : The Entrance and Ascent is
only on one side, cut by steps into the main Stone. Although the Kings
design'd these Two for their Sepulchers, yet it hapen'd that neither of
them were there buri'd. For the People, being incens'd at them by reason
of the Toyl and Labour they were put to, and the cruelty and oppression
of their Kings, threatened to drag their Carkasses out of their Graves, and
pull them by piece-meal, and cast them to the Dogs ; and therefore both of
them upon their Beds commanded their Servants to bury them in some
obscure place.
" After him reign'd Mycerinus [Mencheres] (otherwise call'd Cherinus)
the Son of him who built the first Pyramid. This Prince began a Third,
but died before it was finish'd ; every square of the Basis was Three Hun-
dred Foot. The Walls for fifteen Stories high were Black Marble like that
of Thebes, the rest was of the same Stone with the other Pyramids. Though
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM '.C,
[co. 3733-3G33 B.C.]
the other Pyramids went beyond this in greatness, yet this far excell'd the
rest in the Curiosity of the Structure and the largeness of the Stones. On
that side of the Pyramid towards the North, was inscrib'd the Name of the
Founder Mecerinus. This King, they say, detesting the severity of the
former Kings, carried himself all his Days gently and graciously towards all
his Subjects, and did all that possibly he could to gain their Love and Good
Will towards him; besides other things, he expended vast Sums of Money
upon the Oracles and Worship of the Gods ; and bestowing large Gifts upon
honest Men whom he judg'd to be injur'd, and to be hardly dealt with in
the Courts of Justice.
" There are other Pyramids, every Square of which are Two Hundred
Foot in the Basis ; and in all things like unto the other, except in bigness.
It's said that these Three last Kings built them for their Wives.
" It is not in the least doubted, but that these Pyramids far excel all the
other Works throughout all Egypt, not only in the Greatness and Costs of
the Building, but in the Excellency of the Workmanship : For the Archi-
tects (they say) are much more to be admir'd than the Kings themselves
that were at the Cost. For those perform'd all by their own Ingenuity, but
these did nothing but by the Wealth handed to them by descent from their
Predecessors, and by the Toyl and Labour of other Men."«
A MODERN ACCOUNT OF THE PYRAMIDS
The Egyptians of the Theban period were compelled to form their
opinions of the Pharaohs of the Memphite dynasties in the same way
as we do, less by the positive evidence of their acts than by the size and
number of their monuments : they measured the magnificence of Cheops
[Khufu] by the dimensions of his pyramid, and all nations having followed
this example, Cheops has continued to be one of the three or four names
of former times which sound familiar to our ears. The hills of Gizeh in his
time terminated in a bare, wind-swept tableland. A few solitary mastabas
were scattered here and there on its surface, similar to those whose ruins
still crown the hill of Dahshur.
The Sphinx, buried even in ancient times to its shoulders, raised its head
halfway down the eastern slope, at its southern angle ; beside him the
temple of Osiris, lord of the Necropolis, was fast disappearing under the
sand ; and still farther back, old abandoned tombs honeycombed the rock.
Cheops [Khufu] chose a site for his pyramid on the northern edge of
the plateau, whence a view of the city of the White Wall, at the same time
of the holy city of Heliopolis, could be obtained. A small mound which
commanded this prospect was roughly squared, and incorporated into the
masonry; the rest of the site was levelled to receive the first course of stones.
The pyramid when completed had a height of 476 feet on a base 764 feet
square ; but the decaying influence of time has reduced these dimensions to
450 and 730 feet respectively. It possessed, up to the Arab conquest, its pol-
ished facing, coloured by age, and so subtly jointed that one would have
said that it was a single slab from top to bottom. The work of facing the
pyramid began at the top ; that of the point was first placed in position, then
the courses were successively covered until the bottom was reached.
In the interior every device had been employed to conceal the exact posi-
tion of the sarcophagus, and to discourage the excavators whom chance or
persistent search might have put upon the right track. Their first difficulty
would be to discover the entrance under the limestone casing. It lay hidden
96 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 3733 B.C.]
almost in the middle of the northern face, on the level of the eighteenth
course, at about forty-five feet above the ground. A movable flagstone,
working on a stone pivot, disguised it so effectively that no one except the
priests and custodians could have distinguished this stone from its neigh-
bours. When it was tilted up, a yawning passage was revealed, three and a
half feet in height, with a breadth of four feet. The passage is an inclined
plane, extending partly through the masonry and partly through the solid
rock for a distance of 318 feet ; it passes through an unfinished chamber and
ends in cul-de-sac 59 feet farther on.
The Great Pyramid was called Khut, "the Horizon," in which Khufu
had to be swallowed up, as his father, the Sun, was engulfed every evening in
the horizon of the west. It contained only the chambers of the deceased,
without a word of inscription, and we should not know to whom it belonged,
if the masons, during its construction, had not daubed here and there in red
paint among their private marks the name of the king and the date of his
reign. Worship was rendered to this Pharaoh in a temple constructed a
little in front of the eastern side of the pyramid, but of which nothing
remains but a mass of ruins.
Pharaoh had no need to wait until he was mummified before he became a
god ; religious rites in his honour were established on his ascension ; and
many of the individuals who made up his court attached themselves to his
double long before his double had become disembodied. They served him
faithfully during their life, to repose finally in his shadow in the little pyra-
mids and mastabas which clustered around him. Of Dadef-Ra (or Tatf-Ra),
his immediate successor, we can probably say that he reigned eight years.
[This is according to the Abydos and Saqqarah lists, but his chrono-
logical position is still uncertain. The inscription of Mertitefs, one of
Sneferu's queens, mentions that she was later a favourite of Khufu, and
even in her old age, of Khaf-Ra. This, if true, would leave no space for
Dadef-Ra between these reigns, so he was either a co-regent or successor.
In the XXVIth Dynasty his priests give, in several instances, the succession
as Khufu, Khaf-Ra, Dadef-Ra. Professor Petrie identifies him with the
Rhatoises of Manetho, and so makes him the third successor of Khufu,
but Professor Maspero, in his reading " Dadef-Ra," distinctly dissents from
any such recognition. It is possible that this king is the same person as the
Prince Hortotef, son of Khufu, who, as the hero of a famous tale, is one of
the best-known characters of early Egyptian literature.]
But Khaf-Ra (or Khephren), the next son, who succeeded to the throne,
erected temples and a gigantic pyramid, like his father. He placed it some
394 feet to the southwest of that of Cheops (Khufu) ; and called it Ur, " the
Great." It is, however, smaller than its neighbour, and attains a height of
only 443 feet, but at a distance the difference in height disappears, and many
travellers have thus been led to attribute the same elevation to the two.
The internal arrangements of the pyramid are of the simplest character ;
they consist of a granite-built passage carefully concealed in the north face,
running at first at an angle of 25°, and then horizontally, until stopped by a
granite barrier at a point which indicates a change of direction ; a second
passage, which begins on the outside, at a distance of some yards in advance
of the base of the pyramid, and proceeds, after passing through an unfinished
chamber, to rejoin the first; finally, a chamber hollowed in the rock, but
surmounted by a pointed roof of fine limestone slabs. The sarcophagus was
of granite, and, like that of Khufu, bore neither the name of a king nor the
representation of a god.
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM 97
[CO. 366&-3600 B.C.]
Of Khaf-Ra's sons, Men-kau-Ra (the Mycerinus of the Greeks), who was
his successor, could scarcely dream of excelling his father and grandfather ;
his pyramid, "the Supreme" (Her), barely attained an elevation of 216 feet,
and was exceeded in height by those which were built at a later date. Up
to one-fourth of its height it was faced with syenite, and the remainder, up
to the summit, with limestone. For lack of time, doubtless, the dressing of
the granite was not completed, but the limestone received all the polish it
was capable of taking. The enclosing wall was extended to the north so as
to meet, and be of one width with, that of the Second Pyramid. The temple
was connected with the plain by a long and almost straight causeway, which
ran for the greater part of its course upon an embankment raised above the
neighbouring ground.
The arrangement of the interior of the pyramid is somewhat complicated,
and bears witness to changes brought about unexpectedly in the course of
construction. The original central mass probably did not exceed 180 feet
in breadth at the base, with a vertical height of 154 feet. It contained a
sloping passage cut into the hill itself, and an oblong low-roofed cell devoid
of ornament. The main bulk of the work had been already completed, and
the casing not yet begun, when it was decided to modify the proportions of
the whole. Men-kau-Ra was not, it appears, the eldest son and appointed
heir of Khaf-Ra ; while still a mere prince he was preparing for himself
a pyramid similar to those which lie near " the Horizon," when the deaths
of his father and brother called him to the throne.
What was sufficient for him as a child, was no longer suitable for him as
a Pharaoh ; the mass of the structure was increased to its present dimensions,
and a new inclined passage was effected in it, at the end of which a hall
panelled with granite gave access to a kind of antechamber. The latter
communicated by a horizontal corridor with the first vault, which was
deepened for the occasion ; the old entrance, now no longer of use, was
roughly filled up.
Men-kau-Ra did not find his last resting-place in this upper level of the
interior of the pyramid : a narrow passage, hidden behind the slabbing of
the second chamber, descended into a secret crypt, lined with granite and
covered with a barrel-vaulted roof. The sarcophagus was a single block of
blue-black basalt, polished, and carved into the form of a house, with a
facade having three doors and three openings in the form of windows, the
whole framed in a rounded moulding and surmounted by a projecting cor-
nice such as we are accustomed to see on the temples. The mummy -case of
cedar-wood had a man's head, and was shaped to the form of the human body ;
it was neither painted nor gilt, but an inscription in two columns, cut on its
front, contained the name of the Pharaoh, and a prayer on his behalf.
The example given by Khufu, Khaf-Ra, and Men-kau-Ra was by no means
lost in later times. From the beginning of the IVth to the end of the XlVth
Dynasty — during more than fifteen hundred years — the construction of
pyramids was a common state affair, provided for by the administration.
Not only did the Pharaohs build them for themselves, but the princes
and princesses belonging to the family of the Pharaohs constructed theirs,
each one according to his resources ; three of these secondary mausoleums
are ranged opposite the eastern side of " the Horizon," three opposite the
southern face of "the Supreme," and everywhere else — near Abusir, at
Saqqarah, at Dahshur, or in the Fayum — the majority of the royal pyra-
mids attracted around them a more or less numerous cortege of pyramids of
princely foundation often debased in shape and faulty in proportion./
II. W. — TOL. I. H
98 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[co. 3766-3566 B.C.]
THE BUILDERS OF THE PYRAMIDS
Sneferu is the first ruler of Egypt of whose deeds we know something. A
relief with an inscription in Wady Magharah on the peninsula of Sinai repre-
sents him as slaying the robber-like tribes of the desert, the Mentu, with a
club. According to the inscriptions of the Xllth Dynasty in Sarbut-el-Hadim,
it appears that he was considered as founder of the Egyptian dominion in
the peninsula of Sinai. His memory was honoured for many years ; his
worship was often mentioned, and in literary works his bountiful reign was
also called to mind. He was probably buried in the Great Pyramid, which
has the appearance of terraces, at Medum, the opening of which was begun
a short while ago. In one of the neighbouring tombs a statue was found of
its architect, Henka, and probably the remaining tombs at Medum belong
to this epoch.
Sneferu's successor Khufu, the Cheops of Herodotus, was the builder of
the largest pyramid. The construction of temples was also attributed to
him (the temple of the " Lady of the Pyramids," Isis, in Gizeh, and the plan-
ning of the temple of Denderah), and the town of Menat Khufu bears his
name. He also fought in the peninsula of Sinai. In front of the immense
sepulchre of the king, his wives or other relatives are buried in three small
pyramids, and around them in mastabas the nobles of his court. What
the Greeks relate concerning the oppression of Egypt by Khufu and Khaf-Ra
and of their ungodliness, whilst Men-kau-Ra as the builder of the small
Pyramid is looked on as a righteous and just ruler, are their own words which
they place in the mouth of the Egyptians ; such a conception is remote from
the truth, and the picture which we gain from the tombs of the period is
throughout bright and cheerful. Certainly every contemporary was proud
of having taken part in this giant construction.
After the short reign of Tatf-Ra followed Khaf-Ra, the builder of the
second pyramid of Gizeh, to which time probably dates back the enigmati-
cally immense construction of granite and alabaster to the south of the
Great Sphinx; the fragments of nine statues of the king were found in it.
His next followers were Men-kau-Ra, the Mycerinus of Herodotus, the
builder of the third pyramid at Gizeh, and Shepses-ka-f, of whom we learn
something definite through the biography of Ptah-Shepses, buried in Saq-
qarah. He had formerly been brought up at the court of Men-kau-Ra with
the children of the king ; he grew up under Shepses-ka-f, who gave him his
eldest daughter to wife, loaded him with honours, and appointed him as
secretary to all constructions which he planned to build.
The circumstance, that there is no mention of warlike expeditions either in
this biography or in other monuments of this epoch, but that peaceful under-
takings, journeys, and festivals, and above all, the constructions of the king,
are continually quoted, is an important sign of the character of the times
Manetho now makes three kings follow for thirty-eight years, who are no-
where mentioned in the inscriptions, and then begins a new dynasty (the Vth),
with Usercheres, which sprang from Elephantine. But in the monuments
it is stated that Shepses-ka-f was immediately followed by Uskaf (or User-
ka-f) [Usercheres]. At the most, only short interregnums can have
intervened, and Prince Sechem-ka-Ra lived under five kings, Khaf-Ra, Men-
kau-Ra, Shepses-ka-f, Uskaf, and Sahu-Ra, whose reigns occupied about a
century. It is very probable that a new family came to the throne either in
a peaceful or violent manner ; in the Turin papyrus the portion which prob-
ably contained Uskaf's reign has completely fallen out.
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM 99
[CO. 3B6&-3300 B.C.]
We learn very little of Uskaf or Usercheres. His successor Sahu-Ra,
on the contrary, is one of the most renowned rulers of the time. He also
fought in Wady Magharah. The next kings cannot be placed in their order
with certainty. The Turin papyrus allows eight reigns, mostly short, to fol-
low, and at the fifth introduces a gap ; the lists of Abydos and Saqqarah
have only given us three names. Only Nefer-ar-ka-Ra and especially An, the
first king who gave himself a title (User-en-Ra), were at all important.
Then followed Men-kau-hor (reign of eight years), Assa, with the name of
Tat-ka-Ra (twenty-eight years), and Unas (thirty years), of whom the first
and second, like An, left monuments commemorative of their victories on
the peninsula of Sinai.
The first epoch of Egyptian history closes with the reign of Unas. Al-
most three hundred years had passed since Sneferu had built up his pyramid and
celebrated his victory in Wady Magharah. Throughout the whole period
DRAWINGS OF EGYPTIAN limns
(From the monuments)
Memphis was the central point of the kingdom, and its necropolis almost the
only source of our instruction. After the death of Unas — it is not known
whether he died in peace or was overthrown by a revolution — a new race
ascended the throne and the centre of Egyptian life begins gradually to shift
itself. The Turin papyrus rightly makes the first principal division here,
and gives the sum of all the reigns from Menes to Unas ; but the figures are
unfortunately lost to us.
Here follows a table of kings in which the lists of Manetho for the Hlrd,
IVth, and Vth Dynasties are compared with the lists of the Turin papy-
rus, the Abydos tablet, the Saqqarah tablet, and the wall list of Karnak.6
It will be recalled that these lists, taken together, furnish us with the chief
information at present accessible as to the true sequence of the early Egyp-
tian rulers. Notwithstanding its somewhat forbidding appearance at firs*
glance, this tablet will repay careful study. It illustrates the way in which
the different lists must be pieced together in1 an attempt to form a complete
record. It shows, also, how widely the Hellenised names of Manetho's list
differ from the Egyptian originals ; suggesting the extent to which surmise
must sometimes enter into identification. Indeed, it would be hard^to tell
which were the greater misfortune : the disappearance of Manetho's his-
tory, or the accident by which the Turin papyrus was broken into scores of
little pieces only to be restored in an unscientific and almost worthless con-
dition by Seyffarth.a
100
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 3866-3300 B.C.]
Turin Papyrus [P.], Abydos Tablet [A.], Saqqarah
Tablet [S.] Karnak [K.]
Manetho
1. Zeser, P. A. S.
Dyn. Ill — 2 Tosorthros
29 years
Gap in dynasty . . .19 years
6 Tosertasis
19 years
2. Zeser Teta, P. A. S. .6 years
3. Set'es, A. ; Neb-ka-Ra, S. . 6 years
4. Nefer-ka-Ra, A. ; Huni, S. . 24 years
6. Sneferu, A. S. K. . . . 24 years
Dyn. IV — 1 Soris
29 years
6. Khufu, A. S. . . .23 years
2 Suphis .
63 years
7. Tatf-Ra, A. S. . .8 years
8. Khaf-Ra, A. S. . . ? years
3 Suphis .
66 years
9. Men-kau-Ra, A. S. . . ? years
4 Mencheres
63 years
10. Shepses-ka-f, A. S. . . ? years
5 Rhatoises
25 years
6 Bicheris
22 years
7 Sebercheres
7 years
8 Tamphthis
9 years
11. [Us-ka-f, A. S.] . . . missing]
Dyn. V — 1 Usercheres
28 years
12. [A. S. K.] Sahu-Ra . 18-38 years
2 Sephres
13 years
Here belong :
13. Kakaa, A. ; and Monum. . 4 years
14. Nefer-Ra, A. ... 2 years
16. Nefer-ar-ka-Ra, S.; and
Monum 7 years
3 Nephercheres .
20 years
16. . Shepses-ka-Ra, S. . . 12 years
4 Sisires
7 years
17. Nefer-kha-Ra, S. . . ? years
6 Cheres .
20 years
Gap in Dynasty
18. Akau-hor, Monum. . . 7 years •
19. and perhaps Ahtes . . ? years
20. [User-en-Ra, An. A. K.] 10-30 years
6 Rhathures
44 years
21. Men-kau-hor, P. A. S. . . 8 years
7 Mencheres
9 years
22. Tat-ka-Ra, Assa., P. A. S. K. 28 years
8 Tancheres
44 years
23. Unas, P. A. S. . . . 30 years
9 Onnos
33 years
Total of seventeen reigns, 236-276 years
To these must be added six reigns ; the dura-
tion of which is unknown.
Totals give 277 years for Dyn. IV, 248 for
Dyn. V, differing from the sums of the
single reigns.
If we allow fifteen years for each of the six missing reigns, we get for
the period from Zeser to Unas about 350 years. For the something like
nineteen kings of the Turin Papyrus from Menes to Zeser (exclusive) there
falls, then, about 350 years, from Menes to Sneferu (exclusive) therefore,
about 350, from Sneferu to Unas about 300, which agrees very well with the
indications on the monuments. (According to the most reliable of the
reported figures of Manetho the first three dynasties lasted 769 years,
the IVth and Vth 525 years. )&
Very recent discoveries have thrown a certain amount of light on the
obscurities of the Vth Dynasty, particularly with reference to the kings
Nos. 13-19 bracketed in the above table. The latest research has developed :
(1) That Kakaa (No. 13) must be only another, and probably per-
sonal, name of either Nefer-ar-ka-Ra or Shepses-ka-Ra, probably of the
former.
^
n
~
n
W
0.
H
-
a
o
-
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM 101
[ca. 3566-3300 B.C.]
(2) That the Akau-hor of a few monuments is probably the personal
name of Nefer-kha-Ra (Saqqarah tablet) ; now read Nefer-f-Ra.
We may also now reject the Nefer-Ra (No. 14) and the Ahtes (No. 19)
and consider tb/3 Vth Dynasty, beginning with Uskaf and ending with
Unas to consist of nine kings, and to have lasted about two hundred and
twenty years.
Various monuments have come down to us from the Vth Dynasty,
including inscriptions on steles and tablets, an alabaster vase, a polished
ink slab and scarabs. Among the most interesting remains of the period
is a papyrus roll found in 1893 at Saqqarah near the Step Pyramid. This
papyrus contains an account of the reign of King Tat-ka-Ra or Assa, and it
is believed to be the oldest fragment of manuscript in existence. A much
more famous papyrus roll, the so-called Prisse Papyrus — sometimes called
the oldest book in the world — now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris,
is believed to be a copy of an original written in the time of Assa. The
Prisse Papyrus itself dates from the Xllth Dynasty. It was written by
one Ptah-hotep, spoken of in the book itself as " Son of the King, of his
body," which phrase may mean that the author was actually the son of the
king (Brugsch) or, that he was really a relative of the monarch, perhaps
his uncle (Petrie). The document itself has a peculiar interest aside
from its age. It is the philosophical moralising of an old man who, plain-
tively lamenting the infirmities of age, casts a regretful glance on by-gone
times ; yet whose view on the whole is wise and optimistic. " It does the
heart good and rejoices the mind," says Brugsch, "to follow that old
harangue which preserves the intimate thought of the age of the prince,
embracing the whole course of human existence in simple, childish words.
Here is a noble lesson on the true greatness of man, for throughout he
breathes a spirit of human purity which finds the only true greatness in a
modest mind."
Professor Mahaffy, speaking in a somewhat similar vein, calls attention
to the fact that the morals, the aspirations, and the unsolved social problems
of the remote time in which Ptah-hotep wrote bear a singular resemblance
to those of to-day, pointing the moral that humanity has not greatly changed
in essentials during the intervening five or six thousand years.
After the Vth Dynasty, which was regarded by the author of the Turin
Papyrus as closing an epoch, there is a period of five hundred years or more
during which relatively little is known of Egyptian history. According to
the lists of Manetho, this period saw the rise and fall of various dynasties
which, vaguely as they are known, have passed into traditional history as
Dynasties VI to X. The Turin Papyrus and the lists of Abydos, Saqqarah,
and Karnak supply us with various names, mostly unsuggestive of the names
of Manetho. There are, however, two or three exceptions to this, notably
the king named third in Manetho's Vlth Dynasty, Philos, who is believed
to represent the monarch named on all the other lists as Meri-Ra, or, as he
is more generally known, Pepi, the latter being his family name. This
monarch, who probably lived about 3200 B.C., was the Ramses I
epoch. He has left us more monuments than any other ruler before the
Xllth Dynisty. These include a pyramid at Saqqarah, rock inscriptions in
steles at Elephantine and elsewhere, statuettes, canopic jars, cylinders, and
scarabs. The most notable of all the monuments ascribed to him is the
Red Sphinx of Tanis, now in the Louvre in Paris, which, if really his, —
the matter is still not quite decided among the best authorities, — is the
oldest sphinx known. If authentic, the face of this sphinx probably fur-
102 THE HISTOEY OF EGYPT
[ca. 3300-3166 B.C.]
nishes a representation of Pepi which is doubtless the most ancient portrait
in existence.
A great builder and monument-maker, he was a great conqueror as well,
waging successful wars against the Aamu and Herusha, who inhabited the
desert east of the Delta. He even extended his conquests against "the
land of the Terehbah," which, it has been surmised, may be Syria ; or which
may possibly have been even farther to the north : the similarity of names
suggests that the people referred to may have been the Tibareni, one of the
smaller peoples of Asia Minor. In any event, the warlike expedition against
this unknown people was made in ships.
The most interesting thing about King Pepi remains to be told. This
is the manner in which records of his deeds have come down to us. The
various monuments left by the king himself contain scant reference to his
accomplishments. The inscription that enables us to gain glimpses of the
life of the greatest monarch of his epoch is not the inscription of the monarch
himself, but of one of his servants. This officer of the king bore the name
of Una. He was of unknown origin, and there is no reason to suppose that
he was of royal blood ; but he attained to the highest distinction. He had
come to be, according to the inscription over his tomb, " Crown bearer of
the Majesty (of the King), Superintendent of the storehouse, and Registrar
(Sacred Scribe) of the docks " for King Teta, the predecessor of King Pepi.
On the death of his master, Una appears to have passed into the service
of the next incumbent, Pepi, as " Chief of the coffer of the Majesty (of the
King) with the rank of Companion, Scribe, Priest of the place of his pyra-
mid." " His Majesty was satisfied with me (beyond all) his servants," de-
clares Una. " (He gave me also) to hear all things. I was alone with the
Royal Scribe, and officer of all the secrets. The King was satisfied with
me more than any of his chiefs, of his family, of his servants."
The inscription then goes on to detail the services rendered by Una to
Pepi, and his son Mer-en-Ra as well. He fully earned all of his titles and
honours. He would seem to have been in charge, not merely of household
affairs, building operations, the moving of monuments and the like, but to
have been commander-in-chief of the armies, and the efficient agent of Pepi
in his conquests at home and abroad, as he says : " He sent me five times,
to subdue the land of Herusha to subdue their revolt by this force. His
Majesty was pleased at it beyond everything Saying, have revolted the
Negroes of this tribe of the land of Khetam, safely to Takhisa; I sailed
again in boats with this force. I subdued this country from the extreme
frontier on the North of the land of Herusha. Then was ordered this army
on the road. They subdued them also smiting all opponents there. The
place was thrown under my sandals. The King of Upper and Lower Egypt
Mer-en-Ra the Divine Lord the ever living gave me to be a Duke, Governor
of the South ascending from Abu to the North of the nome Letopolis. I
very much pleased His Majesty, I greatly pleased His Majesty to the
Satisfaction of His Majesty."
One of the most interesting passages in the inscription of Una is that
in which he gives details of the transportation of the pyramid Kha-nefer of
Mer-en-Ra, making for it " a boat of burthen in the little dock 60 cubits in
length and thirty in its breadth, put together in 17 days in the month of
Epiphi." There was not water enough in the river to tow the pyramid safely,
but the inscription continues : " It was done by me forthwith before the god
(King). His Majesty the Divine Lord ordered and sent me to excavate
four docks in the South for three boats of burthen, four transports in the
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM 103
[ca. 3166-3033 B.C.]
small basin of the land of Uauat. Then the rulers of the countries of
Araret, Aam, and Ma, supplied the wood for them. It was made in about
a year at the time of the inundation loaded with very much granite for the
Kha-nefer pyramid of Mer-en-Ra." (Birch's 9 translation.)
Aside from its intrinsic interest, this inscrip-
tion of Una has a peculiar historical importance
as illustrating a phase of life in Egypt that
we shall not see duplicated among the Semitic
nations of Asia ; the fact, namely, that a mere
subject of the king could leave a permanent
record of his deeds. In Babylonia and Assyria
it is the monarch always who speaks from the
inscriptions ; the name of a subject is never
mentioned. It is not so very often, even in
Egypt, that the name of a subject is heard, but
the fact that this sometimes occurs marks a
distinct difference between the character of the
Egyptian and Asiatic civilisations.
One other monarch of the Vlth Dynasty
has gained traditional fame; this time through
the pages of Herodotus. This is the Queen
Nitocris. Herodotus, to be sure, gives us no
clew as to the age when this female monarch
ruled, but the name appears in the lists of
Manetho. Herodotus was attracted by the pict-
uresque story told him in reference to Nitocris
by the Egyptian priests. He asserts that of the
names of three hundred and thirty sovereigns,
successors of Menes, recited to him from a book
by the Egyptian priests, only one was a female
native of the country. He continues: "The
female was called Nitocris, which was also the
name of the Babylonian princess. They affirm
that the Egyptians having slain her brother,
who was their sovereign, she was appointed his
successor ; and that afterwards, to avenge his death, she destroyed by artifice
a great number of Egyptians. By her orders a large subterraneous apart-
ment was constructed professedly for festivals, but in reality for a different
purpose. She invited to this place a great number of those Egyptians whom
she knew to be the principal instruments of her brother's death, and then by
a private canal introduced the river amongst them. They added, that to
avoid the indignation of the people, she suffocated herself in an apartment
filled with ashes." (Herodotus, II, 99.)
The Turin papyrus gives the name of Nit-aqert as one of the Pharaohs
of the Vlth Dynasty, so it would appear that Herodotus was writing of an
actual personage, whether or not the story that he tells was well founded.
Manetho says of Nitocris that she governed twelve years, "the noblest and
most beautiful woman of that period, fair, and at the same time the buil<
of the Third Pyramid." Brugsch, commenting upon this, says :
cult to discover the historical foundation for the tale of Herodotus, and we
would only say that it must indicate that about the time of Queen Nitocris,
internecine murders and dissensions began in the kingdom, awakened by
the poisonous envy of the pretenders to the throne."
AM EOTPTIAX Hi.. ii I'KIKST
(Bu«d on the mooumenU)
104 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 3066-3033 B.C.]
assertion that Nitocris built the Third Pyramid, it has been explained by
Perring that the Third Pyramid was transformed and enlarged at a later
date. It is suggested that " Queen Nitocris took possession of Men-kau-Ra's
tomb, left the king's sarcophagus in a lower vault, and placed her own in
the chamber in front. If we are to be guided by the ruined fragments of
bluish basalt which lie on the spot, she had the surface of the monument
faced with that costly decoration of highly polished granite, which afterward
served inventive Greek story-tellers with a foundation for the tale of Rhodopis,
the hetaira, who reduced her friends to beggary that she might obtain vast
sums of money for the building of the pyramid."
THE BEAUTIFUL NITOCRIS
Various romances have become associated with traditions in reference to
Nitocris. She was credited with supernatural witchery, and it was said
that after her death her naked spirit haunted the pyramid she was alleged
to have built, and that by the magic of her mere smile she drove her lovers
mad. The story of her revenge upon the men who, in a riot, had killed
her brother the king, is given by Herodotus as above. The brother she
avenged was Menthesouphis, whom Meyer places at some distance from her
in the line. Round this same Nitocris gathered other legends, among them
the original of our Cinderella story. According to this version, Nitocris
was originally a courtesan named Rhodopis (" Rosy-cheeked " — a transla-
tion into Greek of the name Nitocris). Once when she was bathing in the
river, an eagle stole one of her little gilded sandals, and flying away let it
fall into the lap of the king, who was holding a court of justice in the open
air. He was so taken with the beauty of the tiny shoe that he had a search
made for the woman whom it fitted, and made her his queen.
Beyond the historical narratives of Una, and the traditions about Nito-
cris, only shreds of knowledge are forthcoming regarding the monarchs of
the long epoch with which we are dealing. The epoch as a whole is well
characterised in the words of Brugsch:<*
A profound darkness falls over Egyptian history after the time of Ne-
fer-ka-Ra, shrouding even the faintest traces of the existence of kings whose
empty names the tablets of Abydos and Saqqarah have preserved to us,
names without deeds, sounds without meaning, like the inscriptions on the
tombs of unknown, obscure men. Unless we are deceived, we may here pic-
ture a state split up into petty kingdoms and scourged by civil war and
regicide, from whose haq or princes no saviour arose to strike down the
refractory with the strong arm, grasp with a firm hand the loosened rein,
and once more establish a central government.*
In a few words may be added certain more or less inchoate details as to
the few monarchs of the Vlth to Xth Dynasties upon whose history the
most recent research has thrown some rays of light.
As for the Vlth Dynasty, the most modern attempts at disentanglement
place a Mer-en-Ra II and a Neter-ka-Ra after Nefer-ka-Ra ; Mer-en-Ra II
to correspond with the Menthesuphis of Manetho as distinct from the
Methusuphis [Mer-en-Ra I] of the same historian. The Neter-ka-Ra occurs
only on the Abydos Tablet, and is followed by Men-ka-Ra, which is also
found nowhere else. But there is some reason to believe that the bearer
of this name is identical with the Nit-aqert of the Turin papyrus and the
Nitocris of Manetho, and in this connection the confusion between Men-
kau-Ra and Nitocris is susceptible of another and perhaps better explanation
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM
105
[ca. 3033-2700 B.C.]
than that offered by Perring ; for although the Third Pyramid has been
enlarged, the manner of its enlargement shows that it was done in the age
of the Pyramid builders and not so late as the end of the Vlth Dynasty.
Therefore it is better to accept M. Maspero's
theory of the alterations as given in a preced-
ing page; while the similarity of the names
Men-kau-Ra and Men-ka-Ra will show how
Manetho was led into the error of assigning the
building of the Third Gizeh Pyramid to Queen
Nitocris.
The Vllth and VHIth Dynasties fell through
causes of disintegration and decay. The capital
was transferred to Heracleopolis, presumably
because of the intrusion of an outside people
into the Delta.
Some authorities assign the dislodgment of
the native dynasty to a perplexing line of foreign
kings whose position still defies definition ; but
Professor Petrie writing in 1901 says : " The
group of foreign kings, mainly known by scarabs
and cylinders, Khyan, Samqan, Anthar, Yaqebar,
Shesha, and Uazed, are probably of the XVth-
XVIth Dynasties, though some connections place
them shortly before the Xllth Dynasty." All we
yet know of the intrusion is concisely stated by
Eduard Meyer: "We may with some certainty
assume that strange Syrian races attacked Egypt
and probably ruled the land or part of it for a
while."
Two legitimate kings of the IXth or Xth
Dynasty now stand out prominently ; Ab-meri-Ra
(Kheti) who may be the Achthoes of Manetho, the
first of his recorded IXth Dynasty, and Ka-
meri-Ra. But the most interesting historical information of this period is
from three tombs of the princes of Assiut ; Kheti I, Tefa-ba, and Kheti
The Thebans had now practically obtained their independence, am
certain circumstances indicate that the beginning of the Xlth Dynasty was
contemporary with the Xth. Such a state of affairs will explain the smgu
lar fact that Manetho assigns only forty-three years to the Xlth Uyni
For it is held that he ignored contemporaneous dynasties, and then
may have rejected about one hundred and twenty years, during which
period he does not recognise the Xlth Dynasty as legitimate.**
A SOLDIEK Or AXCIXMT
EOYJT
CHAPTER III. THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM
Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are
the monumental people of history. — BARON BUNSEN.
THE history of civilisation is very largely the history of a few great
cities.
There has been no great people without its great metropolis. The over-
throw of such a city, as in the case of Nineveh, or Babylon, or Tyre, or Sar-
dis, often meant the subjugation or destruction of a nation. And the mere
transfer of supremacy from one city to another within the same country
meant the beginning of a new era. It was so in Egypt when the centre of
authority shifted from Memphis to Thebes. By common consent, historians
mark the period in which Thebes became the home of the ruling monarch, and
hence the capital of Egypt, as a new era in Egyptian history. This new era
is commonly designated the Old Theban Kingdom, or the Middle Kingdom.
This era of the Theban supremacy was by no means a homogeneous epoch.
It saw many dynasties established and overthrown ; it even witnessed the
conquest of the country by a strange horde from the east, a horde spoken of
as the Shepherd invaders, whose leaders, seated upon the throne of Egypt
for some generations, have passed into history as the Hyksos or Shepherd
kings. These outsiders held the power so long, indeed, that they may very
well have felt entitled to call themselves Egyptians. The later generations
had as good claim to that name as, for example, any Caucasian has to call
himself an American. Yet when the Hyksos kings were finally overthrown,
the feat seems to have been regarded as the expulsion of intruders, and the
verdict of posterity is that the governmental power passed back to its right-
ful possessors. It would be difficult, however, to say how much the ethnic
status of the race may have been modified by the influence of these many
generations of outsiders. Be that as it may, the Egyptians who expelled
the Hyksos kings and established anew the " native " dynasties were in some
respects a very different people from the Egyptians whom the Hyksos had
overthrown. But before expanding this point we had best follow the for-
tunes of the Old Theban Kingdom itself.
THE ELEVENTH DYNASTY
For the Xlth Dynasty we have as yet no good list ; the total number
of kings even is unknown, but the best authorities agree that there were
probably about nine. But since this dynast)' undoubtedly ruled at Thebes
106
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 107
[ca. 2700-2f>00 B.C.]
simultaneously with the Xth at Heracleopolis, whence it had been driven
from Memphis, the question as to just which Theban prince so far overcame
the legitimate government in the struggle that had been long going on, as to
be acknowledged the ruler of Egypt, will probably never reach solution.
Professor Petrie begins with Antef I and follows him with Mentuhotep I,
Antef II, Antef III, Mentuhotep II, Antef IV, and then Nub-kheper-Ra
(or Antef V). Concerning the latter and his two successors, there is no
question ; we emerge once more into the daylight. After Nub-kheper-Ra
comes Neb-kher-Ra whose other name was Mentuhotep, and we designate
him as the third of his name. He stands fifty-seventh on the Abydos list."
The princely line from which the commanding figure of King Mentu-
hotep III stood forth to the healing of the reunited kingdom was of Theban
origin. The feeble ancestors of his race bore alternately the names of
Antef and Mentuhotep. They had set up their regal dwelling in that city
of Thebes which afterward became of such world-wide importance, and
their tombs (simple, homely tiled pyramids) lay at the foot of the " Western
Mountain " of the Theban necropolis. Here a few ruins of ancient date
indicate the names of the rulers. It was here too that, more than twenty
years ago, two quite modest sarcophagi belonging to these Pharaohs were
brought to light by some Arabs in search of gold, and unconscious of what
a treasure they had found.
In that part of the city of the dead which nowadays goes among the
inhabitants by the name of Assassif, those sarcophagi were found, only lightly
covered with sand and rubble and one of them containing the embalmed Dody
of a king, his head adorned with a royal circlet. The cover of the casket
was richly gilded, and the sacred symbols which decked the central strip
soon revealed the name of Pharaoh Antef in the royal cartouche.
In the year 1854, when Brugsch for the first time stayed on the banks of
the Nile, he had the unhoped-for good fortune to stumble, in a lumber room
in the house of the Greek consul, across the coffin of a second Antef, which
was notably distinguished from the first by his cognomen of " the Great."
The coffin is now preserved in the Louvre, a precious and valuable relic of
the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs.
The black rocks of the island of Konosso, near Osiris's favoured island of
Philse above the First Cataract, preserve the memory of the Mentuhotep (II)
who bore the royal name of Neb-taui-Ra, " Sun 01 the Lord of the Coun-
try." A sculpture chiselled in the hard stone shows the Pharaoh as the
conqueror of thirteen peoples, and as the devout servant of his original pro-
genitor Khem or Amsu, the famous god of Coptos. The place of this name
(Qobt it was actually called among the Egyptians) had at that time a great
reputation.
This Mentuhotep also appears perpetuated on the wall in the rocky
valley, together with his mother, Ama. He had, so his inscription distinctly
says, caused a deep well, ten cubits in diameter, to be sunk in the waterless,
desolate waste, in order to provide reviving draughts of fresh water for all
pilgrims with their beasts of burden and all men whom the king had com-
missioned to quarry stone in the hot valley.
Another inscription, dated the 15th of Paophi in the second year of the
reign of our Mentuhotep, next commemorates the god Khem, " the Lord of
the Peoples of this Wilderness," then renders homage to other heavenly
beings, and informs us how it was marvellously contrived to convey the
gigantic blocks of stone Nileward to serve for the future housing of the
royal corpse. A high dignitary, Amenemhat by name, and appointed to
108 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[co. 2600-2500 B.C.]
superintend all works of the kind for Pharaoh, received an express order to
forward the heavy load of the sarcophagus and its cover from the mountains
to the ruler's eternal resting-place.
Long was the way and hard the labour of the task, for the mighty mass
of hewn stone measured eight cubits in length, whilst the proportion of this
to the breadth and height was as four to two. When rich offerings had
been made to the gods, three thousand strong men succeeded in moving the
gigantic weight of stone from its place, and in rolling it down the valley to
the river.
We have less information respecting the other Mentuhotep, whose pyra-
mid bears the name of Khu-asu, "the most shining place." A tombstone
found in the carefully explored valley of Abydos commemorates the priest
who presented the offerings of the dead to the departed king at the pyramid.
The list of kings closes with Sankh-ka-Ra, the fifty-eighth of the long
series of Abydos. The rock valley of Hammamat commemorates him in an
inscription of the highest value. From Coptos the way led through water-
less deserts toward the coast of the Red Sea, and was much frequented by
merchants, who, for the sake of profit, ventured life and limb, and after pain-
ful wanderings on desert paths trusted themselves in the harbour to frail
vessels, that they might steer for the southern regions of the farther coasts
and bring valuable goods, principally costly spices full of sweet savours, back
from the land of Punt to their native country and the temples of the gods.
THE VOYAGE TO PTJNT
Under the name of Punt, the ancient inhabitants of Kamit understood a
distant country, washed by the great sea, full of valleys and hills, rich in
ebony and other valuable woods, in incense, balsam, precious metals and
stones ; rich also in animals, for there are camelopards, cheetahs, panthers,
dog-headed apes, and long-tailed monkeys. Winged creatures with strange
feathers flew up to the boughs of wonderful trees, especially of the incense
tree and the cocoanut palm. Such was the conception of the Egyptian Ophir,
doubtless the coast of the modern Somaliland, which lies in view of Arabia,
though divided from it by the sea.
According to the old dim legend, the land of Punt was the primeval
dwelling of the gods. From Punt the heavenly beings had, headed by Amen,
Horus, and Hathor, passed into the Nile Valley. The passage of the gods
had consecrated the coast lands, which the waters of the Red Sea washed as
far as Punt and whose very name " God's land " (Ta-neter) recalls the
legend. Amen is called Haq, that is, " King of Punt," Hathor similarly,
" Lady and Ruler of Punt," while Hor was spoken of as " the holy morning
star which rises westward from the land of Punt." To this same country
belongs that idol of Bes, the ancient figure of the deity in the land of Punt,
who in frequent wanderings obtained a footing, not only in Egypt, but in
Arabia and other countries of Asia, as far as the Greek islands. The deformed
figure of Bes, with its grinning visage, is none other than the benevolent
Dionysus [Bacchus], who, pilgrimaging through the world, dispenses gentle
manners, peace, and cheerfulness to the nations with a lavish hand.
It was under Sankh-ka-Ra that the first Ophir-voyage to Punt and Ophir
was accomplished. According to the words of the inscription, everything
which might be serviceable to the expedition was wisely arranged before-
hand, and Pharaoh selected as its leader and guide the noble Hannu, who
gives the following account of it :
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 109
[ca. 2800 B.C.]
" I was despatched to conduct the ships toward the land of Punt, to
fetch Pharaoh sweet-smelling spices, which the princes of the red country
collect with the fear and anxiety which he inspires in all peoples. And I
started from the city of Coptos." — "And his majesty gave the order that
the armed men who were to accompany me should come from the southern
land of the Thebaid."
After a defaced portion in the inscription, which was fairly long, and of
which enough had been preserved to show that in the course of the story
there was some account of how the armed force was provided for offence and
defence against the enemy, and how the king's officers, with stone-cutters and
other work-people, accompanied the train, Hannu continues :
" And I journeyed thence with a host of three thousand men, and came
through the place of the red hamlet, and through a cultivated land. I had
skins prepared and barrows to convey the water-jars to the number of twenty.
And every one of my people carried a burden daily . . . and another
adjusted the load. And I had a reservoir dug twelve rods in length in a
wood, and two basins at a place called Atahet, one of them a rod and twenty
cubits, and the other a rod and thirty cubits. And I made another in Ateb,
ten cubits by ten each way, that it might hold water a cubit deep. Thereafter
I came to the harbour town of Seba (?), and I had cargo vessels built to
bring commodities of every kind. And I made a great sacrifice of oxen, cows,
and goats. And when I returned from Seba (?) I had fulfilled the king's
command, for I brought him all kinds of commodities, which I had found in
the harbours of the sacred country. And I descended into the street of
Uak and Rohan, and took with me valuable stones for the statues of the
houses of God. The like has never been since there were kings, and such
things were never done by any blood relations of the king who were sent
to those places since the time (the rule) of the sun-god Ra. And I did
thus for the king on account of the great favour he cherished for me."
M. Chabas, who first rendered this important inscription and its contents
intelligible, has joined to his translation some valuable remarks concerning
the direction of the desert road from Coptos to the Red Sea. By this means
we may satisfy ourselves that already in those remote times, the ancient
Egyptians had opened a road by which to establish communication with the
land of Punt, and to transport its products — rare and costly commodities -
to the valley of the Nile.
In his description of the journey, Hannu speaks of five principal camps, al
which the wanderers rested, and menand animals (then only donkeys, the only
beast of burden referred to, at least at this period) fortified themselves
toilsome journey in the enjoyment of the fresh drinking-water,
over, this same road which, even in the time of the Ptolemies and Komi ns,
led from Coptos in the direction of the sunrise, to the harbour of Leu
Limen (now Kosseir), on the Red Sea, the great highway and commercia
route of the merchants of all countries, who carried on a trade i
wondrous products of Arabia and India, the bridge of nations wnicl
connected Asia and Europe.
Although, in view of the most recent discoveries, we must no
regard Punt and the oft referred to "sacred country " as the exclusive dei
ignation of the southern and western coasts of Arabia itself, stil
more probable than that, already in the reign of King Sankh-ka-Ra, five a
twenty centuries before the beginning of our era, the Egyptians
knowledge of the coasts of Yemen and of the Hadramaut on the , opposit*
of the sea, which lay in sight of the incense-bearing mountains of Punt
110 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 2466 B.C.]
the sacred country. Here, in these regions, should, as it seems to us, that
mysterious place be sought which, in remotely prehistoric times, sent forth
the restless Cushite nations oversea from Arabia, like swarms of locusts, to
plant themselves on the highly favoured coasts of Punt and the "sacred
country," and to extend their wanderings further inland in a westerly and
northerly direction. 6
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY
It is hard to keep in mind the long sweep of these meagre Egyptian
chronicles, but it must not be forgotten that we are handling dynasties of
long duration and not single
reigns.
It was not without a strug-
gle that the Xllth Dynasty
was established, and the first
years of the reign of the The-
ban king Amenemhat were
harassed by the conspiracies
and plots of those who con-
tested his claim to the throne.
In the Instructions to his
son, Usertsen I, the king says :
" When night came I took an
hour of ease. I stretched my-
self on the soft couch in my
palace and sought repose,
my spirit had nearly suc-
cumbed to sleep, when lo !
they gathered themselves to-
gether in arms against me,
and I became as weak as a
serpent of the field. Then
I arose to fight with my own
hands, and I found I had but
to strike to conquer. If I attacked an armed foe, he fled before me, and I had
no reverse of fortune." And it was to this force of character that the king
owed his success. " Never in my life have I given way," he continues, " either
in a grasshopper plague or in conspiracies set afoot in the palace, or when,
taking advantage of my youth, they banded together against me."
The south of Memphis was the final scene of struggle against the new
dynasty, but after the surrender of the fortified town of Titui, the whole
of Egypt surrendered to the sway of Amenemhat, who now devoted himself
to the reparation of the evils of war and to expeditions against the Libyans,
Nubians, and Asiatics, whose invasions were so ruinous to the country.
" I caused the mourner," says the king in the same Instructions, " to
mourn no longer, and his lamentation was no longer heard. Perpetual
fighting was no more seen, whereas, before my coming, they fought together
as bulls who think not of the past, whilst the welfare of the wise and unwise
was equally ignored. I have had the land tilled as far as Abu [Elephantine].
I have spread joy as far as Adhu [the Delta]. I am the creator of the
three kinds of grain, I a,m the friend of Nopu [the god of grain]. In answer
to my prayer the Nile has inundated the fields ; nobody hungers or thirsts
under my sway, for my orders have been obeyed. All that I said was a fresh
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM
111
[ca. 24«5 B.C.]
source of love ; I have overthrown the lion and killed the crocodile. I
have conquered the Uauat, I have taken the Mazau captive, and I have
forced the Sati [Asiatics] to follow me like harriers."
In Nubia the king had the gold mines reopened which had been
abandoned since the time of Pepi.
As Amenemhat was not young when he ascended the throne, he began
to feel the effects of age after reigning nineteen years, and this led to his
making his son, Usertsen I, co-regent with himself with all the titles and
prerogatives of royalty. " I raised thee from a subject," he writes in the
Instructions, " I granted thee the free use of thy arms that thou mightest be
feared on that account. As for me, I arrayed myself in the fine stuffs of
my palace so as to look like one of the flowers of my garden. I perfumed
myself as freely as if the essences
were drawn like water from the
cisterns."
At the end of some years the
king took so little active part in
the government, that his name
was often omitted in the monu-
ments beside that of his son ; but
he still gave wise counsels from
the palace where he lived in retire-
ment. To the wisdom of his ad-
vice much of the prosperity of
Egypt was due, and such a repu-
tation for ruling did the old king
acquire, that in a treatise, com-
posed by a contemporary, on the
art of governing, the writer repre-
sents him rising like a god and
addressing his son: " Thou reignest
over two worlds, thou dost govern
three regions. Act better than thy
predecessors, maintain harmony
between thy subjects and thyself
lest they succumb to fear ; sit not
by thyself in their midst, do not
take to thy heart and treat as thy
brother only him that is rich and
I of high degree, neither accord thy
friendship to newcomers whose
devotion is not proved."
In support of his Instructions
the old king gives a resume of his
life, of which some extracts have
been already given. Although
only three pages long, this little work became quite a classic, and kept its
place a thousand years, for at the time of the XlXth Dynasty, it was still
copied in the schools and studied as an exercise of style by young scribes.
Nothing is more illustrative of the state of Egypt and the neighbouring
countries at this period than certain passages from the memoirs of an adven-
turer named Sineh. Arrived at the court of a little Asiatic chief, who asks
for an account of the power of the Egyptian sovereign, and who was sur-
AMENEMHAT WORSEIPPKD AS A QOD BY A SUBJU-
GATED PRINCE
112
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 2466-2370 B.C.]
prised at hearing that a death had taken place in the palace of Amenemhat
without his knowledge, the traveller gives a poetical panegyric of the king
and his son : " My exile into that country was arranged by God, for Egypt is
under the control of a master, who is called ' the benevolent god ' ; and the
terror of him extends to all the surrounding nations, as the power of the
goddess Sekhet extends over the earth in the season of sickness. I told him
my thoughts and he replied, ' We grant thee immunity.' His son, Usertsen,
entered the palace, for he manages his father's business ; he is an incompar-
able god, he has never had his equal, he is a counsellor wise in his designs,
benevolent in his decrees, who goes and comes at his will. He conquers
foreign states and reports his conquests to his father, who remains in the
palace. He is a brave man, who rules by the sword, his courage is un-
equalled ; when he sees barbarians, he rushes forward and scatters the
predatory hordes. He is the hurler of javelins who makes the hand of
the enemy feeble, those whom he strikes never more lift the lance. He
is formidable in shattering skulls, and has never been overcome. He is
a swift runner who kills the fugitive, and no one can overtake him. He
is alert and ready. He is a lion who strikes with his claws, nor ever lets
go from his grip ; he is a heart girded
in armour at the sight of the hosts, and
leaves nothing standing behind him ;
he is a valiant man rushing forward at
the sight of battle. He seizes his
buckler, he bounds forward and kills
without a second blow. Nobody can
withstand his arrow ; before he bends
his bow, the barbarians flee in front of
him like hares, for the great goddess
has commanded him to slay those who
ignore her name, and when he attacks,
he spares not. All are laid low. He
is a wonderful friend, who knows how
to win love ; his country loves him
more than herself, and rejoices in him
more than in a god ; and both men and
women are prompt to render him
homage. He is king ; he has commanded
ever since he was born ; the nation has
multiplied under him, the unique being
of a divine essence by whom this land
rejoices to be governed. He has en-
larged the frontiers of the South, whilst
not coveting the region of the North. He has subjugated the Asiatics and
conquered the Nemashatu."
The co-regency of Usertsen I with Amenemhat I, instituted ten years
before the king's death, led to Usertsen's being accepted as successor to his
father without any opposition. And following his parent's example, this
king (after forty-two years) appointed his son, Amenemhat II, to be co-regent
with himself ; and he, thirty-two years later, did the same with Usertsen II ;
Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV also reigned a long time together. The
only reigns in which there is no proof of co-regency are those of Usertsen
III and Queen Sebek-neferu-Ra (the Schemiophris of Manetho), who was
the last of the dynasty, which had lasted 213 years, 1 month, and 27 days.
USKRTSEN I
(From a statue)
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 113
[00. 2370-2280 B.C.]
The history of the Xllth Egyptian dynasty is certainly given with
greater accuracy and completeness than that of any of the others. In spite
of the deficiencies in the biographies of the eight monarchs, and the accounts
of their wars, we have an uninterrupted survey of the development of their
policy, and even after the lapse of four thousand years and more, we can
form a fair idea of the Egypt of the period. As engineers, soldiers, friends
of art, and patrons of agriculture, they were indefatigable in their work of
aggrandising the country. With the enlargement of the boundaries of the
kingdom, the hordes of barbarians on the frontiers were dispersed, Nubia was
conquered ; the valley of the Middle Nile, from the First Cataract to the
Fourth, was colonised ; the supply of water was more equalised by the crea-
tion of Lake Mceris and a system of canals ; and towns like Heliopolis,
Thebes, Tanis, and a hundred others of less repute, were adorned with fine
buildings. Egypt, in fact, at this time, was in a most prosperous state, and
if later she obtained more renown by her Asiatic wars and distant con-
quests, the period of this dynasty, when each generation of Pharaohs followed
in the other's steps of good administration, was the most happy and peaceful
of all.
The two scenes of warfare of the Pharaohs at this period were Syria on the
east of the Delta, and Nubia, properly so called, on the south of Elephantine.
One would have thought that the large tracts of sand, separating the Syrians
from Egypt, would have prevented any incursions from that quarter. But
the nomadic tribes made such inroads on that district that a series of for-
tresses had to be built from the Red Sea to the Nile, to protect the entrance
of the Wady Tumilat from the hordes ; and this wall, begun by Amenemhat
and continued by his successors, marked the extreme limit, at that time, of
the empire of the Pharaohs in this direction. Beyond stretched the desert,
a world almost unknown to the Egyptians at that time.
Of the people of Syria and Palestine they had only vague ideas brought
thither by the caravans or brought to the ports in the Mediterranean by
sailors who had been there. Sometimes, however, a party of emigrants, or
even whole tribes, driven from their country by misery or revolutions, would
arrive and settle in Egypt. One of the bas-reliefs of the tomb of Khnum-
hotep depicts the arrival of such a party. It represents thirty-seven men,
women, and children, brought before the governor of the nome of Mah, to
whom they present a sort of greenish paint, called moszmit, and two boxes.
They are armed like Egyptians with bows, javelins, axes, and clubs ; one of
them plays, as he walks, on an instrument resembling an old Greek lyre in
shape. The cut of their dress, the brilliancy and good taste of the fringed
and patterned materials, the elegance of most of the things they have with
them, testify to an advanced stage of civilisation, albeit inferior to that of
Egypt. Asia already supplied Egypt with slaves, perfumes, cedar wood, and
cedar essences, enamelled precious stones, lapis-lazuli, and the embroidered
and dyed stuffs of which Chaldea retained the monopoly until the time of
the Romans.6
The monuments of this great period provoked wonder among the ancients,
and the old traveller and historian Herodotus thus describes the marvels of
Egypt :a
MONUMENTS OP THE TWELFTH DYNASTY : A CLASSICAL VIEW
It was the resolution of all the princes to leave behind them a common
monument of their fame : — With this view, beyond the Lake Mceris, nea
the City of Crocodiles, they constructed a labyrinth, which exceeds, 1
H. W. VOL. I. I
114 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
truly say, all that has been said of it ; whoever will take the trouble to com-
pare them, will find all the works of Greece much inferior to this, both in
regard to the workmanship and expense. The temples of Ephesus and
Samos may justly claim admiration, and the Pyramids may individually be
compared to many of the magnificent structures of Greece, but even these
are inferior to the Labyrinth. It is composed of twelve courts, all of which
are covered ; their entrances are opposite to each other, six to the north and
six to the south ; one wall encloses the whole ; the apartments are of two
kinds, there are fifteen hundred above the surface of the ground, and as
many beneath, in all three thousand. Of the former I speak from my own
knowledge and observation ; of the latter, from the information I received.
The Egyptians who had the care of the subterraneous apartments would
not suffer me to see them, and the reason they alleged was, that in these
were preserved the sacred crocodiles, and the bodies of the kings who con-
structed the labyrinth : of these therefore I presume not to speak ; but the
upper apartments I myself examined, and I pronounce them among the
greatest efforts of human industry and art.
The almost infinite number of winding passages through the different
courts, excited my warmest admiration : from spacious halls I passed through
smaller apartments, and from them again to large and magnificent courts,
almost without end. The ceilings and walls are all of marble, the latter
richly adorned with the finest sculpture ; around each court are pillars of
the whitest and most polished marble : at the point where the labyrinth ter-
minates, stands a pyramid one hundred and sixty cubits high, having large
figures of animals engraved on its outside, and the entrance to it is by a sub-
terraneous path.
Wonderful as this labyrinth is, the Lake Mceris, near which it stands, is
still more extraordinary : the circumference of this is three thousand six hun-
dred stadia, or sixty schseni, which is the length of Egypt about the coast.
This lake stretches itself from north to south, and in its deepest parts is
two hundred cubits ; it is entirely the produce of human industry, which
indeed the work itself testifies, for in its centre may be seen two pyramids,
each of which is two hundred cubits above and as many beneath the water :
upon the summit of each is a colossal statue of marble, in a sitting attitude.
The precise altitude of these pyramids is consequently four hundred cubits ;
these four hundred cubits, or one hundred orgyise, are adapted to a stadium
of six hundred feet ; an orgyia is six feet, or four cubits, for a foot is four
palms, and a cubit six.
The waters of the lake are not supplied by springs ; the ground which it
occupies is of itself remarkably dry, but it communicates by a secret channel
with the Nile ; for six months the lake empties itself into the Nile, and the
remaining six the Nile supplies the lake. During the six months in which
the waters of the lake ebb, the fishery which is here carried on furnishes the
royal treasury with a talent of silver every day ; but as soon as the Nile
begins to pour its waters into the lake, it produces no more than twenty tninie.
[The silver which the fishery of this lake produced was, says Larcher,
appropriated to find the queen with clothes and perfume.]
The inhabitants affirm of this lake, that it has a subterraneous passage in-
clining inland towards the west, to the mountains above Memphis, where it
discharges itself into the Libyan sands. I was anxious to know what became
of the earth, which must somewhere have necessarily been heaped up in dig-
ging this lake ; as my search after it was fruitless, I made inquiries concern-
ing it of those who lived nearer the lake. I was the more willing to believe
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 115
them, when they told me where it was carried, as I had before heard of a
similar expedient used at Nineveh, an Assyrian city. Some robbers, who
were solicitous to get possession of the immense treasures of Sardanapalus
King of Nineveh, which were deposited in subterraneous apartments, began'
bom the place where they lived to dig under ground, in a direction towards
Having taken the most accurate measurement, they continued their
mine to the palace of the king; as night approached they regularly emptied
the earth into the Tigris, which flows near Nineveh, and at length accom-
plished their purpose. A plan entirely similar was executed in Egypt, ex-
cept that the work was here carried on not by night but by day ; the Egyp-
tians threw the earth into the Nile, as they dug it from the trench ; thus it
was regularly dispersed, and this, as they told me, was the process of the
lake's formation. <*
Thus Herodotus explains what he but faintly understood ; his translate
William Beloe has added the following commentary :«
Herodotus, Diodorus, and Pomponius Mela differ but little in opinion
concerning its extent. The design of it was probably to hinder the Nile
from overflowing the country too much, which was effected by drawing off
such a quantity of water, when it was apprehended that there might be an
inundation sufficient to hurt the land. [The regulation of the Nile floods
has been accomplished in the latter part of the nineteenth century, by dams
elsewhere described.] The water, Pococke observes, is of a disagreeable
muddy taste, and almost as salt as the sea, which quality it probably con-
tracts from the nitre that is in the earth, and the salt which is every year
left in the mud. The circumference of the lake at present is no more
than fifty leagues. Larcher says we must distinguish betwixt the lake itself,
and the canal of communication from the Nile; that the former was the
work of nature, the latter of art. This canal, a most stupendous effort of
art, is still entire ; it is called Bahr Yusuf, the canal of Joseph. According
to Savary it is forty leagues in length.
There were two other canals with sluices at their mouths, from the lake
to the river, which were alternately shut and opened when the Nile increased
or decreased. This work united every advantage, and supplied the deficien-
cies of a low inundation, by retaining water which would uselessly have been
expended in the sea. It was still more beneficial when the increase of the
Nile was too great, by receiving that superfluity which would have prevented
seed-time. Were the canal of Joseph cleansed, the ancient mounds repaired,
and the sluices restored, this lake might again serve the same purposes. The
pyramids described by Herodotus no longer exist, neither are they men-
tioned by Strabo.
When it is considered that this was the work of an individual, and that
its object was the advantage and comfort of a numerous people, it must be
agreed, with M. Savary, that the king who constructed it performed a far
more glorious work than either the Pyramids or the Labyrinth.8
The Sphinx itself is hardly more distinctly Egyptian than the ruins of
Karnak, a solemn memorial of Old Thebes. The famed Egyptologist, Lepsius,
visited the region and described the impression the ruins made on him as
follows :a
THE RUINS OF KARNAK
The river here divides the broad valley into two unequal parts. On the
west side it approaches close to the precipitous Libyan range, which there
projects ; on the eastern side it bounds a wide fruitful plain, extending
116 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
as far as Medamut, a spot situated on the border of the Arabian Desert,
several hours distant. On this side stood the actual town of Thebes,
which seems to have been chiefly grouped round the two great temples of
Karnak and Luxor, situated above half an hour apart. Karnak lies more
to the north, and farther removed from the Nile ; Luxor is now actually
washed by the waves of the river, and may even formerly have been the har-
bour of the city. The west side of the river contained the necropolis of
Thebes, and all the temples which stood here referred more or less to the
worship of the dead ; indeed, all the inhabitants of this part, which was
afterwards comprehended by the Greeks under the name of Memnonia,
seem to have been principally occupied with the care of the dead and their
tombs. The former extent of the Memnonia may be now distinguished
by Gurnah and Medinet Habu, places situated at the northern and southern
extremities.
A survey of the Theban monuments naturally begins with the ruins of
Karnak. Here stood the great royal temple of the hundred-gated Thebes,
which was dedicated to Amen-Ra, the King of the Gods, and to the peculiar
local god of the city of Amen, so called after him (No- Amen, Diospolis).
Ap, along with the feminine article Tap, from which the Greeks made
Thebe, was the name of one particular sanctuary of Amen. It is also
often employed in hieroglyphics in the singular, or still more frequently in
plural (Napu), as the name of the town ; for which reason the Greeks natu-
rally, without changing the article along with it, generally used the plural
0r)/3ai. The whole history of the Egyptian monarchy, after the city of
Amen was raised to be one of the two royal residences in the land, is con-
nected with this temple. All dynasties emulated in the glory of having
contributed their share to the enlargement, embellishment, or restoration of
this national sanctuary.
It was founded by their first king, the mighty Usertsen I, under the Old
Theban Royal Dynasty (XHth of Manetho), between 2400 and 2300 B.C., and
even now exhibits some ruins in the centre of the building from that period
bearing the name of this king. During the dynasties immediately succeed-
ing, which for several centuries groaned under the yoke of the victorious
hereditary enemy, this sanctuary no doubt was also deserted, and nothing
has been preserved which belonged to that period. But after the first king
of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Aahmes, in the seventeenth century B.C., had suc-
ceeded in his first war against the Hyksos, his two successors, Amenhotep I
and Tehutimes I, built round the remains of the most ancient sanctuary a
magnificent temple, with a great many chambers round the cella, and with
a broad court, and pylons appertaining to it, in front of which Tehutimes I
erected two obelisks. Two other pylons, with contiguous court walls, were
built by the same king, at a right angle with the temple in the direction of
Luxor.
Tehutimes III and his sister enlarged this temple to the back by a
hall resting on fifty-six columns, besides many other chambers, which sur-
rounded it on three sides, and were encircled by one common outer wall.
The succeeding kings partly closed the temple more perfectly in front, partly
built new independent temples near it, and also placed two more large pylons
towards the southwest, in front of those erected by Tehutimes I, so that
now four lofty pylons formed the magnificent entrance to the principal
temple on this side.
But a far more splendid enlargement of the temple was executed in the
fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. by the great Pharaohs of the XlXth
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 117
[eo. 2260 B.C.]
Dynasty ; for Seti I, the father of Ramses Meri-Amen, added in the original
axis of the temple the most magnificent hall of pillars that was ever seen
in Egypt or elsewhere. The stone roof, supported by 184 columns, covers
a space of 164 feet in depth, and 320 feet in breadth. Each of the twelve
central columns is 36 feet in circumference, and 66 feet high beneath the
architrave ; the other columns, 40 feet high, are 27 feet in circumference.
It is impossible to describe the overwhelming impression which is experi-
enced upon entering for the first time into this forest of columns, and wander-
ing from one range into the other, between the lofty figures of gods and
kings on every side represented on them, projecting sometimes entirely, some-
times only in part. Every surface is covered with various sculptures, now
in relief, now sunk, which were, however, only completed under the succes-
sors of the builder ; most of them, indeed, by his son Ramses Meri-Amen.
In front of this hypostyle hall was placed, at a later period, a great hyp»-
thral court, 270 by 320 feet in extent, decorated on the sides only with colon-
nades, and entered by a magnificent pylon.
The principal part of the temple terminated here, comprising a length of
1170 feet, not including the row of sphinxes in front of its external pylon,
nor the peculiar sanctuary which was placed by Ramses Meri-Amen directly
beside the wall farthest back in the temple, and with the same axis, but
turned in such a manner that its entrance was on the opposite side. Includ-
ing these enlargements, the entire length must have amounted to nearly
2000 feet, reckoning to the most southern gate of the external wall, which
surrounded the whole space, which was of nearly equal breadth. The later
dynasties, who now found the principal temples completed on all sides, but
who also were desirous of contributing their share to the embellishment of
this centre of the Theban worship, began partly to erect separate small
temples on the large level space which was surrounded by the above-men-
tioned enclosure-wall, partly to extend these temples also externally./
In almost unfailing sequence decline follows glory ; and now, having seen
the ruined monuments of the Theban Kingdom, we may turn to consider
the ruin of her power."
THE PALL OF THE THEBAN KINGDOM
The new family (Xlllth Dynasty) which ascended the throne with
Sebekhotep I, seems, from numerous similarities of name, to have been
connected with the previous dynasty ; for instance, two of its rulers took
the prename of Amenemhat I, and their surname, generally supposed to
have been derived from the god's name Sebek, is linked to the name of the
last queen, Sebek-neferu-Ra.
Sebekhotep I appears only once in the monuments, in a measurement of
the height of the Nile at Kummeh in the first year of his reign ; besides
him only the sixth of his successors, with the remarkable name of Amenie-
Antef-Amenemhat are on the two altar tablets of the Theban Amen.
Evidently none of these reigns was of long duration ; usurpations and
probably also revolts of the nomarchs shook the kingdom, as at the end of
the Vlth dynasty.
The Turin papyrus has an incision at Ranseneb, the eleventh or twel
successor of Sebekhotep I. Most of the rulers of the next family (about
fifteen in number) are known to us only by single monuments, and we see
that they still rule the united kingdoms of Usertsen III, from Tams t
Bemneh, albeit in a stormy fashion. Certainly one must not estimate the
118 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 2250 B.C.]
accounts of their power and brilliancy too highly, as has been the case lately.
They have left us only short inscriptions and statues, some of which are
masterpieces of work, and albeit the former are of short reigns and very
circumscribed, they are full of significance. The fact that the sixth
king bore the name of Mermesha (i.e. General) shows that he was an
usurper. We have two colossal statues of this ruler, found in Tanis. The
tenth king, Neferhotep, was the son of a private person, brought perhaps by
marriage near to the throne, and we find the name of this ruler here and
there on temple buildings at Karnak and Abydos ; and finally the five reigns,
of which we know the duration are only very short ; all these are points
which cast a clear light on the condition of Egypt at the time.
The above-named Neferhotep, who reigned eleven years, seems to have
been the most powerful ruler of the period ; this great ruler appears with
his family in inscriptions in the district of the First Cataract (Assuan,
Konosso, Sehel) and in the temple of Karnak, also in a large and very
interesting inscription at Abydos, and the museum of Bologna has a
statue of him, as well as of his second son, Sebekhotep V (Kha-uefer-Ra).
The elder, Sehathor, died after a reign of a few months. There was a colos-
sal granite statue of Sebekhotep V found at Tanis, another far in the Nubian
country on the island of Arqo, far above the Second Cataract, and the Louvre
has two more. There is frequent mention of him at Karnak. The three
last rulers of this house are of no great importance. Far less is known of
the next rulers than of the above. Their names, probably about a hundred,
are divided into dynasties and fill nearly five divisions of the Turin papyrus.
Where we have dates, there are, on the whole, about twenty-two, more or
less recognisable ; they show that the reigns were of short duration, a few
months, one or two years, and, far more rarely, three or four years. There
is only one case of a longer reign, and that was in the case of the first ruler
of the new house, Mer-nefer-Ra Ai, who reigned thirteen years, eight months,
and eighteen days.
It follows that only a very few of these kings are known to us through
the monuments, and the majority only by insignificant memorials. Their
names appear only occasionally in the stone quarries at Hammamat, or in
Karnak and Abydos, or they have statues, which are far inferior to those of
the preceding epoch.
And yet we have from this, as well as from the preceding epoch, a line of
graves and tomb steles in Abydos, as well as numerous rock tombs in El-Kab
(Eleithyia), and probably also the great rock graves of Assiut (Lycopolis),
which attest the position and power of the high priests of Anubis and the
governors of the nome. They are as important for this period as the graves
of Beni-Hasan are for the Xllth Dynasty, but unfortunately they are in a
much worse condition, and much poorer in historical information.
THE FOREIGN RULE
The facts above mentioned clearly show that the Egypt of this period
was governed under conditions similar to those existing in the Roman
Empire in the third century after Christ.
In fact, as a fuller light is thrown upon Egyptian history, there seems to
have been a whole line of dynasties, evidently local, coexistent with the chief
king at Thebes. If Neferhotep and Sebekhotep V still reigned over Egypt
from Nubia to Tanis, the Delta was lost under their successors. It is not an
improbable theory of Stern's that Manetho's XlVth Dynasty of seventy-six
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 119
[co. 2250-1&3S B.C.]
kings from Xois (Sakha), in the western Delta, included Libyan foreign
rulers who occupied the Delta.
But the chief invaders of this time were an Asiatic race who made a
violent attack on the power of the Pharaohs at Thebes. They were the
Mentu, or, as they are now called, the Mentu of Satet, that is " the barbarous
Asiatic country." They were called the Shepherds or Hyksos by their
contemporaries and by Manetho.
Of what race the Hyksos were, is not known. Some points in the account
show that we have here to do with an invasion of Bedouin races, one of those
frequent raids upon cultivated land by nomads of the desert.
Among the latest opinions on the subject is one that ascribes to the
Hyksos a partly Semitic and partly Turanian origin, and accounts for their
settling in Egypt by their being crowded out of western Asia in the
numerous race conflicts of which that part of the world was the arena. The
expelled people could find no resting-place among the wild hordes of Syria,
and moved on to the peaceful and fertile valley of the Nile.
It is certain that Semitic and Canaanitish, not Arabic, elements penetrated
to Egypt under the Hyksos. The Egyptian language was subsequently
sprinkled with Canaanitish words; the specifically Canaanitish divinities
Baal Astarte (in the feminine form), Anit, Reshpu, etc., were afterwards
extensively worshipped in the eastern Delta, and in the whole of Egypt. In
the next centuries we find Canaanitish proper names everywhere.
More accurate information on the invasion of the Hyksos is wanting. It
is certain that they settled in Lower Egypt, where they founded a state
which they ruled according to the Egyptian fashion. Their chief seats were
Avaris (Ha-Uar), the border fortress built or enlarged by them, which is
Pelusium, or a place a little to the south ; and Tanis, the powerful capital
of the eastern Delta, ornamented by numerous buildings of the Xllth
Dynasty and the real residence of the Hyksos kings.
It seems, moreover, certain that Memphis, and even the Fayum, remained
in their hands ; but Upper Egypt was at most conquered only temporarily.
Here ruled, during this epoch, the kings mentioned in the five divisions
of the Turin papyrus, and their successors, perhaps as tributary vassals,
since they occasionally bear the title of Haq, that is, Prince.
King Meneptah, the son of the great Ramses, speaks of this time as " the
epoch of the kings of Lower Egypt, since this land Qem was in their
(power), and the accursed foe (Aad, the Plague) ruled at the time when the
kings of Upper Egypt (were powerless)."
It is very possible that the Hyksos pillaged Egypt in their conquests,
but Manetho's assertion that they systematically destroyed the temples and
monuments is contradicted by the following facts. The chief^ god they
worshipped was Sutekh, or Set with the surname of "the Golden," by which
the Sun-Baal is understood. They built him a great temple in Tanis, and
his cult was followed in the eastern Delta until later times. He was also
called " Lord of Avaris " at this time.
The Egyptian gods were, however, retained ; the kings called themselves
" sons of Ra " and, like the Egyptian rulers, they chiefly begin their throne
names with " Ra." Egyptian culture was generally adopted by the foreigners.
The fact that we have a mathematical handbook under the rule of a
Hyksos king, written " according to old copies," and that we have a scribe's
palette, presented by the same king to the scribe Atu, shows that writ
ing was in vogue under their rule. The monuments ascribed to them,
particularly the sphinxes with kings' heads, found at Tanis, a group of
120 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 2250-1635 B.C.]
two men before an altar with fish, the piece of a statue from Mit-Fares
in the Fayum, differ widely from the Egyptian type in features and
apparel, but the work is evidently that of Egyptian artists, and most
carefully executed.
The length of the rule of the Hyksos is as unknown to us as the number
of their kings. Manetho makes two dynasties (Dynasties XV and XVI)
rule, which, according to Josephus, reigned 511 years altogether over the
whole of Egypt, whilst the tables of Africanus give 284 to the XVth (an
evident misquotation of Josephus 260) and 518 to the XVIth. For the
XVIIth Dynasty, according to Africanus, 43 Shepherds and 43 Theban
kings ruled for 151 years; and this is the era of the struggle for freedom,
which ended with the expulsion of the Hyksos. It is impossible for these
figures to be correct, but there is no means of getting at the historical truth,
even approximately. It can be said, however, that according to the monu-
ments there is no gap of five hundred or more years between the end of the
Xlllth Dynasty and the beginning of the New Kingdom. The pedigrees
of the nomarchs and nobles of El-Kab (Eileithyia) give names after a few
generations, which are undoubtedly contemporaneous with the Xlllth and
XlVth Dynasties.
The monuments of the first rulers of the New Kingdom in Thebes show
the closest connection with the more ancient Theban, and strikingly so with
those of the Xlth Dynasty. There is, certainly between the time of Amen-
emhat and Sebekhotep and the New Kingdom, no distinctive break in cul-
ture and art similar to that between the Old Kingdom of Memphis and the
Xllth Dynasty.
Manetho's figures have evidently to be very considerably reduced. Some
of the short-lived rulers of the Egyptian dynasties must be regarded as con-
temporaneous with the Hyksos kings and connected directly with the first
rulers of the New Kingdom who undertook the struggle for emancipation.
If we allow 150 years for the first kings of the XIII Dynasty, — and dates
are inevitable, — about four hundred years would be reckoned from the end
of the Xllth Dynasty to the expulsion of the Hyksos under Aahmes. More-
over, we also know that a Hyksos king, Nub, reigned four hundred years
before Ramses 11.?
It will be clear to the reader, from the account just given, that the
period of the XIIIth-XVHth Dynasties is one of which we have very
little knowledge. Not only is the Turin papyrus here much broken, but the
intrusion of the Hyksos has greatly confused the knowledge we have
indirectly from Manetho through Josephus, Africanus, Eusebius, and others.
Petrie has made a careful study of the subject, and his conclusions are, in
brief, as follows :
1° The Hyksos were not contemporaneous with the 453 years of the
Xlllth Dynasty.
2° There is a period of about 100 years during the XlVth Egyptian
Dynasty during which the Hyksos gradually came into power, and
3° The XVth Dynasty mentioned by Africanus and Eusebius represents
the 260 years of the great Hyksos kings, while Africanus has included this
period again in his XVIth Dynasty of 518 years. On the other hand, the
XVIth Dynasty mentioned by Eusebius is the Egyptian XVIth of 190 years,
in which the native rulers persisted, but were ruled and almost eclipsed
by the invaders.
4° The XVIIth Dynasty of both Africanus and Eusebius (it will be re-
membered that Josephus dealt only with the Hyksos and neglected the con-
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM I-M
[ca. 2250-1635 B.C.]
temporary Egyptian sovereigns) is a joint dynasty of Hyksos and Egyptians.
The number of its kings is quite unknown, and its period witnessed the
5&S&A « tW? ra(?8 which culminated in the triumph of Aahmes I
(XVIIIth Dynasty) and the restoration of the old race.
The following table, compiled from Petrie,* and keeping his dates, will
show the situation as viewed by this eminent authority :
Date
B.O.
Egyptian Dynasty
Years
Date
B.C.
Uyksos Dynasty
YMT*
2666
XIII, (00 kings) . .
2112
463
2112
14 years before Uyksos came to
power.
2008
XIV, (76 kings) . .
184
Unknown period of 100 years dur-
ing which Hyksos harried
Egyptians.
1998
1928
XVI, (8 kings) . .
190
625
XV, (6 great Hyksos) 260 years.
611
1738
1738
XVII, (? kings) . .
161
XVII, (? kings) 151 years.
1587
1687
•
THE HYKSOS RULE ; THE SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY
It has been most fortunate for our study of antiquity that Josephus'*
account of the early history of his people was received by the Greeks with
doubt and denial. In an impassioned answer to his critics the great Jewish
historian has preserved the only account we possess of the appearance and
fortunes of the Hyksos in Egypt, although of course he is wrong in his the-
ory that these people were Hebrews.
He quotes from ManethoJ: "There was a king of ours whose name was
Timaeus." (The identity of this king has never been determined with
certainty. It may have been Amenemhat IV (Xllth Dynasty) or Ra
Amenemhat, the third king of the XHIth.) " Under him it came to pass, I
know not how, that God was averse to us, and there came, after a surprising
manner, men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, and had boldness
enough to make an expedition into our country, and with ease subdued it
by force, yet without our hazarding a battle with them."
It is possible that this campaign of unresisted conquest was accomplished
with the aid of factors hitherto unknown on the African continent : the
war chariot and the horse."
" So when they had gotten those that governed us under their power,
they afterwards burnt down our cities and demolished the temples of the
gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most barbarous manner. At length
they made one of themselves king, whose name was Salatis ; he lived also at
Memphis and made both the upper and lower regions pay tribute, and left
garrisons in places that were the most proper for them. He chiefly aimed
to secure the eastern parts, as foreseeing that the Assyrians, who had then
the greatest power, would be desirous of that kingdom and invade them ; and
as he found in the Saite [Sethroite] nome, a city very proper for his pur-
pose, and which lay upon the Bubastic channel, called Avaris ; this he
122
THE HISTOKY OF EGYPT
[ca. 2000-1635 B.C.]
rebuilt and made very strong by walls, and by a most numerous garrison of
two hundred and forty thousand armed men to keep it. Thither Salatis
came in summer-time, partly to gather his corn, and pay his soldiers their
wages, and partly to exercise his armed men and thereby to terrify for-
eigners. When this man had reigned thirteen years, after him reigned
another, whose name was Beon
[or Bnon], for forty-four years,
and after him reigned another,
called Apachnas, thirty-six years
and seven months ; after him
Apophis reigned sixty-one years,
and then lanias fifty years and
one month, after all these reigned
Assis forty-nine years and two
months. And these six were the
first rulers among them, who were
all along making war with the
Egyptians, and were very desirous
gradually to destroy them to the
very roots. This whole nation
was called Hyksos, i.e. Shepherd
kings. These people and their
descendants kept
Egypt 511 years.
" And after this the kings of the
Thebaid and of the
other parts of Egypt
made an insurrection
against the Shep-
herds, and a terrible
and long war was
made between them.
"Under a king
whose name was Ali-
sphragmuthosis, the
Shepherds were sub-
dued, and were in-
deed driven out of
other parts of Egypt,
but were shut up in
a place that contained ten thousand acres; this place was named Avaris.
" The Shepherds built a wall around all this place, which was a large and
strong wall, and this in order to keep all their possessions and their prey
within a place of strength, but that Thummosis, the son of Alisphragmu-
thosis made an attempt to take them by force and by siege, with four
hundred and eighty thousand men to lie round about them ; but that upon
his despair of taking the place by that siege, they came to an agreement
with them, that they should leave Egypt and go without any harm to be
done them, whithersoever they would ; and after this agreement was made,
they went away with their whole families and effects, not fewer in number
than two hundred and forty thousand, and took their journey from Egypt,
through the wilderness, for Syria ; but as they were in fear of the Assyrians,
who had then the dominion over Asia, they built a city in that country
CAPTIVES BEFORE THE PHARAOH
1 _
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 11!.;
[ca. 2000-1R35 B.C.]
which is now called Judah, and that large enough to contain this great
number of men, and called it Hierosolyma (Jerusalem)."'
The modern historian is brought face to face with the fact that for the
period of the XHIth to the XVIIIth Dynasties there is even less material
and information than for that other "dark age" extending from the Vllth
to the Xlth. The main facts of our knowledge concerning the Xlllth
Dynasty have been given in the preceding chapter. The Hyksos were
settled in the land but had not yet come to power. The Pharaohs were
still in full possession of Upper and Lower Egypt.
This cannot have been the case with the XlVth, which Manetho tells us
had its capital at Xois (Sakha, a town on the western side of the central
Delta), from which it would seem probable that the
invaders drove the ruling house to the west instead of
southward, up the Nile, perhaps because the broad
river and its wide marsh-land were found to be the
best means of defence against a people acquainted
hitherto with only small and insignificant streams.
The Turin papyrus gives eighty-five names for this
dynasty ; Manetho's figure is seventy -six, and of only
two of them are there even the slightest remains. For
the 184 years this dynasty is said to have ruled, the
average length of reign is therefore only 21 years.
How may we explain this? There seems to be little
doubt that the untrammelled rule of this dynasty
lasted but a few years, perhaps less than twenty.
By degrees the Hyksos chiefs attained influence and
power, until, as Professor Petrie says, the native kings
"were merely the puppets of the Hyksos power, the
heads of the native administration which was main-
tained for taxing purposes ; like the last emperors of
Rome, whose reigns also average two years and a half,
or like the Coptic administration of Egypt, maintained
during the supremacy of Islam in Egypt as being the
only practical way of working the country. Later on,
when the Hyksos had established a firm hold on all the
land and had a strong rule of their own, these native
viceroys were permitted a longer tenure of power, and
formed the XVIth Dynasty contemporary with the
great Hyksos kings."
The first Hyksos kings seem, from the very beginning, to have appre-
ciated fully that it was better to exploit the country than to devastate it,
and to this end they retained the temple scribes and other officials of the
native rulers. The influence of the organised government soon bore effect.
All the pomp and circumstance of Pharaoh's court were revived ; the
new sovereigns had become civilised, and they managed, by adopting the
titles of the Amenemhata and Usertsens, to legitimise themselves as descend-
ants of Horus and "sons of Ra." The local religions were not interfered
with, but the chief object of their worship was Baal, "the lord of all, a cruel
and savage warrior," and from his great similarity to Set, " the brother and
enemy of Osiris," Baal and Set soon became identified, and Set was now
called Sutekh, "the Great Set."
The six great Hyksos kings — those mentioned in the Josephus-Manetho
account — may be considered as composing the XVth Dynasty
COSTUME or A SOLDI KB
or PHARAOH
Their rule
124 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 2000-1635 B.C.]
of nearly 260 years marked the zenith of Hyksos power. There was as yet
no sign of rebellion amongst the conquered people.
But when we come to the so-called XVIIth Dynasty the years are no
longer tranquil and authority undisputed. As stated in the preceding
chapter, it is the better plan to regard this dynasty as a joint one of Shepherds
and Egyptians, for its rise is wholly lost to sight under the Hyksos power.
EGYPTIAN GYMNASTS
(From the monuments)
We know that the Hyksos Apophis (Apepa I) ruled the whole land, for
his name is found far in the south ; but in the days of his namesake Apophis
(Apepa II), some three hundred years later, Thebes was practically inde-
pendent. The compilers of the lists make mention of unsuccessful attempts
at rebellion on the part of the Theban vassals, for some time before Apepa II,
but this ruler had to meet a decisive revolt under Seqenen-Ra-Taa I, who
was haq (prince or regent) over the South. There is no information as to
the cause of the outbreak or its consequences, but the tale of " Apepa
and Seqenen-Ra," so popular with readers five hundred years later, asserts
that the cause of the quarrel was a religious one, since Thebes refused to
worship no other gods but Sutekh. Seqenen-Ra would seem to have been
the descendant of a branch of the royal Egyptian line, settled in the far
south to escape the Hyksos oppression, and which, intermarrying with
Ethiopian blood, had become possessed of the characteristics of the dark
Berber race. With the decay of the Hyksos power, these people gradually
worked their way northward from Nubia, and began the re-winning of the
land for the ancient line of Pharaohs. For eighty years after the death of
Assis we have no names of these Berbers, but finally Seqenen-Ra I, in the
days of Apepa II, declared himself " Son of the Sun and King of the Two
Egypts," and the princes of the Said made common cause with him. Now
the native rulers of the XVIIth Dynasty free themselves from any con-
fusion with the Hyksos, and the strife has become a serious one. A second
Seqenen-Ra, bearing the same family name Taa, followed the first, and
then a third, whose wife Aah-hotep is one of the great queens of Egyptian
history, further celebrated as the mother of the honoured Nefert-ari. Aah-
hotep in all probability was married before, to an Egyptian and not a Berber
husband, and by him was the mother of an elder Aahmes, who died prema-
turely, and his three brothers, Kames, Sekhent-neb-lla, and a second Aahmes,
the Amasis of the Greeks, who founded the XVIIIth Dynasty.
Professor Maspero, one of the greatest authorities for this period of
Egyptian history, holds to the belief that Seqenen-Ra-Taa III was the sole
husband of Aah-hotep, and consequently the father of Aahmes, his brothers,
and Nefert-ari. Dr. Petrie, however, one of the most recent of investiga-
tors, says : " Aahmes is alwa3's (except once) shown of the same colour as
other Egyptians, while Nefert-ari is almost always coloured black. And
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 125
[ca. 163S B.C.]
any symbolic reason invented to account for such colouring applies equally
to her brother, who is nevertheless not black. As Nefert-ari was especially
venerated as the ancestress of the dynasty, we must suppose that she was
in the unbroken female line of descent, in which the royal succession appears
to have been reckoned, and hence her black colour is more likely to have
come through her father. The only conclusion, if these points should be
established, is that the Queen Aah-hotep had two husbands ; the one
black (the father of Nefert-ari), the celebrated Seqenen-Ra, who was of
Berber type ; the other an Egyptian, the father of Aahmes and his elder
brothers."
There is little known of Aah-hotep's origin beyond that she was of pure
royal descent, but there are documents which attest to her very long and
eventful life. In the tenth year of Amenhotep I she was still active and
must have been nearly ninety years old ; and if a stele found at lufi is to be
credited, she was alive, and about a hundred, under her great-grandson
Tehutimes I.
Aah-hotep would have had every right to rule as sovereign, but she
willingly gave over the power to her sons. When she died her body was
embalmed with special care, and a beautifully gilded mummy-case was made
for her. Within this coffin was placed the jewelry, presents from husband
and sons, which until recently has been the most famous find of its kind.
Most of the trinkets are for feminine use : bracelets, solid and hollow gold
ankle rings, others of gold beads, lapis lazuli, cornelian, and green feldspar,
a fan with a gold inlaid handle, a mirror of gilt bronze with handle of
ebony, etc.
This wonderful woman in the course of her long life must have witnessed
the whole drama of the restoration. Born when the heel of the Hyksos
was still felt in the land, she closed her eyes, not only with her country
free and her family firmly seated on the throne, but with the Syrian father-
land of the hated usurpers under heavy tribute, the fruits of the conquests of
her own descendants to the third generation.
Kames and Sekhnet-neb-Ra quickly succeeded Seqenen-Ra III. The
struggle against the Shepherd kings was kept up, and when Aahmes found
himself Pharaoh, nearly the whole of the country was free, and only the
provinces about Ha-Uar (Avaris) remained to the Hyksos ; but here they
were prepared to make a desperate stand.o
CHAPTER IV. THE RESTORATION
[XVIIITH DYNASTY: ca. 1635-1365 B.C.]
Walled towns, stored arsenals and armories, goodly races of horse,
chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like — all this
is but a sheep in a lion's skin, except the breed and disposition of the
people be stout and warlike. — BACON.
IT has just been shown that the leading dynasties of the Theban king-
dom, before the invasion of the Hyksos, had essentially a pacific character.
Their epoch was a period of social, literary and artistic activity, such as
usually comes to a nation only at the apex of its career, or as it is passing
into its decline. It was so here. Egypt as a nation was soon overthrown ;
an outside people invaded the sacred precincts, so jealously guarded hitherto
from even peaceful intrusion, usurped the power, and for some centuries
dominated the original inhabitants. These invaders, as we have seen, were
of a more primitive type of civilisation than the Egyptians. Their reign
was a time of apparently retrograde evolution, marked to after generations
by no lasting monuments such as made earlier generations famous.
Yet it may be questioned whether, on the whole, the influence of these
semi-barbarians upon the cultured but somewhat degenerate stock of the
ancient civilisation, may not have been in the highest degree beneficial.
Everywhere in history we shall see that the virile stock is the stock
which is not weakened by too many generations of that luxury which seems
to be the necessary associate of higher culture. We shall see also that a
mixed race is always at a premium. A nation which shuts itself off from
contact with other nations is in the condition of a finely inbred race of
domesticated animals. The racial peculiarities may be greatly developed,
certain finer traits of mind and body may be highly intensified. But in the
full rounding out of aggregate powers of mind and body, there is a deviation
that amounts to degeneration. And when this weakened stock comes into
competition with some cruder but sturdier race, the issue is not in doubt ;
the fate awaits it that befel the Egyptians at the hands of the " barbaric "
Hyksos invaders.
But a degenerate or perverted stock often shows marvellous powers of
recuperation under influence of changed conditions, and an infusion of fresh
blood grafted on such a stock can work wonders. It is said that the highly
developed greyhound was useless as a hunting dog till crossed with a strain
of bulldog — an infusion of blood which, while not marring the distinctive
physical peculiarities of the hound, yet quite sufficed to supply the lack-
ing stamina and courage. It may be questioned whether precisely such a
vitalising influence as this may not have come to the Egyptians through the
126
THE RESTORATION 127
[ca. 1635-1610 B.C.]
Hyksos invasion. It is hardly to be supposed that the invaders remained
for centuries in Egypt in sufficient numbers to maintain absolute political
control without having some ethnic influence ; and if this be admitted, it is
hardly in doubt, physiologically speaking, that such influence, in this closely
inbred race, would be beneficial. It might graft the bulldog spirit of the
Hyksos upon the greyhound-spirited Egyptian nation. But whether or not
this be the explanation of the change that now came over the national spirit,
it was surely a bulldog nation that now emerged from the Hyksos thraldom
and started out upon a world-conquest. In tracing the course of events
in this new epoch we see Egypt approaching the apex of its power.
THE HYKSOS EXPULSION: AAHMES AND HIS SUCCESSORS
Aahmes must have been between twenty-five and thirty years of age
when, as survivor of his elder brothers, he came to the throne. He had married
Nefert-ari, his sister or half-sister, as the case may be, who may previously
have been an inmate of his brothers' harems as well ; and her own royal
rights, joined to his own, established a legal claim for Aahmes to the king-
dom such as few Pharaohs have possessed.
His mummy shows him to have been of medium height, with well-devel-
oped neck and chest. The head is small, the forehead low and narrow, the
cheek bones project, and the hair is thick and wavy. He was undoubtedly a
strong, active, warlike man, which qualities won him success in his wars.
From what we know now of the condition of the struggle against the
Hyksos, at the time of the accession of Aahmes, — that their rule had been
limited to the district around Avaris, — no doubt the credit due to this king
for finally expelling them has been greatly exaggerated. Yet, concentrated
and strongly intrenched as they were in the fortress of Ha-Uar, they were by
no means insignificant adversaries. From their position, made the more inac-
cessible by the marsh-lands and rivers of the Delta, and by the neighbouring
desert, there was always danger of an attempt upon Memphis, and Aahmes is
the one who removed this last menace to the re-established kingdom, and
made his dominion over the whole country secure. Therefore the official
chroniclers had every reason to begin a new dynasty with the accession of
this great king.
For the actual expulsion of the Hyksos we have two accounts : that of
Manetho transcribed by Josephus and quoted in the preceding chapter, and
that of the doughty namesake of the king, Aahmes-si-Abana (sou of Abana),
as recorded on his tomb at El-Kab.
The Manetho version runs that Aahmes (Alisphragmuthosis) shut the
Shepherds up in Avaris, whence they were finally ejected and driven into
Syria by his grandson, Tehutimes I. This, however, is a mistake, and the
Egyptian historian has undoubtedly confused the taking of Avaris with the
Syrian wars of Tehutimes. Aahmes-si-Abana makes no mention of Tehu-
times taking Avaris. a
His account, therefore, is the more accurate and complete. This is the
tale on his tomb :
" The dead Admiral Aahmes, son of Abana. He speaks thus : ' I say to
you, all men ; and I make known to you the rewards and honours that have
fallen to my lot. I was presented with golden gifts eight times before the
whole land, and with many slaves, male and female ; likewise I was given
much land. The title of " the Brave " which I gained shall never perish in
this land.'
128 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1635-1610 B.C.]
"He speaks further: 'I saw the light in the city of Nekheb [El-Kab].
My father was a captain of King Seqenen-Ra ; Baba son of Roant was his
name. Then I took his place on the ship called The Calf, in the days of
King Neb-pehthet-Ra [Aahmes]. I was young and had no wife and I wore
the semt cloth and the shennu [garments of youth]. But as soon as I had
taken a house, I was placed on the ship The North because of my valour,
and I had to attend the sovereign — life, health, strength be his — on foot
when he rode forth in his chariot.
" ' The town of Ha-Uar [Ava-
ris] was besieged, and I showed
my worth in the presence of his
Majesty. I was promoted to the
ship Kha-em-men-nefer [Acces-
sion in Memphis]. They fought
in the Pazekthu canal, near A varis.
I fought hand to hand, and I car-
ried off a hand. The king's her-
ald saw this, and the golden collar
of bravery was given me. They
fought a second time at this place
and again I captured a hand ; a
second golden gift was given
me.
"'They fought at Ta-kemt,
south of the city. There I took
a living prisoner. I plunged into
the water — I led him through
the water so as to keep away
from the road to the town. This
was made known to the herald of
the king ; I received the golden
EGYPTIAN INFANTRY g^* °nce more.
" ' They took Ha-Uar ; I car-
ried away from thence one man and three women ; his Majesty gave them
to me as slaves.' "*>
In the time of the Ptolemies, tradition had it that King Aahmes appeared
before Avaris with an army of four hundred and eighty thousand men,
that there was a long siege, which was finally ended by the king treating with
the besieged and permitting them to depart peacefully, with their wives,
children, and possessions, into Syria. But the truth is, that Aahmes had a
well organised and equipped army of fifteen to twenty thousand men, and
that the town was taken on the second attack. The enemy left their last
strongholds in haste and retreated into the bordering provinces of Syria.
For some reason — they may have threatened him from some new vantage
point, or he may have wished to deal a final crushing blow — Aahmes deter-
mined to cross the frontier, which he did in the fifth year of his reign. It
was the first time in centuries that the king of Egypt had set foot in Asia,
and even now he barely crossed the threshold.*
Admiral Aahmes continues his narrative :
" They besieged the town of Sharhana [Sherohan], in the year V, and his
Majesty took it. I carried off from thence two women and one hand, and
the golden collar of valour was given me. And my captives were given me
for slaves."
THE RESTORATION 109
[co. 163&-1610 B.C.]
After the capture of Sherohan, Aahmes went on to the border provinces
of Zahi (Phoenicia) and then turned back. The full of the Palestine town
crushed the Hyksos' last hope of recovering their Egyptian domain The
majority of their race had not fled with the army, but had remained with
other tribes that had followed them into Egypt — the Israelites among them
— to accept whatever lot was meted out by the new conquerors. The yoke
was not imposed equally throughout the land. Those living in the Delta
regions were reduced to slavery, and all that part of the country was well
fortified to resist the Bedouin.
Aahmes returned to Africa only to find his presence needed in the South.
The land of Nubia, tributary to the lords of Thebes, had been somewhat
neglected during the long struggle which the Pharaoh had just successfully
terminated. The southern races had failed to assimilate the gift of culture
and civilisation thrust upon them by the rulers of the Xllth and Xlllth
Dynasties, and kept to their own customs while the temples erected by
Usertsen and Amenemhat crumbled and vanished. From out this disordered
state developed a serious invasion from the Sudan. Hostile tribes which
ones, we know not — descended the Nile, outraging the people and desecrat-
ing the sanctuaries. Aahmes hastened to meet them.
"His Majesty went south," runs the record of Aahmes the admiral, "to
Khent-en-nefer to destroy the Anu Khenti, and his Majesty made great
havoc among them. I captured two live men and three hands ; once mora
I was given the gold of valour, and my two captives were given to me forW
slaves. Then his Majesty came down the river ; his heart swelled with his •
brave and victorious deeds ; he had conquered the people of the South and
of the North."
The triumph of the return was dimmed by disquieting news from the
North. The remains of the Hyksos race had taken advantage of Aahmes'
absence in the South to break out in rebellion. There seem to have been
two outbursts. One by the Aata, probably a branch of the Hyksos, which
marched southward and was destroyed by Aahmes at Tentoa, the other by a
powerful faction under a certain Teta-an. Aahmes-si-Abana tells of his fate:
" Then came that enemy named Teta-an ; he had brought wicked
rebels together. But his Majesty slaughtered him and his slaves even to
extinction." &
Thus was stamped out the last spark of Asiatic resistance. There are
no more records of expeditions undertaken in this Pharaoh's reign — at least
none in which he took part.
From the crushing of Teta-an, about the sixth year, to the twenty-second,
the monuments are silent ; and when again they speak we find a peaceful
and not a warlike monarch. It is a law of human progress that an age of
military success is followed by a revival of art and building activity. At
the end of Aahmes' reign — he ruled about twenty -five years — this condi-
tion prevailed throughout the kingdom. The principal temples of the land
were restored or rebuilt. The reward of the gods for their divine aid in the
deliverance of Egypt was thus bestowed. A tenth of all the booty of vic-
tory was devoted to the needs of the religious cult. Sculptors and painters,
for whom there had been centuries of little or no employment, recovered their
skill in the revived demand for their services, and, indeed, a new school,
with new ideas and methods, came into existence under the great impetus to
culture. In the twenty -second year the quarries of Turah were reopened that
building stone might be obtained for the temples of Ptah at Memphis and
Amen at Thebes, although nothing was done to the latter until a later reign.
II. W. — VOL. I. h.
130
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[co. 1610-1B90 B.C.]
Aahmes died when he was between fifty and sixty. They buried the
great Pharaoh in a modest place he had prepared for himself in the necrop-
olis of Drah-abu'1-Neggah. His worship continued for nearly a thousand
years, and of him — and still more of Queen Nef ert-ari — there exist more
instances of adoration than of any other ruler.
Aahmes left a numerous progeny, and six or seven of his children had
Nef ert-ari for mother. The eldest seems to have been named Sapair, but
he died when young, and it is probable that a Se-Amen was the second son
and that he too never reached maturity. But whether Amenhotep I was
the second or third of Aahmes' male issue, the kingship devolved upon him.
As he was still in his minority, the queen mother assumed the reins of
government. Nefert-ari had been no idle inmate of her husband's harem,
and she now asserted her many titles to authority, some of which had prece-
WAB CHABIOT OF THE PHARAOH
dence over those of her husband and son. There is nothing known of her
joint rule with Amenhotep, but it was undoubtedly a prosperous one. She
was worshipped after death as a divinity, on a plane, indeed, with the great
Theban triad, Amen, Khonsu, and Mut, for all the rights of the royal line
descended through her. Her sons, Sapair and Amenhotep, her daughters,
Set-amen, Set-kames, and Merit-amen, also shared in the worship.
Amenhotep does not seem to have been ambitious for foreign conquest.
His campaigns were confined to Africa. The chief chronicle of his reign is
again that tomb at El-Kab whereon Aahmes, son of Abana, recorded his
exploits. The brave admiral was now nearly fifty years of age.
"It fell to me," he relates, "to carry King Zeser-ka-Ra [Amenhotep I]
on his voyage to Gush, where he went to extend the frontiers of Egypt.
His majesty smote these Anu Khenti [Nubians] from the midst of his
troops.
THE RESTORATION 131
[co. 1610-1590 B.C.]
"Behold, I led our soldiers and I fought with all my strength. The
king saw my bravery, as I captured two hands and brought them to his
Majesty. In two days I bore his Majesty back to Egypt from the upper
land. And I was given the golden gift and two female slaves, and I was
raised to the dignity of ' Warrior of the King.' "
The Nubian campaign was a short and unimportant one. A more impor-
tant one was directed against the Amukehaka, who apparently were a por-
tion of the Libyan race of the Tuhennu. These people had for centuries
been restless and given trouble to the Pharaohs, but the strength of the
New Kingdom was now entirely able to cope with them. Notwithstanding
these few campaigns, the reign of Amenhotep I is to be characterised as one
of peace and internal prosperity. He merely attained in the South and
West that security his father had brought about in the North. Commerce,
agriculture, and town life flourished, and indeed he well deserved the venera-
tion which for centuries was accorded him in the Theban capital and where
he is represented as Osiris. The coffin and mummy of this king were among
Professor Maspero's wonderful find at Deir-el-Bahari. He thus tells of it :
" Long garlands of faded flowers deck the mummy from head to foot. A
wasp attracted by their scent must have settled upon them at the moment
of burial, and become imprisoned by the lid ; the insect has been completely
preserved from corruption by the balsams of the embalmer, and its gauzy
wings have passed uncrumpled through the long centuries."
Amenhotep married his own sister, Aah-hotep II, and among their children
was a princess, Aahmes. The Pharaoh had also, by a concubine, Sensenb,
a son, Tehutimes, who was married to his half-sister Aahmes. Tehutimes was
probably a little younger than his wife. Aahmes, from her pure royal
descent, had far more claim to the throne than her husband and brother, but
for some reason she yielded her rights, and Tehutimes was crowned at Thebes
the 21st of Phamenoth, the third month. If he had been co-regent with his
father, it must have been for a short time only. The new king was a tall,
broad-shouldered, well-knit man, possessed of great powers of endurance.
His full round face is marked with a long nose and square chin, and his thick
lips wear a smiling but firm expression.
The beginnings of a new spirit, which was destined to break up the isola
tion of the kingdoms of antiquity, were stirring in this monarch's soul.
With his own country in practical subjection, there came that inevitable
desire to intrude into other lands. We have seen how the Pharaohs had
always shown a certain timidity about passing the Isthmus of Suez, and how
Aahmes, well equipped for foreign conquest as he was, had hastened home
after he had once driven the fleeing Hyksos across the border. His was
no spirit of world conquest; but with Tehutimes the case was different,
although certain domestic troubles kept him for the time at home. The
neighbouring land of Syria, with its large and wealthy towns, growing
richer every day through a well-organised commerce on land and sea, had
previously been invaded by the Chaldeans and was now under their undis-
puted sway ; and when this same spirit was once aroused in the fresh and
vigorous kingdom of the restoration, what was more natural than that its
cupidity should turn in this same direction? But some difficulties at home
for the time being prevented, Tehutimes I had to repress outbreaks in the
vicinity of the Second and Third Cataracts.
The story of Aahmes, now nearly seventy years of age, relates :
" It fell to me to carry the king Aa-kheper-ka-Ra [Tehutimes I] on his
voyage to Khent-en-nefer for the purpose of punishing the rebels among the
132 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1590-1565 B.C.]
tribes and of quelling the marauders from the hills. On his ships I showed
valour, and I was raised to be an admiral of the marines. Their people were
carried off alive and captives. His Majesty returned down the river ; all the
lands were now under his rule. That vile king of the Anu of Khenti was
held head down when the king landed at Thebes."
It would be valuable and interesting to know what impression the strange
land of Syria, with its wide, irregular plains, its high, snow-topped mountains,
its walled towns perched in difficult positions in inaccessible places, its
people different in customs and with a civilisation not below their own,
made upon the Theban legions when at last they found themselves in Pales-
tine. But of what they thought and felt, they have left no word. The
lines with which Aahmes of El-Kab closes the record of this long life — he
must have been over ninety when he died — goes no more into detail than
the rest of his account.
"After this, his Majesty — life, health, and strength be his — went to
Ruthen to take satisfaction upon the countries. His Majesty arrived at
Naharain [Upper Mesopotamia] ; he found the enemy that conspired against
him. His Majesty made great destruction among them ; an immense num-
ber of live captives was carried off from the victories.
" Behold, I was at the head of our soldiers. His Majesty saw my bravery
as I captured a chariot, its horses and those who were in it. I took them to
his Majesty and was once more given the collar of gold for valour. I have
grown up and reached old age ; my honours are many. I shall rest in my
tomb which I myself have made."
Tehutimes in his first campaign went far beyond his grandfather, and his
route — Gaza to Megiddo, to Kadesh, to Carchemish — became in later times
that followed by the Egyptians whenever they descended upon the Euphra-
tes. Of the fortunes of his progress we have not the slightest information,
except as Aahmes tells us, he met the enemy in Naharain. The opposing
army was under the command of the king of Mitanni, or perhaps one of the
captains of the Kosssean king of Babylon, and all the petty princes of the
northern provinces served in it with their troops to repel the new invader.
But the victory was Tehutimes'. No doubt his army was superior to that of
his opponents. Its organisation and training had steadily improved since
the days of Aahmes, for it was constantly called into service against the
tribes of Ethiopia and Libya. The Syrians were wanting neither in efficiency
nor bravery, but their country was much disorganised and their number of
fighting men by no means so great as their enemy's. Therefore they could
not command such a force as the Egyptians mustered against them.
Tehutimes erected a stele on the Euphrates to mark the limits of his
dominion, and then turned back, richly laden, to Thebes. The later Pha-
raohs, whenever they invaded Asia, pursued similar methods — a sudden ad-
vance diagonally to the northeast, routing and dispersing any opposing
force, spreading destruction on every hand, then a quick return to the father-
land, before the approaching winter would put an end to all action.
But Tehutimes' success in his first expedition was so decisive, so over-
whelming, that he never found it necessary again to cross the Isthmus.
Southern Syria made no murmur against the burden laid upon it, although
the North, it is true, soon slipped from the Pharaoh's grasp, if indeed he
ever had his grip upon it. A strong garrison was left at Gaza, and the king
returned to his still rebellious subjects in Ethiopia and Nubia. Two or
three rebellions were easily silenced. On these expeditions Tehutimes
passed through the old canal built by Usertsen III, and on the rocks that
THE RESTORATION 133
[ca. 1590-1565 B.C.]
border it have been found many interesting inscriptions relating to the trip.
One at Assuan reads, "Year III, Pakhons 20, his .Majesty passed this canal
in force and power in his campaign to crush Ethiopia, the vile "; on another
there is cut, " His Majesty came to Gush to crush the vile"; and on a third,
" His Majesty commanded to clear this canal, after he found it filled with
stones so that no boat could pass up it. He passed up it, his heart filled
with joy." The king now placed the affairs of his southern lands in the
hands of a viceroy, who is called " Royal Son of Gush," and must, therefore,
have had the blood of Ra in his veins. Likewise the king made extensive
provisions for fortifications. He restored the fortresses of Semneh and Kum-
meh to the efficiency they possessed in the great days of the Xllth Dynasty,
and he built a brickwork citadel to command the Nile on the island of
Tombos, near the Third Cataract. All these precautions enabled Tehu-
times I to live out the remainder of a reign of about twenty-five years in
complete peace. The strange circumstance of his later years and the prob-
lems of his successor are well recounted in Maspero's monumental work on
" The Struggle of the Nations " and his history of the ancient oriental
peoples.a
The position of Tehutimes I was, indeed, a curious one ; although de
facto absolute in power, his children by Queen Aahmes took precedence of
him, for by her mother's descent she had a better right to the crown than
her husband, and legally the king should have retired in favour of his sons
as soon as they were old enough to reign. [According to Petrie, these two
were children of Amenhotep I by Queen Aah-hotep and consequently
brothers of Queen Aahmes.] The eldest of them, Uazmes, died early. The
second, Amenmes, lived at least to attain adolescence : he was allowed to
share the crown with his father from the fourth year of the latter's reign,
and he also held a military command in the Delta, but before long he also
died, and Tehutimes I was left with only one son — a Tehutimes like himself
— to succeed him. The mother of this prince was a certain Mut-nefert,
half-sister to the king on his father's side, who enjoyed such a high rank in
the royal family that her husband allowed her to be portrayed in royal
dress ; her pedigree on the mother's side, however, was not so distinguished,
and precluded her son from being recognised as heir-apparent; hence the
occupation of the " seat of Horns " reverted once more to a woman, Hatshep-
situ, the eldest daughter of Aahmes.
TEHUTIMES II ; QUEEN HAT8HEPSU
Hatshepsitu herself was not, however, of purely divine descent. Her
paternal ancestor, Sensenb, had not been a scion of the royal house, and this
flaw in her pedigree threatened to mar, in her case, the sanctity of the solar
blood. According to Egyptian belief, this defect of birth could be remedied
only by a miracle, and the ancestral god, becoming incarnate in the earthly
father at the moment of conception had to condescend to infuse fresh virtue
into his race in this manner. The inscriptions with which Hatshepsitu
decorated her chapel relate how, on that fateful night, Amen descended
upon Aahmes in a flood of perfume and light. The queen received him
favourably, and the divine spouse on leaving her announced to her the
approaching birth of a daughter, in whom his valour and strength should
be manifested once more here below.
The sequel of the story is displayed in a series of pictures. The pro-
tecting diviuities who preside over the birth of children conduct the queen
134 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1565-1530 B.C.]
to her couch, and the sorrowful resignation depicted on her face, together
with the languid grace of her whole figure, display in this portrait of her
a finished work of art. The child enters the world amid shouts of joy,
and the propitious genii who nourish both her and her double, constitute
themselves her nurses. At the appointed time, her earthly father sum-
mons the great nobles to a solemn festival, and presents to them his daughter,
who is to reign with him over Egypt and the world.
From henceforth Hatshepsitu adopts every possible device to conceal her
sex. She changes the termination of her name, and calls herself Hatshepsu,
the " Chief of the Nobles," in lieu of Hatshep-
situ, the " Chief of the Favourites." She be-
comes the King Maat-ka-Ra, and on the
occasion of all public ceremonies she appears
in male costume.
We see her represented on Theban monu-
ments with uncovered shoulders, devoid of
breasts, wearing the short loin-cloth and the
keffieh, while the diadem rests on her closely
cut hair, and the false beard depends from
her chin She retained, however, the femi-
nine prenoun in speaking of herself, and also
an epithet, inserted in her cartouche, which
declared her to be the betrothed of Amen —
Khnem Amen. Her father united her while
still young to her brother Tehutimes, who
appears to have been her junior, and this fact
doubtless explains the very subordinate part
which he plays beside the queen. When Te-
hutimes I died, Egyptian etiquette demanded
that a man should be at the head of affairs,
and this youth succeeded his father in office :
but Hatshepsu, while relinquishing the sem-
blance of power and the externals of pomp
to her husband, kept the direction of the state entirely in her own hands.
The portraits of her which have been preserved represent her as having
refined features, with a proud and energetic expression. The oval of the
face is elongated, the cheeks a little hollow, and the eyes deep set under
the arch of the brow, while the lips are thin and tightly closed. She
governed with so firm a hand that neither Egypt nor its foreign vassals dared
to make any serious attempt to withdraw themselves from her authority.
One raid, in which several prisoners were taken, punished a rising of the
Shasu in central Syria, while the usual expeditions maintained order among
the peoples of Ethiopia, and quenched any attempt which they might make
to revolt. When in the second year of his reign the news was brought to
Tehutimes II that the inhabitants of the Upper Nile had ceased to observe
the conditions which his father had imposed upon them, he " became furi-
ous as a panther," and assembling his troops, set out for war without fur-
ther delay. The presence of the king with the army filled the rebels with
dismay, and a campaign of a few weeks put an end to their attempt at
rebelling. Tehutimes II carried on the works begun by his father, but
did not long survive him. The mask on his coffin represents him with a
smiling and amiable countenance, and with the fine pathetic eyes which
show his descent from the Pharaohs of the XHth Dynasty. By his mar-
HEAD-DRHSS OF AN EGYPTIAN QUEEN
THE RESTORATION
135
[ca. 1S65-1530 B.C.]
riage with Hatshepsu, Tehutimes left daughters only, but he had one son,
also a Tehutimes,1 by a woman of low birth, perhaps merely a slave, whose
name was Aset. Hatshepsu proclaimed this child her successor, for his youth
and humble parentage could not excite her jealousy. She betrothed him to
her one surviving daughter, Hatshepsitu II, and having thus settled the
succession in the main line, she continued to rule alone in the name of her
nephew who was still a minor, as she had done formerly in the case of her
half-brother.
Her reign was a prosperous
one, but whether the flourish-
ing condition of things was
owing to the ability of her po-
litical administration or to her
fortunate choice of ministers,
we are unable to tell. She
pressed forward the work of
building with great activity,
under the direction of her archi-
tect Senmut, not only at Deir-
el-Bahari, but at Karnak, and
indeed everywhere in Thebes.
The plans of the building
had been arranged under Te-
hutimes I, and their execution
had been carried out so quickly
that in many cases the queen
had merely to see to the sculp-
tural ornamentation on the
all-but-completed walls. This
work, however, afforded her
sufficient excuse, according to
Egyptian custom, to attribute
the whole structure to herself,
and the opinion she had of her
own powers is exhibited with great naivete in her inscriptions,
famous incident of her reign was the sending out of an expedition across
the Red Sea in quest of incense.]
When Tehutimes III approached manhood, his aunt, the queen, instead
of abdicating in his favour, associated him with herself more frequently
in the external acts of government. She was forced to yield him prece-
dence in those religious ceremonies which could be performed by a man only,
such as the dedication of one of the city gates of Ombos, and the founda-
tion and marking out of a temple at Medinet Habu ; but for the most part
she obliged him to remain in the background and take a secondary place
beside her. We are unable to determine the precise moment when this dual
sovereignty came to an end. It was still existent in the XVIth year of the
reign, but it had ceased before the XXIInd year. Death alone could tak
the sceptre from the hands that held it, and Tehutimes had to curb
impatience for many a long day before becoming the real master of
He was about twenty-five years of age2 when this event took place, an
[i Whether Tehutimes I or Tehutimes II was the father of Tehutimes III U still in doubt, but
Maspero and Petrie incline to the belief that it was Tehutime* IL]
[" Petrie says he was about thirty-one years old.]
TKHUTIMKM II
136 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1530-1520 B.C.]
immediately revenged himself for the long repression he had undergone, by
endeavouring to destroy the very remembrance of her whom he regarded as
a usurper. Every portrait of her that he could deface without exposing
himself to being accused of sacrilege, was cut away, and he substituted for
her name either that of Tehutimes I or of Tehutimes II. A complete politi-
cal change was effected both at home and abroad from the first day of his
accession to power. Hatshepsu had been averse to war. During the whole
of her reign there had not been a single campaign undertaken beyond the
Isthmus of Suez, and by the end of her life she had lost nearly all that her
father had gained in Syria; the people of Kharu [Phoenicia] had shaken off
the yoke, probably at the instigation of the king of the Amorites, and nothing
remained to Egypt of the Asiatic province but Gaza, Sharhana, and the
neighbouring villages.^
One of the first acts of Tehutimes III as sole king, was to lead an expe-
dition against Syria, where the constant revolts had weakened the power of
Egypt. He arrived at Gaza on the 3rd (or 4th) of the month of Pakhons.
There he celebrated the anniversary of his coronation, and the twenty-third
year of his reign. He then proceeded by gentle marches to Ihem, twenty
miles to the north of Gaza, where he learned from his envoys, that the king
of Kadesh had intrenched himself at Megiddo, with a contingent of the
rebels.
TRIUMPHS OF TEHUTIMES III; HIS SUCCESSORS
Fear of the danger of the mountain defiles near Aluna made some of the
officers wish to turn back and go by the Ziftha road. But Tehutimes indig-
nantly rejected their counsel, saying :
" By my life, by the love that Ra has for me, by the favour bestowed on
me by my father Amen, my Majesty will take this road of Aluna, whether
it please you to take any of the other routes suggested, or whether it please
you to follow me. For would not these vile enemies, detested by Ra, say :
' If Pharaoh is going by another route, he is going for fear of us ' ? "
Then the Pharaoh's generals replied : " Thy father Amen protects
thee ; we will follow whithersoever thou leadest, as servants follow their
lord."
Three days' rapid march brought the army, without any mishap, to the
town of Aluna, close to a torrent called the Qina, a little to the south of
Megiddo, and there it encamped for the night in the face of the enemy with
the watchwords :
" Keep a good heart : courage ! watch well ! Be alert in the camp ! "
Dawn found the Egyptian army ranged for battle ; the right wing was
directed towards the River Qina, while the left extended into the plain
towards the northwest of Megiddo. After a sharp encounter, the Syrians
were seized by a panic, and abandoning their horses and chariots on the bat-
tle-field, they fled back to Megiddo ; but fear of the enemy kept the gates
closed, and among those drawn up to the ramparts, by ropes let down by the
townspeople, was the lord of Kadesh himself.
" If it had pleased God not to let the soldiers of his Majesty be employed
in carrying off the spoils of his vile enemies, they could then have taken
Megiddo,"- — it says in the account of the campaign. The cupidity of the
conquerors saved the lives of the vanquished, for, although they took pos-
session on the field of battle of 2132 horses, 994 chariots, and all the
booty left behind by the Asiatics, they took only 140 prisoners and killed
only 83.
THE RESTORATION 137
[CO. 1520-1503 B.C.]
In the evening, when the victorious army marched by Tehutimes III
with the spoils, the king exclaimed :
" Had you taken Megiddo, it would have been a very great favour
granted me by my father this day ; for as all the chiefs of the country are
within the walls, it would be like taking a thousand cities to take Megiddo."
However, the place, being soon besieged, capitulated in a few days.
With its fall, the campaign ended ; and the chiefs of Syria and Mesopotamia
hastened to take the oath of allegiance and to pay tribute to Egypt.
Three successive campaigns, from the year XXIV to the year XXVIII of
this reign, completed the subjugation of Syria and southern Phoenicia.
In the year XXIX, Tehutimes proceeded to Naharain, the territory be-
tween the rivers Orontes and Euphrates, and the districts on the west of
Khilibu were sacked to the glory of the god of Thebes, whose coffers were
soon filled with the gold, silver, and treasures of the Hittite princes.
As the king was returning to Egypt with " a joyful heart," he suddenly
bethought him that the Zahi, rich in wine, oil and corn, and beyond the line
of military routes, would be a wealthy and easy prey. So he turned to the
east, and made a raid on the district of Aradus, which the Egyptians robbed
of cattle and produce.
The following year the Thebans returned again, and the towns of Kadesh,
Semyra, Aradus, and Arathu, on the shores of Lake Nisrana, fell one after
the other. The sons of their chiefs were kept as hostages. The campaign
lasted till XXXI ; and the king celebrated his victory by putting up two
steles near Carcheraish, one on the east of the river, and the other near the
stele erected by his father, or grandfather, Tehutimes I, nearly half a century
before.
Then he conquered Ni J and received tribute from its prince. The so-
journ of Tehutimes III in this town was signalised by the performance
of the royal duty of killing wild beasts ; and the king is reported to have
hunted and killed more than one hundred and twenty elephants.
All the tribes of Syria had to submit to the powerful yoke of the Egyp-
tians, and the chiefs of the Libanu, the Kheta [Hittites] and the king of
Singara took the oath of allegiance.
Nevertheless there was a revolt under the king of Naharain in
XXXVII, which was quelled by a great battle not far from Aluna. In
XLI the seat of war was in Coele-Syria ; and the king of Kadesh refusing
to do homage to Pharaoh, a deadly struggle took place under the ramparte
of the city. The besieged tried the ruse of letting a mare loose among the
chariots of Tehutimes ; but Amenemheb, an officer of the guard, leaped to
the ground, disembowelled the animal with a thrust of his sword, and cu
ting off its tail, presented it to the king ; and the same brave officer, at the
head of a picked body of men, succeeded in making a breach and forcing an
entrance into the town. .
Hardly a year passed without a skirmish with the Uauatu in Mhiop
But the tribes, having trembled so long before the Pharaohs, fled at the first
sign of attack. The Egyptians had only to take possession of the flocks and
herds, or any booty left in the deserted villages, and the campaign c
commander was a series of easy victories, which were celebrated with triumph
on their return home.
The success of Tehutimes III in his campaigns increased
wealth of the kingdom and gave ground for his being accorded the name
[» A town in the land of Naharain that sometimes has been confounded with NineTeh.]
138 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1503-1455 B.C.]
" the Great " ; and it is not surprising to see that his deeds formed the sub-
ject of poetic panegyrics of the period, inscribed on the Temple of Karnak :
" I am come," said the god Amen to him, " to permit thee to crush the
princes of Zahi ; I cast them at thy feet in their districts ; I make them see
thy Majesty as a lord of light, when thou shinest before them in my likeness.
" I am come to let thee crush the barbarians of Asia, to take captive the
chiefs of Ruthen. I will make them see thy Majesty decked with warlike
apparel, when thou wieldest thy arms upon the chariot.
" I am come to let thee crush the land of the East ; Kefa (Phoenicia)
and Asebi (Cyprus) are in fear of thee ; I make them see thy Majesty like
a young bull, firm of heart and irresistible with thy horns.
" I am come to let thee crush the people who reside in their ports. And
the regions of Mathen tremble before thee. I make them see thy Majesty
like the hippopotamus, lord of terror and unapproachable upon the waters.
" I am come to let thee crush the people who reside in their islands.
Those who live on the bosom of the sea are within reach of thy roaring. I
make them see thy Majesty as an avenger on the back of his victim.
" I am come to let thee crush the Tuhennu. The isles of the Uthent are
at thy disposal. I make them see thy Majesty like that of a furious lion,
that strews the valley with corpses.
" I am come to let thee crush the maritime countries, so that the girdle
of the oceans is in thy hand. I make them see that thy Majesty, as the king
of birds, sees everything with one glance.
" I am come to let thee crush the lords of the sands who live in the
lagunes ; to let thee lead the dwellers upon the sand into captivity. I
make them see thy Majesty like a jackal of the South, a king of runners, a
scourer of the two regions.
" I am come to let thee crush the barbarians of Nubia. As far as the
land of Shat, all is in thy hand. I make them see thy Majesty like unto thy
two brothers, Hor and Set, whose arms I have united to secure thy power."
So much success appealed to the imagination of the people, and Te-
hutimes III was soon regarded as a hero of romance, as were Khufu and
Usertsen I. Only one of the legends circulated for centuries after his death
is still extant.
The prince of Joppa revolted and took the field against the Egyptians.
The Pharaoh, unable at that time to leave his country, sent Thutii, one of
his bravest generals, to quell the insurrection. The town was soon taken.
Tehutimes died on the last day of Phamenoth in the year LIV of his
reign, and was buried at Thebes.
Amenhotep II succeeded his father Tehutimes III.
The Syrians thought that the coming of a new king of Egypt meant a
time for casting off the yoke of the Pharaohs. But they soon saw their
mistake. Amenhotep laid waste the districts of the upper Jordan, and "like
a terrible lion which puts a country to flight," on Tybi 26th he crossed the
Arseth to reconnoitre the passes of Anato. When " some Asiatics appeared
on horseback to bar his approach, he seized their weapons of war, and his
prowess equalled the mysterious power of Set, for the barbarians fled the
glance."
On the 10th Epiphi he took Ni without striking a blow. The inhabit-
ants, men and women, were on the walls to do honour to his Majesty. Other
places, like Akerith, underwent long siege, before surrendering. But the
insurrection was entirely quelled by the year III, and in the course of the
campaign the Pharaoh captured seven chiefs of the country of Thakhis. Six
THE RESTORATION 139
[ca. 14S5-1400 B.C.]
of them were solemnly sacrificed to Amen, their hands and heads being
exposed on the walls of the temple of Karnak. The seventh was treated
in the same way at Napata, as an example to the Ethiopian princes and
to make them respect the authority of Pharaoh.
An insurrection of the tribes in the desert, and the oases on the east of
Egypt, was quelled by Amenemheb, who had the same post under Amen-
hotep as he had under Tehutimes III.
Tehutimes IV, son of Amenhotep, was the next king of Egypt, and his
successful campaigns confirmed his power in Syria and Ethiopia.
Under Amenhotep III, who succeeded Tehutimes IV, the boundaries of
Egyptian domination were fixed at the Euphrates on the north, and on the
south by the land of the Gall as.
The Syrians were now completely under the Egyptian yoke, and willingly
sent their daughters to the royal harem ; the old-time wars had developed
into occasional raids for the acquisition of slaves or workmen for the build-
ing operations in the valley of the Nile.
The last kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty were distinguished by the name of
" heretic kings," for as they resented the increasing sacerdotal power of the
cult of Amen they established opposition cults. Tehutimes IV discarded the
Great Sphinx and restored the old cult of Horemkhu (" The Sun in the Two
Horizons"). Amenhotep III brought to Thebes the religion of Aten, the
solar disk, and in the year X of his reign inaugurated a festival at Karnak in
honour of the new religion. And Amenhotep IV, to free himself from the
power of the high priest at Thebes, determined to have a new capital for his
kingdom, in which Aten should be the supreme god. The religion of Aten
was probably the most ancient form of the religions of Ra. The disk, before
which protestations were made, was not only the shining and visible form of
the divinity, it was the god himself.
Amenhotep III married a wife of foreign origin and religion, Thi. He
had by her a son who succeeded him under the name of Amenhotep IV. The
figure of Amenhotep IV, as made known to us by the monuments, exhibits
those peculiar and strange characteristics which mutilation impresses upon
the face, chest, and abdomen of eunuchs. On the other hand, we know that at
an early age he married Queen Nefert-Thi and had by her seven daughters.
It is therefore probable that if he really did experience the misfortune of
which his features seem to bear the evidence, it happened during the ware
of Amenhotep III and among the black people of the South. The custom of
mutilating prisoners and wounded is, among these people, as old as the world.
Amenhotep IV doubtless imbibed religious ideas from his mother, for he
manifested a great horror of the cult of Amen and gave his homage to the
solar divinities, chiefly to the disk itself.
But the fear of arousing his subjects to revolt restrained him at first from
too openly avowing his heresy. He contented himself with changing his
name, which contained that of Amen, for that of Khun-aten, " Splendour of
the Sun's disk," and continued to worship his father Amenhotep and the god
Amen himself. Later, his religious fanaticism got the better of his prudence.
The cult of Amen was forbidden and his name erased wherever it could be
reached. The pure-blooded Egyptians came under suspicion on account
of their religion and disappeared from the king's entourage, giving place to
Asiatic personages who resembled Pharaoh and were deprived like him o
their virility.
Thebes, so full of monuments consecrated to the fallen god, lost i
of capital.
140 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 142O-1365 B.C.]
Khun-aten built a new capital at a place in Middle Egypt which to-day
bears the name of Tel-el-Amarna, and which he called Khut-aten, where
there was nothing to recall the old religion.
The sun was the principal god of the old religion ; all the ancient solar
divinities, Ra-Horemkhu, Hor, were recognised and respected. Monuments
show us the god in the form of a disk whose rays descend toward the earth,
each ray terminating in a hand holding the ansated cross — the emblem of
life. The disk is called Aten. Wherever the king goes, the solar disk
accompanies him and sheds its benediction upon him.
But with all the attention he paid to religion, Khun-aten was, like his
ancestors, a great builder and conqueror. Ethiopia, Thebes, and Memphis
were fields of his activity, and he continued to exercise sovereign authority
in Syria as well as in Africa.
At his death the crown passed to Prince Ai, his foster-brother, and husband
of his eldest daughter Tai. The new king, without renouncing the religion
of sun-worship, suspended the persecutions which had the cult of Amen
for their object and restored the religion of the ancient national divinities.
For successors he had his brothers-in-law Tut-ankh-Amen, and later Saa-
nekht, whose reign, although short, seems to have been prosperous. Tut-
ankh-Amen, at least, is represented as an all-powerful Pharaoh, to whom
foreign peoples give trembling homage. [According to Brugsch and
Wiedemann and Petrie the order of these kings is Saa-nekht, Tut-ankh-
Amen, and Ai — the reverse of the order here given.]
But after them civil and religious wars desolated Egypt ; the throne was
occupied by ephemeral kings whose names even are unknown to us. [The
kings formerly reputed to belong to the end of this dynasty are now, as
Professor Petrie remarks, "not of historical substance, but only linguistic
questions." It has been well established that the names in question are
either errors or " Ptolemaic bungles," and they are now assigned to mon-
archs of this and other dynasties.]
King Hor-em-heb re-established peace, suppressed the solar religion,
destroyed Khun-aten's monuments, and everywhere restored the ancient
cult. Outside the country he reconquered Ethiopia, which for the time
being had been lost, and made the land of Punt tributary, but risked no
expeditions into Syria. The conquests of the Tehutimes and the Amen-
hoteps, so dearly obtained in this direction, had been lost during the
religious wars. The petty local princes had ceased to pay tribute : and to
reduce them anew, a whole generation of conquerors was necessary A
CHAPTER V. THE XIXTH
DYNASTY
[.:«. 1365-122B B.C.]
Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your
king I
I go, and I return not. But the will
Of tin- great Gods la plain : and ye must
bring
111 deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil
Their pleasure, to their feet ; and reap
their praise,
The praise of Gods, rich boon t and length
of days. — MATTHEW ARNOLD.
WE come now to the period when Egypt reached the apex of its power ;
when a series of great conquering raonarchs made the name of Egypt known
and feared far beyond the confines of the Nile. Of these great monarchs
the name of one in particular was stamped upon the traditions of Asiatic
peoples and has passed into popular knowledge. This was Ramses II,
known to the Hebrews, and through them to the western world, as the
Phuraoh of the Oppression. Great as this monarch was, little was known of
him beyond the prejudiced recitals of the Hebrews, until our own time, when
the decipherment of the monuments has brought to light the record of many
of his warlike deeds. These records, like all such narratives, are highly
coloured and told from the standpoint of the conqueror himself ; but, with
due allowance for exaggeration, they may no doubt be accepted as accounts
of actual events.
A peculiar interest attaches to the name of Ramses II in addition to the
never failing fascination of the great conqueror. We shall therefore have
occasion to review his deeds in detail as told by the poet laureate of the day,
and to consider various authoritative estimates, both ancient and modern,
that have been passed upon this greatest hero of Egyptian history." First
Maspero :
Hor-em-heb, whose origin is unknown [there seems no reason to deny
that he was the famous general whose tomb has been discovered at Saq-
qarah], nullified the efforts of Amenhotep and the other heretic kings to
lessen the power of Thebes and its god, for he re-established the cult of
Amen in all its splendour, had the temple of Aten pulled down, and the
materials used to erect one of the triumphal entries, leading into the sanctu-
ary of Karnak ; the names of the heretic kings were effaced, and their monu-
ments utterly destroyed. The new king had much to do to repair the disas-
ters of the preceding years ; at home all the governmental machinery was
out of order, and abroad, the countries under the Egyptian yoke had ceased
to pay tribute. Hor-em-heb put down brigandage, he punished untrust-
worthy employers by death, and he restored to the temples the properties
which had been taken from them. He imposed a tribute on the distant
country of Punt, he made raids on the tribes of the Upper Nile, and boaste
of having subjugated the same countries as Tehutimes III. We have
exact account of his conquests except from his monuments, but they were
numerous, and his reign seems to have been glorious, prosperous, and long.
HI
142 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1365-1355 B.C.]
It is not known when the sceptre passed into the hand of Ramses I nor
how he was related to his predecessor. [Whether he were the son, son-in-
law, or brother of Hor-em-heb, has never been determined.] He had, how-
ever, been in the service of Ai, one of the last of the heretic kings, and also
of Hor-em-heb, so it was at a somewhat advanced age that he ascended the
throne of the Pharaohs. An expedition in the year II against Ethiopia, a
short campaign against the Kheta [Hittites], were the chief events of his
reign. He died six or seven years after his accession and left his son Seti
(the Sethosis of Greek tradition), as his successor.
KING SETI
Seti at once announced himself abroad as a conqueror in the following
words :
" His Majesty has just heard that the vile tribes of Shasu have rebelled.
The chiefs of their tribes, assembled at one spot, have been filled with blind-
ness of heart and violence so that each one destroys his neighbour."
Seti pushed right away toward the East across the desert, watered here
and there with ponds or springs, each protected by a fortress or at least
a tower — " The fortress of the Lion," " The tower of Seti I," " The well
of Seti I," etc. Wherever the enemy appeared he was easily routed, his trees
destroyed, his harvests pitilessly cut. Going on from station to station, the
Egyptians arrived at the two forts of Ribatha [the Rehoboth of the Bible]
and Canaan. The latter, favourably situated by a little lake upon one of the
last of the Amorite hills, commanded the entrance of one of the richest ports
of southern Syria. It submitted at the first onslaught, so the whole of the
rich valley was pillaged by the Egyptians.
This first success entailed greater ones ; and Seti, going northward,
arrived at the port of Lebanon, where he obliged the people to cut down
their trees and send them to Egypt for the buildings he had commenced in
honour of Amen. From thence he repaired to the valley of the Orontes, there
to attack the Kheta [Hittites] ; and a victory gained over these traditional
enemies of Egypt, formed a happy conclusion to the campaign.1
The Pharaoh's return was one perpetual triumph from the time he appeared
on the frontier, where he was welcomed by the priests, until he arrived at
Thebes and offered his prisoners to Amen. And Egypt thought that the
great days of Tehutimes and Amenhotep had returned.
Unfortunately, however, these triumphs were not so real as they
appeared. Southern Syria, crushed by the passage of armies, had abandoned
all ideas of any native resistance and surrendered almost without a blow.
The Phoenicians considered that a voluntary tribute was less expensive than
a war against the Pharaohs, and they amply consoled themselves for the dimi-
nution of their liberty by getting hold of the maritime commerce of the Delta.
But on the north the Kheta [Hittites] were more formidable than ever.
Free, during the time of the heretic kings, from the perpetual fear of an
Egyptian invasion, they not only extended their supremacy over the whole
of Naharain, from Carchemish to Kadesh, but they crossed the Taurus, and
penetrated into Asia Minor. It is not known how far they carried their
dominion, but it seems it did not extend beyond the plain of Cilicia and
Catania. Anyhow they entered into direct relations with the people of the
southern and eastern parts of the peninsula, the Lyciaus, the Masu, the
[l The Hittites, now identified with the Kheta, are treated more fully in a special chapter in
Vol.11.]
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY
[co. 13NM345 B.C.]
Dardanians, and the dwellers of Ilion and Pidasa. Supported by such
allies, and sometimes aided by companies of their soldiers, the Kheta
were a military power, quite equal to withstanding the Egyptians and
waging war against them. Seti saw the position of affairs as soon as he
attacked them, and although doubtless he took Kadesh, and the greater
number of the Amorite towns on the Orontes without much trouble, the
tenacity of the Kheta, always ready to fly to arms in spite of defeats, finally
exhausted his patience.
Tired of war, he concluded an alliance with King Maro-sar, son of
Shapalul, which lasted until his death. The dominion of the Pharaohs did
not extend beyond the Orontes. So, being limited to southern Syria and
Phoenicia, it gained in solidarity what it lost in extent. It seems that
Seti I instead of simply exacting a tribute, imposed Egyptian governors on
some of the conquered peoples, and in some places, like Gaza and Megiddo,
stationed permanent garrisons.
The reign of Seti I undeniably marked a brilliant epoch in the history
of Egypt. The treasure looted in Syria contributed to some of the most
perfect Egyptian monuments, such as the mausoleum at Abydos and the
hypostyle hall at Karnak, the tomb of the king. Seti was assisted in these
works by his son Ramses. During his father's lifetime Seti had married
the princess Tui of the old royal family, probably the daughter of Hor-
em-heb, and granddaughter of Amenhotep III, so that his son Ramses was,
from the hour of his birth, considered by the loyalist Egyptians as the only
legitimate king. His father, therefore, to prevent a rebellion, was obliged
to make him co-regent when he was quite a little boy, although he was not
at first taken much into account by either Seti or his ministers.
At ten years of age Ramses is said to have made war in Syria, and, accord-
ing to Greek tradition, in Arabia. And it was on his return from these
campaigns, that, ripened by age and experience, he began to take an active
part in the internal government of the kingdom and to claim his royal pre-
rogative. And henceforth we see his increasing personal valour transform
him from an obscure prince into a king, a " master of the two worlds."
Seti, now old, and worn out with the exploits of his youth, gradually con-
ceded all power to his son, and lived in retirement in his palace for the rest
of his days, the object of divine honours.
Certain pictures of the temple of Abydos show him seated on a throne
amid the gods. He holds the club in one hand and in the other a complex
sceptre, combining the different symbols of life and death. Isis is at his side,
and the lesser gods sit behind the all-powerful couple, to whom Ramses ad-
dresses his prayer. It is a premature apotheosis of which the conception does
honour to the regent, but it leaves no doubt of the real state of the kings in their
old age. They were worshipped as gods, but they did not reign. Seti was
no exception to this common rule ; he was worshipped, but he did not reign.
Peace was threatened by an unforeseen danger. The people of Asia Minor
had hitherto been beyond the sphere of action of Egypt ; but now several
races, such as the Shardana and Tyrseni, whose names were new to the ears
of the Egyptians, landed on the coast of Africa, and joined with the Libyans.
Ramses II defeated them, and the prisoners that he took were incorporated
in the Royal Guard ; and the others returned to Asia Minor, with such a rec-
ollection of their defeat, that Egypt was secure from their invasion for nearly
a century. Peace assured in the North, Ramses repaired to Ethiopia, where
he spent the last years of his father's reign in making raids on the nomadic
tribes on the banks of the Upper Nile.
144 THE HISTORY OP EGYPT
[ca. 1355-1345 B.C.]
On the news of the death of his father, Ramses left Ethiopia and entered
on his duties as sole king at Thebes. He was then at the height of his for-
tune, and had several sons old enough to fight under his banner. The first
years of his reign were not disturbed by any war of importance : in the year
II there was a short expedition against the Amorites, and in the year IV
there was one to the banks of the Nahr-el-Kelb near Beyrut. The Kheta
[Hittites], faithful to the alliance made with Seti, did not try to excite a
rebellion ; and the people of Canaan, kept in check by the Egyptian garri-
sons, remained quiet.
KAMSES II, THE GREAT
So all went well till the year IV, when a terrible rebellion broke out. The
king of the Kheta (Mau-than-ar, son of Maro-sar) was assassinated and
succeeded by his brother, Kheta-sar,
who convoked his vassals and allies,
and broke with Egypt. Naharain, and
its capital Carchemish, Arathu and
southern Phoenicia, Kadesh and the
country of Amaour, Kati and the Ly-
cians, joined the coalition, and the hope
of pillaging the Egyptian provinces of
Syria, if not Egypt herself, made Ilion,
Pidasa, Kerkesh, the Masu, and Dar-
danians also join the Kheta against
Sesostris [Ramses] .
Trojan bands crossed the whole
length of the peninsula and encamped
in the valley of the Orontes, three hun-
dred miles from their country. The
army brought into the field by Ramses
shows how easily nations were displaced
at that time, for it was composed of
Libyans, Mashauasha of Libya, Masu
and Shardana, the fruit of the victori-
ous repulsion of the invasion a few
years before.
The Pharaoh established the basis
of his operations on the frontier o:
Egypt and the Arabian Desert in tfo
town he had recently founded under
the name of Pa-Ramessu-Anekhtu
("the city of Ramses, the Conqueror").
He traversed Canaan, still under his sway, and quickly bore down upon the
southern countries, only stopping at Shabatun, a Syrian village, rather to
the southwest of Kadesh, and in view of the town. During a halt of some
days he surveyed the district, and tried to discover the position of the
enemy, having only vague ideas on the subject. But the allies, on the con-
trary, fully informed by their scouts, who mostly belonged to the nomadic
tribes of Shasu, were conversant with all their movements ; and the king of
the Kheta, their chief, conceived and carried out a clever manosuvre, which
would have completely destroyed the Egyptian army, had it not been for
the personal bravery of the Pharaoh.
BUST OP RAMSKS II
(Now In the British Museum)
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY 145
[co. 1340 B.c.J
One day when Ramses had advanced a little to the south of Shabatun,
two Bedouins came and said to him :
"Our brothers who are the chiefs of the tribes, allied with the vile chief
of the Kheta, send us to tell your Majesty that we wish to serve your
Majesty ; we are leaving the vile chief of the Kheta, and know that he is
in the district of Khilibu at the north of the town of Tunep, where he has
retreated from fear of the Pharaoh."
The king was deceived by this report, which bore the trace of truth, and
feeling safe from a surprise by the supposed distance of the enemy (Kliilibu
being forty miles to the north of Kadesh), he advanced without misgiving, at
the head of his household chariotry, whilst the bulk of the army, including
the legions of Amen, Ra, Ptah, and Sutekh, followed him from a distance.
Whilst he was thus dividing his forces, the allies, represented by the
traitors as far off, were secretly assembling on the northeast of Kadesh and
preparing to attack the flank of the Egyptian army on its march to Khilibu.
Their number was considerable to judge from the fact that, on the day of
the battle, the king of Khilibu alone commanded eighteen thousand picked
men ; and, besides a well-trained infantry, they had two thousand five
hundred chariots, each carrying three men.
During these operations the scouts brought into the general's camp two
other spies they had taken ; and the king seems then to have had his sus-
picions aroused, for he ordered them to be well beaten, so as to make them
confess. They then confessed that they had been sent to watch the
manoeuvres of the Egyptian army, and stated that the allies, assembled at
Kadesh, were only waiting for a favourable opportunity to appear. Ramses
then called a council of war, and explained their critical position. The
officers excused themselves on the plea of the imprudence of the governors
of the provinces, who had neglected to reconnoitre every day the position of
the enemy, and they despatched an express messenger to bring up the body
of the army to the aid of its chief.
Whilst the council was still sitting, the enemy approached, and when
the king of the Kheta brought his forces to the south of Kadesh, he attacked
the Ra legion, and so cut the Egyptian army in two.
The Pharaoh then in person charged at the head of his household
chariotry, and eight times he broke the ranks of the encircling army, rallied
his troops, and sustained the shock the rest of the day. Toward evening
the Kheta, losing the advantage they had gained in the morning, beat a
retreat before the Egyptian army, now in line ; and at the approach of night
the battle was suspended until the following day, when the allies were com-
pletely routed.
The equerry of the Kheta prince, Garbatusa, the general of his infantry
and chariots, the chief of the eunuchs, and Khalupsaru, the writer of the
annals of the sovereign for posterity, perished on the battle-field. Many
corps of the Syrian army cast themselves into the Orontes to try to swim
across it. Mazraima, the brother of the (Khetan) king, succeeded in reach-
ing the other bank, but the lord of the country of Nison was drowned.
The king of Khilibu was dragged half dead from the water ; and pictures
of the battle represent him being held head downward to disgorge the water
he had swallowed. The conquered army would no doubt have been utterly
destroyed, had not a sortie of the garrison of Kadesh arrested the progress
of the Egyptians and allowed the fugitives to return to the town.
following day the Khetan king asked for and obtained peace.
But all hopes that this brilliant victory would terminate the war were
H. W. — VOL. I. I.
146 THE HISTORY OP EGYPT
[ca. 1340-1324 B.C.]
disappointed. For the country of Canaan and the neighbouring provinces
attacked the rear-guard of the victorious army, and the king of the Kheta,
profiting by this diversion, broke the peace. The whole of Syria, from the
banks of the Euphrates to the Nile, rose in arms. And although there were
no more great battles, the next fifteen years were filled with a series of sieges
and attacks ; and hostilities broke out in one place as fast as peace was con-
cluded in another.
The year VIII saw the Egyptian army in Galilee, under the walls of
Merom. In the year XI Askalon was taken in spite of the heroic resistance
of the Canaanites. In another campaign the king penetrated as far north as
the environs of Tunep, and took two towns of the Kheta. So the war went
on from year to year, until the enemies of Ramses were quite exhausted with
their useless efforts, and the king of the Kheta once more prayed for peace
from the Egyptian sovereign, and it was granted and sealed in the year XXI.
The treaty was originally drawn up in the language of the Kheta,
and it was engraved on a sheet of silver which was solemnly offered to the
Pharaoh in his city. The articles of the treaty were essentially the same
as those drawn up between the kings of Kheta and Ramses I and Seti I. It
was stipulated that the peace between the two countries was to be eternal :
" If an enemy march into the countries under the sway of the great king
of Egypt and if he send to the king of the Kheta, saying : ' Come, take arms
against them,' the great king of Kheta will do as he is asked by the great
king of Egypt : the great king of Kheta will destroy his enemies. And
if the great king of Kheta does not wish to come himself, he will send the
archers and chariots of the country of Kheta to the great king of Egypt to
destroy his enemies."
And an analogous clause also assures the king of Kheta of the support of
the Egyptian arms. Then come special articles to protect the commerce
and industry of the united nations and to render surer the course of justice.
Every criminal trying to evade these laws by taking refuge in the neighbour-
ing country will be handed over to the officers of his nation : every fugitive
not a criminal, every subject taken away by force, every workman who
removes from one territory to another to there take up his abode, will be
sent back to his country, without his expatriation being regarded as a crime.
He who is thus expelled is not to be punished by the destruction of his
house, wife, or children, he is not to be struck in the eyes or on the mouth,
or on the feet, as there is no criminal accusation against him.
Equality and perfect reciprocity between the two countries, extradition
of criminals and refugees, are the principal conditions of this treaty, which
can be considered the most ancient monument of diplomatic science.
The wars of Ramses II terminate with this alliance, but Greek historians
have made the Pharaoh, under the name of Sesostris, penetrate and subdue
the countries of Media, Persia, Bactriana, and India, as far as the ocean, and
even say he penetrated Europe as far as Thrace, where his course was only
checked by want of supplies.
From the year XXI to that of Ramses' death the peace of the country
was not disturbed. The conditions were loyally observed, and the alliance
between the two sovereigns was soon cemented by a family bond, as Ramses
married the eldest daughter of the king of Kheta, and a few years later
invited his father-in-law to visit the valley of the Nile. The lord of Kheta
acquaints the king of Kati with this approaching journey in these words :
" Be prepared for we are going to Egypt, the word of the king has been
spoken ; let us obey Sesostris [Ramses] . He gives the breath of life to
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY 147
[ca. 1307-128B B.C.]
those he loves, so all the world loves him, and Kheta is in future one
with him.
In the year XXXIII the Syrian prince visited the city of Ramses,
probably Thebes ; and he is represented on a stele, engraven for the occasion
with his daughter and son-in-hiw.
So Egypt at last found her most bitter enemies transformed into faith-
ful allies, and " the people of Kamit were henceforth one in heart with those
of Kheta, which had not been the case since the time of the god Ra."
As this alliance was concluded, the king could now devote himself to
building monuments. According to the Greek historians, " he had a temple
built in each town to the principal god of the place."
Ramses was indeed a king of builders. During his long sixty-seven
years' reign, he had time to complete the work of several generations, and
one can safely say that there is not a ruin in Egypt or Nubia which does
not bear his name. The great " speos " [cave-temple] of Isambul perpetu-
ated the memory of his campaigns against the negroes and Syrians, and four
colossal monoliths, twenty metres high, adorn the entrance. At Thebes
there was added to the temple of Amenhotep (Luxor) a court with two
pylons and two obelisks of granite, the finest of which is on the Place de
la Concorde in Paris. The temple of Gurnah, founded by Seti in honour
of Ramses I, was finished and consecrated. The Ramesseum, known to the
ancients by the name of Tomb of Osymandias, gives a sculptured account of
the campaign of the year V ; and the hand of Ramses II is seen in the
necropolis of Abydos, as well as at Memphis and Bubastis and in the
quarries of Silsilis, as well as in the mines of Sinai.
The temple of Tanis, neglected by the sovereigns of the XVIIIth
Dynasty, was restored and enlarged ; and the town which was in ruins, was
rebuilt. In many places the architects effaced on the statues and temples
the names of their royal builders, and substituted the cartouches of Ramses II.
The decoration of the hypostyle hall of Karnak is certainly due to this king :
Ramses I conceived the plan, Seti commenced it, and Ramses II decorated
it entirely. From the year III, Ramses was also greatly interested in the
working of the gold mines in Nubia, and established a line of stations with
cisterns and wells along the road leading from the Nile to Gebel Ollaqi.
Then he had the network of canals, which water Lower Egypt, cleared,
including the one between the Nile and the Red Sea on the borders of the
desert. He repaired the walls and fortifications which protected Egypt
from the Bedouins ; and as political necessity led him to reside on the west
of the Delta, he founded several towns on the frontier, the most important
of which was Ramses Anekhtu.
The poets of the period have left us pompous descriptions of this city :
" It is situated," they say, " between Syria and Egypt ; it is full of delicious
provisions ; it is like unto Hermonthis. Its length is that of Memphis, the
sun rises and sets there. All men leave their towns and settle on its terri-
tory ; the rivers of the sea pay homage in eels and fish, and bring the fruit
of their tides. The dwellers in the town are in holiday attire every day ;
perfumed oil anoints their heads on new wigs. They stand at their doors,
their hands filled with bouquets, with green boughs from the town of
Pa-Hathor, with garlands from Pahir, at the entrance gate of Pharaoh.
Joy increases and dwells there without end."
Poetry, we see, flourished at the time of Ramses, and the manuscripts of
the works have been preserved, but the names of the authors were not
added.
148
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
THE WAR-POEM OP PENTAUB
[ca. 1340 B.C.]
STATUE or RAMSES II
(British Museum)
The most often quoted and the best-inspired poem is the Poem of
Pentaur, which describes the exploits of Ramses in the year V at the battle
of Kadesh. [Pentaur, or rather Pentauirit, is not the author, but merely
the transcriber of the copy now in the British
Museum. The author is not known.] We know
the subject of the poem : the king, surprised by
the prince of the Kheta, is obliged to lead the
charge at the head of his household troops :
" His Majesty now rises like his father Mentu.
He seizes his arms, and buckles on his cuirass
like Baal in his time. Great horses bear on his
Majesty — ' Victory to Thebes ' was their name
as they left the stables of King Ramses, beloved of
Amen. The king, having started, broke the ranks
of the vile Kheta. He was alone, nobody with
him. Having advanced in sight of those behind
him, he was surrounded by two thousand five
hundred chariots ; cut off from retreat by all the
warriors of the vile Kheta and by the numerous
people with him from Arathu, Masa, and Pidasa.
Each of their chariots carried three men, and they
were all massed together.
" ' No prince with me, no general, no officer of
the archers, no archers, or chariots. My soldiers
have forsaken me, my horsemen have fled, and not
one remains to fight with me.' Then his Majesty said:
" ' Where art thou, my father Amen ? Does a father forget his son ? Have
I done anything without thee? Have I not marched and halted according
to thy word? I have in no way disobeyed thy orders. He is very great,
the lord of Egypt who overthrows the barbarians on his way ! What are
these Asiatics to thee ? Amen enervates the impious. Have I not presented
thee with numberless gifts? I have filled thy sacred dwelling with prisoners;
I have built thee a temple which will last a million years ; I have given all
my goods for thy stores ; I have offered thee the entire world to enrich thy
domains. Truly a miserable fate is reserved to those who oppose thy designs,
and happiness to him who knows thee, for thy acts come from a heart full of
love. I invoke thee, my father Amen ! Here I am in the midst of a great
and strange company, all the nations are leagued against me, and I am
alone, with no other but thee. My numerous soldiers have abandoned me,
none of my horsemen regarded me when I called to them, they did not
hearken to my voice. But I believe that Amen is more to me than a million
horsemen, than a myriad brothers, or young sons all assembled together.
The work of men is naught. Amen will overrule them. I have accom-
plished these things by the counsel of thy mouth, O Amen! and I have not
transgressed thy counsels : here I have given glory to thee to the ends of
the earth."'
The king is here represented alone, surrounded by the enemy and in
great danger, but his first impulse is to God ; and before rushing into the
melee, he makes this long address to Amen, and help came to him :
"The voice resounded to Hermonthis. Amen answers my cry ; he gives
me his hand, I utter a cry of joy, he speaks behind me :
1
3
g
s
D
i
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY 140
[co. 1340 B.C.]
" ' I hasten to thee, to thee Ramses Meri-Amen, I am with thee. It is I
thy father ; my hand is with thee and I am of more avail than hundreds of
thousands. I am the lord of strength, a lover of courage, I have recognised
a courageous heart and am satisfied my will will be done.'
"Like Mentu, I then cast my arrows to the right, I overthrew my
enemies. I am like Baal before them. The two thousand five hundred
chariots which surround me are dashed to pieces by my horsemen. Not one
of them has a hand to fight with, their hearts fail them, and fear enfeebles
their members. They cannot draw their arrows, nor have they strength to
wield their lances. I precipitate them into the water as you would a croco-
dile, they are cast down on the top of each other. I do not wish one to look
behind nor to turn back. He who falls will never regain his feet."
The effect produced by this outburst about God was very great, espe-
cially on the Kheta, who seemed arrested by an invisible power when on
the point of victory, and hesitated in terror. Then they commanded the
chiefs in their cars, and the men versed in war to advance, so that the com-
pany of the kings of Arathu, of Ilion, of Lycia, Dardania, Carchemish,
Kerkesh, Khilibu, numbering three thousand chariots, proceed forward.
"But all their efforts are useless. I dashed on them like Mentu, my
hands destroyed them in the space of an instant, I cut and I killed amongst
them, so that they said one to another :
" ' This is not a man amongst us, it is Sutekh, the great warrior. It is
Baal in person. These are not the actions of a man that he djoes. Alone,
all alone, he repulses hundreds of thousands without chiefs, and without
soldiers. Let us hasten to fly before him, let us save our lives, let us breathe
again.'
"All who came to fight found their hands weakened, they could no
longer hold bows, or lance. Seeing that he had arrived at cross-roads the
king pursued them like a griffin."
It was only when the enemy is in retreat that he summons his soldiers,
not so much for their aid as to let them witness his valour :
" Be firm, keep up your heart, O my soldiers ! You see my victory and
I was alone. It is Amen who gave me strength ; his hand is with me.
He encourages his shield-bearer Menna who is full of fear at the number
of the enemy, and rushes into the melee.
" Six times I charged the enemy ! "
At last his army arrives toward evening and helps him. He assembles
his generals and overwhelms them with reproaches.
" What will the whole world say, when it learns that you left me quite
alone? That not a charioteer nor any archers joined with me? I nave
fought, I have repulsed millions of people alone. ' Victory of Thebes,' and
' Mut is satisfied ' were my glorious horses. It was with them that I was
alone amid terrifying enemies. I will see them fed myself every day, when
I am in my palace, for I had them when I was in the midst of my enemies
with the chief Menna, my shield bearer, and with the officers of my horse
who accompanied me, and are witnesses of the battle; they were with me.
I have returned after a victorious battle and I have struck the assembled
multitudes with my blade."
The skirmish of the first day was only the preliminary to a more impor-
tant engagement, and with what success to the Egyptians, and what loss to
the Asiatics, has already been told. The poet does not give any details of
this second affair. He describes it in a few lines dedicated entirely to praise
of the king. The subject, in fact, is not the victory at Kadesh and the defeat
150 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1345-1286 B.C.]
of the Syrian armies, important as these may be to the historian ; but the
poet sings the indomitable courage of Ramses, his faith in the aid of the
gods, the irresistible strength of his arm. He wished to portray him sur-
prised, abandoned, and compensating for the faults of the generals by his
bravery. All the facts which could lessen the general impression or
diminish the glory of the royal bravery are put in the background. The
household troops are mentioned only once ; of the second day of the battle
there is but an insufficient description. The king of the Kheta implores
peace, Ramses grants it, and returns in triumph to Thebes.
" Come, our beloved son, O Ramses Meri-Amen ! The gods have given
him infinite periods of eternity upon the double throne of his father Tmu,
and all the nations are put under his feet."&
THE KINGDOM OP THE KHETA AND THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY
After the preceding eulogy by Maspero, it is well to read Eduard Meyer's
more cynical account of the reign of the great Ramses. It will enable us the
better to preserve a mental balance. It should not, however, lead us to for-
get that we are in the presence of one of the great epochs of civilisation ; for
all such great epochs have had their iconoclasts as well as their adulators."
Ramses II exaggerated his own praises in inscriptions, saying that, already
in the womb, he had been acknowledged king and that his father had handed
him over the government when he was yet a child. This is correct in so far
as he was solemnly proclaimed successor to the throne in his early youth,
and probably raised to be co-regent by Seti toward the end of his reign ;
as crown-prince he accompanied his father in the wars against the Libyans.
In the fifth year the king directed his second campaign against the
Kheta. The king of Kheta had summoned all his allies and tribes depen-
dent on him, and a formidable army was gathered together in the neighbour-
hood of Kadesh. He almost succeeded in destroying, in an ambush, the
advance-guard, in which Ramses was present. The mass of the army which
had been called together in haste did not reach the battle-field in time, and it
was only the personal courage of the king, who boasts of having fought
against thousands alone when all deserted him, that gained the victory for
the Egyptians. The enemy were driven into the Orontes, and suffered heavy
losses ; the king of Khilibu was almost drowned. Ramses II boasts again
and again of this victory ; he had the fight represented and poetically
extolled in Luxor, in Karnak, in the Ramesseum built in the west town for
the worship of the dead, and in Nubia in the temple of Abu Simbel. Never-
theless, it was only a brave personal feat and no great military success.
We hear nothing of the conquest of Kadesh, and when Ramses asserts
"that the king of Kheta turned his hands to worship him," this refers to
passing negotiations or to an armistice, for we see that the war continued
uninterruptedly.
We have only very incomplete information concerning the continuance
of the war. Only once more do we find the king penetrating far
toward the north : in the province of Tunep in the land of Naharain he
personally fought against the Kheta. How he arrived so far north, we do
not know.
It is clear that the Egyptians were being more and more driven back,
and finally completely lamed. Doubtless the king of Kheta could boast
of numerous victories. On the other hand, it was only boasting when
Ramses gave long lists of conquered people and towns in his temple inscrip-
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY in
[co. 1348-1285 B.C.]
tions, in which so as to equal Tehutimes III, he had to include the names
of Asshur and Sangara, Mannus and Karak (Cilicia), with which the kin?
scarcely came into contact. It can at once be seen that it is no historical
document.
When and on what conditions peace was concluded is not known and
tradition does not relate what part of Syria the Egyptians maintained At
any rate Palestine remained essentially Egyptian. It would appear that
it was agreed that South Syria should be relinquished to EgypL and that
the Kheta should retain a free hand in the North
BRINGING TRIBUTE TO RAMSES II
By this agreement, there was maintained between the two states a lasting
peace which soon ripened into a close union. In the twenty-first year of Ram-
ses II King Kheta-sar proposed one of those everlasting treaties to the Pha-
raoh, in which both states guaranteed their own integrity, formed an alliance
for protection against every outside enemy, and mutually bound themselves
to watch over all exiles who might seek refuge with them, and to surrender
all deserters and emigrants. The treaty held good for a long time ; thirteen
years later Kheta-sar visited the ruler of Egypt and gave him his daughter
to wife. Then took place what, as the god Ptah says to Ramses, " was
unheard of even from the days of Ra until thine own." It is evident
that under such circumstances the relations of culture between Egypt and
Syria must have been active and manifold.
The powerful influence which Egypt had exercised over the East has
already been depicted in connection with this ; and, for example, when we
find that the characteristics of an Egyptian legend recorded under the suc-
cessor of Ramses are taken up by the Hebrews and transferred to the hero
of their race, Joseph, this is only one feature more added to the many we
know.
But in Egypt we also find the worship of Syrian divinities spreading
more and more — at the same time Set-Sutekh, the powerful patron god
of the stranger who gave the enemy victory, was greatly respected.
Syrian names are considerably met with, and, above all, the language ia
most strikingly influenced by the Canaanite. In many documents Semitic
words were almost used to the same extent as French in German literature
of the eighteenth century.
After having concluded the treaty with Kheta-sar, Ramses II ruled over
Egypt for forty-six years more in peace.
152 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1345-1285 B.C.]
This epoch, the time of Seti I and Ramses II, has rightly been called the
prime of the New Theban Kingdom. The martial successes in its first half,
the peaceful and well-ordered relations of the ensuing time, made the uni-
versal development of the land's resources feasible to the government, and
assured the subjects a comfortable enjoyment of life, such as the Egyptians
of old loved.
Of no other period of Egypt do we possess so many monuments —
temples, tombs, dedications, and inscriptions concerning victories — and
so many literary remains. But nowhere does the typical character which
adheres to the new Egyptian appear more prominently than here.
The type is supreme over all, and there is no question of individuality
anywhere. It is in vain that we seek for a new thought or an original
turn in the temple inscriptions, in the hymns on the king written on the face
of the rocks or on papyrus, and in the appeals to the divinities. Frequently
all tangible import is wanting. Everything is* a copy and is carefully
worked out from a fixed model; it has often been remarked how greatly
the historical value of the reports has suffered through this. In value they
are far below those of the time of Tehutimes III.
The administration of the land in the new kingdom does not differ much
from that of the former one. The king appears to us surrounded by the
entire fulness of divine glory; in the official reports his counsellors are
only assembled so as to marvel at his superhuman wisdom, or else to be
reproached for their want of foresight.
The further we advance into the history of Egypt, the more does the
self-conceit and absurdity of the glorification of the king increase ; under
the reign of Ramses II one often gets the impression that he considered
himself a superhuman being standing in direct communication with the
gods. Like Amenhotep III, we often find him in the Nubian temples
too, worshipping his own person, which is seated between Amen and Mut,
or Khnem and Anuqat. The intention may have been to raise the
reigning king — as formerly Usertsen III — to be territorial god of the
subjected Cushites.
The residence of Ramses II was generally at Tanis, which he had newly
constructed and adorned with numerous monuments, and which now received
the name of " the town of Ramses." The writers of the time are never tired
of praising the glories of this city, which was a seaport as well as an impor-
tant emporium. On account of its numerous relations with Syria, it is only
natural that the centre of gravity of the kingdom should have been trans-
ferred here, and that many new foundations should have originated on the
eastern frontier of Egypt. The frontier defences of Egypt proper against
the tribes of the desert, were always kept up and sharply watched. As
formerly, Thebes remained the real capital of the land ; next to it, Memphis
asserted its long-inherited right as the oldest residence and as dwelling-
place of Ptah, the Father of the Divinities. The numerous private monu-
ments bear witness to the well-being of the land more than the buildings, as
also, to a certain degree, do the rhetorical descriptions of the writers.
Numerous admirable experiments in sculpture have come down to us,
above all the likeness of Ramses II preserved in Turin. The marvellous and
careful work of the relief in the temple of Seti I at Abydos has already been
mentioned ; a certain grandeur must not be denied to the composition of
the great war picture which represents the events of the Kheta war in the
year V of Ramses II, — the mustering of the troops, the life in camp, the
advance of the enemy, and the battle of Kadesh, The king had the picture
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY 163
[ca. 1345-1285 B.C.]
carried out in coloured relief three times, in the Ramesseum, in Luxor, and in
Abu Sirubel. Besides these, there are also numerous examples of every kind
of art-work, even to the simplest steles, often very roughly worked.
Some things have come to us of the literature of the times ; chiefly the
poem which Ramses II had composed and written on the walls of the temples
to commemorate his battle with the Kheta. It is a work which, in spite of
its official character, is not wanting in life and poetry.
There are also many narratives, such as the celebrated tale of the two
brothers, written under Meneptah. Above all, there are the numerous epis-
tles, rhetorical studies, descriptions of the power of the king and his works,
the praise of learning, hymns, moral exhortations, also unmeaning letters
which evidently served as models for real letters and reports. Besides these
collections, we have also many authentic letters, reports, acts, etc., which
give us much information concerning the life and doings of the Egyptians in
the thirteenth century B.C.
If we cast an eye on the religious life, we clearly recognise that we are
here dealing with an epoch in which heretic endeavours are completely sup-
pressed, and orthodoxy asserts its unconditional sway. The religious litera-
ture of the time became characterised fairly early. At every turn we meet
with the formulas of the victorious esoteric doctrine. The numerous
temples show the increase of the power of the priests. All natural relations
were restrained and stifled by religion. War was carried on by order, and
in the name of, Amen, so as to increase his subjects and to bring him in rich
booty. The inscriptions relate very little concerning the actions of the kings,
but a great deal concerning the conversations which they had with the deities,
and how they " cast all lands at their feet." The eldest son of Ramses II,
Khamuas, became high priest of Ptah in Memphis, and carefully looked after
the worship of the sacred Apis : he caused the celebrated tombs of Apis, the
Serapeum of Memphis, to be built. By those who came after, he was looked
on as a great philosopher and magician.
It is known to us that, as a long established custom, the officials as a rule
held one or more priesthoods besides their state office ; naturally, higher
education and, above all, instruction in writing and learning, were entirely
in the hands of the priests. We meet with the enervating effects of these
conditions throughout the whole course of Egyptian history.
When the intellectual life becomes torpid, physical strength also disap-
pears. Since everything that constitutes nationality is converted into outer
forms, a nation loses even the vitality and power necessary to maintain
an independent existence.0
DEATH OP BAMSES II
Thus, somewhat frigidly, Eduard Meyer has summed up the achieve-
ments of the great Ramses. The words of Brugsch make a good epilogue.
Ramses II enjoyed a long reign. The monuments expressly testify to a
reign of sixty-seven years' duration, of which, apparently, more than half
should be reckoned to his rule conjointly with his father,
bration of his thirtieth year as (sole?) Pharaoh gave occasion for great
festivities throughout the country, of which the inscriptions in £ us, K
Kab, Biggeh, Sehel, and even on several scarabs, make frequent mention.
The prince and high priest of Memphis, Khamuas, journeyed through
chief cities of the country in this connection, that he might have t
and joyful festival in honour of his father prepared in a worthy fashio
154
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[co. 1288 B.C.]
the different governors. The anniversary of the festival was calculated
according to a fixed cycle, and apparently fell when the lunar and solar
years coincided at short intervals of three or four years. It was observed
as a solemn feast.
Great in the field, active in works of peace, Ramses appears to have also
tasted heaven's richest blessings in his family life. The outer surface of
the front of the temple of Abydos reveals to us the portraits and the names,
now only partially preserved, of 119 children (59 sons and 60 daughters),
which besides the lawful consorts known to us, the favourite wife Isinefer,
mother of Khamaus, the queens Nefert-ari, Meri-mut, and the daughter of
the king of Kheta, implies a large number of inferior wives.
It is scarcely probable that the great Ramses departed this life leaving
his earthly kingdom in a peaceful condition. Already in his old age a
numerous progeny of sons and grandsons were disputing over their father's
inheritance. The seed of periods of storm and unrest was laid. According
to historical tradition these bearings were confirmed in the most striking
manner by subsequent events.
The body of Pharaoh was consigned to its death chamber in the rocky
valley of Biban-el-Moluk. In spite of the large number of his children,
Seti's grateful son had left no offspring behind him who would have pre-
pared a tomb for his father worthy of his deeds and of his name ; a tomb
which might if only in some degree have approached the dignity of Seti's
noble funeral vaults. The tomb of Ramses is an insignificant, rather taste-
less erection, seldom visited by travellers to the Nile Valley, who probably
scarcely suspect that the great Sesostris of Greek story has found his last
resting-place in this modest place. This Pharaoh might have repeated of
himself at his death, as formerly in his struggle against the Kheta he said,
" I stood alone ; none other was with me."<*
CHAPTER VI. THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES
NOTHING in modern discovery has more vividly and suddenly brought
the ancient world home to the world of to-day than the finding of the actual
bodies, the very flesh and blood of the Pharaohs marvellously preserved to
us by the embalmer's venerable art. The discovery has bridged the chasm
between the Ancient and the New as a midnight flash of lightning from the
clouds to the earth.
As so often happens, what had foiled the eager search of the patient
scholar, had not eluded the cupidity of the thief. The appearance of royal
mummies and priceless manuscripts on the open market filled the explorers
with both chagrin and zeal. M. Maspero tells of the various wiles by which
influential politicians of the Orient concealed their rich treasure-sources, and
of the almost endless difficulties overcome by
the European explorers before the thieves
could be first deprived of their influence
with the authorities, and then of their dis-
coveries. These latter the scholars wished
to examine and study where found, and then
distribute them among museums for the bene-
fit of other scholars and for public enlighten-
ment. The real discoverers, the Arabs, were
after loot alone, and mingled ruthlessness,
lies, misrepresentations, and all manner of
duplicity with their thrift. It is not here
fitting to tell the story of the fight between
scholarship and commerce ; but the account
of the revelation of the treasure-chamber
itself is as appropriate as it is thrilling.*'
On Wednesday, the 6th of July, 1879,
Messrs. Emil Brugsch and Ahmad Effendi
Kamal were conducted by Muhammed Ah-
med Abd-er-Rassul to the entrance of the
funeral vault itself.
The Egyptian engineer who long ago
hollowed out the secret chamber had made
his arrangements in the most ingenious
fashion. Never was secret chamber better
disguised. The chain of hills which at the
spot divides the Biban-el-Moluk from the
Theban plain, forms, between the Assassif and the Valley of the Queens, a
series of natural amphitheatres, of which the best known was, up to the
156
Mcmrr AND INNBB CAM
156
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
present, that on which stands the monument of Deir-el-Bahari. In the wall
of rocks which separates Deir-el-Bahari from the succeeding amphitheatres,
just behind the knoll of Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah, about two hundred feet
above the level of the cultivated lands, a pit was dug forty feet in depth by
six in breadth. At the bottom of the pit, in the western side, was cut the
entrance of a corridor four and a half feet wide by nearly three in height.
After running a length of about twenty-five feet, it turns abruptly to the
north, and extends to a distance of two hundred feet, not always keeping to
the same dimensions ; in certain parts it is about six and a half feet wide, in
others little more than four. Near the centre five or six roughly hewn steps
indicate a sensible change in the level, and on the right hand a sort of unfin-
ished niche shows that there had been an idea of once more changing the
direction of the gallery. The latter at last emerges into a kind of irregular,
oblong chamber, about twenty-five feet in length.
The first object which struck the eye of Herr Brugsch, when he reached
the bottom of the pit, was a white and yellow coffin, with the name of
Nesi-Khonsu. It was in the corridor, about two feet from the entrance ; a
little further was a coffin whose form recalled the style of the XVIIth
Dynasty ; then Queen TiuHathor Hont-tui, then Seti I. Alongside the
coffins and strewing the ground, were boxes of funeral statuettes, canopic
vases,1 bronze libation vases, and right at the
back, in the angle formed by the corridor as it
turns north, the funeral canopy of Queen Isiem-
kheb, folded and crumpled like a worthless object
which some priest in a hurry to get away had
thrown carelessly in a corner. All along the
great corridor was the same confusion and dis-
order ; it was necessary to crawl along without
knowing where hands and knees were being
placed.
The coffins and mummies, hastily scanned by
the light of a candle, bore historic names —
Amenhotep I, Tehutimes II, in the niche near
the staircase, Aahmes I, and his son Se-Amen,
Seqenen-Ra, Queens Aah-hotep, Aahmes, Nefert-
ari, and others. In the chamber at the end, the
confusion was at its height, but the predominance
of the style proper to the XXth Dynasty was
recognised at a glance. The report of Muhammed
Ahmad Abd-er-Rassul, which had at first appeared
exaggerated, was scarcely more than the attenu-
ated expression of the truth : where I had ex-
pected to come on one or two obscure, petty
kings, the Arabs had unearthed a whole hypogee
of Pharaohs.
And what Pharaohs ! perhaps the most
illustrious in the history of Egypt — Tehu-
times III and Seti I, Aahmes the liberator and Ramses II the conqueror !
Two hours sufficed for this first examination, and then the work of removal
began. Three hundred Arabs were speedily collected by the efforts of the
mudir's people, and set about the work. The museum's boat, hastily sum-
MCMMY IN ITS WRAPPINGS
[! Vases with tops of human forms or divinities, used to hold the entrails of embalmed bodies.]
THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES 157
moned, had not yet arrived; but reis Muhammed, one of the pilots on whom
reliance could be placed, was on the spot. He descended to the bottom of
the pit and undertook to extract its contents. Messrs. Brugsch and Ahmad
Effendi Kamal received the objects as they were brought above ground,
carried them to the foot of the hill, and ranged them side by side without
relaxing their vigilance for a moment. Forty-eight hours of energetic labour
sufficed to exhume everything ; but the task was only half finished.
The convoy had to be conducted across the plain of Thebes and beyond
the river as far as Luxor ; several of the coffins, raised with great difficulty
by twelve or sixteen men, took seven or eight hours to go from the moun-
tain to the bank, and it will be easily imagined what this journey must have
been like in the dust and heat of July.
At last, on the evening of the llth, mummies and coffins were all at
Luxor, duly enveloped in mats and canvases. Three days after, the mu-
seum's steamer arrived ; it only remained to load it, and it immediately
started again for Bulaq with its freight of kings.
Then a singular thing happened, for from Luxor to Kuft, along either
bank of the Nile, the fellah women followed the boat with dishevelled hair
and uttering loud cries, and the men fired rifle-shots as they do at funerals.
HOW CAME THESE MONARCH8 HERE ?
And now a question arises. The greater number of the kings and princes
of the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties, had each his tomb, which exists to-day
or whose site we learn from ancient documents ; Amenhotep I at Drah-abu'l-
Neggah, Seti I and Ramses II at the Biban-el-Moluk, and others elsewhere.
How is it that their corpses were hidden away between Deir-el-Bahari and
Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah, huddled together with the corpses of the high priests
of Amen ? The Egyptians themselves have taken pains to furnisn us with
the materials for the answer. Several of the mummies or coffins which we
possess, bear, written in ink by the hand of contemporary scribes, the date,
the circumstances, and sometimes the reason of the transfer. These are veri-
table official reports, whose testimony on the subject is unimpeachable.
The three mummies of the XlXth Dynasty had a common fate. The
coffins of Seti I and Ramses II bear three inscriptions, which are identical,
or nearly so, and which date from three different periods : what is left of
the coffin of Ramses II bears the remains of a hieratic text J analogous to
the second inscription of the text of Seti I.
The two most ancient of these inscriptions mention Her-Hor. The first
is conceived in these terms : " The year VI, of the 2nd month of Shalt the
VII, the day of the expedition made by Her-Hor the ... of the first
Prophet of Amen Ra, king of the gods, to restore the funeral pomp of
King Men-maat-Ra L. H. S. [life, health, strength] Son of the Sun, Seti
Meneptah, through the inspector," a name which is not very legible, as is also
the case with those of his companions. The inscription which had been
placed on the coffin of Ramses II has been rubbed out, and then written over.
As it now reads, it suffices to show that it, like the preceding, was of the year
VI and of the 2nd month of the season of Shait, the VII ; that the expedi-
tion had been undertaken by order of Her-Hor, and that its object was to
ascertain the condition of the body of Ramses II. This interpretation of
the date does not fail, however, to involve some difficulties. The name of
[' Hieratic writing is a modified form of hieroglyphics.]
158 THE HISTOEY OF EGYPT
Her-Hor is not surrounded with the cartouche ; and we may, if we choose, con-
clude from this fact that the mention of the year VI refers to the reign of
the Ramesside whom Her-Hor succeeded on the throne. On the other hand,
the comparison of this inscription with the following ones appears to me
to prove that the date, year VI, should probably be placed to the count of
the priest-king.
Indeed, no hesitation is possible in regard to the second inscription. It
presents itself under two forms, of which one is found only on the coffin
of Seti I, whilst the other is afforded us by the two coffins of Ramses I
and Ramses II. The inscription of Seti I is conceived in these terms :
" In the year XVI, of the 4th month of the season Pirt, the VII, under King
Se-Amen, the day of the exhuming of the King Men-maat-Ra Seti Meri-en-
Ptah L. H. S., from his tomb to bring him into the tomb of the lady
An ... of the great dwelling, by the prophet of Amen-Ra, king of the
gods, the third prophet of Khonsumois Neferhotep, chief scribe of the monu-
ment of the temple of Amen-Ra, king of the gods, servant of the temple of
Ramses II in the temple of Amen, Nesipkhashuti, son of Beken-Khonsu.
The superior of the funeral hall had said in the presence (of the king)
what was the condition (of the mummies) and that they had suffered no
damage in being taken from the tomb where they were, and transported
to the tomb of the lady An ... of the great dwelling where King Amen-
hotep rests in peace."
The inscription of Ramses II differs from the preceding only in the open-
ing words : " In the year XVI, of the 4th month of Pirt, the VII, the day
of the exhuming of King User-maat-Ra-sotep-en-Ra, the great god of the
tomb of King Men-maat-Ra, Seti Miptah." The rest is similar in every
point to the text of Seti I.
The inscription of Ramses I is much mutilated ; but what has been pre-
served permits us to restore a formula at the commencement, which is inter-
mediary between the formula of Seti I and that of Ramses II. " (The year
XVI, of the 4th month of Pirt, the VII, under) King Se-Amen, (day of)
the exhuming of (the King Men-pehtet-Ra L. H. S.) from the (tomb of King
Men-maat-Ra) Seti Miptah (to bring it into this tomb) of the lady An . . .
of the (great) dwelling (where the King Amen) hotep (rests) in peace,
etc."
The three bodies, carried at different periods to Seti's hypogee, were taken
thence all three in one day. This identity in time explains why, in the sec-
ond part of each inscription, the scribe has always made use of the plural
number to express the condition of the mummy : he placed on each of the
coffins the formula which applied to all three.
The other coffins of the X VHIth and XlXth Dynasties bear no inscriptions,
but I have no doubt that at about the same time they were the object of
frequent visits. One certain fact seems to me to result from the reports : by
the close of the XXth Dynasty the bodies of Seti I, Ramses I, Ramses II,
and Tehutimes I were no longer in their own tombs, and not yet in the
hidden chamber where they were discovered : they were carried from place
to place and their funerary appointments restored at fairly short intervals.
What was the motive for so often taking the trouble to verify this condition ?
The documents which have come down to us from the last kings of the
XXth Dynasty give us some idea of an epoch of decadence. Egypt,
exhausted by six centuries of conquest, no longer possessed the strength
necessary to retain her dominion over the provinces in Syria, and was losing
with them the best part of her revenue. The great towns of the Delta —
THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES
QflCKN NUBKRAI
Memphis, Tanis, Sals — standing on the natural highway of Asiatic com-
merce, did not suffer greatly from this political diminution of the country ; but
Thebes, which was situated in the inte-
rior, at a distance from the great com-
mercial routes, and had owed the
prosperity she enjoyed to conquest
alone, grew poorer and rapidly declined.
Constructive works were for the most
part suspended for want of supplies ;
and the labouring population, ill-paid
from the royal treasure, began to feel
the pangs of hunger. Hence proceeded
strikes and daily disorders, which the
overseers of the workshops recorded
in their note-books ; and then pillage
and theft.
Bands were organised, in which
civil employees, officers, workmen, even
women, figure indiscriminately, and
these set to work to exploit the necrop-
olis. They forced the doors of the
tombs, that they might carry off the ob-
jects of value, the jewels, furniture, and
gorgeous arms which the piety of rela-
tives had deposited with the corpses.
Soon, not content with attacking
private individuals, they ventured to
lay their hands upon the kings. The government of Ramses made vain at-
tempts to stop their depredations. An inquiry, opened in the XVIth year of
Ramses IX, informs us that the king's commissioners found one royal tomb
violated for every ten that they were authorised to visit. It is curious that
one of the hypogees examined belonged to a prince whose mummy we found
in the secret chamber of Deir-el-Bahari, namely Amenhotep I ; it was still
intact.
The report of the opening of the tomb of Sebekhotep [VI] tells us in
what the booty of the thieves consisted : " We opened the coffins of the king
and his wife, Queen Nubkhas, as well as the funeral caskets in which they
lay. We found the august mummy of the king, and beside it his sword, as
well as a considerable number of talismans, and ornaments of gold about his
neck. The head was covered with gold, and gold was scattered all over the
mummy : the coffins were plated with gold and silver within and without,
and incrusted with all kinds of stones. We took the gold which we found
on the mummy, as well as the talisman and the ornaments of the neck and
the gold of the coffins. We likewise took all we could find on the royal
spouse, then we burned their funeral caskets and we robbed them of their
furniture, which consisted of vases of gold or silver and of bronze, and we
divided them among us in eight portions." One might fancy he was reading
the description of that mummy of Queen Aah-hop, whose jewels now form
an ornament of the museum at Bulaq.
Let us now examine the condition of the coffins and mummies found at
Deir-el-Bahari. Seqenen-Ra, Aahmes and his son Se-Amen, Nefert-ari, and
Aah-hotep are certainly in their original coffins, as is proved by the style
and the absence of inscriptions indicating a restoration. Amenhotep I and
160 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Tehutimes II appear to have retained only the covers of their original coffins ;
the case is of wood, very roughly shaped, and in order to introduce the mummy
of Tehutimes II, it has been found necessary to reduce the thickness of the
sides at the level of the shoulders. The inscriptions assert that the wrap-
pings have been renewed : this may have been as much because they
were worn out in the natural course of things as because of the violence
of human hands, and the restoration does not in itself prove that the
mummy has suffered by thieves. But do not the two false mummies of
Princess Meshent-themhu and the Princess Set- Amen furnish us with proof
of a violation analogous to that to which King Sebekhotep and his wife
Nubkhas were subjected ?
The robbers, after breaking open Sebekhotep's coffin, had dispersed the
bones of the king, and the tomb was empty. Something similar must cer-
tainly have occurred in the case of the Princess Meshent-themhu. The
coffin was broken open, and the inscription which it bore, inlaid with blue
enamel, partly disappeared ; for it was necessary, as I have shown above, to
restore it roughly in ink. As for the bones, they had disappeared : probably
the thieves, fearing they might be disturbed in their sacrilegious work, made
haste to carry off the mummy with them ; then abandoned it, once it had
been despoiled, in some place where no one thought of looking for it. On
the other hand, religion did not allow that the disembodied soul could enjoy
a full existence in the other world if the body it had owned during its
earthly life should completely disappear.
In default of the real body, the commissioners charged to inspect and
restore the tombs adopted the plan of manufacturing the semblances of
bodies for Seti and Meshent-themhu. A fragment of broken coffin simu-
lated the bust of Meshent-themhu, a bundle of rags the head, another bundle
of rags the feet, and the whole, duly encased in wrappings, was deposited in
the coffin, which was more or less carefully restored. Was the soul satis-
fied at recognising the counterfeit body ?
For my part I am very glad to have discovered, thanks to that pious
fraud, the principal, if not the only, reason for the collection of so many
royal mummies in one place.
It was to save the dead Pharaohs from thieves that it was decided to hide
them away. It was hoped that a pit, thirty-eight yards deep, followed by a nar-
row corridor of two hundred and fifty feet, would protect them from profana-
tion; and experience has proved that the reckoning was not so far out, since
centuries rolled away from the day that they were deposited there, before that
on which the Arabs of Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah discovered the hiding-place.
Some Egyptologists will, at first sight, be amazed at the rude character
of this supposed tomb, and will object that it is a far cry from a chamber
without ornament and roughly hollowed out of the rock, to the magnificent
hypogees of Biban-el-Moluk. I answer that the difference between the
tombs is not greater than the difference between the kings. Amenhotep III,
Ramses II, even Ramses V and Her-Hor, reigned over all Egypt, over
Ethiopia, over at least a part of Syria, and had command of the men and
money needful to hew out and decorate immense syringes.1
Painet'-em II and the people of his family possessed only the poorest
region of Egypt and Nubia : it was as much as they could do to secure their
mummies the same burial as that of the wealthier men of their time. No
more special monuments for each of the dead, but one common vault for
[* Syringes (plural of syrinx) are narrow and deep rock tunnel-tombs.]
THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES
161
all ; no more immense sarcophagi in hard stone, but mere coffins in polished
wood, sometimes stolen from earlier kings or private persons. There is
nothing which more clearly marks the decadence of Thebes than this
increasing poverty of the last Thebaii kings.*
FEMALE HKAI>DKE.SS, ANCIENT EGYPT
a. w. — VOL. i. M
CHAPTER VII. THE PERIOD OF DECAY
[XIXTH-XXViH DYNASTIES: ca. 1285-655 B.C.]
And the Lord shall smite Egypt; he shall smite and heal it : and they
shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall
heal them.
In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the
Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the
Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. — Isaiah xix. 22, 23.
So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the
Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their
buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. — Isaiah xx. 4.
AFTER the summit, the inevitable decline. The first of world powers
under the Ramessides, Egypt again becomes degenerate, and, after some five
hundred years of reanimation, passes into the power of the priests, who in
turn are supplanted by invading hosts, this time from Ethiopia. Then the
Assyrian conquerors, taking their turn at world-domination, invade Egypt
along the route which Tehutimes and Ramses had followed of old in invading
Assyria. Dismembered Egypt falls an easy prey to Esarhaddon. It revolts
under Asshurbanapal again and again, and is as often re-conquered. But a
mixed population of Ethiopians and Assyrians again gives a certain measure
of new vitality to the old body, and, the destruction of the Assyrian empire
having rid the Egyptians of one of their enemies, they were presently able,
under Psamthek I (Psammetichus), to overthrow the Ethiopian "usurpers,"
and establish once more a " native " dynasty.
For about three-quarters of a century Egypt retained autonomy, and even
struggled back to a shadow of its old-time power, illustrating once again the
vitality that resides in an old stock. Then the final coup was given by
Cambyses the Persian ; and the last contest was over. Taken by themselves,
these long-drawn-out struggles of a dying nation — extending over half a
thousand years — are full of interest ; but in the comparative scale they
are unimportant. We have seen the great nation at its flood-tide of power,
and we need not dwell at very great length upon the time of its ebbing
fortunes ; for other nations, off to the east, have now taken the place of
Egypt as the world-centres, and are beckoning attention."
MBNEPTAH
The disappearance of the old hero, Ramses II, did not produce many
changes in the condition of affairs in Egypt. Meneptah from this time
forth possessed as Pharaoh the power which he had previously wielded
1fi2
THE PERIOD OP DECAY
[ca. 1285-1250 B.C.]
as regent. He was now no longer young. Born somewhere about the begin-
ning of the reign of Ramses II, he was now sixty, possibly seventy, years old ;
thus an old man succeeded another old man at a moment when Egypt must
have needed more than ever an active and vigorous ruler. The danger to the
country did not on this occasion rise from the side of Asia, for the relations
of the Pharaoh with his Kharu [Phoenician] subjects continued friendly, and,
during a famine which desolated Syria, he sent wheat to his Hittite allies.
The nations, however, to the north and east, in Libya and in the Mediter-
ranean islands, had for some time past been in a restless condition, which
boded little good to the empires of the Old World. The Tamahu, some of
them tributaries from the Xllth, and others from the first years of the
XVIIIth Dynasty, had always been troublesome, but never really danger-
ous neighbours. From time to time it was necessary to send light troops
against them, who, sailing along the coast or following the caravan routes,
would enter their territory, force them from their retreats, destroy their
palm groves, carry off their cattle, and place garrisons in the principal
oases — even in Siwa itself. For more than a century, however, it would
k ; --. -
Clllcfr
TEMPLE ON THE ISLAND or i'im..v.
seem that more active and numerically stronger populations had entered
upon the stage. A current of invasion, having its origin in the region of
the Atlas, or possibly even in Europe, was setting toward the Nile, forcing
before it the scattered tribes of the Sudan.
Who were these invaders? Were they connected with the race which
had planted its dolmens over the plains of the Maghreb? Whatever the
answer to this question may be, we know that a certain number of Berber
tribes — the Libu and Mashauasha — who had occupied a middle position
between Egypt and the people behind them, and who had only irregular
communications with the Nile Valley, were now pushed to the front and
forced to descend upon it.
The Libu might very well have gained the mastery over the other inhab-
itants of the desert at this period, who had become enfeebled by the frequent
defeats which they had sustained at the hands of the Egyptians. At the
moment when Meneptah ascended the throne, their king, Marajui, son c
Did, ruled over immense territory.
164 THE HISTORY OP EGYPT
[co. 1285-1250 B.C.]
A great kingdom had risen capable of disturbing Egyptian control. The
danger was serious. The Hittites, separated from, the Nile by the broad
breadth of Phosnicia, could not directly threaten any of the Egyptian cities :
but the Libyans, lords of the desert, were in contact with the Delta, and
could in a few days fall upon any point in the valley they chose. Meneptah,
therefore, hastened to resist the assault of the Westerners, as his father had
formerly done that of the Easterners ; and, strange as it may seem, he found
among the troops of his new enemies some of the adversaries with whom
the Egyptians had fought under the walls of Kadesh sixty years before.
The Shardana, Lycians, and others, having left the coasts of the
Delta and the Phoenician seaports, owing to the vigilant watch kept
by the Egyptians over their waters, had betaken themselves to the
Libyan littoral, where they met with a favourable reception. Whether
they had settled in some places, and formed there those colonies of
which a Greek tradition of a more recent age speaks, we cannot say.
They certainly followed the occupation of mercenary soldiers, and many
of them hired out their services to the native princes, while others
were enrolled among the troops of the king of Kheta or of the Pharaoh
himself. Marajui brought with him Achseans, [Aqauasha], Shardana,
Turisha, Shakalisha, and Lycians in considerable numbers when he re-
solved to begin the strife.
This was not one of those conventional little wars which aimed at
nothing further than the imposition of the payment of a tribute upon the
conquered, or the conquest of one of their provinces. Marajui had nothing
less in view than the transport of his whole people into the Nile Valley, to
settle permanently there as the Hyksos had done before him . He set out on his
march toward the end of the fourth year of the Pharaoh's reign, or the begin-
ning of his fifth, surrounded by the elite of his troops, " the first choice from
among all the soldiers and all the heroes in each land." The announcement
of their approach spread terror among the Egyptians. The peace which they
enjoyed for fifty years had cooled their warlike ardour, and the machinery
of their military organisation had become somewhat rusty. The standing
army had almost melted away ; the regiments of archers and charioteers were
no longer effective, and the neglected fortresses were not strong enough to
protect the frontier.
As a consequence, the oases of Farafrah and of the Natron lakes fell
into the hands of the enemy at the first attack, and the western provinces
of the Delta became the possession of the invader before any steps could be
taken for their defence. Memphis, which realised the imminent danger,
broke out into open murmurs against the negligent rulers who had given no
heed to the country's ramparts, and had allowed the garrisons of its fortresses
to dwindle away. Fortunately Syria remained quiet. The Kheta, in return
for the aid afforded them by Meneptah during the famine, observed a friendly
attitude, and the Pharaoh was thus enabled to withdraw the troops from his
Asiatic provinces. He could with perfect security take the necessary meas-
ures for insuring " Heliopolis, the city of Tmu," against surprise, " for
arming Memphis, the citadel of Ptah-Tanen, and for restoring all things
which were in disorder ; he fortified Pa-Bailos (Bilbeis), in the neighbour-
hood of the Shakana canal, on a branch of that of Heliopolis ; " and he rapidly
concentrated his forces behind these quickly organised lines. Marajui, how-
ever, continued to advance ; in the early months of the summer he had
crossed the Canopic branch of the Nile, and was now about to encamp not
far from the town of Pa-Arshop (Proposis).
THE PERIOD OF DECAY IRK
[ca. 1286-1280 B.C.]
The Pharaoh did not stir from his position. Marajui had, in the mean-
time, arranged his attack for the 1st of Epiphi, at the rising of the sun • it
did not take place however until the 3rd. "The archers of his Majesty
made havoc of the barbarians for six hours ; they were cut off by the edee
of the sword."
When Marajui saw the carnage, " his heart failed him ; he betook
himself to flight as fast as his feet could bear him to save his life, so
successfully that his bow and arrows remained behind him in his precipita-
tion, as well as everything else he had upon him." His treasure, his arms,
his wife, together with the cattle which he had brought with him for his use,
became the prey of the conqueror ; " he
tore out the feathers from his head-dress,
and took flight with such of those wretched
Libyans as escaped the massacre, but the
officers who had the care of his Majesty's
team of horses followed in their steps "
and put most of them to the sword.
Marajui succeeded, however, in escaping
in the darkness, and regained his own
country without water or provisions, and
almost without escort. The conquering
troops returned to the camp laden with
booty, and driving before them asses carry-
ing, as bloody tokens of victory, quanti-
ties of hands and phalli cut from the dead
bodies of the slain. The bodies of six
generals and of 6359 Libyan soldiers were
found upon the field of battle, together
with 222 Shakalisha, 724 Turisha, and
some hundreds of Shardana and Aqauasha
[Achseans] ; several thousands of prisoners
passed in procession before the Pharaoh,
and were distributed among such of his
soldiers as had distinguished themselves.
Meneptah lived for some time after this
memorable year V, and the number of
monuments which belong to this period
shows that he reigned in peace. We can
see that he carried out works in the same
places as his father before him — at Tanis EGYPTIAN SOLDIER WITH CAPTURED HAVD
as well as Thebes, in Nubia as well as in
the Delta. He worked the sandstone quarries for his building materials,
and continued the custom of celebrating the feasts of the Inundation, at
Silsilis. One at least of the steles which he set up on the occasion of these
feasts is really a chapel, with its architraves and columns, and still excites
the admiration of the traveller on account both of its form and of its
picturesque appearance. The last years of his life were troubled by the in-
trigues of princes who aspired to the throne, and by the ambition of the
ministers to whom he was obliged to delegate his authority. One of the
latter, a man of Semite origin, named Ben-Azana, of Zor-bisana, who had
assumed the appellation of his first patron Ramses-uparna-Ra, appears to have
acted for him as regent. [Chronological reasons demand that we place the
Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in the reign of this Pharaoh.]
166 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1250-1235 B.C.]
Meneptah was succeeded, apparently, by one of his sons, called Seti,
after his great-grandfather. Seti II had doubtless reached middle age at
the time of his accession, but his portraits represent him, nevertheless, with
the face and figure of a young man. The expression in these is gentle,
refined, haughty, and somewhat melancholy. It is the type of Seti I and
Ramses II, but enfeebled and, as it were, saddened. An inscription of
his second year attributes to him victories in Asia, but others of the same
period indicate the existence of disturbances similar to those which had
troubled the last years of his father. Seti died, it would seem, without
having time to finish his tomb. We do not know whether he left any
legitimate children, but two sovereigns succeeded him who were not directly
connected with him, but were probably the grandsons of the Amenmes
and the Siptah, whom we meet with among the children of Ramses.
The first of these was also called Amenmes, and he held sway for several
years over the whole of Egypt, and over its foreign possessions. The
second, who was named Siptah- Meneptah, ascended "the throne of his
father," thanks to the devotion of his minister, Bi, but in a greater degree
to his marriage with a certain princess called Ta-user. He maintained him-
self in this position for at least six years, during which he made an expedi-
tion into Ethiopia, and received in audience at Thebes messengers from
all foreign nations. He kept up so zealously the appearance of universal
dominion that to judge from his inscriptions he must have been the equal
of the most powerful of his predecessors at Thebes. Egypt, nevertheless,
was proceeding at a quick pace toward its downfall. No sooner had this
monarch disappeared than it began to break up.
As in the case of the Egyptians of the Greek period, we can see only
through a fog what took place after the deaths of Meneptah and Seti II.
We know only for certain that the chiefs of the nomes were in perpetual
strife with each other, and that a foreign power was dominant in the country
as in the time of Apophis. The days of the kingdom would have been
numbered if a deliverer had not promptly made his appearance. The direct
line of Ramses II was extinct, but his innumerable sons by innumerable
concubines had left a posterity out of which some at least might have the
requisite ability and zeal, if not to save the empire, at least to lengthen its
duration, and once more give to Thebes days of glorious prosperity.
Egypt had set out some five centuries before this for the conquest of the
world, and fortune had at first smiled upon her enterprise. Tehutimes I,
Tehutimes III, and the several Pharaohs bearing the name of Amenhotep,
had marched with their armies from the upper waters of the Nile to the
banks of the Euphrates, and no power had been able to withstand them.
New nations, however, soon rose up to oppose her, and the Hittites in Asia
and the Libyans of the Sudan together curbed her ambition. Neither the
triumphs of Ramses II nor the victory of Meneptah had been able to restore
her prestige, or the lands of which her rivals had robbed her beyond her
ancient frontier. Now her own territory itself was threatened, and her
own well-being was in question ; she was compelled to consider, not how
to rule other tribes, great or small, but how to keep her own possessions
intact and independent ; in short, her very existence was at stake.6
FROM SETNEKHT TO RAMSES VIII AND MERI-AMEN MERI-TMTT
In the midst of the unsettled state of affairs a new dynasty arose under
the leadership of Setnekht, a descendant of Ramses II and governor of
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 167
[CO. 1236-1200 B.C.]
Thebes, who with some difficulty succeeded in quelling the rebels and subju-
gating the Syrian Arisu. " He was like the gods Kheper and Sutekh in hia
energy, repairing the state of disorder of the
whole country, killing the barbarians who
were in the Delta, and purifying the great
realm of Egypt. He was regent of the two
countries on the throne of Tmu (the chief
god of Heliopolis) devoting himself so well
to the reorganisation of what had been upset,
that each one found a brother in every one of
those from whom they had been so long sepa-
rated ; and re-establishing the temples and
sacrifices so well that the traditional homage
was rendered to the divine cycles."
His son, Ramses III, who had been his
co-regent, was the last of the great sovereigns
of Egypt. His ambition during the thirty-
two years of his reign was to follow in the
steps of his namesake, Ramses the Great, in
re-establishing the integrity of the empire
abroad, and the prosperity of the country at
home. But in spite of his father's successful
warfare, the Syrian provinces were lost, and
the frontiers encroached upon. On the east,
the Bedouins attacked the fortified ports
of the Delta, and the mining colonies of
Sinai ; on the west, the nations of Libya
had invaded the Nile. Led by their chiefs
Did (probably the son of Marajui, the con-
temporary of Meneptah), Mashaknu, Zamar,
and Zautmar, the Tuhennu, the Tamahu, the
Kahaka, and their neighbours, left the sandy
plains of the desert and conquered the Mare-
otic nome or district of the Said, at the mouth
of the Nile, as far as the great arm of the
river, in short all the western part of the
Delta from the town of Karbria on the west
to the outskirts of Memphis on the south.
After repulsing the Bedouins, Ramses III
turned his arms against the Libyans in the
year V and completely conquered them.
" They were as terrified as goats attacked
by a bull, that tramples with his foot,
strikes with his horns, and makes the moun-
tains tremble in his rush upon those that
approach him." The raids of the barbarians
had exasperated the Egyptians, they gave no
quarter ; the Libyans fled in disorder, and
some of their tribes, lingering in the Delta,
were taken off and incorporated in the aux-
iliary army.
Scarcely was this trouble over when Ramses attacked Syria. White
Egypt was being ruined with civil wars, her old enemy, the Kheta, made
MUUHT or RAMSES III
168 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[co. 1230-1220 B.C.]
her lose the rest of her empire. The nations of Asia Minor, continually
pushed forward by the arrival of new races, had left their homes and
penetrated into the distant regions of Syria and Egypt, attracted by reports
of the riches of those countries ; the Danau, the Tyrians, the Shakalisha,
the Teucrians, who had succeeded the Dardani in the hegemony of the
Trojan nations, and the Lycians and the Philistines joined the confedera-
tion. Those on the ships attacked the coasts, and the others crossed Syria
and laid siege to the fortresses of the isthmus. With forces increased by
the people they subjugated on the way, they penetrated Cilicia, forced the
Kati and Kheta [Hittites] to follow them, picked up the contingent of
Carchemish, Arathu, and Kadesh, and after staying some time in the envi-
rons of this town in the country of the Amorites, pushed straight on
to Egypt.
But prompt as this action had been, Ramses was quite prepared to meet
it. After having armed the mouth of the Nile and the places of the Delta,
he started to oppose the enemy. The encounter of the two armies and the
two fleets took place in the year VIII between Raphia and Pelusium under
the walls of the castle, called the Tower of Ramses III.
" The mouth of the river was like a mighty wall of ships and vessels of
every kind, filled from prow to poop with brave armed men. The infantry
soldiers, the picked men of the army of Egypt, were there like roaring lions
on the mountains ; the charioteers, chosen from the swiftest of heroes, were
led by every kind of experienced officers ; the horses trembled in every limb
and longed to trample nations under foot.
" As for me," says Ramses, " I was like Mentu, the warlike. I rose before
them and they saw the work of my hands. I, the King Ramses, I have acted
like a hero, who knows his valour and who stretches his arm over his people
in the day of the struggle. Those who have violated frontiers will no longer
cultivate the land, the time for their souls to pass into eternity is fixed.
Those who were upon the shore were prostrated on the banks of the water,
massacred as in a charnel house. I destroyed their vessels, and their goods
were swallowed up by the waters."
Prompt as this victory was, it did not conclude the wars of Ramses III.
The Libyans, the old allies of the maritime races, would gladly have joined
against Egypt in the year VIII ; and if they did not do so, it was doubtless
because they had not had time to repair their losses. As soon as they were
ready, they reappeared upon the scene, and in the year XI the chief Kapur
and his son Mashashal led the Mashauasha [Maxyes], the Sabita, the
Kaikasha and other less important tribes, aided by the people of Tyre and
Lycia, to the invasion of the Delta.
" For the second time their hearts told them that they would pass their
lives in the nomes of Egypt, and that they would till the valleys and plains
like their own land."
But the attempt did not meet with success. " Death came upon them in
Egypt for they had run with their own feet to the furnace, which consumes
corruption, to the fire of the bravery of the king which descends like Baal
from the heights of the skies! All his members are imbued with victorious
strength. With his right hand he seizes multitudes ; his left extends like
arrows over those before him to destroy them ; his sword-blade is as sharp
as that of his father, Mentu. Kapur, who had come to demand homage,
blinded by fear, cast his arms from him and his troops did likewise : he
raised a supplicating cry to Heaven and his son supported his arms. But lo,
there stood by him the god, who knew his most secret thoughts.
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 1f,<i
[CO. 1220-1195 B.C.]
"His Majesty fell upon their heads like a mountain of granite, he
crushed them and watered the earth with their blood, their army and their
soldiers were massacred . . . they were taken, they were struck, their arms
were tied, and like birds, imprisoned in the hold of a ship, they were in the
power of his Majesty. The king was like Mentu, his victorious feet trampled
on the heads of the enemy; the chiefs who opposed him were struck and
held by the wrists."
So the Libyans were careful henceforth not to disturb the peace of Egypt.
The victories of these twelve years healed the wounds or the preceding
period. A voyage of the fleet along the coasts made the ancient Syrian
provinces return to their allegiance and the allied nations of the Kheta
[Hittites], of Carchemish and of the Kati, seeing the subjugation of the
maritime people, soon followed suit. A second maritime expedition was
directed against Arabia.
" I equipped vessels and galleys, armed with numerous sailors and work-
men. The captains of the maritime auxiliary forces were there with over-
seers and managers to provision the ships with the countless products of
Egypt. There were tens of thousands of every kind passing through the
great sea of Kati. They arrived at the country of the Punt without any
misadventure, and prepared to load the galleys and vessels with the prod-
ucts of Tonutir, with all the mysterious wonders of the country, and with
considerable quantities of the perfumes of Punt. Their sons, the chiefs of
the Tonutir came themselves to Egypt bringing tribute ; they came safe and
sound to the country of Coptos and landed in the country with their riches.
They brought them in caravans of asses and men, and embarked them on the
river at the port of Coptos."
Other expeditions to the peninsula of Sinai restored the mining districts
to the possession of Pharaoh. So the Egyptian empire was reconstituted as
it was in the preceding century in the time of Ramses II. The Shardana,
Tyrians, Lycians, and Trojans no longer landed en matse on the coasts of
Africa.
The tide of Asiatic emigration now turned from the valley of the Nile,
which had been its direction for the last one hundred and fifty years, towards
the west, and inundated Italy, at the same time that the Phoenician col-
onists arrived there. The Tyrians took the land at the north of the mouth
of the Tiber, the Shardana occupied the large island, which later was called
Sardinia, and soon nothing remained of them in Egypt but the recollection
of their raids and the legendary recital of their migrations from the shores
of the Archipelago to the coasts of the western Mediterranean.
The Philistines were the only people of the confederation allowed to
settle in Syria, and they took root along the southern coast between Jpppa
and the river of Egypt, in the districts hitherto peopled by the Canaanites,
and there they primarily lived under the yoke of Pharaoh. On the other
frontier of the Delta, a Libyan tribe, called Mashauasha, likewise obtained
a concession of territory, and the Mashauasha soldiers raised m Libya, froi
that portion of the tribe encamped on the bank of the Nile, formed a pic
corps, the Ma, the leaders of which played a great part in the internal hisl
Herodotus relates that on the return of Sesostris (the name given by that
historian to Ramses II) he was nearly killed by treachery,
whom he had intrusted, the government during his absence, invited I
his children to a great feast; then he surrounded the house with wood
gave orders for it to be set alight. The king, learning this, immediately c
170 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1220-1195 B.C.]
suited with his wife, who was with him, and she advised him to take two of
their six children and lay them on the burning wood, so that they could use
their bodies as a bridge by which to pass over. Sesostris did this, and thus
burned two of his children, and the others were saved with the parents.
The monuments have proved that the Sesostris of this legend of Herodo-
tus is not Ramses II but his namesake, Ramses III. One of the brothers
of the king mentioned in official documents under the pseudonym of Pen-
ta-ur conspired against him with a large number of courtiers and ladies of
the harem, with the object of killing Pharaoh and putting his brother in
his place. The plot was discovered, the conspirators cited before the tribu-
nals and condemned, some to death and others to perpetual imprisonment.
The last years of the reign of Ramses III were passed in peace. He
built at Thebes, in memory of his wars, the great palace of Medinet Habu ;
he enlarged Karnak and restored Luxor. The details of these pious works
in the Delta have been preserved in a manuscript at the library of Heliopo-
lis, the great Harris papyrus.
One sees by this document that Egypt not only regained her foreign em-
pire, but her commercial and industrial activity. The prosperous days of
Tehutimes III and Ramses II seemed to have returned.
Nevertheless, the decadence was at hand. Egypt, exhausted by four
centuries of perpetual warfare, became more and more incapable of serious
effort. The population decimated by recruiting, inefficiently replaced by
the incessant introduction of foreign elements, had lost the patience and
enthusiasm of early times. The upper classes, accustomed to comfort and
riches, now only cared for the civil professions, and thought lightly of what
was military.
THE SOEEOWS OF A SOLDIER
" Why do you say that an infantry officer is happier than a scribe?"
asked a scribe of his pupil. " Let me describe to you the lot of an infantry
officer, and the extent of his miseries. He is taken when quite a child and
shut up in a barrack ; a cutting sore forms on his stomach ; a wearing pain
is in his eye ; an open wound is on his two eyebrows ; his head is split and
covered with matter. In short, he is beaten like a roll of papyrus, he is
bruised by the pressure of arms. Come and let me tell you of his marches
towards Syria and his campaigns in distant countries. His bread and his
water are on his shoulder like an ass's burden, and make the nape of his neck
like that of an ass. The joints of his spine are broken ; he drinks putrid
water, then returns to his watch. If he reaches the enemy, he trembles like
a goose, for he has no valour. If he end by returning to Egypt, he is like a
tick consumed by the worm. If he be ill, what alleviation does he have ?
He is taken away on an ass ; his clothes are carried off by robbers ; his
domestics flee from him. That is the foot-soldier, and the cavalry one is not
much better treated. The scribe Amenonopit says to the scribe Penbisit :
' When this written communication reaches thee, apply yourself to becom-
ing a scribe, and you will rise in the world. Come, let me tell you of the
fatiguing duties of a chariot officer :
" ' When he is placed at school by his father and mother, he has to give
away two of his slaves. After he dons his uniform, he goes to choose his
horses in the stable. In the presence of his Majesty, he takes the good
steeds and with shouts of joy wishes to bring them to the town at a gallop.
But the horses will not go without a stick. Then, as he does not know what
fate awaits him, he bequeaths all his goods to his father and mother. He
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 171
[co. 1185-945 B.C.]
goes off then with a chariot, but its pole weighs more than twice the weight
of the chariot. So when he wishes to gallop with this chariot, he is forced
to get dovyn and pull it. He does so, falls on to a reptile, slips into the
brushwood, his legs are bitten by the reptile, his heel is pierced by the bite
his misery is extreme. He lies on the ground and receives a hundred blows ' "
And these lines were written in the reign of Ramses II to the sound' of
songs of triumph, when the populace were full of enthusiasm for victory and
followed the triumphal chariot of Pharaoh with acclamations of delight
The first intoxication over, the lower classes, exhausted by centuries of in-
cessant warfare, crushed under the weight of tributes and taxes, lapsed into
their normal depression, the literature turned the sufferings of the soldiers
into ridicule. This weariness of success, this disgust for the bloody, dearly
bought victories, explains some obscure points in the history of Egypt, and
casts great light on the rapid fall of the edifice so laboriously raised by the
princes of the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties. The Egypt of Tehutimes
III wished for war ; the Egypt of Ramses III wished for peace at any price.
This was especially seen to be the case in the course of the XXth
Dynasty. In the year XXXII, Ramses, tired of government, called his son
Ramses IV to share it. He died two years later, and Ramses IV, after a
reign of not more than three or four years, was followed by a distant relation
who was Ramses V. Then came the four sons of Ramses III : Ramses VI,
Ramses VII, Ramses VIII, and Meri-Amen Meri-Tmu, who succeeded each
other rapidly on the throne. These Ramses made some expeditions here
and there, but never great wars. They passed their days in peace abroad,
and peace at home, and if it be true that people are happy who have no
history, Egypt was very happy under their rule.
No more constant struggles, no more distant marches to the mountains of
Cilicia and to the plains of the Upper Nile. Syria continued to pay tribute
for some time ; for if Egypt, exhausted by victory, had scarcely the strength
to enforce obedience, Syria was exhausted with defeat, and had no more
strength to revolt. But there was this difference between the two countries,
the one bordered on old age and never revived, while the other soon rallied
from its reverses. The kingdom of Egypt died of exhaustion in full pros-
perity."
EGYPT UNDER THE DOMINION OF MERCENARIES
The first sign of weakness in an empire seems to be scented. Egypt,
decaying within, attracted speedy attention from the ambitious, who turned
greedy eyes towards her hoarded wealth.
After the death of Ramses III, Egypt had ceased to exercise any influ-
ence upon Syria. A time of increasing inaction and stagnation had set in for
Egypt, which at last led to Her-Hor, the Theban high priest, being placed upon
the throne. How long Her-Hor ruled over Egypt, we know not, but we see
that his son Piankhi and his grandson Painet'em I did not have royal power
but only succeeded their father as high priests, and, as such, had uncontrolled
power in Thebes and its environs.
Another ruling house of foreign ( Libyan ) origin arose at this time in
Tanis. King Se-Amen (according to Manetho, Smendes) was ite chief. His
name is seen on the walls of a temple at Tanis, and upon an obelisk of Heli-
opolis. He also reigned over Thebes. In the sixteenth year of his reign he
had the mummies of Ramses I, Seti I, and Ramses II examined and put in
another tomb. He evidently overthrew the dominion of the Theban high
priests and forced them to recognise his power.
172
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 1000 B.C.]
Thereupon Painet'em I added the title of provost (of Thebes) and com-
mander-in-chief of the South and North, to his dignity of high priest, evi-
dently taking, with the Tanitic kings, a position similar to that of Her-Hor
with Ramses XII. Se-Amen's son, Pasebkhanu (Greek, Psousennes), seems
to have gone a step farther; he overcame the party of the Theban priests,
and gave the office of chief priest to one of his sons, who, like the grandson
of Her-Hor, had, or took, the name of Painet'em II. A few short reigns,
among which were those of the Amenemapt, also recognised in Thebes, seem
to have followed that of Pasebkhanu I ; and then Painet'em ascended the
throne.
As "high priest of Amen" at Thebes, and commander-in-chief, he invested
his sons Masaherta and Men-kheper-Ra and then Painet'em (III), the son of
the latter, with power ; and Hor-Pasebkhanu II seems to have succeeded him
in Tanis. The rule of the Tanites seems to have lasted
about 120 years (from about 1060 to 943 B.C.).
The kingdom, or at all events the part of the country
governed by the priests of Amen, was certainly not well
organised, for we have several accounts of embezzlements
of the properties of the temple of Amen by the stewards
and scribes, of the robbing of graves, etc. The constant
necessity of removing the mummies of the early kings in
the west part of Thebes from their magnificent tombs
into secret caves, shows the weakness of the government.
Moreover, the great state trials were conducted on a very
simple system. The question Guilty or Not Guilty was
put to the statue of Amen, which gave its verdict by the
mouth of an oracle.
One sees how perfectly realised is the idea of God's
rule in practice. Doubtless the theory was at this time
evolved in Thebes, later in Ethiopia, that the king was
not only obliged to consult the oracle in all his acts, but
also that he was appointed and could be deposed by the
oracle.
The title of commander-in-chief borne by the Theban
AN EQTPTIAN PKIEST priests, seems to distinguish them as commanders of the
(From a statue in the soldiers taken from the Egyptian peasants in contradis-
tinction to the mercenaries which, since Seti I, composed
the chief part of the army. This force was partially furnished by those
domiciled in the country, and partially by fresh supplies from Libya.
There was thus formed in the country an exclusive set similar to the
Mamelukes, which held the fate of the country in its hand, and which be-
queathed the martial profession from father to son.
These mercenaries were classed together under the name of Ma, derived
from the contraction of the Libyan name Mashauasha. We soon see from the
surnames of the warriors that the Libyans attained ascendance over them ;
and although the repeated attacks of the Libyans on Egypt were successfully
repulsed, they were now in fact rulers of the country.
It is noteworthy that the corps of the Shardana, so often mentioned in
more ancient times, is no more spoken of ; it must have been absorbed in the
mass of the other soldiers. But the name of Mashau has been retained, and
in Coptic matoei is still a common name for soldier. One can easily under-
stand that they had frequent opportunities of gaining wealth and land ; and
the kings granted them exemption from the land tax. At their head stood
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 177
[ca. 94JWWO B.C.]
the " dukes of the Ma," the grand-duke of the Ma having the chief command
But many of such generalissimi may have had equal rank.
Buiu-uaua, a Libyan, came to Egypt about Her-Hor'8 time. His family
attained great importance; his fifth descendant, Naromath [Nimrodl was
made « grand-duke of the Ma and Generalissimo" sometime under Kin*
Fainet em. After his death his son Shashanq succeeded him as commander
oi the army. An inscription at Abydos shows in what honour he was
held how the king looked after his father's grave, questioned the oracle
Inebes on his behalf, and prayed God for the victory of the general. It
°ei that Shashanq ended b^ iry™S to &"n the crown for himself,
By peaceable or violent means he was the successor of Hor-Pasebkhanu II,
the last Tanite, whose daughter Ka-Ra-maat he married to his son Uasarken,
to give support tc his dynasty. According. to the ruling custom of the
Tanites he made Auputh, another of his sons, high priest of Amen and com-
mander-in-chief of all the military forces. By the inscriptions he seems to
have been co-regent with his father.
Under the subsequent rulers it remained a custom for one of the king's
sons to be endowed with the highest priestly power in Thebes, and also the
priesthood of Ptah at Memphis was given to a branch of the royal family,
and the other princes were priests as well as generals.
Moreover, Shashanq seems to have brought forward the descendants of
the Ramses, for we find a Ramses prince occupying a high military post
under him.
The history of the Hebrews shows that the Pharaohs of the XX 1st
Dynasty were not in a condition to take part in Asiatic affairs. It was
early in Solomon's reign that the king of the period, probably Pasebkhanu
II, entered into relations with the Israelitish state, took Gaza for Solomon and
gave it to his daughter as a dowry, and also gave refuge to political fugitives
like Jeroboam and Hadad of Edom to leave a loophole for intervention.
The separation of Judah from Israel and the subsequent long civil war
offered an opportunity to renew the expeditions into Syria. So Shashanq
repaired to Syria in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam. The scanty
remains of the annals of the Hebrew kings only report that he carried off
the treasures of the temple and palace at Jerusalem ; that is, the golden shields
which Solomon had hung up there. The long list of the conquered places
upon a wall of the temple of Karnak shows that Israelitish strongholds were
likewise conquered and plundered.
The Pharaoh hardly met with any great resistance anywhere. The in-
scription of his victory contains, according to the fashion of the time, only
religious phrases instead of an account of the war. The expedition was
nothing more than a predatory raid for booty; it had no political conse-
quences, and it is quite a mistake to think it was undertaken in the interest
of Jeroboam against the king of Judah.
The increase of the Egyptian power, consequent on the accession to the
throne of the new dynasty, was of short duration. The successors of
Shashanq I — Uasarken I,Takeleth I, Uasarken II,Shashanq II,Takeleth II -
are only mentioned by name on the monuments. In Thebes they enlarged the
entrance hall of the temple of Amen, begun by Shashanq I. We find further
traces of them at Bubastis, the cradle of the dynasty, at Memphis, and else-
where.
The state gradually fell into complete decay under them. The chief
generals of the Ma, perhaps partially belonging to the branch lines of the
174 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 800-735 B.C.]
house, founded their own princedoms and shook off the Bubastites. Sha-
shanq III, the successor of Takeleth II, is the last whose name we find in
Thebes, where a long and very mutilated inscription of the twenty-ninth year
of his reign speaks of gifts which he brought to Amen. Then it seems as
if the southern portion of the country was taken by the Ethiopians.
Shashanq III reigned fifty-two years altogether. Then came his son
Pamai, who reigned at least two years, and his grandson Shashanq IV, who
reigned at least thirty-seven years, until about 735 B.C. We only know of
these kings by their being mentioned on several of the monuments to the
honour of the Apis bulls which died in their reigns. So their supremacy
must at least have been recognised for a time in Memphis. But their do-
minion must have been limited to the province of Busiris. King Piankhi of
Ethiopia mentions in his great inscription a grand-duke of the Ma, Shashanq
of Busiris, and his successor .Pamai, who, presumably, were identical with
Shashanq III and Pamai. At the time of this conqueror, about 775 B.C., we
find near them a king Nimrod of Hermopolis, a ruler Peftotbast of Heracle-
opolis Magna, who bore the king's ring, a king Auputh of the Delta cities
Tentremu and Ta-an, and a king Uasarken (III) of Bubastis. The latter
probably belongs to the Manethan XXIIIrd Dynasty which came from Tanis,
and, according to Africanus, ascended the throne about 823 B.C. Manetho
mentions Petasebast as its founder, and he was succeeded by Uasarken, who
is presumably the aforementioned Uasarken III. Manetno evidently did
not regard the last rulers of the XXIInd Dynasty as legitimate, so, although
they are mentioned, they are not included in the chronology.
By the side of these " kings " there are, moreover, numerous princes
(£/r) of the Ma, designated in other cases as lords (rpa) or nomarchs (ha).
Independent rulers in the few provinces of the Delta, in Athribis, Mendes,
Sebennytus, Sals, etc., and the provost of Letopolis bore the title of high
priest.
These leading men came mostly from the leaders of the mercenaries, and
their possessions and power constantly tottered. It is very possible that the
single states formed a slack political confederation, and it is probable that
the descendants of the old ruling house were recognised as the chief feudal
lords, while those rulers who usurped the title of king laid claim to com-
plete independence.
THE ETHIOPIAN CONQUEST
At the time when a great conquering kingdom was forming itself on the
upper Tigris and began to lay hold on all sides around it, the power of the
Pharaohs in the Nile Valley completely went down. The kingdom of
Tehutimes III had been divided into a succession of small independent prin-
cipalities and was ruled by dynasties which had arisen from the leaders of
the mercenaries. On the other hand, in the upper valley of the Nile, in
the lands first joined to Egypt in the time of Usertsen III and afterwards for
five centuries by Tehutimes I, there arose the powerful kingdom of Gush
(Greek ^Ethiopia, now Nubia). Its capital was Napata in the Gebel Barhal,
"the sacred mountain," at the foot of which Amenhotep III had already
founded a great sanctuary to the Theban Amen. By its long connection
with Egypt, Egyptian culture was completely naturalised in Ethiopia.
Egyptian was the official language, the writing was in hieroglyphics, the
styling of the kings was after that of the Pharaohs. Above all, the Egyptian,
and especially the Theban, religion of Amen gained complete dominion in
Gush. In the name of Amen the kings went to battle ; they were fully
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 175
[co. 1000-775 B.C.]
dependent on his instructions and oracles ; they carefully observed the laws
on outer cleanliness and on the food forbidden by religion. What had
remained theory in Egypt, became practice in Ethiopia ; a long inscription
describes to us how the god himself immedi-
ately elects the king through his oracle, and
strikingly confirms the accounts of the Greeks.
Whence it followed that the priests could com-
mand the king in the name of the god to put
an end to his life, a prerogative which Erga-
menes abolished in the third century B.c. By
these circumstances it can be seen
why the Egyptian priests de-
scribed Ethiopia to the Greeks
as the Promised Land. From
these circumstances it can also
be supposed that the rise of the
kingdom of Napata was connected
HEAD OK UASAKKEX in ™*h the usurpation of the priests
(Now in the British MuMum) of the Tli.-l urn Amen at the time
of the XXIst Dynasty, an assump-
tion which is confirmed by many of the kings having borne the name of
Piankhi, prominent in the family of Her-Hor. After that time there
was no question of the rule of the Pharaohs over Gush ; so perhaps rela-
tives of the priests of Amen may have founded the Ethiopian town circa
1000 B.C.
When the power of the XXIInd Dynasty became lamed, the kings of
Napata could extend their dominion to Upper Egypt. Probably about the
end of the reign of Shashanq III, 800 B.C., Thebes may have fallen into their
hands ; in the first half of the eighth century the valley of the Nile to the
vicinity of Hermopolis was under the rule of the Ethiopian king Piankhi.
In his time the Prince Tefnekht of Sais succeeded in subjecting the west
part of the Delta in Low«r Egypt, in winning Memphis, and in making all
the numerous princes, kings, and small lords of the middle and east Delta,
" all princes of Lower Egypt who wear the feather " (the sign of the warrior
casts of the Ma), acknowledge his supremacy. He did not adopt the title
of king, probably because he wished to violate as little as possible the rela-
tions of rank which existed amongst the mercenary princes. From Memphis
he went south, subjected Crocodilopolis, Oxyrhynchus and others, besieged
Heracleopolis, the royal residence of Peftotbast, and compelled King Nim-
rod of Hermopolis to submit. Then Piankhi stepped forward, called to help
by the adversaries of Tefnekht. His army conquered a hostile fleet on the
Nile, drove Tefnekht back at Heracleopolis, besieged Nimrod in Hermopolis,
and seized a number of small places. Then the king himself appeared at
the seat of war ; he compelled Nimrod to capitulate, and received rich pres-
ents from him. After the fall of Hermopolis, all the small places subjected
themselves, only Memphis had to be taken by storm, after a plan of Tef-
nekht to relieve it had failed. Then Piankhi advanced to the Delta; small
princes hastened together before him to swear allegiance and bring him rich
gifts. Thus Tefnekht was no longer strong enough to assert his position ;
Piankhi may also have had misgivings as to waging a dangerous war in the
west Delta. He contented himself with Tefnekht's taking the oath of alle-
giance in the presence of the ambassador of the Ethiopian king and sending
him presents after being promised safety.
176 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 775-704 B.C.]
The campaigns of Piankhi, which fell in the year XXI of his reign (circa
775 B.C.), do not seem to have resulted in a lasting subjection of Egypt. If
the vassal king Uasarken (III) of Bubastis was the second ruler of the
XXIIIrd Dynasty, the Ethiopians must by that time have been expelled from
Upper Egypt ; for we meet with the third ruler of this house, Psamus, in two
small inscriptions in the temple of Karnak. In the monuments Manetho lets
him be succeeded by an unauthenticated king, Zet. Then follows the XXI Vth
Dynasty, which, according to him, only consists of the Saite Bakenranf (proba-
bly 733-729 B.C.), who, according to the reliable Greek reports, was a son
of Tnephachthus, that is to say, of Tefnekht, Piankhi's adversary. In tra-
dition he is praised as a wise prince and great legislator ; from the monu-
ments we only know that in his sixth year, an Apis was placed in the same
sepulchral chamber with one that died under Shashanq IV ; according to
this he probably succeeded the last title-bearing king of the XXIInd Dynasty,
but must already have reigned for some time previously in Sals.
In Ethiopia, Piankhi (it is not known whether after one or more inter-
regnums) was followed by Kashta, who was married to Shepenapet, a
daughter of .King Uasarken, probably Uasarken III of Bubastis. His
son Shabak repeated the expedition to Egypt, conquered Bakenranf, —
according to Manetho he burnt him alive, — and compelled the local dynas-
ties to acknowledge his supremacy (728 B.C.). He took the title of a king
of Egypt, but as real rulers of the land he established his sister Ameniritis
and her husband, Piankhi (II ?). We often meet with Shabak and his
sister in the temples of Thebes, likewise in Hammamat and elsewhere ; an
exquisite alabaster statue of the queen has been found in Karnak. Greek
tradition asserts that the Ethiopian king reigned very mildly over Egypt,
executions never took place, criminals were made to build canals and
dams. But a fixed and uniform dominion was never practised by the Ethi-
opians over Egypt. As in the time of Piankhi, the local dynasties remained
in possession of their dominions, and amongst them in all probability also
the successors of Tefnekht and Bakenranf in Sals, the ancestors of the
XXVIth Dynasty.
Although in the year 725 (II Kings xvii. 4) and in 720 (Annals of
Sargon), Shabak is called " King of Egypt," yet in 715 Sargon speaks
of the tribute of " Pharaoh, King of Egypt " ; in 711 he mentions the same
together with the King of Melukhkha (i.e. Cush), and in Sennacherib's time
the " Kings of Egypt " appear together with " the troops of the King of
Melukhkha."
Numerous battles for the possession of the Lower Nile occupied the reigns
of Shabak and his successors ; it made it impossible for them to take part in
the affairs of Asia, no matter how much they desired done.
Shabak of Cush and Egypt was succeeded in the year 716 (?) by
Shabatakh who, according to Manetho, was his son, and of whom only
scattered monuments have been preserved in Karnak and Memphis. But
in the year 704 he was succeeded by a younger, more vigorous prince,
Tirhaqa. The latter appears not to have belonged to the royal family, but
to have acquired the throne by marriage with the wife of Shabak and to
have seized the government in the name of the latter's son, Tanut-Amen;
in Karnak the two conjointly raised a temple to Osiris Ptah, and are here
both called kings in exactly the same terms. Tirhaqa was twenty years old
when he obtained the double crown. The numerous princes of the
Egyptian cities acknowledged his supremacy, and he was able to turn
his attention to renewing Shabak's interference in Syria. A number of
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 177
[co. 704-672 B.C.]
Syrian princes were ready to join the liberator from the Assyrian yoke
especially Elulams of Tyre, Hezekiah of Judah, who, in the year 714 ]
succeeded Ahaz, and Zidqa of Askalon. King Padi of Ekron remain*
iaituful to the Assyrians, but his magnates revolted against him and
delivered him up to Hezekiah. It might have been hoped that Sennacherib
would be detained for a long time in Babylonia. We learn that Merodach-
baladan had opened negotiations with Hezekiah, so that a great coalition
against Assyria seems to have been planned.
Yet this time also the Assyrians were able to forestall their adversaries
Before their preparations were completed, in the beginning of 701 Sen-
nacherib appeared in Syria and turned first against Elulseus. Sidon,
Sarepta, Akko, and the other towns subject to him submitted, and he
himself fled to Cyprus. From Phoenicia, Sennacherib marched to Philistia,
having received in every way the homage of those vassals who had remained
loyal. Zidqa of Askalon was captured, his towns reduced, and a new
king set up. Then, the Great King further informs us, he marched
against Ekron, when the army of the King of Gush (Assyrian, Melukhkha)
and the princes of Egypt came to its assistance. At Altaku he defeated
this force, took that city and Timnath, reduced Ekron where he punished
the instigator of the rebellion, and restored King Padi, who had been taken
as a prisoner to Jerusalem.
Trusting in Pharaoh and in Jehovah, Hezekiah persisted in resisting.
Meantime the army of Tirhaqa, King of Cush, marched up. Sennacherib
advanced against him and again demanded the surrender of Jerusalem. But
Hezekiah, trusting in Jehovah's word as announced to him by the prophet
Isaiah, once more refused. In the night the Mal'ak-Yahveh (the angel
of the Lord) smites the Assyrian army, so that 185,000 men die, and Sen-
nacherib had to return to Nineveh.
The Egyptians gave Herodotus a similar account : after the Ethiopian
Sabaco [Shabak], a former priest of Ptah, Sethos, who had been at enmity
with the warrior caste, ruled over Egypt. Now when Sennacherib, " King
of the Arabians and Assyrians," made an expedition against Egypt, the
warriors refused to fight, and Sethos was in great distress. But the gods
sent field-mice against the hostile army which was encamped at 1 Yin-nun.
and the mice gnawed the bows and all the leather trappings of the enemy,
so that on the following day they could easily be defeated by the Egyptian
artisans and merchants that had been impressed into service.
We can never be completely clear as to what did happen, especially
so long as the position of the places mentioned is not positively ascertained.
This much is established, that although Sennacherib may have exaggerated
the importance of the victory at Altaku, he did not suffer defeat at the
hands of the Egyptians. For in that case Tirhaqa would have followed
up his victory — while, as a matter of fact, he did not again interfere in
Syria for the space of thirty years — and the Egyptians would have spoken
of a victory and not of a miracle. It is much more likely that it was some
natural visitation, presumably a pestilence, which compelled Sennacherib
to give up the invasion of Egypt and raise the siege of Jerusalem. There
was, however, no further hope of aid from Egypt, so Hezekiah made his
peace with the Great King and sent to his capital the heavy contribution
which could, only with great difficulty, be raised by the little city. In spite
of the half compulsory retreat, the supremacy over Syria was secured ;
during the next decades none of the petty states ventured to dream of a
revolt from the Assyrian. It was not till towards the end of his reign,
H. W. — VOL. I. N
178 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[ca. 672-663 B.C.]
after 672 B.C., thai Esarhaddon undertook a great campaign. Again had
rebellion broken out in Syria in reliance on Ethiopian support : King Baal
of Tyre had renounced his allegiance. Esarhaddon determined to find
some means of putting an end to the ever-recurring danger. Tyre was
blockaded anew, but the main army marched straight on Egypt. The
prince of the desert Arabs furnished camels, and the toilsome march from
Raphia to Pelusium was successfully accomplished. We do not know
whether Tirhaqa was in a position to offer resistance ; at all events Memphis
was taken, and the Assyrian army penetrated as far as Thebes. Tirhaqa
had to retreat to Ethiopia, and the numerous provincial princes of Egypt
submitted, and were confirmed in possession as tributary vassals. No less
than twenty of them are mentioned as being summoned to Thebes from
the Delta and the towns of Upper Egypt. The most powerful amongst
them was Neku, the lord of Sals and Memphis (according to Manetho
671-664 B.C.), whose forefathers, Stephinates and Nechepsos, had already
risen in power in Sals, and were probably the direct successors of Tefnekht
and Bocchoris (Bakenranf). At the bidding of the Assyrian king, Neku
had to change the name of Sals into Karbilmatati, " garden of the lord
of the countries " ; in the same way his son Psamthek received the Assyrian
name of Nabu-shezib-anni. From this time Esarhaddon styles himself
" King of the Kings of Misir (Lower Egypt), Patoris (Upper Egypt), and
Gush." On the 12th of Airu (April), 668 B.C., Esarhaddon laid down
the government. He set his illegitimate son Shamash-shum-ukin over
the Babylonian provinces as vice-king, while Asshurbanapal inherited the
crown of the Assyrian empire. The change of rulers encouraged Tirhaqa
to attempt to win back Egypt. Mentu-em-ha, the governor of Thebes,
hailed him as a deliverer. Memphis was also won, and in Thebes restoration
works were even taken in hand. But the success was not a lasting one ;
an army despatched by Asshurbanapal beat the Ethiopian troops, and
Tirhaqa had to fly to Thebes but did not manage to hold it (about 667
B.C.). It is true that several Egyptian princes, Neku, Pakruru of Pisept,
and Sarludari of Tanis (Pelusium), now attempted to overthrow the rule
of the foreigner and bring back Tirhaqa : but the Assyrian generals antici-
pated them ; Neku and Sharludari were taken and the rebel towns severely
punished. In Neku, Asshurbanapal hoped to be able to win a firm support
for his rule, and presumably on information of warlike preparations in
Ethiopia, he released him from his captivity with rich presents and re-in-
stated him in his principality.
In the year 664-663 Tirhaqa died ; he was succeeded by his step-son
Tanut-Amen, who was already advanced in years. A dream which promised
him the double crown, induced him, so he states in an inscription, to lead
his army from Napata against Egypt in the very beginning of his reign.
At Thebes he encountered no resistance ; before Memphis the enemy's
troops were beaten and the town taken. In one of these engagements
Neku, the most powerful of the Assyrian vassals, probably met his death :
Herodotus relates that he was slain by the Ethiopian king, and according to
Manetho he died 663 B.C. On the other hand, the attempt to conquer
the towns of the Delta was unsuccessful : but some of the vassals, including
Pakruru of Pisept, presented themselves at the court at Memphis. Tanut-
Amen's inscription tells only of the long theological discourses which the
king held before them, and how, after having been well entertained, each
returned to his own town. Silence is preserved as to the sequel ; from
Asshurbanapal's annals we learn that the feeble prince, who was completely
THE PERIOD OF DECAY 170
[663-«55 B.C.]
under the dominion of theological fancies, evacuated the country before the
Assyrian army without striking a blow, and returned to hi/ own land
This terminated the Ethiopian rule for all time (about 662 B c V The!
fell again into the hands of the Assyrians and rich booty was carried to
Nineveh. The memory of the retreat of the Ethiopians was preserved down
f ?v wJk? • ; thf priests told Her°dotus that Shabak, the representative
ol the Ethiopian rule, had voluntarily evacuated Egypt after a reijrn of fifty
years, in consequence of a dream. It is true that they omitted to mention
that as a result of this the country fell into the hands of the Assyrians
Lhe following table will assist the reader in straightening out the
dynasties of this much confused period.
TABLE OF CONTEMPORANEOUS DYNASTIES
Dates
XXIInd Uynuty
XXIIIrd Dyna«ty
XXIVth DyoMty
XXVth Dynuty
B.C.
Bubastites
(From monuments
at Memphis)
Tanites
(From Manetho)
Sa'ites
Ethiopian*
800
1. Shashanq III (52
years)
(Perhaps 8 — of
Busiris, of Piankhi
Stele)
Petasebast
«75
2. Pamai (at least 2
Uasarken III
Tefnekht
Piankhi I
years)
(Perhaps P — of
Busiris, of Piaukhi
Stele)
(King of Bubastls
according to Piankhi
Stele)
(Prince of Sai» ac-
cording to Piaukbi
Stele)
3. Shashanq IV (at
Psamus
780
least 37 years)
(About 771-735)
Predecessor of Boc-
choris (Baken-
(According to The-
ban monuments)
Zet
4. Bocchoris
(of Manetho, or
Kaohta
(Husband of She-
penapet, daughter
of King Uaaarken
ranf)
(Total duration of
Bakenrauf, from
[III ?] )
725
this dynasty accord-
ing to Africanus, 89
years. 823-73S B.C.)
the Memphis mon-
uments) ruled, ac-
cording to Africa-
niis, 6 years, 734-
726 ; according to
Eusebius, 44 yean,
5. Shabak
(728-717 [Mane-
tho] ; brother o f
Amenirltis, wife of
Piankhi II)
772-T29 [?] )
6. Shabatakh
(716-709 [Mane-
700
XXVIth Dynasty.
tho])
'. Tirhaqa
Sa'ites
(Figures accord-
ing to Mauetho)
(704-664; only to
685 [Manetho])
Tanut-Araen
675
Stephinates, 684-687
Nechepsos, 677-672
(664 -86S: reigned
12ye»r»[Manet£o])
Neku I, 671-4)64
8. Psamthek 1, 663-610
(Psamthek I be-
•
came king of all
Egypt about 655)
The numbers 1, 2, etc., show the direct succession of the recognised legitimate Pharaohs.'*
CHAPTER VIII. THE CLOSING SCENES
[DYNASTIES XXVI-XXXI: 655-332 B.C.]
And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in
Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away
her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down. They
also that uphold Egypt shall fall ; and the pride of her power shall
come down : from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword,
eaith the Lord God. And they shall be desolate in the midst of the
countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the
cities that are wasted. — Ezekiel xxx. 4, 6, 7.
A GEE AT nation in its time of decline does not sink into utter insignifi-
cance without making spasmodic efforts at recuperation. Such efforts were
made by Egypt in the XXVIth Dynasty, when there sat upon the throne
of Egypt several monarchs who recalled something of the days of yore.
Notable among these were Psamthek I (Psammetichus) and Aahmes II,
under whose beneficent rule Egypt was voluntarily opened up to commerce
with the outside world. These rulers built no lasting monuments comparable
to the Pyramids or the Labyrinth, and attempted no conquests like those of
Tehutimes and Ramses. But their reigns were marked by a period of national
prosperity such as had not been known in Egypt for several centuries ; and
they were also notable because at this time the first recorded observations
that have come down to us were made by foreigners regarding Egyptian
history and the Egyptian people. We shall, therefore, consider some details
of this dynasty before passing on to a brief consideration of the reign of the
Persians in Egypt and an even briefer analysis of the remaining dynasties.
In this sweeping view more than three hundred years are covered. During
this period the centres of world-historic influence are shifted from Assyria to
Babylonia ; from Babylonia to Persia ; and thence to Greece ; but never
again does Egypt occupy her old position. Her reminiscent glory only
serves to make her the more coveted as a conqueror's prize. But first there
is the bright spot of Psamthek's reign.a
PSAMTHEK
It was no longer the time of Tehutimes and Ramses. It was the turn of
Egypt to be enslaved, now by the "vile race of the Cushites," now by the
180
THE CLOSING SCENES 181
[685 B.C.]
"vile race of the Kheta." The Egyptian monuments, which register only
victories, would not have sufficed to make known to us the history of this
troubled epoch ; it is only since the Assyrian inscriptions have been deci-
phered that we have been able to learn of the double conquest of Egypt by
Kings Esarhaddon and Asshurbanapal.
The princes of the Delta received investiture from these Asiatic con-
querors, for whom they had perhaps less aversion than for the Ethiopian
kings. Twice, however, was Egypt reconquered by Tirhaqa and by his suc-
cessor, Tanut-Amen. But all these successive invasions had broken the
bond which attached the nomes to the national unity ; all that remained was
an Egypt parcelled out like feudal Europe after the invasion of the Northmen.
The princes of the South continued to recognise the authority of the
Ethiopian Dynasty ; those of the Delta, to the number of twelve, formed a
sort of federation which the Greek authors call the Dodecarchy. But at the
end of fifteen years, the prince of Sals, Psamthek, became an object of suspi-
cion to his colleagues. Herodotus tells us the occasion.
" At the very commencement of their reign, an oracle had foretold to
them that he amongst them who should make libations in the temple of
Hephaistos (Ptah) with a brazen cup, would have the empire of all
Egypt. Some time later, as they were on the point of making libations,
after having offered sacrifices in the temple, the high priest presented them
with cups of gold ; but he made a mistake in the number, and instead of
twelve cups, he only brought eleven for the twelve kings. Then Psammet-
ichus [Psamthek], who happened to be in the first rank, took his helmet,
which was of bronze, and used it for the libations. The other kings, reflect-
ing on his action and on the oracle, and recognising that he had not acted
from premeditated design, thought that it would be unjust to put him to
death ; but they despoiled him of the greater part of his power, and relegated
him to the marshes, forbidding him to leave them or to keep up any corre-
spondence with the rest of Egypt.
" Smarting under this outrage, and resolved to avenge himself on the
authors of his exile, he sent to Buto to consult the oracle of Leto, the
most veracious of the Egyptian oracles. Answer was returned that he
would be avenged by men of bronze, coming from the sea. At first he could
not persuade himself that men of bronze could come to his aid ; but a short
time after, some Ionian and Carian pirates, being obliged to put into Egypt,
came on shore clothed in bronze armour. An Egyptian ran to carry the
news to Psammetichus, and as this Egyptian had never seen men armed in
such a manner, he told them that men of bronze, coming from the sea, were
pillaging the countryside. The king, perceiving that the oracle was accom-
plished, made alliance with the lonians and Carians, and engaged them by
large promises to take his part. With these auxiliary troops and the Egyp-
tians who had remained faithful to him, he dethroned the eleven kings.'
Upper Egypt submitted without resistance, and the names of the Ethiopian
kings were struck off the Theban monuments. They seem, however, to have
retained some partisans, for Psamthek espoused a wife of their race, the
means employed by each dynasty to legitimatise its usurpation. He recom-
pensed his auxiliaries by giving them territories near the Pelusiac mouth of
the Nile, and made them his guard of honour. This was not an innovation;
for a long time the kings of Egypt had been wont to take foreigners into
their pay, and there is no doubt that there were in the native army many
soldiers of Libyan or Ethiopian race ; but they were annoyed at the favour
shown the newcomers, and emigrated into Ethiopia to the number of two
182 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[655-612 B.C.]
hundred thousand men. Psamthek tried to detain them by appealing to
their patriotism, but they struck their lances on their shields and answered
that so long as they had arms they would find their own country wherever
they chose to establish themselves.
This wholesale desertion was a benefit to Egypt, which it thus relieved
from military rule. Conquests lead to inevitable reprisals. Armies, like all
privileged classes, end by becoming corrupted, and then, useless in the face
of the enemy, they become a heavy burden and an instrument of civil war.
Psamthek had no reason to regret these soldiers, who had been unable to
repel foreign invasion.
The labours of peace repaired the recent disasters ; the temples were
rebuilt ; the arts shone with a new brilliancy ; the whole activity of the nation
was turned towards commerce and industry. Psamthek inaugurated a new
policy by opening the country to foreigners.
" He received those who visited Egypt with hospitality," says Diodorus ;
"he was the first of the Egyptian kings to open markets to other nations,
and to give great security to navigators."
The Greeks, who had helped to conquer the throne, were particularly
favoured. Encouraged by the example of the Ionian and Carian adventurers
whose services he had paid so well, some Milesian colonists anchored thirty
ships at the entrance of the Bolbitinic mouth of the Nile, and there founded
a fortified trading establishment. To facilitate commercial relations for the
future, Psamthek confided some Egyptian children to the Greeks established
in Egypt, that they might learn Greek, and thus arose those interpreters who
formed a distinct class in the towns of the Delta. It even appears, accord-
ing to Diodorus, that Psamthek had his own children taught Greek. The
intercourse of the Greeks with the Egyptians became from that time so con-
stant that from the reign of Psammetichus, says Herodotus, we know with
certainty all that passed in that country.
The accession of Psamthek and the XXVIth Dynasty is fixed at the year
655 before the Christian era, and it is only from this period that we have
certain dates for, the history of Egypt. The complete chronology of the
XXVIth Dynasty has been recovered in the monuments of the tomb of Apis,
discovered by Mariette Bey, in the excavation of the Serapeum of Memphis,
and now in the Louvre. This chronology differs somewhat sensibly from
that which it had been possible to draw up from Manetho's lists, so that we
are, says De Rouge, obliged to distrust figures preserved in those lists, which
a few years ago were regarded as an infallible criterion. An attempt has
been made to restore to them the credit they had lost as an instrument of
chronology, by attaching to them an undisputed synchronism. According
to the calculation of M. Biot, a rising of the star Sothis (Sirius), indicated
at Thebes under Ramses III, towards the commencement of the XXth
Dynasty, would fall at the beginning of the thirteenth century B.C.
Psamthek had his reign dated from the death of Tirhaqa (664), with'out
taking the Dodecarchy into account, and this is doubtless the reason why
Herodotus gives him fifty-four years' reign, although in reality he reigned
only forty-four. He had built the southern pylon of the temple of Ptah
at Memphis, and a peristyle court where the Apis bull was fed. The walls
were covered with bas-reliefs, and colossi, twelve ells high, took the place of
columns ; these were probably caryatides like those which are seen at Thebes
and Abu Simbel. These structures have disappeared, like all the other
buildings of Memphis. The only monuments of the reign of Psamthek which
still exist are the twelve columns, twenty-one metres (about sixty-nine feet)
THE CLOSING SCENES IK;
[612-594 B.C.]
liiijli, whose ruins are seen in the first court of the temple of Karnak, where
they formed a double rank. One only of these columns is still upright. It
is not known whether they were raised to form the centre avenue of a hypo-
style hall like that of Seti, or whether they were intended to bear symbolic
images which served the Egyptians as military ensigns, such as the ram,
the ibis, the sparrow-hawk, the jackal, etc.
Psamthek and his successors, though not residing at Thebes, restored its
monuments and repaired the disasters of the Assyrian invasion. In the
Louvre and the British Museum there are numerous sculptures of the Sa'itic
epoch, which is one of the grand epochs of Egyptian art .
In the reign of Psamthek, the Scythians, driving the Cimmerians before
them, had invaded Asia and were threatening Egypt. Psamthek preferred
to buy their retreat by a money payment, rather than expose the country to
the danger of invasion, and the barbarians retraced their steps northward.
But in order to protect Egypt on the northeast, it was necessary to have a
foothold in Palestine, and Psamthek therefore laid siege to the town of
Ashdod.
EGYPTIAN BIBM
(From the monument!)
This siege, says Herodotus, lasted twenty-nine years, but perhaps, as M.
Maspero thinks, Herodotus' interpreters meant to say that the taking of
Ashdod took place in the twenty-ninth year of Psamthek's reign. His son,
Neku II, who succeeded him in 612, desiring to profit by the changes which
had supervened in Asia, and to re-establish the dominion of Egypt, gave
battle to the Jews and Syrians near Megiddo. Josiah, king of Judah, was
killed, his son Jehoahaz, whom the Jews had proclaimed king, was dethroned
by Neku, who put in his place Eliakim, another son of Josiah, and remained
master of all Syria. But he soon found a redoubtable adversary in front of
him, for the kingdom of Babylon had succeeded to that of Nineveh. Beaten
by Nebuchadrezzar at Carchemish on the banks of the Euphrates, Neku lost
all his conquests and returned precipitately to Egypt.
His name remains connected with an enterprise more important than
his military expeditions. Two kings of the XlXth Dynasty, Seti I and
Ramses II, had had a canal of communication dug between the eastern
branch of the Nile and the Red Sea. But whether it was that this canal
had not been finished, or that it was blocked up by the sands, Neku desired
to restore it. The canal began a little above Bubastis. According to
Herodotus, a hundred and twenty thousand workmen perished in digging
it, and Neku had it discontinued in consequence of an oracle, which warn*
him that he was labouring for the barbarians; an oracle which wa
accomplished, for the canal was finished by the Persians.
day, when it was desired to open direct communication between
Sea and the Mediterranean, the operations were begun with the resto
of Neku's canal, to supply fresh water for the workmen who wei
the maritime canal.
184 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[728-612 B.C.]
After abandoning his project, Neku conceived another which might have
had still more important consequences. He sent some Phoenician sailors to
make a voyage of circumnavigation round Africa.*
"The Phoenicians," says Herodotus,* "having embarked on the Ery-
thraean Sea, sailed into the Southern Sea. As the autumn was come they
landed on that part of Libya at which they found themselves, and sowed corn.
They then awaited the time of the harvest, and having gathered it again
took to the sea. Having voyaged thus for two years, in the third year they
doubled the pillars of Heracles and, returning to Egypt, related what I do
not believe, but which others may perhaps credit ; that whilst sailing round
Libya they had the sun on their right."
Psamthek was well known to classic writers under the name Psammetichus.
The old historian Diodorus picturesquely tells of his accession. We prefer to
quote the old translation of Booth, 1700.
THE GOOD KING SABACH [SHABAK] AND PSAMMETICHUS
"After a long time, one Sabach an Ethiopian came to the Throne,
going beyond all his Predecessors in his Worship of the Gods, and
kindness to his Subjects. Any Man may judge and have a clear Evidence
of his gentle Disposition in this, that when the Laws pronounced the severest
Judgment (I mean Sentence of Death) he chang'd the Punishment, and
made an Edict that the Condemn'd Persons should be kept to work in
the Towns in Chains, by whose Labour he rais'd many Mounts, and made
many Commodious Canals ; conceiving by this means he should not only
moderate the severity of the Punishment, but instead of that which was
unprofitable, advance the publick Good, by the Service and Labours of the
Condemn'd.
" A Man may likewise judge of his extraordinary Piety from his Dream,
and his Abdication of the Government ; for the Tutelar God of Thebes,
seem'd to speak to him in his Sleep, and told him that he could not long
reign happily and prosperously in Egypt, except he cut all the Priests in
Pieces, when he pass'd through the midst of them with his Guards and Ser-
vants ; which Advice being often repeated, he at length sent for the Priests
from all parts, and told them that if he staid in Egypt any longer, he found
that he should displease God, who never at any time before by Dreams or
Visions commanded any such thing. And that he would rather be gone and
lose his Life, being pure and innocent, than displease God, or enjoy the
Crown of Egypt, by staining his Life with the horrid Murder of the Innocent.
" And so at length giving up the Kingdom into the Hands of the People,
he return'd into Ethiopia. Upon this there was an Anarchy for the space
of Two Years ; but the People falling into Tumults and intestine Broyls
and Slaughters one of another, Twelve of the chief Nobility of the Kingdom
joyn'd in a Solemn Oath, and then calling a Senate at Memphis, and making
some Laws for the better directing and cementing of them in mutual peace
and fidelity, they took upon them the Regal Power and Authority.
" After they had govern'd the Kingdom very amicably for the space of Fifteen
Years, (according to the Agreement which they had mutually sworn to observe)
they apply'd themselves to the building of a Sepulcher, where they might all
lye together ; that as in their Life-time they had been equal in their Power
and Authority, and had always carried it with love and respect one towards
another ; so after Death (being all bury'd together in one Place) they might
continue the Glory of their Names in one and the same Monument.
THE CLOSING SCENES IRS
[655-B12 B.C.]
" To this end they made it their business to excel all their Predecessors in
the greatness of their Works: For near the Lake of Myris in Lybia, they
built a tour-square Monument of Polish'd Marble, every square a Furlong
m length, for curious Carvings and other pieces of Art, not to be equall'
by any that should come after them. When you are enter'd within the
Wall, there s presented a stately Fabrick, supported round with Pillars.
Forty on every side : The Roof was of one intire Stone, whereon was curi-
ously carv d Racks and Mangers for Horses, and other excellent pieces of
Workmanship, and painted and adorn'd with divers sorts of Pictures and
Images ; where likewise were portray'd the Resemblances of the Kings, the
Temples, and the Sacrifices in most beautiful Colours. And such was the
Cost and Stateliness of this Sepulcher, begun by these Kings, that (if they
had not been dethron'd before it was perfected) none ever after could have
exceeded them in the state and magnificence of their Works. But after
they had reign'd over Egypt Fifteen Years, all of them but one lost their
Sovereignty in the manner following.
"Psammeticus Saites [Psamthek I], one of the Kings, whose Province
was upon the Sea Coasts, traffickt with all sorts of Merchants, and especially
with the Phenicians and Grecians ; by this means inriching his Province, by
vending his own Commodities, and the importation of those that came from
Greece, he not only grew very wealthy, but gain'd an interest in the Nations
and Princes abroad ; upon which account he was envy'd by the rest of the
Kings, who for that reason made War upon him. Some antient Historians
tell a Story, That these Princes were told by the Oracle, That which of them
should first pour Wine out of a brazen Viol to the God ador'd at Memphis,
should be sole Lord of all Egypt. Whereupon Psammeticua when the
Priest brought out of the Temple Twelve Golden Viols, pluckt off his Hel-
met, and pour'd out a Wine Offering from thence ; which when his Collegues
took notice of, they forbore putting him to death, but depos'd him, and ban-
ish'd him into the Fenns, bordering upon the Sea-Coasts.1
" Whether therefore it were this, or Envy as is said before, that gave Birth to
this Dissention and Difference amongst them, it's certain Psammeticus hir'd
Souldiers out of Arabia, Caria and Ionia, and in a Field-Fight near the City
Moniemphis, he got the day. Some of the Kings of the other side were
slain, and the rest fled into Africa, and were not able further to contend for
the Kingdom.
" Psammeticus having now gain'd possession of the whole, built a Portico
to the East Gate of the Temple at Memphis, in honour of that God,
and incompass'd the Temple with a Wall, supporting it with Colosses of
Twelve Cubits high in the room of Pillars. He bestow'd likewise upon
his Mercenary Souldiers many large Rewards over and above their Pay
promis'd them."c
To return to later and less credulous historians, it will be well to note
a more authoritative account of this period.
THE RESTORATION IN EGYPT
When Asshurbanapal again subjected the petty princes of Egypt, he had
favoured none so much as Neku I of Sais. The latter had fallen in battle
against Tanut-Amen ; his son Psamthek had sought refuge with the As-
syrians and had been brought back to his dominions by them. As soon as
[' Herodotus tells the story somewhat differently.]
186
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[655-612 B.C.]
circumstances allowed, he threw off the Assyrian yoke, as his father had
done before him. At the same time he took up the task begun by Tef-
nekht, his predecessor and courageous ancestor, of suppressing the petty
princes and uniting Egypt. King Gyges
of Lydia sent him auxiliaries; they were
the Carian and Ionian troops, which, ac-
cording to Herodotus, landed in Egypt
one day and were employed by Psamthek
against his rivals. Soon the first mercena-
ries were followed by others; they formed
the backbone of the king's army.
What took place in the individual fights
is not known ; that is, we have no know-
ledge of the battles with the Assyrians. But
about the year 655 the object was obtained,
Egypt freed and united. So as to establish
his rule safely, the king married Shepenapet,
daughter of Queen Ameniritis.
The chief opponents of the new ruler
were doubtless the mercenaries organised
as a warrior caste, the Ma, who had shared
the land under the Ethiopian and Assyrian
supremacy. Herodotus relates that 240,000
warriors "who stood to the left of the king"
had wandered to Ethiopia, under Psamthek,
since for three years they were not relieved
in the garrisons ; the king, who hastened
after them, could not persuade them to
return. Although the recital is legendary
with regard to the immense number, the
fact fits in clearly with the history of the
times that a considerable number of the war-
rior caste, who would not submit to the new
circumstances, should have left the land,
been taken up by the king of Napata and
colonised the valley of the Upper Nile.
It has already been mentioned that Psamthek, so as to protect himself
against the renewed invasion of the Assyrians, also turned to Asia. As
Aahmes I, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, invested Sherohan in Pales-
tine, so for twenty-nine years Psamthek took the field against Ashdod, until
he conquered the town. His power does not seem to have extended farther
south than the First Cataract. His grandson, Psamthek II, first took the
field against Ethiopia. To his time probably belong the inscriptions which
Greek, Carian, and Phoenician soldiers have inscribed on the colossi of the
temples of Abu Simbel in their mother tongues. Southern Nubia did not
remain long conquered. The three strong border fortresses of Elephantine
in the south, Daphne in the east, and Marea in the west, essentially deter-
mine the limits of Egyptian power.
The new state, in which, after some two hundred years of anarchy, the
kingdom of the Pharaohs was again established, was only partly national.
The dynasty was, as the name teaches, not of Egyptian origin, but in all
probability Libyan. The troops which the princes of Sais could raise were
doubtless for the greater part Libyans, and the particular characteristic was
EGYPTIAN MUMMY-CASK
THE CLOSING SCENES 187
[612-WW B.C.]
due to the mercenaries who had come across the sea. In future days
the lonians and Carians who were colonised in the "camps" between Bubastis
and Pelusium, on that most dangerous east border of the land, were the chief
support of the throne ; under Uah-ab-Ra [Apries] their number increased
to thirty thousand men.
Thus from the beginning the kings of the restoration, like the Ptolemies,
held a much freer position, which raised them far above their prede-
cessors. They, manifestly with intention, held Sais as residence, although
Memphis was honoured as the oldest capital, and structures were built on
the ruins of ancient Thebes. With full knowledge they carried on a con-
siderable commerce. Psamthek's son, Neku II (612-596), began to build a
canal from the Nile to the Red Sea ; he sent out a Phoenician fleet to circum-
navigate Africa, which returned to the Mediterranean three years after its
departure from Suez. A fleet was maintained on the Arabian as well as in
the Mediterranean Sea.
With the Greeks, who in earlier times came to Egypt only as pirates or
were driven there by storm, but now sought to draw all the coasts of the Med-
iterranean into their commerce, active negotiations were taken up. From
trading with them arose the numerous caste of the interpreters. Neku II
sends oblations to Brandichae ; to his son, Psamthek II, there came an embassy
from Elis ; the Egyptian divinities begin to become known to the Greeks :
whilst amongst Asiatics closely related to the culture and customs of the
Egyptians there reigned active negotiation and a reciprocal influence, the
Hellenes, of quite other disposition and more active in commerce, remained
strangers to the Egyptians. They were met with suspicion, and restrictions
were laid upon them. Aahmes was the first to assign them a place in
Naucratis, south of Sals, where they gained influence and property and could
organise themselves as an independent community, but the Greek mer-
chants were forbidden to navigate in any other branch of the Nile.
Internally the XXVIth Dynasty in every sense bears the stamp of resto-
ration. The end of a formidable crisis had come, and the endeavour was
made to re-establish conditions as they were conceived to have been of old —
that is to say — to introduce the abstract ideal.
Therefore the Egyptians held themselves more aloof from the strangers,
most carefully observing all laws as to cleanliness ; the god of the strangers
and hostile powers, the till-now-honoured Set, was cast out of the Pantheon,
his name and image effaced everywhere : also the divinities taken up from
the Syrian neighbours, such as Astarte and Anata, completely disappeared.
In religion they turned back to the oldest laws ; the dead formulas of the
tombs of the Pyramids were revived, the worship of the early kings of
Memphis, Sneferu, Khufu, Sahu-Ra, was again taken up.
The art of this period is throughout archaic, constituting a period of
efflorescence distinguished by excellence and neatness of the forms, but
wanting in all originality. In writing, the endeavour is made as far as
possible to imitate the old models. Naturally in this manner the relative
simplicity and naturalness of the olden times was not reached ; the heritage
of a thousand years' development, the endless magic and formal ritual
with its wearying system and its dead phrases, is carefully preserved and
ever increased. If, according to Greek reports, the Egyptians believed
in the transmigration of souls after death into the body of another being, anc
that, after having gone through all the animals of land and sea and air, they
returned to human form after three thousand years, this doctrine, which i
nowhere to be found in manuscripts left to us, may have arisen at this tune
188 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[596-572 B.C.]
from their view of conditions after death and the consubstantiality of all
life. That Egypt which the Greeks learnt to know was a well-preserved
mummy of primitive times and served to impress them by its uniqueness
and its age, and individually to stimulate, but was no more in a position to
awaken a new life.
In the social domain, if we can believe the reports of the Greeks, the
separation of classes was brought about. The priesthood was an exclusive
caste, and their dignity was hereditary ; next to them come the completely
exclusive warrior class, consisting of the successors of the Ma, divided into
the Calasirians and Hermotybiaus. Priests as well as warriors are exempt
from taxes and in possession of a great part of the agricultural land, which
they hire out to peasants for large sums of money. The remaining part of
the soil is royal dominion. Far below the privileged classes stands the
mass of the people, the labourers, manufacturers, merchants, finally the shep-
herds of the Delta, of Semitic descent, and the inhabitants of the Delta
living on fisheries of the swamps, both of which are considered unclean
in Egypt. In theory the principle may also be set down here that every
class forms a decided caste ; that this was not practically carried through is
taught us by the report of Herodotus, II, 147, that the Shepherd race, being
unclean, could marry only within itself. From which we may infer that
other castes were permitted to intermarry.^
THE PERSIAN CONQUEST AND THE END OP EGYPTIAN AUTONOMY
With the XXVIth Dynasty the curtain was practically drawn for all time
on Egyptian autonomy. The recurrent struggle between Asia and Africa
was renewed with disastrous consequences to the people of the Nile. We
have here to do with the Persian conquest, and in particular with the deeds
of Cambyses.
Neku reigned six years according to Manetho, sixteen according to
Herodotus, and this latter figure is confirmed by two steles at Florence and
Leyden. His son, Psamthek II, whom Herodotus calls Psammis (596),
reigned six years and died on his return from an expedition into Ethiopia.
It was probably during this expedition that some Greek and Phoenician sol-
diers carved their names on the leg of one of the colossi of Abu-Simbel.
In the reign of Uah-ab-Ra, the Apries of the Greeks (591), Syria and
Palestine were the theatre of important events. The petty people of these
countries, threatened by the Chaldean power, tried to save their indepen-
dence by the help of Egypt.
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, first turned his forces against the
kingdom of Judah, which succumbed in spite of Egypt's tardy and ineffi-
cient intervention. Jerusalem was taken, and the people led away to captiv-
ity. The Jewish prophets, in their anger against Egypt, announced for it
the fate of Judah, and, if we are to believe Josephus, these predictions were
accomplished ; for Nebuchadrezzar is said to have defeated and killed
Uah-ab-Ra and subdued Egypt. But Herodotus and Diodorus say nothing
of this defeat, and speak, on the contrary, of a naval victory of Apries over
the Phoenicians and Cypriotes. M. Kenan's explorations have brought to
light the ruins of a temple raised by the Egyptians at Gebel, a fact which
seems to indicate that they remained masters of the country.
Uah-ab-Ra undertook to subdue the Greek colony of Gyrene, and, as it
would not have been prudent to oppose his Greek auxiliaries to a people of
the same race, he employed only native troops on this expedition, which was
THE CLOSING SCENES 189
[S72-S28 B.C.]
an unfortunate one. The Egyptian soldiers, believing he had undertaken it
solely in order to get rid of them, revolted. To appease them, Uah-ab-Ra smt
an officer named Aahmes, whose good nature pleased the soldiers. As he
was speaking to them, one of them put a helmet on his head, and there was a
cry that they ought to make him their king. He did not wait to be per-
suaded, and immediately put himself at the head of the rebels.
Uah-ab-Ra, learning this, gave orders to one of those who remained faithful
to him to bring Aahmes to him, dead or alive. The envoy received only a
very coarse answer, and when he returned, the king had his nose and ears cut
off. The indignant Egyptians instantly went over to Aahmes. Uah-ab-Ra
at the head of his Carian and Ionian mercenaries, to the number of thirty
thousand, marched against the rebels, who were far more numerous. He was
beaten and led back, a prisoner, into the palace which had been his. Aahmes
at first treated him with consideration, but the Egyptians insisted that he
should be delivered up to them, and strangled. He had reigned twenty
years. Aahmes had him buried in the tomb of his ancestors, and espoused a
daughter of Psamthek II in order to graft himself on the Saitic Dynasty.
Aahmes II, though he had become king by a reaction of the national
party against the foreigner, nevertheless showed himself still more favour-
able to the Greeks than his predecessors had been. He permitted them to
establish themselves at Naucratis, on the Canopic branch of the Nile, and to
raise temples to their gods. One of these temples, the Hellenion, was built
at the public expense by the principal Greek towns in Asia. Particular
temples were consecrated to Apollo by the Milesians, to Hera by the Sami-
ans, and to Zeus by the JEginians. Aahmes sent his statue to several
towns in Greece, and when the temple of Delphi was destroyed by fire, he
desired to contribute to the subscription opened for its reconstruction, and
offered a talent of alum from Egypt. He entered into an alliance with the
Cyrenaeans, and married one of the daughters of the country ; he also allied
himself with Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, and with Croesus, king of the
Lydians. He made no war except against the Cypriotes, whom he subjected
to a tribute. He chiefly occupied himself, as Psamthek had done, in devel-
oping the trade of Egypt. Like him he erected monuments at Sals and
Memphis, which are no longer in existence, but of which Herodotus speaks
with admiration. There is at the Louvre a monolithic chapel in pink
granite, which dates from the reign of Aahmes, and the British Museum
possesses the sarcophagus of one of his wives, Queen Ankhnes, who long
resided at Thebes. It is believed that the hypogees of Assassif, near Gur-
nah, belong to the Saitic epoch. There is one of them which, in extent and
richness, yields to none of the tombs of Biban-el-Moluk. This is the tomb
of a high priest who was at the same time a royal functionary.
Aahmes was nothing more than a soldier of fortune, ana it appears that
the ceremonious etiquette of the ancient kings of Egypt wearied him.
When he had employed his morning in administering justice, he passed the
rest of the time at table with his friends. Certain courtiers represented
to him that he was compromising his dignity. He answered that a bow-
string could not always be stretched. At the beginning of his reign the ob-
scurity of his birth made him despised. Perceiving this, he had melted a
gold basin, in which he used to wash his feet, made from it the golden statue
of a god and offered it to the public veneration.
" Thus it was with me," he said ; " I was a plebeian, now I am your king;
render me, then, the honour and respect which are due me." The people
understood the allegory, and ended by becoming attached to this sensible
190 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[572-525 B.C.]
man, who took his trade of king seriously. It was from him, according to
Herodotus, that the Athenians borrowed their famous law against idleness.
" He ordered each Egyptian to declare to the nomarch, every year, what
were his means of subsistence. He who did not comply with the law, or
could not prove that he lived by honest means, was punished with death.
Solon, the Athenian, borrowed this law from Egypt, and established it in
Athens, where it is still in force, because it is a wise one and no fault can be
found with it."
Herodotus says that Egypt was never happier or more flourishing than
in the reign of Aahmes, and that there were then in that country twenty
thousand well-peopled towns or villages.
All this prosperity was to disappear in one day, for Egypt was about to
founder like Nineveh and Jerusalem and Sardis and Babylon, without previ-
ous decay, in one of those sudden and overwhelming storms which sweep
monarchies away.
A new empire had just arisen in Asia. Persia had absorbed Media
and subdued Chaldea and Asia Minor. Lydia had succumbed so quickly
that Aahmes had not been able to succour his ally, Croasus. Cyrus, the
founder of the Persian Empire, left Egypt in peace, and she took good care
not to stir ; but his son Cambyses felt the need of aggrandising his states,
and as in default of reasons wars never lack pretexts, here is the one he gave,
or which was perhaps invented as an afterthought.
It was said that Cyrus had asked Aahmes to send him the best physician
for diseases of the eye, to be found in his dominion. This physician wished
to avenge himself on the king of Egypt, who had torn him from the arms of
his wife and children to send him into Persia. He persuaded Cambyses to
demand the daughter of Aahmes, counting on a refusal, which would not fail
to be considered as an insult. Aahmes knew well that Cambyses would not
make his daughter a queen, but a slave of the harem ; he sent a daughter of
Uah-ab-Ra. The latter disclosed the ruse to the king of Persia, and demanded
of him to avenge her father, whose murderer Aahmes had been. Cambyses
flew into a violent rage and resolved to carry war into Egypt.
A desert that an army could not cross in less than three days' march
protected Egypt on the side of Asia. Following the advice of Phanes, a
Greek officer and deserter from the Egyptian army, Cambyses secured for
himself the alliance of the Arab king, who stationed camels laden with
skins full of water, all along the route the Persians were to follow. The
town of Pelusium, which was the key of Egypt, was besieged by Cambyses.
Polyaenus relates that he caused dogs, cats, and ibises to be collected, and
placed them in front of his army ; the Egyptians dared not fly their arrows
for fear of hitting the sacred animals, and the town was taken without resist-
ance. Aahmes had just died, after a reign of forty-four years (528). His
son, Psamthek III, the Psammenitus of Herodotus, came to meet the enemy.
The Greek and Carian mercenaries in the pay of the king of Egypt, learn-
ing the treason of Phanes, their former chief, revenged themselves on his
children.
" They led them into the camp," says Herodotus, " and, having placed a
mixing bowl between the two armies, they cut their throats under the eyes
of their father, mingled their blood with wine and water in the bowl, and,
when all the auxiliaries had drunk, rushed into battle."
It was fierce and bloody ; many perished on either side ; but at last the
Egyptians had the worst of it and fled in disorder to Memphis. Cambyses
summoned the town to surrender ; the crowd destroyed the Mytilenean
THE CLOSING SCENES 191
[525 B.r.]
vessel which carried the ambassadors, massacred those who manned it, and
dragged their limbs through the citadel. The town was taken, and Psam-
thek brought before the conqueror. He had reigned only six months.
THE ATROCITIES OF CAMBYSES
Cambyses treated him with the utmost severity, and had him led before the
town, together with some other Egyptians.
" The king's daughter," says Herodotus, " was clad as a slave and sent,
pitcher in hand, in search of water, with several other young girls of rank.
They passed, weeping, in front of their captive fathers, who groaned at their
humiliation. Psammeuitus [Psamthek III] saw them and lowered his eyes
towards the earth. Then Cambyses caused his son and two thousand young
men of the same age to pass before him, with cords round their necks and
bridles in their mouths. They were being led to death to avenge the Myti-
leneans slain at Memphis, for the royal judges had ordained that, for every
man killed on that occasion, ten Egyptians of the first families should be put
to death. Psammenitus saw them pass and recognised his son ; but while
the other Egyptians round him wept and lamented themselves, he preserved
the same countenance as at the sight of his daughter. When the young men
had passed, he perceived an old man who generally ate at his table. This
man, despoiled of his goods, and reduced to live on charity, was imploring
pity from the soldiers and even from Psammenitus and the Egyptian cap-
tives brought into the outskirts of the town. Psammenitus could not restrain
his tears ; he beat himself on the head and called to his friend. Three guards,
deputed to watch him, made this known to Cambyses. He was astonished
and sent a messenger to Psammenitus, who questioned him thus :
" ' Cambyses, thy master, demands wherefore, having neither wept or
groaned when thou sawest thy daughter treated as a slave and thy son march-
ing to execution, thou shouldst interest thyself in the lot of this beggar who,
from what we learn, is neither thy relative nor ally.'
" He answered, ' Son of Cyrus, the misfortunes of my house are too great
to be wept ; but the fate of a friend, once happy, and reduced to begging
in his old age, has seemed to me to deserve tears.
" This answer was reported, and appeared a just one. The Egyptians
say that Croesus, who had come into Egypt in the train of Cambyses, wept,
and the Persians who were present wept also. Even Cambyses felt some
pity. He ordered Psammenitus brought before him and his son to be with-
drawn from the number of those about to die.
" Those sent to seek the child did not find him alive ; he had been the
first struck. They made Psammenitus rise and conducted him into the pres-
ence of Cambyses. He remained in the retinue and suffered no violence. The
government of Egypt would even have been restored to him if he had not been
suspected of exciting disturbances ; for the Persians are wont to honour the
children of kings and to replace them on the thrones lost by their fathers.
But Psammenitus, having conspired, received his reward. Convicted by
Cambyses of having urged the Egyptians to revolt, he drank bull's blood and
died of it on the spot.
" From Memphis, Cambyses went on to Sals, and as soon as he had reached
the tomb of Amasis [Aahmes] he ordered the corpse to be exhumed, to be
heated with rods, to have the hair and beard torn out, to be pricked i
goads — in short, to be subjected to all sorts of outrages. The executi
soon grew tired of maltreating a lifeless body, from which they could break
192
THE HISTORY OP EGYPT
[525 B.C.]
off nothing, as it was embalmed. Then Cambyses had it burnt without any
respect of holy things. Indeed the Persians believe that fire is a god, and
it is not permitted, either by their law or by that of the Egyptians, to burn
the dead. Thus Cambyses performed on this occasion an act equally
condemned by the laws of both peoples."
In violating the tomb of the man who had usurped the throne of Egypt,
Cambyses perhaps counted on rallying the legitimists, for he thus presented
himself as the avenger and heir of Uah-ab-Ra. From the inscriptions on a
statuette in the Vatican, it appears that, in the early days of his conquest, he
avoided giving offence to the religion of the vanquished. He caused the
great temple of Nit, where some Persian troops had installed themselves, to
be evacuated, and had it repaired at his own expense. He even carried his
zeal so far as to be initiated into the mysteries of Osiris. But this apparent
and wholly political deference could not last long.
DEATH or PSAMMHNITUS [PSAMTHKK III]
The religious symbols of the Egyptians, the external forms of their wor-
ship, inspired profound aversion in the Persians, whose religion greatly
resembled the strict monotheism of the Semitic peoples. This antipathy,
which was only awaiting an opportunity to manifest itself, blazed out
after an unfortunate expedition of Cambyses against Ethiopia. Instead
of ascending the Nile as far as Napata, he had taken the shorter route
of the desert.
The provisions gave out, and his soldiers were reduced to devouring each
other. He returned, having lost many men, and then learnt the complete
destruction of another army which he had sent against the Ammonians and
which had been entombed under whirlwinds of sand. He was exasperated at
this disaster, and, as the Egyptians naturally attributed it to the vengeance
of the gods, his fury turned against the Egyptian religion.
THE CLOSLNG SCENES 193
(625 B.C.]
" From Assuan to Thebes and from Thebes to Memphis," says Marietta,
" he marked his route by ruin : the temples were devastated, the tombs of
the kings were opened and pillaged." The mummy of Queen Ankhnes, wife
of Aahmes, was torn from its sarcophagus in the depths of a funeral vault
behind the Ramesseum, and burned as that of Aahmes himself had been.
When this sarcophagus, which is now in London, was discovered by a French
officer, remains of charred bones were found in it, according to Cluunpollion
Figeac, some of them preserving traces of gilding.
" Cambyses having returned to Memphis," says Herodotus, " the god
Apis, whom the Greeks call Epaphos, manifested himself to the Egyptians.
As soon as he had shown himself, they donned their richest clothing and
made great rejoicings. Cambyses, believing that they were rejoicing at the
ill-success of his arms, called the magistrates of Memphis before him, and
asked them why, having exhibited no joy the first time that they saw him
in their town, they were exhibiting so much of it since his return and after
he had lost part of his army. They told him that their god, who was gen-
erally very long in appearing, had just manifested himself, and that the
Egyptians were accustomed to celebrate this epiphany by public festivities.
Cambyses, hearing this, said that they lied, and punished them with death
for liars. When they had been killed he sent for the priests to come into
his presence, and, having received the same answer from them, he told them
that if any god showed himself familiarly to the Egyptians, he would not
hide himself from him, and he ordered them to bring Apis to him. The
priests immediately went in search of him.
" This Apis, who is the same as Epaphos, is born of a cow which can bear
no further offspring. The Egyptians say that this cow conceives Apis by
lightning, which descends from heaven. These are the distinguishing signs
of the calf they call Apis : it is black, and bears a white square on its
forehead ; it has the figure of an eagle on its back, on its tongue that of a
beetle, and the hairs of its tail are double.
" As soon as the priest had brought Apis, Cambyses, like a maniac, drew
his sword to pierce its belly, but only struck its thigh. Then, beginning to
laugh, he said to the priests :
" ' O blockheads, are there such gods, made of flesh and blood and suscep-
tible to the stroke of steel? This god is well worthy of the Egyptians, but you
shall have no cause to rejoice for having attempted to laugh at our expense.'
" Thereupon he had them whipped by those deputed for that purpose,
and ordered such Egyptians as were found celebrating a festival to be slain.
Thus the festivities ceased and the priests were punished. Apis, wounded
in the thigh, languished, lying in the temple, aud when he was dead the
priests buried him, unknown to Cambyses. As to him, who was already
wanting in good sense, he was from that time smitten with madness, the
Egyptians say, in punishment of his crime."
Among the funeral steles of the Apis, found by Mariette in the exca-
vations of the Serapeum at Memphis, and which are now in the Egyptian
Museum at the Louvre, are two connected with the facts recounted by
Herodotus : one, whose inscription is almost illegible, contained the epitaph
of the Apis who died in the reign of Cambyses, and was born, as it seems,
in the twenty-fifth year of Aahmes. We possess, the catalogue says, his
sarcophagus, sculptured by order of Cambyses. The other is the epitaph of
the bull who died in the fourth year of Darius.
" We think," says M. de Rouge, "that this is the same Apis whom Cambyses,
in his fury, wounded when, on his return from the unfortunate Ethiopian
H. W. — VOL. I. O
194 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
[822-332 B.C.]
expedition, he found the Egyptians abandoning themselves to the rejoicings
which accompanied the festivities of the theophany of a new Apis (in 518 B.C.)."
If this be so, this Apis must have survived his wound nearly five years.
Darius wished to repair the mistakes of his predecessor, and tried to
conciliate the Egyptians. He put to death the satrap Aryandes, whose
tyranny was already provoking revolts, and, learning that the Apis had just
died, he joined in the public mourning and promised one hundred talents of
gold to whoever should find a new Apis. He visited the great temple of
Ptah and would have placed his statue there beside that of Sesostris
[Ramses II]. The priests told him that he had not yet equalled the exploits
of Sesostris, since he had not subdued the Scythians. Darius was not offended
at this exhibition of national pride ; he answered simply that if he lived as
long as Sesostris he would endeavour to equal him. He had a great temple
of Amen, whose ruins still exist, built in the oasis of Thebes. Finally,
he finished the canal of communication which Seti I and Neku II had wished
to establish between the Nile and the Red Sea. According to Diodorus, his
memory was venerated by the Egyptians, who placed him in the number of
their great legislators.
The kings of Persia who form the XXVIIth Dynasty did not, how-
ever, succeed in making themselves accepted by Egypt. They had not,
like the Shepherd kings, adopted her religion, her language, her writing, and
her manners, and therefore they were always foreigners to her. Their
dominion was rarely oppressive, and yet it was interrupted by insurrections
which always found a support in the Greek republics.
After one hundred and twenty years, Egypt recovered her independence
under three native dynasties, the XXVIIIth, the XXIXth, and the XXXth.
But she lost it sixty-four years after, through the cowardice of her king, who
fled into Ethiopia without fighting, as Meneptah had fled before the Unclean.
Egypt was a second time conquered by the Persians, and Ochus renewed the
follies and pillaging of Cambyses (340 B.C.). 6
The XXVIIIth Dynasty is regarded as consisting of one king only, since
at his death the rule passed to the princes of Mendes. This king was Amen-
rut (Amyrtseus), 405—399 B.C., son of Pausiris and grandson of that Amyr-
taeus who was the ally of Inarus of Libya. Amen-rut revolted against Persia,
and became independent on the death of Darius II.
Nia-faa-rut I, prince of Mendes (399-393), succeeded Amen-rut. He and
his successors — Haker (393-380), Psamut (380), and Nia-faa-rut II (379) —
form the XXIXth Dynasty, and continued, by the alliances with Persia's
enemies, to maintain the native rule of Egypt.
This state of affairs continued under the XXXth Dynasty, which ruled
at Sebennytus. Under the first king, Nekht-Hor-heb (Nectanebo I), the
Persians, two hundred thousand strong, made a desperate attempt, with the
help of the Greek general Iphicrates and twenty thousand of his country-
men, to invade the Delta, but Nectanebo defeated them near Mendes. This
victory secured peace and independence to Egypt for a term of years, during
which art and commerce revived.
Tachus' reign was short (364-361), and he had internal as well as exter-
nal troubles to deal with. He died an exile at the court of Artaxerxes.
Nekht-neb-ef (Nectanebo II), 361-340, brought his dynasty and the empire
of the Pharoahs, after a duration of over four thousand years, to an end by
succumbing to the Persians under Ochus (Artaxerxes III).<*
It is not surprising that, after the eight years during which this second
Persian dynasty lasted, Alexander should have been received as a liberator
THE CLOSING SCENES 19C
[co. 322 B.C.]
arid proclaimed son of Amen, that is to say, legitimate successor of the
undent kings of Egypt. The most able of his generals, Ptolemy, son of
Lagus, founded a dynasty which may, in spite of its foreign origin, be con-
sidered as national as that of the Ramessides or of the Saitic kings. Greek
influence did not make itself felt outside Alexandria. The Lagides respected
the religions and customs of Egypt, which became the most important of the
Greek kingdoms, while still preserving her original civilisation. She even
preserved it under the Roman dominion ; and if we did not read the inscrip-
tions, we could never guess that the temples of Esneh, of Edfu, of Dende-
rah, and of Philue belong to the time of the Lagides, the Csesars, and the
Antonines. Enfolded in the great Roman unity, Egypt did not regret
her independence. Alexandria was the second town of the world, the
capital of the East. The philosophic movement of which it was the seat
entered as an important factor into the elaboration of Christian dogma.
But the establishment of the new religion was the death-blow of old Egypt,
for a people is dead when it has denied its gods. The edicts of the Christian
emperors, ordering the destruction of the temples, dealt the last blow to
Egyptian art. Those monuments which were not entirely destroyed were
distorted to meet the needs of the new worship.
Then came the Mussulman conquest, which waged further war against
the ruins. Finally, in our days, the introduction of Western civilisation
into Egypt has done the monuments more harm than all the rest. When
the viceroy wishes to build a barrack or a sugar factory, he takes stones
from the temples ; it saves expense.
Thus is accomplished the sad prediction of the Egyptian philosopher
whose works bear the name of Hermes Trismegistus :
" O Egypt, Egypt, there shall remain of thy religion but vague stories
which posterity will refuse to believe, and words graven in stone recounting
thy piety. The Scythian, the Indian, or some other barbarous neighbour
shall dwell in Egypt. The Divinity shall reascend into the heaven. And
Egypt shall be a desert, widowed of men and gods."''
CHAPTER IX.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE
EGYPTIANS
If I wished to characterise in one word the peculiar bearing and rul-
ing element of the Egyptian mind — however unsatisfactory in other
respects such general designations may be — I should say that the in-
tellectual eminence of that people was in its scientific profundity — in
an understanding that penetrated or sought to penetrate by magic into
all the depths and mysteries of nature, even into their most hidden
abyss. So thoroughly scientific was the whole leaning and character
of the Egyptian mind, that even the architecture of this people had an
astronomical import, even far more than that of the other nations of
early antiquity. I have already had occasion to speak of the deep and
mysterious signification of their treatment of the dead. In all the
natural sciences, in mathematics, astronomy, and even in medicine,
they were the masters of the Greeks ; and even the profoundest thinkers
among the latter, the Pythagoreans, and afterwards the great Plato
himself, derived from them the first elements of their doctrines, or
caught at least the first outline of their mighty speculations. Here,
too, in the birthplace of hieroglyphics, was the chief seat of the mys-
teries ; and Egypt has at all times been the native country of many
true, as well as of many false, secrets. — SCHLEOKL.
CUSTOMS that differ from our own always seem strange customs. So the
Egyptians, viewed from a latter-day European or American standpoint, seem
a very strange people. And it being easy to generalise from insufficient
data, many notions regarding the Egyptians have become current which
appear not to represent that people as they really were. The more the
monuments are studied, and the closer we get to the real life of the peoples
of antiquity, the less strange these peoples appear.
Indeed, when we come to appreciate their life as it really was, it is sur-
prising how " natural " and human it all appears. Certain peculiarities there
were, to be sure, with each people and with each successive age ; but in the
broad view the peoples of the most remote antiquity are best understood if
we think of them as very similar to ourselves in the general sweep of their
feelings, desires, and thoughts. Thus, for example, we have seen that the
modern Egyptologist has quite dispelled the notion, once prevalent, that the
Egyptians were a solemn, morose people, thinking only of the life to come.
The truer view, on the other hand, appears to be that they were a peculiarly
social, pleasure-loving people. The observance of certain religious rites,
which make such an impression upon us because they differ from our own
196
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 197
customs in this regard, doubtless did not appear to them to have at all the
significance we ascribe to them.
Even in matters which seem to be most strikingly borne out by the
records of the monuments, it is easy to entertain a misconception if one
presses too closely the idea that the traits thus discovered belong exclu-
sively to a particular people. Thus in the matter of that conservatism
which is commonly spoken of as the predominant trait of the national char-
acter of the Egyptians. Conservative they surely were. But so is every
other living creature that remains long in a single unvarying habitat. The
basis of civilisation is the conservatism which leads each generation to cling
fast to the customs it had inherited. The history of customs, of language,
of religions, in short of all culture, shows how tenaciously every people, after
a certain stage, has held to the traditions of its past.
It seems as if a people, like an individual species of animal, reaches sooner
or later a state of equilibrium in regard to its environment, and will change
no further, except as the environment changes. Now in Egypt the physical
environment appears to have changed but little within historic times, and
the geographical conditions were such that the people there were afforded a
high degree of isolation from outside influences. Hence the observed slow-
ness of change in the customs of this " strange " people.
Yet, even admitting all this, one must not, as we have suggested, press the
point of Egyptian conservatism too far. The most casual glance along the line
of their history shows many notable changes in their radical customs from age
to age, even in the relatively short period open to our inspection. There
were times when great pyramids and temples were all the vogue ; other
times when they were quite ignored.
Even the custom of embalming the dead, so striking a peculiarity, was
more or less subject to fluctuating fashions.
One must bear in mind that the period of Egyptian history open to our
inspection, from the beginning of secure records till the final overthrow
and disappearance of old Egypt as a nation, was, according to an average
chronology, only about twenty-five hundred, or three thousand years. Now
it is an open question whether, for every Egyptian idea or custom that
remained even relatively fixed throughout this period, one could not find
current to-day among the most progressive nations of the world an analo-
gous idea or custom, that could prove at least as long a pedigree. To cite
but a single illustration, every civilised nation on the globe to-dav has its
whole being as closely bound up with religious observances as was the being
of the Egyptian commonwealth. And with a single exception the religious
systems in question have held sway over their subjects, substantially
unchanged, for a period as long as the entire sweep of Egyptian history
under consideration. Confucianism, Brahminism, Buddhism, Zoroastrian-
ism, Judaism, — each is hoary with the weight of something like thirty
centuries ; each had its origin in an age of superstition which we are prone
to think far inferior to our own "enlightened " time ; yet each holds its mill
ions of devotees as rigidly and as inexorably as ever Egyptian was held by
the cult of Osiris. Bearing this single illustration in mind, we shall be
able to view the Egyptian " conservatism " more truly, as an example of
a universal human trait, rather than as the peculiarity of a "strange
people.
Although we have emphasised the view that the Egyptians were
much like other peoples in their fundamental traits of character and habits,
it must not be overlooked that there is a pretty sharp line of demarcation
198 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
to be drawn between the customs of Oriental and Western nations, and that
the Egyptians were essentially Orientals.
THE POSITION OF THE KING
One of the most typical characteristics of the Oriental mind is a deference
to authority signalised in the ready acceptance of an autocratic government.
Doubtless it never occurred to any Egyptian that he might do away with kings
altogether. The conception of the king as the head of the state was so deeply
impressed on the mind of the people, that the very possibility of a state with-
out an autocratic head could scarcely be conceived.
But in reading of the extreme deference shown to the kings of Egypt,
one is likely to gain a misconception of their actual status. We have been
taught traditionally to regard the Egyptians as a meek, peace-loving people,
profoundly imbued with religious sentiments, and accustomed to look upon
their king as almost a god, and to pay him divine honours. Such indeed
was doubtless the fact as regards external and tangible conditions, and no
doubt the average Egyptian conceived the kingly authority as something
altogether sacred. But beneath the surface of court life everywhere there is
a counter current which the monarch himself can never disregard, however
little its existence is recognised by the generality of his subjects. Professor
Erman has emphasised with great astuteness the effect of these hidden influ-
ences upon the real life of the Egyptian monarch. He contends that the con-
ditions surrounding the Egyptian court were not different from those about
the thrones of other Oriental monarchs, and he points out with great vivid-
ness the distinction between the theoretical and the real position of the sover-
eign. Theoretically, the king is absolutely supreme ; his will is law, all the
property is his ; even the lives of his subjects are at his mercy. But practi-
cally, the situation is quite different. Old counsellors of the king's father are
at hand whose bidding is obeyed by the clerks and officials ; old rich families
must be pandered to ; the generals of the troops have a real power that must
be respected ; and the priests are an ever present restriction upon royal
authority. Then there are always relatives who aspire to the throne. Among
the large families of Oriental despots it is always something of a lottery as to
which child succeeds to power, and there are sure to be mothers who feel that
their offspring have been slighted. The familiar stories of the mothers of
Solomon and of Cyrus the Younger illustrate the point.
" Even the very potent rulers," says Professor Erman, " were constantly
in dread of their own relatives, as was shown by the protocol of a trial for
high treason. The reign of Ramses III was certainly brilliant ; the country
was finally at peace, and the priesthood had been won over by enormous
gifts and by temple-building. The aspect of his reign was as bright as could
be. And yet there reigned also under him the fearful powers that wrecked
each of these dynasties, and it was perhaps due only to a happy chance that
he himself escaped. In his own harem treason rose, headed by a distinguished
woman of the name of Thi, who was undoubtedly of royal blood, if indeed
she were not either his mother or his stepmother. Which prince had been
chosen as pretender for the crown, we do not know (a pseudonym is given
in the papyrus ), but we see how far the matter had gone before discovery ;
twice the women of the harem wrote to their mothers and brothers, ' Arouse
the people, and bestir the hostile spirits to begin hostilities against the king.'
One of the women wrote then to her brother, who commanded the troops in
Ethiopia, and definitely bade him come and fight the king. When one sees
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS i-.ty
how many high officials shared in the treason or knew of it, one appreciate*
the danger overhanging such an oriental kingdom."
It will be well to bear this corrective view in mind in considering the
position of the Egyptian king as suggested by the monumental inscriptions
and pictures. But this view does not at all alter the fact that the people at
large were absolutely subservient to the idea of kingship. Certain individuals
might strive to overthrow any particular monarch, but it was only that they
might set up another. The idea of doing away with monarchy itself never
entered their heads. That idea was born upon European soil, long after the
power of ancient Egypt had departed.
It is an easy step from monarchs to armies and war methods, although in
Egypt the relationship was not so close and intimate as in the case of many
other nations. We have seen all along that the Egyptians were not pre-emi-
nently a warlike people, yet, first and last, war entered very largely into their
life history as with every other nation, and there was one period under the New
Kingdom when, as we have seen, the Egyptians became a conquering people.
As the chief monarch of this epoch, Ramses II was greatly given to record-
ing his own deeds in monumental fashion, very fuU data are at hand for
interpreting the war methods of the people during this epoch. There is
nothing particularly unique about these methods. The Egyptian army con-
sisted principally of militia armed with bows and javelins. The cavalry,
consisting of companies of charioteers, was led by the king himself. Eques-
trianship had not yet entered into warfare. In sieges, scaling-ladders and
battering-rams were used. The monuments show us that the soldiers were
drilled to the sound of bugles quite in the modern fashion. In a word, there
was nothing particularly to distinguish the war customs of the Egyptians of
the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties from those of other nations of their time,
and these methods, as we shall have occasion to see, were not greatly improved
upon until about a thousand years later, when the Macedonian phalanx, as
trained by Philip and Alexander along lines first laid out by the great Theban
Epaminondas, introduced a new element into warfare.*
The king was the representative of the deity, and his royal authority
was directly derived from the gods. He was the head of the religion and
of the state ; he was the judge and lawgiver ; and he commanded the army
and led it to war. It was his right and his office to preside over the sacri-
fices, and pour out libations to the gods ; and, whenever he was present,
he had the privilege of being the officiating high priest.
The sceptre was hereditary ; but, in the event of a direct heir failing,
the claims for succession were determined by proximity of parentage, or
by right of marriage. The king was always either of the military or
priestly class, and the princes also belonged to one of them.
The army or the priesthood were the two professions followed by all men
of rank, the navy not being an exclusive service ; and the " long ships of
Sesostris " and other kings were commanded by generals and officers taken
from the army, as was the custom of the Turks, and some others in modern
Europe to a very recent time. The law, too, was in the hands of the priests ;
so that there were only two professions. Most of the kings, as might be
expected, were of the military class, and during the glorious days of Egyp-
tian history, the younger princes generally adopted the same profession.
Many held offices also in the royal household, some of the most honourable
of which were fan-bearers on the right of their father, royal scribes, superin-
tendents of the granaries, or of the land, and treasurers of the king ; and
were generals of the cavalry, archers, and other corps, dr admirals of the fleet.
200 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Princes were distinguished by a badge hanging from the side of the head,
which inclosed, or represented, the lock of hair emblematic of a " son " ; in
imitation of the youthful god " Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris," who was
held forth as the model for all princes, and the type of royal virtue. For
though the Egyptians shaved the head, and wore wigs or other coverings to
the head, children were permitted to leave certain locks of hair ; and if the
sons of kings, long before they arrived at the age of manhood, had abandoned
this youthful custom, the badge was attached to their head-dress as a mark
of their rank as princes ; or to show that they had not, during the lifetime of
their father, arrived at kinghood ; on the same principle that a Spanish
prince, of whatever age, continues to be styled an "infant."
And it is a curious fact that this ancient people had already adopted the
principle, that the king " could do no wrong " : and while he was exonerated
from blame, every curse and evil were denounced against his ministers, and
those advisers who had given him injurious counsel. The idea, too, of the
king " never dying " was contained in their common formula of " life having
been given him forever."
Love and respect were not merely shown to the sovereign during his
lifetime, but were continued to his memory after his death ; and the
manner in which his funeral obsequies were celebrated tended to show,
that, though their benefactor was no more, they retained a grateful sense of
his goodness, and admiration for his virtues.
The Egyptians are said to have been divided into castes, similar to those
of India ; but though a marked line of distinction was maintained between
the different ranks of society, they appear rather to have been classes than
castes, and a man did not necessarily follow the precise occupation of his
father. Sons, it is true, usually adopted the same profession or trade as
their parent, and the rank of each depended on his occupation ; but the
children of a priest frequently chose the army for their profession, and
those of a military man could belong to the priesthood.
The priests and military men held the highest position in the country
after the family of the king, and from them were chosen his ministers and
confidential advisers, "the wise counsellors of Pharaoh," and all the principal
officers of state.
The priests consisted of various grades — as the chief priests, or pontiffs ;
the prophets ; judges ; sacred scribes ; the sphragistse, who examined the
victims for sacrifice ; the stolistse, dressers, or keepers of the sacred robes ;
the bearers of the shrines, banners, and other holy emblems ; the sacred
sculptors, draughtsmen, and masons ; the embalmers ; the keepers of sacred
animals ; and various officers employed in the processions and other religious
ceremonies ; under whom were the beadles, and inferior functionaries of the
temple. There was also the king's own priest ; and the royal scribes were
chosen either from the sacerdotal or the military class. Women were not
excluded from certain offices in the temple ; they were priestesses of the
gods, of the kings and queens, and they had many employments connected
with religion.
The long duration of their system, and the feeling with which it was
regarded by the people, may also plead some excuse for it ; and while the
function of judges and the administration of the laws gave them unusual power,
they had an apparent claim to those offices, from having been the f ramers of
the codes of morality, and of the laws they superintended. Instead of setting
themselves above the king, and making him succumb to their power, like the
unprincipled Ethiopian pontiffs, they acknowledged him as the head of the
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 201
religion and the state ; nor were they above the law ; no one of them, nor
even the king himself, could govern according to his own arbitrary will ;
his conduct was amenable to an ordeal of his subjects at his death, the people
being allowed to accuse him of misgovernment, and to prevent his being
buried in his tomb on the day of his funeral.
But though the regulations of the priesthood may have suited the Egyp-
tians in early times, certain institutions being adapted to men in particular
states of society, they erred in encouraging a belief in legends they knew to
be untrue, instead of purifying and elevating the religious views of the
people, and committed the fault of considering their unbending system per-
fect, and suited to all times. Abuses therefore crept in ; credulity, already
shamefully encouraged, increased to such an extent that it enslaved the mind,
and paralysed men's reasoning powers ; and the result was that the Egyp-
tians gave way to the grossest superstitions, which at length excited universal
ridicule and contempt.
Next in rank to the priests were the military. To them was assigned
one of the three portions into which the land of Egypt was divided by an
edict of Sesostris [Ramses II], in order, says Diodorus, "that those who
exposed themselves to danger in the field might be more ready to undergo
the hazards of war, from the interest they felt in the country as occupiers of
the soil; for it would be absurd to commit the safety of the community to
those who possessed nothing which they were interested in preserving."
Each soldier, whether on duty or no, was allowed twelve arurae of land
(a little more than eight English acres), free from all charge; and another
important privilege was, that no soldier could be cast into prison for debt ;
Bocchoris [Bakenranf] the framer of this law, considering that it would be
dangerous to allow the civil power the right of arresting those who were the
chief defence of the state. They were instructed from their youth in the
duties and requirements of soldiers, and trained in all the exercises that
fitted them for an active career ; and a sort of military school appears to
have been established for the purpose.
Each man was obliged to provide himself with the necessary arms, offen-
sive and defensive, and everything requisite for a campaign ; and he was
expected to hold himself in readiness for taking the field when required,
or for garrison duty. The principal garrisons were posted in the fortified
towns of Pelusium, Marea, Eileithyia, Heracleopolis, Syene, Elephantine,
and other intermediate places ; and a large portion of the army was fre-
quently called upon, by the warlike monarchs, to invade a foreign country,
or to suppress those rebellions which occasionally broke out in the conquered
provinces.
The whole military force, consisting of 410,000, was divided into two
corps, the Calasiries and Hermotybies. They furnished a body of men to
do the duty of royal guards, 1000 of each being annually selected for that
purpose ; and each soldier had an additional allowance of " five mince of
bread, with two of beef, and four arusters of wine," as daily rations, during
the period of his service.
The Calasiries (Klashr) were the most numerous, and amounted to
250,000 men, at the time that Egypt was most populous. They inhabited
the nomes of Thebes, Bubastis, Aphthis, Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytus, Ath-
ribis, Pharbsethus, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anysis, and the Isle of Myecphoris,
which was opposite Bubastis ; and the Hermotybies, who lived in those
of Busiris, Sals, Chemmis, Papremis, the Isle of Prosopitis, and the half
pf Natho, made up the remaining 160,000. It was here that they abode
202 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
while retired from military service, and in these nomes their farms or
portions of land were situated, which tended to encourage habits of indus-
try, and keep up a taste for active employment.
Besides the native corps they had mercenary troops, who were enrolled
either from the nations in alliance with the Egyptians, or from those who
had been conquered by them. They were divided into regiments, some-
times disciplined in the same manner as the Egyptians, though allowed to
retain their arms and costume ; but they were not on the same footing as
the native troops ; they had no land, and merely received pay, like other
hire soldiers. Strabo speaks of them as mercenaries ; and the million
of men he mentions must have included these foreign auxiliaries. When
formally enrolled in the army, they were considered a part of it, and ac-
companied the victorious legions on their return from foreign conquest ;
and they sometimes assisted in performing garrison duty in Egypt, in the
place of those Egyptian troops which were left to guard the conquered
provinces.
The strength of the army consisted in archers, whose skill contributed
mainly to the success of the Egyptians, as of our own ancestors ; and their
importance is shown by the Egyptian " soldier " being represented as an
archer kneeling, often preceded by the word Klashr, converted by Herod-
otus into Calasiris. They fought either on foot or in chariots, and may
therefore be classed under the separate heads of a mounted and unmounted
corps ; and they constituted a great part of both wings. Several bodies of
heavy infantry, divided into regiments, each distinguished by its peculiar
arms, formed the centre ; and the cavalry [in the later periods] covered and
supported the foot.
WEAPONS OF WAR
The offensive weapons of the Egyptians were the bow, spear, two species
of javelin, sling, a short and straight sword, dagger, knife, falchion or ensis
falcatus, axe or hatchet, battle-axe, pole-axe, mace or club, and the lisan —
a curved stick similar to that still in use among the modern Ethiopians.
Their defensive arms consisted of a helmet of metal or a quilted head-piece;
a cuirass, or coat of armour, made of metal plates, or quilted with metal
bands, and an ample shield. The soldier's chief defence was his shield,
which, in length, was equal to about half his height, and generally double
its own breadth. It was most commonly covered with bull's hide having
the hair outward, sometimes strengthened by one or more rims of metal,
and studded with nails or metal pins, the inner part being a wooden
frame.
The Egyptian bow was a round piece of wood, from five to five and a half
feet in length, tapering to a point at both ends. Their arrows varied from
twenty-two to thirty-four inches in length ; some were of wood, others of
reed ; frequently tipped with a metal head ; and winged with three feathers,
glued longitudinally, and at equal distances, upon the other end of the shaft,
as on our own arrows. Sometimes, instead of the metal head, a piece of
hard wood was inserted into the reed, which terminated in a long tapering
point.
The spear, or pike, was of wood, between five and six feet in length,
with a metal head, into which the shaft was inserted and fixed with nails.
The head was of bronze or iron, often very large, and with a double edge.
The javelin, lighter and shorter than the spear, was also of wood, and
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 203
similarly armed with a strong two-edged metal head, of an elongated dia-
mond, or leaf shape, either flat or increasing in thickness at the centre, and
sometimes tapering to a very long point.
The sling was a thong of leather, or string plaited ; broad in the middle,
and having a loop at one end, by which it was fixed upon and firmly held
with the hand ; the other extremity terminating in a lash, which escaped
from the finger as the stone was thrown. The Egyptian sword was straight
and short, from two and a half to three feet in length, having generally a
double edge, and tapering to a sharp point. It was used for cut and thrust.
They had also a dagger.
The axe, or hatchet, was small and simple, seldom exceeding two, or two
and a half feet, in length : it had a single blade, and no instance is met with
of a double axe resembling the bipennia of the Romans. The blade of the
battle-axe was, in form, not unlike the Parthian shield ; a segment of a circle,
divided at the back into two smaller segments, whose three points were
fastened to the handle with metal pins. It was of bronze, and sometimes
(as the colour of those in the paintings shows) of steel ; and the length of
the handle was equal to, or more than double that of, the blade. The pole-
axe was about three feet in length, but apparently more difficult to wield
than the preceding, owing to the great weight of a metal ball to which the
blade was fixed ; and required, like the mace, a powerful as well as a
skilful arm.
The mace was very similar to the pole-axe, without a blade. It was of
wood, bound with bronze, about two feet and a half in length, and furnished
with an angular piece of metal, projecting from the handle, which may have
been intended as a guard, though in many instances they represent the hand
placed above it, while the blow was given. In ancient times, when the fate
of a battle was frequently decided by personal valour, the dexterous manage-
ment of such arms was of great importance ; and a band of resolute veterans,
headed by a gallant chief, spread dismay among the ranks of an enemy.
The curved stick, or club (called lisan, " tongue "), was used by heavy
and light-armed troops as well as by archers ; and if it does not appear a
formidable arm, yet the experience of modern times bears ample testimony
to its efficacy in close combat.
The helmet was usually quilted ; and though bronze helmets are said to
have been worn by the Egyptians, they generally adopted the former, which
being thick, and well padded, served as an excellent protection to the head,
without the inconvenience of metal in so hot a climate. Some of them
descended to the shoulder, others only a short distance below the level of
the ear, and the summit, terminating in an obtuse point, was ornamented
with two tassels. They were of a green, red, or black colour; and a
longer one, which fitted less closely to the back of the head, was fringed
at the lower edge with a broad border, and in some instances consisted of
two parts, or an upper and under fold. Another, worn by the spearmen,
and many corps of infantry and charioteers, was also quilted, and descended
to the shoulder with a fringe ; but it had no tassels, and, fitting close to
the top of the head, it widened towards the base, the front, which covered
the forehead, being made of a separate piece, attached to the other part.
There is no representation of an Egyptian helmet with a crest, but that
of the Shardana, once enemies and afterwards allies of the Pharaohs, shows
they were used long before the Trojan war.
The outer surface of the corselet of mail, or coat of scale-armour, con-
sisted of about eleven horizontal rows of metal plates, well secured by
204
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
bronze pins ; and at the hollow of the throat a narrower range of plates was
introduced, above which were two more, completing the collar or covering
of the neck. The breadth of each plate
or scale was little more than an inch,
eleven or twelve of them sufficing to
cover the front of the body; and the
sleeves, which were sometimes so short
as to extend less than halfway to the
elbow, consisted of two rows of similar
plates. Many, indeed most, of the
corselets were without collars ; in some
the sleeves were rather longer, reaching
nearly to the elbow, and they were
worn both by heavy infantry and bow-
men. The ordinary corselet may have
been little less than two feet and a half
in length; it sometimes covered the
thighs nearly to the knee ; and in order
to prevent its pressing heavily upon
the shoulder, they bound their girdle
over it, and tightened it at the waist.
But the thighs, and that part of the
body below the girdle, were usually
covered by a kilt, or other robe, de-
tached from the corselet ; and many of
the light and heavy infantry were clad
in a quilted vest of the same form as
the coat of armour, for which it was a
substitute ; and some wore corselets,
reaching only from the waist to the
upper part of the breast, and supported
by straps over the shoulder, which were
faced with bronze plates.
Heavy-armed. troops were furnished with a shield and spear; some with
a shield and mace ; and others, though rarely, with a battle-axe, or a pole-axe,
and shield. They also carried a sword, falchion, curved stick or lisan, simple
mace, or hatchet ; which may be looked upon as their side-arms. The light
troops had nearly the same weapons, but their defensive armour was lighter ;
and the slingers and some others fought, like the archers, without shields.
The chariot corps constituted a very large and effective portion of the
Egyptian army. Each car contained two persons, like the diphros (81^/309)
of the Greeks. On some occasions it carried three, the charioteer or driver
and two chiefs ; but this was rarely the case, except in triumphal processions,
when two of the princes accompanied the king in their chariot, bearing the
regal sceptre, or the fldbella, and required a third person to manage the
reins. In the field each had his own car, with a charioteer ; and the insig-
nia of his office being attached behind him by a broad belt, his hands were
free for the use of the bow and other arms. The driver generally stood on
the off-side, in order to have the whip-hand free ; and this interfered less
with the use of the bow than the Greek custom of driving on the near-side ;
which last was adopted in Greece as being more convenient for throwing the
spear. When on an excursion for pleasure, or on a visit to a friend, an
Egyptian gentleman mounted alone, and drove himself, footmen and other
As EGYPTIAN SOLDIER
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 205
attendants running before and behind the car ; and sometimes an archer used
his bow and acted as his own charioteer.
In the battle scenes of the Egyptian temples, the king is represented
alone in his car, unattended by any charioteer ; with the reins fastened
round his body, while engaged in bending his bow against the enemy ;
though it is possible that the driver was omitted, in order not to interfere
with the principal figure. The king had always a "second chariot," in
order to provide against accidents ; as Josiah is stated to have had when
defeated by Neku ; and the same was in attendance on state occasions.
The cars of the whole chariot corps contained each two warriors, comrades
of equal rank ; and the charioteer who accompanied a chief was a person of
confidence, as we see from the familiar manner in which one of them is rep-
resented conversing with a son of the great Ramses.
In driving, the Egyptians used a whip, like the heroes and charioteers of
Homer ; and this, or a short stick, was generally employed even for beasts
of burden, and for oxen at the plough, in preference to the goad. The whip
consisted of a smooth, round wooden handle, and a single or double thong :
it sometimes had a lash of leather, or string, about two feet in length, either
twisted or plaited ; and a loop being attached to the lower end, the archer
was enabled to use the bow, while it hung suspended from his wrist.
When a hero encountered a hostile chief, he sometimes dismounted from
his car, and substituting for his bow and quiver the spear, battle-axe, or
falchion, he closed with him hand to hand, like the Greeks and Trojans
described by Homer ; and the lifeless body of the foe being left upon the
field, was stripped of its arms by his companions. Sometimes a wounded
adversary, incapable of further resistance, having claimed and obtained the
mercy of the victor, was carried from the field in his chariot ; and the ordi-
nary captives, who laid down their arms and yielded to the Egyptians, were
treated as prisoners of war, and were sent bound to the rear under an escort,
to be presented to the monarch, and to grace his triumph, after the termination
of the conflict. The hands of the slain were then counted before him ; and
this return of the enemy's killed was duly registered, to commemorate his
success, and the glories of his reign.
The Egyptian chariots had no seat ; but the bottom part consisted of a
frame interlaced with thongs or rope, forming a species of network, in order,
by its elasticity, to render the motion of the carriage without springs more easy:
and this was also provided for by placing the wheels as far back as possible,
and resting much of the weight on the horses, which supported the pole. That
the chariot was of wood is sufficiently proved by the sculptures, wherever
workmen are seen employed in making it ; and the fact of their having more
than three thousand years ago already invented and commonly used a form
of pole, only introduced into our own country in the nineteenth century, is
an instance of the truth of Solomon's assertion, " there is no new thing under
the sun," and shows the skill of their workmen at that remote time.
BATTLE METHODS
When an expedition was resolved upon against a foreign nation, each
province furnished its quotum of men. The troops were generally com-
manded by the king in person ; but in some instances a general was
appointed to that post, and intrusted with the sole conduct of the war. A
place of rendezvous was fixed, in early times generally at Thebes, Memphis,
or Pelusium ; and the troops having assembled in the vicinity, remained
206 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
encamped there, awaiting the leader of the expedition. As soon as he
arrived, the necessary preparations were made ; a sacrifice was performed
to the gods whose assistance was invoked in the approaching conflict ; and
orders having been issued for their march, a signal was given by sound of
trumpet ; the troops fell in, and with a profound bow each soldier in the
ranks saluted the royal general, and prepared to follow him to the field.
The march then commenced, as Clemens and the sculptures inform us, to
the sound of the drum ; the chariots led the van ; and the king, mounted
in his car of war, and attended by his chief officers carrying flabella^ took
his post in the centre, preceded and followed by bodies of infantry armed
with bows, spears, or other weapons, according to their respective corps.
On commencing the attack in the open field, a signal was again made by
sound of trumpet. The archers drawn up in line first discharged a shower
of arrows on the enemy's front, and a considerable mass of chariots advanced
to the charge ; the heavy infantry, armed with spears or clubs, and covered
with their shields, moved forward at the same time in close array, flanked
by chariots and cavalry, and pressed upon the centre and wings of the
enemy, the archers still galling the hostile columns with their arrows, and
endeavouring to create disorder in their ranks.
Their mode of warfare was not like that of nations in their infancy, or
in a state of barbarism ; and it is evident, from the number of prisoners they
took, that they spared the prostrate who asked for quarter : and the repre-
sentations of persons slaughtered by the Egyptians, who have overtaken
them, are intended to allude to what happened in the heat of action, and not
to any wanton cruelty on the part of the victors. Indeed, in the naval fight
of Ramses III, the Egyptians, both in the ships and on the shore, are seen
rescuing the enemy, whose galley has been sunk, from a watery grave ; and
the humanity of that people is strongly argued, whose artists deem it a virtue
worthy of being recorded among the glorious actions of their countrymen.
Those who sued for mercy and laid down their arms, were spared and
sent bound from the field ; and the hands of the slain being cut off, and
placed in heaps before the king, immediately after the action, were counted
by the military secretaries in his presence, who thus ascertained and reported
to him the account of the enemy's slain. Sometimes their tongues, and
occasionally other members, were laid before him in the same manner ; in all
instances being intended as authentic returns of the loss of the foe : for
which the soldiers received a proportionate reward, divided among the whole
army, the capture of prisoners probably claiming a higher premium, exclu-
sively enjoyed by the captor.
The arms, horses, chariots, and booty, taken in the field or in camp, were
also collected, and the same officers wrote an account of them, and presented
it to the monarch. The booty was sometimes collected in an open space,
surrounded by a temporary wall, indicated in the sculptures by the representa-
tion of shields placed erect, with a wicker gate, on the inner and outer face
of which a strong guard was posted, the sentries walking to and fro with
drawn swords. It was forbidden to the Spartan soldier, when on guard, to
have his shield, in order that, being deprived of this defence, he might be
more cautious not to fall asleep ; and the same appears to have been a cus-
tom of the Egyptians, as the watch here on duty at the camp-gates are only
armed with swords and maces, though belonging to the heavy-armed corps,
who, on other occasions, were in the habit of carrying a shield.
A system of regular fortification was adopted in the earliest times. The
form of the fortresses was quadrangular ; the walls of crude brick fifteen feet
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS
207
thick, and often fifty feet high, with square towers at intervals along each
face. But though some were kept up after the accession of the XVIIIth
Dynasty, the practice of fortifying towns seems to have been discontinued,
and fortresses or walled towns were not then used, except on the edge of the
desert, and on the frontiers where large garrisons were required. To supply
their place, the temples were provided with lofty pyramidal stone towers,
which, projecting beyond the walls, enabled the besieged to command and
rake them, while the parapet-wall over the gateway shielded the soldiers
who defended the entrance ; and the whole plan of an outer wall of circum-
vallation was carried out by the large crude brick enclosure of the temenoa,
within which the temple stood. Each temple was thus a detached fort, and
was thought as sufficient a protection for itself and for the town as a contin-
uous wall, which required a large garrison to defend it ; and neither Thebes
nor Memphis, the two capitals, were walled cities.
AM EGYPTIAN BOWMAN
The field encampment was either a square, or a parallelogram, with a
principal entrance in one of the faces ; and near the centre were the general's
tent, and those of the principal officers. The general's tent was sometimes
surrounded by a double rampart or fosse, enclosing two distinct areas, the
outer one containing three tents, probably of the next in command, or of
the officers on the staff ; and the guards slept or watched in the open air.
Other tents were pitched outside these enclosures ; and near the external
circuit, a space was set apart for feeding horses and beasts of burden, and
another for ranging the chariots and baggage. It was near the general's
tent, and within the same area, that the altars of the gods, or whatever re-
lated to religious matters, the standards, and the military chest, were kept ;
and the sacred emblems were deposited beneath a canopy, with an enclosure
similar to that of the general's tent.
In attacking a fortified town, they advanced under cover of the arrows
of the bowmen ; and either instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ram-
parts, or undertook the routine of a regular siege : in which case, having
advanced to the walls, they posted themselves under cover of testudos, and
shook and dislodged the stones of the parapet with a species of battering-
ram, directed and impelled by a body of men expressly chosen for this ser-
vice : but when the place held out against these attacks, and neither a
coup de main, the ladder, nor the ram, was found to succeed, they used
the testudo for concealing and protecting the sappers, while they mined
the place ; and certainly, of all people, the Egyptians were the most
208 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
likely to have recourse to this stratagem of war, from the great practice
they had in underground excavations, and in directing shafts through the
solid rock.*
SOCIAL CUSTOMS
The subject of manners and customs of the Egyptians has had a peculiar
fascination for almost all students of Egyptian history. It is difficult to
get away from the feeling that there is something mysterious and occult
about Egyptian life, and thousands of people have gazed with mingled
admiration and awe upon the monumental remains of this people without
caring in the least for the strange-sounding names of the monarchs or
for the details of their political history.
From the time of the explorations of the French under Napoleon, which
led to the monumental publication edited by Champollion c and his associates,
some inklings of the Egyptian life passed into common knowledge. Addi-
tional light was thrown upon the subject by the publication of the elaborate
"Denkmaler " of Lepsius.^ But the first full exposition of the social condi-
tions of ancient Egypt was due to the investigations of Wilkinson, who
devoted the best years of his life to the subject, and whose publications are
still standard authority. Wilkinson's elaborate investigation of the monu-
ments and his astute inferences drawn from what he saw enabled him to pro-
duce a picture of Egyptian life which the work of more recent investigators
has seldom supplanted as to essentials.
Of the more recent Egyptologists few have failed to show an interest in
this phase of Egyptian history. Birch,*' Maspero,™ Mariette," Chabas,/
Budge,? Petrie,o Renouf <* — all have dealt with various phases of Egyptian
life. Amelia B. Edwards6 popularised the knowledge of the specialists in
widely read publications, and Georg Ebers,* himself a specialist of the highest
standing, gave even wider currency to the most interesting phases of the sub-
ject through the medium of his novels. In recent years the field that Wil-
kinson made his own has been invaded with great success by Professor Adolf
Erman of the Berlin University, the worthy successor of Lepsius. Professor
Erman has profited by the widest and most critical studies of the Egyptian
writings, and through this means he has been enabled to supplement the work
of Wilkinson in certain important directions, notably in reference to ques-
tions of judicial procedure and the details of governmental administration —
subjects into which, unfortunately, a lack of space does not permit us to
enter fully here. In his work, Aegypten und Aegyptisches Leben im Altertum,
Professor Erman has summarised the sources to which the Egyptologist must
go for information as to the life of this people. The writings of the
Hebrews, he tells us, have come down to us so much re-edited in later
times that they must be accepted with caution as representing Egyptian life
of an early period.
The writings of the Greeks, chief among whom in this field is Herodotus,
are important as to certain features of the later Egyptian life. Such things
as a tourist sees who, " ignorant of the language, travels for a few months in
a foreign country," Herodotus tells us ; but very naturally he is unable to
supply us with adequate or reliable information regarding those earlier
periods of Egyptian history, which have chief interest now because they
represent the Egyptian in his time of might and prosperity.
For what we can hope to learn of these earlier times we must turn to the
Egyptian monuments themselves. These monumental remains are of four
types, namely :
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 209
(1) The inscriptions on temple walls and on monuments.
(2) The royal tombs.
(3) Inscribed papyri representing the literature of the country, and
(4) Papyri of another class representing letters, deeds, and other
business documents.
As to the inscriptions, which form numerically so large a proportion of
the Egyptian mementos, and which, naturally enough, were first attractive
to the investigator, it may be said that as a whole they are most disappoint-
ing since their " inscriptions and representations refer almost solely to the
worship of the gods, to sacrifices and processions, or they give us bombastic
hymns to the gods, or they may perhaps contain the information that such
and such a king built this sanctuary of eternal stones for his father the god,
who rewarded him for this pious act by granting him a life of millions of years.
If, as an exception, we find an inscription telling us of the warlike feats of
a ruler, these are related in such official style and stereotyped formula, that
little can be gained towards the knowledge of Egyptian life."
The tombs are much more satisfactory for the present purpose since they
contain representations of events in the home life of the deceased, and also
various implements, utensils, and trinkets such as he might have used while
living. But, unfortunately, it is only the early period of Egyptian life that
is depicted in this manner. Moreover, the relics found in the tombs are
sometimes misleading, since it apparently became the custom to supply articles
ready made for this purpose, rather than to utilise objects of actual utility
such as the deceased might really have employed while living.
The papyri which represent the literary remains of ancient Egypt are
much less illuminative than might be expected ; the greater number of them
are magical or religious in character, the most conspicuous example being
the Book of the Dead, numberless recensions of which are extant in whole or
in part. These supply valuable glimpses of the moral nature of the Egyptians
and are of high value to the student of religion and philosophy, but they
naturally tell us little of the everyday life of the people.
Of the secular manuscripts the chief portion are school books, intended
to incite youthful students at once to virtue and to knowledge, quite after
the manner of the modern books, particularly of the last generation. These
also fail to give more than incidental glimpses into the real life of the people.
As to the value for this purpose of the romances which make up so important
a part of the literary remains of the Egyptians, scarcely more can be said.
They are romances in the modern acceptance of the term. No school of real-
ists had come to urge the writer to go to contemporary nature for his models ;
hence, as Erman aptly says, the country described in these writings " is not
Egypt, but Fairyland."
It is always surprising in studying the literature of a past time, to note
the facility with which the details of everyday life are omitted. Such a
writer as Herodotus tells many interesting things about the manners and
customs of Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Scythians even, but he scarcely
tells us a word except inferentially, or by way of pointing a contrast, of the
everyday life of his own people, the Greeks themselves. Similarly the
Egyptian writers, had they visited Greece, would doubtless have had much to
say of the strange customs of that " barbaric people "; but it never occurs to
them to enter into any details as to the everyday life of their own race.
The reason for this is sufficiently obvious. One writes chiefly for a con-
temporary audience, and it would be tedious and absurd to fill one's pages
with details regarding things that constitute part of the most elementary
H. W. — VOL. I. *
210 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
knowledge of every reader. What Greek would have cared to listen to
Herodotus, had he chosen to fill his pages with prosy dissertations upon the
way in which his hearers and readers built their houses, attired themselves,
ate their meals, and pursued their everyday vocations? Every line of such
a disquisition would have been filled with fascinating interest for posterity,
but posterity was but little in the inind of the writer himself. It is precisely
the same with the writings of to-day.
If one will consider in this light the first novel that comes to hand, he
will be astonished to note how much is taken for granted, and how little
even the most realistic story would tell to a person utterly ignorant of our
manners and customs about the precise details of our everyday life. Even
the newspapers, which seem to thresh out the veriest chaff of life, are mostly
guiltless of specific reference to any of those everyday commonplaces, the
lack of which in ancient writings fills us with such regret. It is not sur-
prising then, though none the less to be deplored, that the relatively abund-
ant stores of Egyptian literature give after all only an incomplete and
imperfect picture of the manners and customs of the people.
To the remaining source of information — the papyri inscribed with let-
ters and business documents — the investigator is able to turn with greater
confidence. Here we see the people no longer posing consciously for inspec-
tion, but acting their reallife and expressing their true sentiments. Just as
the modern biographer feels that he is giving the most intimate insight into
the character of his subject when he quotes from his personal letters, so these
letters and allied documents of the old Egyptians give us perhaps the clearest
insight obtainable into the true character of the people, and it is those who
have studied these documents most closely who have been most strongly im-
pressed with the similarity between the true characteristics of ancient and
modern peoples. What, for example, could seem more modern than the
account of the police investigation into the alleged robbery of the tombs of
the kings at Memphis, which was held in the time of Ramses IX, of the
XXth Dynasty, about the year 1100 B.C. ?
Professor Erman's account, transcribed from the papyri, telling of this
investigation, reads for all the world like the police columns of a modern
newspaper. It appears that bands of thieves, tempted by the rich spoils
always buried with ancient kings, had attempted to force their way into
various pyramids where the bodies of these monarchs reposed, and that in
some cases they had been successful. Rumours of this sacrilege coming to
the attention of the governor of the city, the investigation in question was
set on foot, and the divergent opinions expressed by the various authorities,
the bickerings and jealousies that are evidenced, and the net result in a ver-
dict which leaves us somewhat in doubt as to the real facts of the case, — all
these features have an aspect of modernity that is positively startling. As
an interesting sequel to this investigation it may be added that the police
were finally obliged to admit themselves no match for the thieves, and that
the authorities, despairing of being able to protect the tombs of their ances-
tors, resorted finally to the strange expedient of removing the royal effigies
to a secret cave in the distant mountain of Deir-el-Bahari. In this cave
were placed the mummies of a distinguished line of monarchs, including
Amenhotep I, Tehutimes II, Tebutimes III, and Seti I, and lastly the great
Ramses II himself.
The humiliating step was taken so secretly, and the hiding-place was so
carefully guarded from the knowledge of all but a few, that apparently
when these died the secret died with them. At any rate, the resting-place
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 211
of the greatest sovereigns of Egypt was quite unknown for about three
thousand years, and it was revealed by accident in our own time. In the
year 1881, as described in a preceding section, the authorities entered the
crypt which a company of fellahs had discovered about ten years before,
but the knowledge of which they had kept secret. Perhaps only once before
in the history of archaeological discovery had so startling a find been made,
or one that aroused such enthusiastic interest in the minds both of specialists
and of the general public as when these effigies of the great monarchs were
dragged from their tomb. It is only the recent dead to whom sacredness
attaches, and the archaeologist has no scruples about making a museum
exhibit of forms that had once ruled a great people, and which their imme-
diate successors had reverenced as gods.
It will appear from this brief analysis that the remains of Egyptian writ-
ings give us in many ways an insight into the life of the people, but that
nevertheless our knowledge of that life is much more restricted than could
be wished. After the last line of extant writing has been scrutinised and
analysed, it still remains true that the chief source of our information regard-
ing the manners and customs of the Egyptians is not to be found in written
words but in graphic pictures. Just as the illustrations of a modern maga-
zine would tell posterity, if preserved, far more about our everyday life,
than could be gleaned from the pages of text which they supplement, so the
delineations of which the Egyptians were so fond, perform a like service. It
was chiefly through study of these that Wilkinson was able to reconstruct
the life of the people, and it is still to these that the modern investigator
must turn.
EGYPTIAN FIGURES
(From the Monument!)
The manuscripts give us important hints and suggestions, and throw here
and there a ray of light into some dark corner, but the chief story is told,
not by hieroglyphic or hieratic scrolls, but by actual pictures. These, as has
been said, show us the people for a limited period, pursuing the ordinary
vocations of life. They show us that the Egyptian gave heed to much the
same manner of things that interest the modern. With the aid of these pic-
tures we are able to go with the Egyptian, not merely into the fields and
vineyards where he labours, but also into the private dwellings, where we
may attend him as he feasts, plays upon musical instruments, dances, and
indulges in various sports and games.
We shall be forced to believe that he was very human ; very like our-
selves in his aspirations and desires, even in his method of their attempted
realisation ; and yet so strangely do the archaic forms of those delineations
impress themselves upon the mind, that we shall never quite free ourselves
of the impression that here we have to do with the beings of another and
very different world.
212 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Something of mystery, something of the occult, clings to the Egyptian,
however we may try to dispel the illusion. This power the residents of
contemporary Egypt had over the old Greek, and this power they still retain.
They work a spell upon the mind of whoever contemplates them, which no
reasoning can quite exorcise. We know and we believe that these were
ordinary mortals like ourselves ; and yet, in spite of this knowledge, we feel
that there was something quite different about them. And this supersti-
tious feeling perhaps lies at the foundation of the mysterious charm that the
Egyptians have exercised upon all succeeding generations. <*
THE EGYPTIANS AS SEEN BY HERODOTUS
How the classical world regarded the Egyptians is made clear to us through
the pages of Herodotus, who speaks as an eye-witness. It is the Egyptians
of the later epoch of whom he speaks, to be sure ; but his comments would
probably apply with little change to the customs of much earlier periods.
Those Egyptians who live in the cultivated parts of the country, are of
all whom I have seen the most ingenious, being attentive to the improvement
of the memory beyond the rest of mankind. To give some idea of their mode
of life : for three days successively in every month they use purges, vomits,
and clysters ; this they do out of attention to their health, being persuaded
that the diseases of the body are occasioned by the different elements
received as food. Besides this, we may venture to assert, that after the
Africans there is no people in health and constitution to be compared with
the Egyptians. To this advantage the climate, which is here subject to no
variation, may essentially contribute : changes of all kinds, and those in
particular of the seasons, promote and occasion the maladies of the body.
To their bread, which they make with spelt, they give the name of cyllestis ;
they have no vines in the country, but they drink a liquor fermented from
barley ; they live principally upon fish, either salted or dried in the sun ;
they eat also quails, ducks, and some smaller birds, without other preparation
than first salting them ; but they roast and boil such other birds and fishes
as they have, excepting those which are preserved for sacred purposes.
At the entertainments of the rich, just as the company is about to rise
from the repast, a small coffin is carried round, containing a perfect repre-
sentation of a dead body : it is in size sometimes of one but never of more
than two cubits, and as it is shown to the guests in rotation, the bearer
exclaims, " Cast your eyes on this figure, after death you yourself will
resemble it ; drink then, and be happy." Such are the customs they
observe at entertainments.
They contentedly adhere to the customs of their ancestors, and are averse
to foreign manners. Among other things which claim our approbation, they
have a song, which is also used in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and other places, where
it is differently named. Of all the things which astonished me in Egypt,
nothing more perplexed me than my curiosity to know whence the Egyp-
tians learned this song, so entirely resembling the Linus of the Greeks : it is
of the remotest antiquity among them, and they call it Maneros. They
have a tradition that Maneros was the only son of their first monarch ; and
that having prematurely died, they instituted these melancholy strains in
his honour, constituting their first, and in earlier times, their only song.
The Egyptians surpass all the Greeks, the Lacedaemonians excepted, in the
reverence which they pay to age : if a young person meet his senior, he instantly
turns aside to make way for him ; if a senior enter an apartment, the youth
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 213
always rise from their seats ; this ceremony is observed by no other of the
Greeks. When the Egyptians meet they do not speak, but make a profound
reverence, bowing with the hand down to the knee.
Their habit, which they call calasiris, is made of linen, and fringed at the
bottom ; over this they throw a kind of shawl made of white wool, but in these
vests of wool they are forbidden by their religion either to be buried or to enter
any sacred edifice; this is a peculiarity of those ceremonies which are called
Orphic and Pythagorean : whoever has been initiated in these mysteries can
never be interred in a vest of wool, for which a sacred reason is assigned.
Of the Egyptians it is further memorable that they first imagined what
month or day was to be consecrated to each deity ; they also, from observing
the days of nativity, venture to predict the particular circumstances of a
man's life and death : this is done by the poets of Greece, but the Egyp-
tians have certainly discovered more things that are wonderful than all the
rest of mankind. Whenever any prodigy occurs, they commit the particu-
lars to writing and mark the events which follow it: if they afterward
observe any similar incident, they conclude that the result will be similar
also. The art of divination in Egypt is confined to certain of their deities.
There are in this country oracles of Hercules, of Apollo, of Minerva and
Diana, of Mars, and of Jupiter ; but the oracle of Latona at Buto is held in
greater estimation than any of the rest : the oracular communication is reg-
ulated by no fixed system, but is differently obtained in different places.
HEAD-RESTS FOB THE DEAD
(Now In the British Museum)
The art of medicine in Egypt is thus exercised : one physician ia con-
fined to one disease ; there are of course a great number who practise this
art ; some attend to disorders of the eyes ; others to those of the head ; some
take care of the teeth, others are conversant with all diseases of the bowels ;
whilst many attend to the cure of maladies which are less conspicuous.
With respect to their funerals and ceremonies of mourning ; whenever a
man of any importance dies, the females of his family, disfiguring their
heads and faces with dirt, leave the corpse in the house and run publicly
about, accompanied by their female relations, with their garments in disorder,
their breasts exposed, and beating themselves severely : the men on their
parts do the same, after which the body is carried to the embalmers.
If an Egyptian or a foreigner be found, either destroyed by a crocodile
or drowned in the water, the city nearest which the body is discovered, is
obliged to embalm and pay it every respectful attention, and afterward
deposit it in some consecrated place: no friend or relation is suffered to
interfere ; the whole process is conducted by the priests of the Nile, who
bury it themselves with a respect to which a lifeless corpse would hardly
seem entitled.
To the customs of Greece they express aversion, and, to say the truth, to
those of all other nations. This remark applies, with only one exception,
214 THE HISTOKY OF EGYPT
to every part of Egypt. Chemmis is a place of considerable note in the
Thebaid, it is near Neapolis, and remarkable for a temple of Perseus the son
of Danse. This temple is of a square figure, and surrounded with palm
trees. The vestibule, which is very spacious, is constructed of stone, and on
the summit are placed two large marble statues. Within the consecrated
enclosure stand the shrine and statue of Perseus, who, as the inhabitants
affirm, often appears in the country and the temple. They sometimes find
one of his sandals, which are of the length of two cubits, and whenever this
happens, fertility reigns throughout Egypt. Public games, after the manner
of the Greeks, are celebrated in his honour. Upon this occasion they have
every variety of gymnastic exercise. The rewards of the conquerors are
cattle, vests, and skins. I was once induced to inquire why Perseus made
his appearance to them alone, and why they were distinguished from the
rest of Egypt by the celebration of gymnastic exercises. They informed me
in return, that Perseus was a native of their country, as were also Danaus and
Lynceus, who made a voyage into Greece, and from whom, in regular suc-
cession, they related that Perseus was descended. This hero visited Egypt
for the purpose, as the Greeks also affirm, of carrying from Africa the
Gorgon's head. Happening to come among them, he saw and was known to
his relations. The name of Chemmis he had previously known from his
mother, and he himself instituted the games which they continued to
celebrate.
These which I have described are the manners of those Egyptians who
live in the higher parts of the country. They who inhabit the marshy
grounds differ in no material instance.
Like the Greeks, they confine themselves to one wife. To procure them-
selves the means of sustenance more easily, they make use of the following
expedient : when the waters have risen to their extremest height, and all
their fields are overflowed, there appears above the surface an immense
quantity of plants of the lily species, which the Egyptians call the lotus :
having cut down these, they dry them in the sun. The seed of the flower,
which resembles that of the poppy, they bake and make into a kind of bread ;
they also eat the root of this plant, which is round, of an agreeable flavour,
and about the size of an apple. There is a second species of the lotus, which
grows in the Nile, and which is not unlike a rose. The fruit, which grows
from the bottom of the root, is like a wasp's nest : it is found to contain a
number of kernels of the size of an olive-stone, which are very grateful, either
fresh or dried. Of the byblus, which is an annual plant, after taking it
from a marshy place, where it grows, they cut off the tops, and apply them
to various uses. They eat or sell what remains, which is nearly a cubit in
length. To make this a still greater delicacy, there are many who pre-
viously roast it. With a considerable part of this people fish constitutes
the principal article of food ; they dry it in the sun, and eat it without
other preparation.
The inhabitants in the marshy grounds make use of an oil, which they
term the kiki, expressed from the Sillicyprian plant. In Greece this plant
springs spontaneously without any cultivation, but the Egyptians sow it on
the banks of the river, and of the canals ; it there produces fruit in great
abundance, but of a very strong odour : when gathered, they obtain from it,
either by friction or pressure, an unctuous liquid, which diffuses an offen-
sive smell, but for burning it is equal in quality to the oil of olives.
The Egyptians are provided with a remedy against gnats, of which there
are a surprising number. As the wind will not suffer these insects to rise
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS
215
fur from the ground, the inhabitants of the higher part of the country usually
sleep in turrets. They who live in the marshy grounds use this substitute :
each person has a net, with which they fish by day, and which they render
useful by night. They cover their beds with their nets, and sleep securely
beneath them. If they slept in their common habits, or under linen, the
gnats would not fail to torment them, which they do not even attempt
through a net.
Their vessels of burden are constructed of a species of thorn, which
resembles the lotos of Cyrene, and which distils a gum. From this thorn
they cut planks, about two cubits square : after disposing these in the form
of bricks, and securing them strongly together, they place from side to side
bencnes for the rowers. They do not use timber artificially carved, but bend
FOWLERS CATCHING GKKSE; AMD POULTERERS
(Wilkinson)
the planks together with the bark of the byblus made into ropes. They
have one rudder, which goes through the keel of the vessel ; their mast is
made of the same thorn, and the sails are formed from the byblus. These
vessels are haled along by land, for unless the wind be very favourable they
can make no way against the stream. When they go with the current, they
throw from the head of the vessel a hurdle made of tamarisk, fastened
together with reeds ; they have also a perforated stone of the weight of two
talents ; this is let fall at the stern, secured by a rope. The name of this
kind of bark is baris, which the above hurdle, impelled by the tide, draws
swiftly along. The stone at the stern regulates its motion. They have
immense numbers of these vessels, and some of them of the burden of many
thousand talents.
During the inundation of the Nile, the cities only are left conspicuous,
appearing above the waters like the islands of the ^gean Sea. As long as
the flood continues, vessels do not confine themselves to the channel of the
216
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
river, but traverse the fields and the plains. They who then go from Naucratis
to Memphis, pass by the pyramids ; this, however, is not the usual course,
which lies through the point of the Delta, and the city of Cercasorus. If
from the sea and the town of Canopus, the traveller desires to go by the
plains to Naucratis, he must pass by Anthilla and Archandros.
Of these places Anthilla is the most considerable : whoever may be sov-
ereign of Egypt, it is assigned perpetually as part of the revenues of the
queen, and appropriated to the particular purpose of providing her with
sandals ; this has been observed ever since Egypt was tributary to Persia.
I should suppose that the other city derives its name from Archander, the
son of Pthius, son-in-law of Danaus, and grandson of Achseus. There may
probably have been some other Archander, for the name is certainly not
Egyptians
PERSONS COMING TO BE REGISTERED
(Wilkinson)
So much for the customs of the Egyptians as Herodotus saw them.
Abandoning now the contemporary point of view, let us seek a modern
interpretation.
HOMES OP THE PEOPLE
Of the various institutions of the ancient Egyptians, says the great-
est interpreter of Egyptian customs, none are more interesting than those
which relate to their social life ; and when we consider the condition of
other countries in the early ages when they nourished, from the tenth to
the twentieth century before our era, we may look with respect on the
advancement they had then made in civilisation, and acknowledge the bene-
fits they conferred upon mankind during their career. For, like other people,
they have had their part in the great scheme of the world's development, and
their share of usefulness in the destined progress of the human race ; for
countries, like individuals, have certain qualities given them, which, differ-
ing from those of their predecessors and contemporaries, are intended in due
season to perform their requisite duties. The interest felt in the Egyptians
is from their having led the way, or having been the first people we know of
who made any great progress, in the arts and manners of civilisation ; which,
for the period when they lived, was very creditable, and far beyond that of
other kingdoms of the world. Nor can we fail to remark the difference
between them and their Asiatic rivals, the Assyrians, who, even at a much
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS
217
later period, had the great defects of Asiatic cruelty — flaying alive, impal-
ing, and torturing their prisoners ; as the Persians, Turks, and other Orientals
have done to the present century ; the reproach of which cannot be extended
to the ancient Egyptians. Being the dominant race of that age, they
necessarily had an influence on others with whom they came in contact ; and
it is by these means that civilisation is advanced through its various stages ;
each people striving to improve on the lessons derived from a neighbour
whose institutions they appreciate, or consider beneficial to themselves. It
was thus that the active mind of the talented Greeks sought and improved
on the lessons derived from other countries, especially from Egypt ; and
though the latter, at the late period of the seventh century B.C., had lost its
greatness and the prestige of superiority among the nations of the world, it
was still the seat of learning and the resort of studious philosophers ; and
the abuses consequent on the fall of an empire had not yet brought about the
demoralisation of after times.
In the treatment of women they seem to have been very far advanced
beyond other wealthy communities of the same era, having usages very
similar to those of modern Europe ; and such was the respect snown to
women that precedence was given to them over men, and the wives and
daughters of kings succeeded to the throne like the male branches of the
royal family. Nor was this privilege rescinded, even though it had more
than once entailed upon them the troubles of a contested succession : foreign
kings often having claimed a right to the throne through marriage with an
Egyptian princess. It was not a mere influence that they possessed, which
women often acquire in the most arbitrary Eastern communities ; nor a
political importance accorded to a particular individual, like that of the
Sultana Valideh, the Queen Mother, at Constantinople ; it was a right
acknowledged by law, both in private and public life.
As in all warm climates, the poorer classes of Egyptians lived much in
the open air ; and the houses of the rich were constructed to be cool
throughout the summer ; currents of refreshing air being made to circu-
late freely through them by the judicious arrangement of the passages and
courts.
The houses were built of crude brick, stuccoed and painted with all
the combination of bright colour, in which the Egyptians delighted ; and a
highly decorated mansion had numerous
courts, and architectural details derived
from the temples. Poor people were
satisfied with very simple tenements;
their wants being easily supplied, both
as to lodging and food ; ana their house
consisted of four walls, with a flat roof
of palm branches laid across a split date
tree as a beam, and covered with mats
plastered over with a thick coating of
mud. It had one door, and a few small
windows closed by wooden shutters.
As it scarcely ever rained, the mud
roof was not washed into the sitting-
room ; and this cottage rather answered as a shelter from the sun, and as a
closet for their goods, than for the ordinary purpose of a house in other
countries. Indeed, at night the owners slept on the roof, during the greater
part of the year ; and as most of their work was done out of doors, they
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN COMBS
(Now In the British Ma«eum)
218
THE HISTOEY OF EGYPT
might easily be persuaded that a house was far less necessary for them than
a tomb.
In their plans the houses of towns, like the villas in the country, varied
according to the caprice of the builders. The ground plan, in some of the
former, consisted of a number of chambers on three sides of a court, which
was often planted with trees. Others consisted of two rows of rooms on
either side of a long passage, with an entrance court from the street ; and
others were laid out in chambers round a central area, similar to the Roman
impluvium, and paved with stone, or containing a few trees, a tank, or a
fountain, in its centre. Sometimes, though rarely, a flight of steps led to the
front door from the street.
Houses of small size were often connected together, and formed the con-
tinuous sides of streets ; and a courtyard was common to several dwellings.
Others of a humbler kind consisted merely of rooms opening on a narrow
passage, or directly on the street. These had only a basement story, or
ground floor ; and few houses exceeded two stories above it. They mostly
consisted of one upper floor ; and though Diodorus speaks of the lofty houses
in Thebes four and five stories high, the paintings show that few had three,
and the largest seldom four, including as he does the basement story. 6
SERVANT PRESENTING A LOTUS FLOWER TO A GUEST
C.AT Mi MMIKH
(Now la the British MuBeom)
CHAPTER X. THE EGYPTIAN
RELIGION
This country is so thickly peopled with divinities that it is easier to
find a god than a man. — PETHOHIUS.
FEW things are so hard to understand as the religion of an alien race.
Indeed, we have but too many illustrations before us constantly that even
among the same people, and where ideas are based upon the same authori-
ties, a great divergence of opinion is possible. It is little to be expected,
then, that any people should fully understand the religious faith of another
people. To add to the difficulty, all the great religions are of Oriental
origin and date from a pre-scientific era. Now the essential characteristic
both of Oriental and of non-scientific thinking is its vagueness. The Arabic
historian, even of the present day, loves to indulge in absurd flights of
rhetoric. He sprinkles his pages with grotesque metaphors ; he uses the
most hyperbolic exaggerations ; nor is he particular to avoid the most
glaring contradictions ; and over it all he throws the veil of hazy mysticism.
If this be true of the Oriental style of composition when applied to staid
matter-of-fact recitals, certainly one could expect nothing more definite when
the theme is religion. It is no matter for surprise, then, that the sacred
books of all great religions are couched in phraseology well calculated to
befog the mind of any one who approaches them in any other spirit than that
of preconceived faith. This applies no more and no less to the Egyptian
than to all other Oriental religions. On the other hand, the data supplied us
for the interpretation of the Egyptian faith are far more abundant than
are accessible in the case of most other of the great religions of antiquity.
Despite the confusion and vagueness and seeming contradiction that per-
tain to the Egyptian records, it is probably true that a reasonably correct
idea may be formed, at least in general terms, of the evolution and develop-
ment, no less than of the final status, of the faith which was dominant with
the people of the Nile for at least three thousand years. Certainly at least
a rough outline of the development of that faith is accessible, and it is the
more worthy of presentation because it may be taken at the same time as
illustrative of the probable evolution of the faith of other peoples.
The most obvious and striking fact that appeals to the investigator of
the Egyptian religion is that enormous numbers of gods hold sway : Ra,
Horus, Osiris, Isis, Tmu, Amen, Set, — the list extends itself almost end-
lessly. Moreover, there is no little confusion as to the precise status of the
various gods thus named. To casual inspection it would seem as if the
Egyptian of the later time had no very clear idea himself as to how many
gods were really included in the hierarchy, or as to the precise identity of
the more important ones. And, indeed, such was probably the fact.
The only rational explanation of this confusion appears to be the alleged
fact that in an early prehistoric day the various communities of Egypt, not
219
220 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
yet consolidated under a single government, had each its own special deity.
This local deity, presiding jealously over the interests of its own people,
came naturally to have greater or less importance in proportion to the
growth or decay of the community over which it presided. Moreover, there
must have been a constant tendency, through a shifting of portions of the
population from one community to another, to confuse the attributes of the
various gods even from the earliest time; since the person who removed
from one village to another could not well be expected quite to forget the
local god who had formerly been the chief object of his worship. Then as
one community or another became dominant after the government was cen-
tralised, there must have been a tendency in successive ages to emphasise
the importance of one local god or another.
Thus it is clear that in the time of the New Kingdom, when Thebes
became the capital and chief centre of the empire, Amen, the local god of
Thebes, came to assume an importance hitherto denied him. At last it was
even customary to identify Amen with Ra, the greatest god of all, or king
of the gods, and the compound name, Amen-Ra, came into use. Various
other names were compounded through a similar confusion of attributes,
chiefly perhaps through the natural tendency to identify one's local god
with a god of more widely recognised authority. A moment's reflection
makes it clear that the tendency of all this was towards the recognition of
a most important central god, who, to a certain extent, ruled over and
controlled the hierarchy of the lesser deities. But indeed, it seems clear
that from the earliest times the existence of such a supremely powerful god
had been everywhere recognised.
It may be doubted even whether it is possible for any religion worthy of
the name to fail of an analysis leading to this result. The human mind
naturally reaches back from effect to cause, and while it cannot quite clearly
grasp the idea of an ultimate single cause, yet neither can it escape the analy-
sis that leads to that idea.
In this view it might be contended that the Egyptian religion, and indeed,
every other religion, is monotheistic ; certainly its trend was towards mono-
theism, and certainly this conception best accords with the natural cast of
the Oriental mind. It is natural to attempt to visualise, in the spiritual
world, a state of things not widely different from the conditions of the actual
world, and a people who had no higher conception of the body politic than
the thought of an autocracy presided over by a single supreme monarch,
would have been strangely untrue to their psychological prejudices had
they failed to conceive a like state of things existing in the hierarchy
of the gods.
Side by side with this tendency towards monotheism, however, exists
always the counter tendency towards a multiplication of deities. The found-
ing of a new city or colony would imply, sooner or later, the creation of a
god to preside over the new community. If at first an old god were trans-
planted for the purpose, local jealousy would be sure to demand a deity
whose sole interests in the local community could be expected. Again, the
deification of kings and perhaps the other departed notables must of neces-
sity lead to a perpetual enhancement of the list of gods. But this multi-
plicity of minor deities must not be supposed to be necessarily antagonistic
to the essential monotheistic idea in the case of the Egyptian, any more than
the multiplication of saints affects the status of the Christian religion.
Over and above all other gods, from first to last, there seems always to
have been a conception of Ra, the Uncreated, the autocrat of the heavens.
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 221
Horus the sun-god, who fought each day in the interest of mankind against
the malicious demon Set, or Sutekh, and who was overcome each night
only to revive again and renew the combat with each succeeding morn-
ing, was a god of great and widely recognised power. Yet it appears that
he was not quite identified, as has sometimes been supposed, with the
supreme god Ra. To the latter attached a certain intangibility, a certain
vagueness inconsistent with the obvious visual reality of the sun-god, or
with the being of any other god whose qualities could be explicitly defined.
In the very nature of the case the conception of Ra was vague. He
represented the last analysis of thought, from which the mind recoils dazed
and acknowledging itself baffled.
While we can hardly doubt that this must have been the status of the
supreme god Ra in the minds of the most philosophical thinkers of Egypt,
yet it is no less certain that there was a constant tendency to associate the
qualities of various other gods with the qualities of the supreme deity ; in
other words, to elevate a lesser deity to the kingship of the gods, somewhat
as an important subject might now and again be elevated to the earthly
kingship.
The most tangible effort in this direction was made late in the XVIIIth
Dynasty by Amenhotep IV, who came afterwards to be known as Khun-aten,
" the splendour of the sun-disk," and whom later generations characterised
as the heretic king. This monarch strove to subordinate, if not indeed to
eliminate, all the hosts of minor gods by instituting the kingship of the sun-
god alone as the supreme, perhaps as the only, deity. The effort was not
successful, and the reaction that followed left the old religion more firmly
fixed than ever, in its previous beliefs and observances. None the less, the
attempt has great historic interest, partly because it shows that the idea of
essential monotheism underlying a superficial plurality of gods was current
in Egypt, and even attained official recognition at just about the time of the
Egyptian captivity of the Children of Israel. It is aside from the present
purpose to inquire to what extent the ideas of the latter may have been
influenced by this strong current of Egyptian thought.
It has just been said that the reaction against the sun-worship heresy left
the old faith more firmly established than before. Never again was a prom-
inent and conspicuous effort made to depart from the ancient faith. What-
ever details of variation may have been introduced, the religion as a whole
remained unchanged throughout the remaining course of Egyptian history.
But this fixity again, far from being peculiar to the Egyptians, is but the
history of every great theological system. The very fulcrum of such a sys-
tem is the reliance upon the authority of the past. The abiding support of a
traditional faith is that conservatism which lies at the foundation or all civ-
ilisation, and indeed, paradoxical though it seems, of all progress. The
conservative, his eye fixed on the past, plants himself firmly in the path of
progress, crying " Halt ! " to every innovation. Yet during the time of a
nation's vitality this attempted damming up of the stream of progress results
in, at most, a temporary stasis, since now and again the stress of new ideas
suffices to burst the bonds. But there may come a time when the vitality
of a nation is sapped, and when the power of conservatism may avail against
all progressive movements.
Such a time came in Egypt at just about the era when the nations of
Persia and of Greece were preparing to take hand in the world combat, and
from that time on traditional theology, as represented by the priestcraft, was
dominant in Egypt, and the once potent civilisation of the Nile Valley
222 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
ceased to hold its own. The records that outside nations have given us of
Egyptian conditions date solely from this later period, and must therefore
always be taken with certain reservations. Nevertheless, as regards the
more tangible things which they describe, they perhaps are not greatly dif-
ferent from what they would have been if written a thousand years earlier.
They tell us of great pyramids that were the tombs of kings, of strange
customs of mummifying the dead, and of the worship of animals, so crass in
character as to be almost inconceivable to the modern mind. The pyramids,
to be sure, dated from an ancient epoch ; moreover, they still stand, defiant
of time, to testify to the truth of the Greek recitals. The mummies have
been preserved in countless numbers, and if animal worship died out with
the incoming of a new religion after the Macedonian invasion, there is no
reason to doubt the substantial accuracy, as regards mere externals, of the
accounts of it which the Greeks preserve to us.
We shall do well, then, to turn to the pages of Herodotus and Diodorus
for a description of the external observances practised by the Egyptians,
remembering always that this is the testimony of alien, even though sympa-
thetic, witnesses, but scarcely doubting that it is testimony at least as
unprejudiced as any that a modern would-be interpreter can draw from the
monumental records.
The aggregate impression which one gathers, from even a casual consid-
eration of the subject, is that the religion of the Egyptians, despite its very
striking peculiarities of external observances, differed singularly little from
the other great religions in its essentials. It was polytheistic, but with an
underlying conception of monotheism. Its chief observances implied an
abiding faith in the immortality of the soul. Its fundamental teachings were
essentially moral according to the best light of the time. And if, as viewed
by an outsider, it seemed to develop a grotesque ritual and a jumble of
vague theistic conceptions, in these regards, also, it can hardly claim to be
unique among Oriental religions."
BELIGIOtJS FESTIVALS AND OFFERINGS
Herodotus gives an interesting description of certain religious observances
as practised in his day. He says :
The priests of the gods, who in other places wear their hair long, in Egypt
wear it short. It is elsewhere customary, in cases of death, for those who
are most nearly related, to cut off their hair in testimony of sorrow ; but the
Egyptians, who at other times have their heads closely shorn, suffer the hair
on this occasion to grow. Other nations will not suffer animals to approach
the place of their repast; but in Egypt they live promiscuously with the
people. Wheat and barley are common articles of food in other countries ;
but in Egypt they are thought mean and disgraceful ; the diet here consists
principally of spelt, a kind of corn which some call zea. Their dough they
knead with their feet ; whilst in the removal of mud and dung, they do not
scruple to use their hands. Male children, except in those places which
have borrowed the custom from hence, are left in other nations as nature
formed them ; in Egypt they are circumcised. The men have two vests, the
women only one. In opposition to the customs of other nations, the Egyp-
tians fix the ropes to their sails on the inside. The Greeks, when they write
or reckon with counters, go from the left to the right, the Egyptians from right
to left ; notwithstanding which they persist in affirming that the Greeks
write to the left, but they themselves always to the right. They have two
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 223
sorts of letters, one of which is appropriated to sacred subjects, the other
used on common occasions [the hieroglyphic and hieratic characters].
Their veneration of their deities is superstitious to an extreme : one of
their customs is to drink out of brazen goblets, which it is the universal
practice among them to cleanse every day. They are so regardful of neat-
ness, that they wear only linen, and that always newly washed ; and it is
from the idea of cleanliness, which they regard much beyond comeliness, that
they use circumcision. Their priests every third day shave every part of
their bodies, to prevent vermin or any species of impurity from adhering to
those who are engaged in the service of the gods : the priesthood is also con-
fined to one particular mode of dress ; they have one vest of linen and their
shoes are made of the byblus [papyrus] ; they wash themselves in cold water
twice in the course of the day, and as often in the night ; it would indeed
be difficult to enumerate their religious ceremonies, all of which they practise
with superstitious exactness. The sacred ministers possess in return many
and great advantages: they are not obliged to consume any part of their
domestic property; each has a portion of the sacred viands ready dressed,
assigned him, besides a large and daily allowance of beef and of geese ; they
have also wine, but are not permitted to feed on fish.
Beans are sown in no part of Egypt, neither will the inhabitants eat them,
either boiled or raw ; the priests will not even look at this pulse, esteeming
it exceedingly unclean. Every god has several attendant priests, and one of
superior dignity, who presides over the rest ; when any one dies he is suc-
ceeded by his son.
They esteem bulls as sacred to Epaphus, which previously to sacrifice,
are thus carefully examined : if they can but discover a single black hair
in his body, he is deemed impure ; for this purpose a priest is particularly
appointed, who examines the animal as it stands, and as reclined on its back:
its tongue is also drawn out, and he observes whether it be free from those
blemishes which are specified in their sacred books, and of which I shall
speak hereafter. The tail also undergoes examination, every hair of which
must grow in its natural and proper form : if in all these instances the bull
appears to be unblemished, the priest fastens the byblus round his horns ; he
then applies a preparation of earth, which receives the impression of his seal,
and the animal is led away ; this seal is of so great importance, that to
sacrifice a beast which has it not, is deemed a capital offence.
I proceed to describe their mode of sacrifice : Having led the animal
destined and marked for the purpose, to the altar, they kindle a fire ; a liba-
tion of wine is poured upon the altar ; the god is solemnly invoked, and the
victim then is killed ; they afterwards cut off his head, and take the skin
from the carcass ; upon the head they heap many imprecations : such as
have a market-place at hand carry it there, and sell it to the Grecian traders ;
if they have not this opportunity, they throw it into the river. They devote
the head, by wishing that whatever evil menaces those who sacrifice, or Egypt
in general, it may fall upon that head.1 This ceremony respecting the head
of the animal, and this mode of pouring a libation of wine upon the altar,
is indiscriminately observed by all the Egyptians : in consequence of the
above, no Egyptian will on any account eat of the head of a beast. As to
the examination of the victims, and their ceremony of burning them, they
have different methods, as their different occasions of sacrifice require.
1 See Leviticus, chap. xvi. 21. " And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the
lire goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgres-
sions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.1' — TRAMSLATOB.
224 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Of that goddess whom they esteem the first of their deities, and in whose
honour their greatest festival is celebrated, I shall now make more particular
mention. After the previous ceremony of prayers, they sacrifice an ox ; they
then strip off the skin, and take out the intestines, leaving the fat and the
paunch ; they afterwards cut off the legs, the shoulders, the neck, and the
extremities of the loin ; the rest of the body is stuffed with fine bread, honey,
raisins, figs, frankincense, and various aromatics ; after this process they burn
it, pouring upon the flame a large quantity of oil : whilst the victim is
burning, the spectators flagellate themselves, having fasted before the cere-
mony ; the whole is completed by their feasting on the residue of the sacri-
fice. All the Egyptians sacrifice bulls without blemish, and calves; the
females are sacred to Isis, and may not be used for this purpose. This
divinity is represented under the form of a woman, and, as the Greeks paint
lo, with horns upon her head; for this reason the Egyptians venerate
cows far beyond all other cattle. Neither will any man or woman among
them kiss a Grecian, nor use a knife, or spit, or any domestic utensil
belonging to a Greek, nor will they eat even the flesh of such beasts as by
their law are pure, if it has been cut with a Grecian knife. If any of
these cattle die, they thus dispose of their carcasses: the females are thrown
into the river, the males they bury in the vicinity of the city, and by way
of mark, one and sometimes both of the horns are left projecting from the
ground : they remain thus a stated time, and till they begin to putrefy,
when a vessel appointed for this particular purpose is dispatched from
Prosopitis, an island of the Delta, nine schaeni in extent, and containing
several cities. Atarbechis, one of these cities, in which is a temple of
Venus, provides the vessels for this purpose, which are sent to the different
parts of Egypt : these collect and transport the bones of the animals, which
are all buried in one appointed place. This law and custom extends to
whatever cattle may happen to die, as the Egyptians themselves put none
to death.
Those who worship in the temple of the Theban Jupiter, or belong to
the district of Thebes, abstain from sheep, and sacrifice goats. The same
deities receive in Egypt different forms of worship ; the ceremonies of Isis
and of Osiris, who they say is no other than the Grecian Bacchus, are alone
unvaried ; in the temple of Mendes, and in the whole Mendesian district,
goats are preserved and sheep sacrificed. The veneration of the Mendesians
for these animals, and for the males in particular, is equally great and uni-
versal : this is also extended to goat-herds. There is one he-goat more par-
ticularly honoured than the rest, whose death is seriously lamented by the
whole district of the Mendesians. In the Egyptian language the word
Mendes is used in common for Pan and for a goat.
The Egyptians regard the hog as an unclean animal, and if they casually
touch one they immediately plunge themselves, clothes and all, into the
water. This prejudice operates to the exclusion of all swine-herds, although
natives of Egypt, from the temples : with people of this description, a con-
nection by marriage is studiously avoided, and they are reduced to the neces-
sity of intermarrying among those of their own profession. The only deities
to whom the Egyptians offer swine, are Bacchus and Luna ; to these they
sacrifice them when the moon is at the full, after which they eat the flesh.
Why they offer swine at this particular time, and at no other, the Egyptians
have a tradition among themselves, which delicacy forbids me to explain.
The following is the mode in which they sacrifice this animal to Luna : as
soon as it is killed, they cut off the extremity of the tail, which, with the
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION
spleen and the fat, they enclose in the caul, and burn ; upon the remainder,
which at any other time they would disdain, they feast at the full moon,
when the sacrifice is performed. They who are poor make figures of swine
with meal, which having first baked, they offer on the altar.
On the day of the feast of Bacchus, at the hour of supper, every person,
before the door of his house, offers a hog in sacrifice. The swine-herd of
whom they purchased it, is afterwards at liberty to take it away. Except
this sacrifice of the swine, the Egyptians celebrate the feast of Bacchus in
the same manner as the Greeks. 6
GIFTS AND RICHES OF TEMPLES
There are certain very practical features of the administration of the
temples which Herodotus quite overlooked, but which have come to light
through the efforts of modern scholarship. Some of these are admirably
pointed out by Professor Erman :
Not the least of the circumstances which lent the priesthood of the New
Kingdom that power which finally triumphed over royalty itself, was their
wealth. For this they were indebted to gifts, and, indeed, so far as we can
see, chiefly to gifts from the kings; it is only now and then that we find
a private person making an endowment. From the earliest times all
the rulers are busy in this fatal direction (some, like the pious kings of
the Vth dynasty, were more so than others); even under the old King-
dom many temples had attained such prosperity that they even possessed
military forces of their own.
The golden age for the temples began with the Asiatic campaigns of
the XVIIIth Dynasty. An approximate idea of the gifts which Tehutimes
III made to Amen may be obtained from the remains of an inscription at
Karnak ; fields and gardens of the choicest of the South and North, landed
property on high ground, with sweet trees growing on it, milch cows, and
bullocks, and quantities of gold, silver, and lapis lazuli ; then captive
Asiatics and negroes, — there were at least 878 souls — men, women, and
children, — who had to fill the god's granaries, spin and weave, and till his
fields for him. Finally he settled upon Amen three of the towns con-
quered by him, En-heugsa, Yenu-amu, and Hurenkhara, which had to
pay an annual tribute to the god. Since almost every sovereign of the
New Kingdom boasts in nearly the same words of having exhibited his
piety in a practical fashion, one is first inclined to take this constant
self-glorification of the Pharaohs, as so much in the Egyptian text has to
be taken, for a conventional empty phrase. But in that case, our doubt
would go too far, since at least some of the kings did make to the temples
gifts which surpass all that might be considered probable. The lucky
chance which has preserved for us the great Harris papyrus places us
in a position to bring forward the evidence of figures. King Ramses III
left behind after his death a comprehensive manifesto, in which he enumer-
ates in detail all that he had done for the sanctuaries of his country during
the thirty-one years of his reign. The numbers of these lists are evidently
taken from the accounts of the state and of the different temples, and are
consequently deserving of credit.
This great record, which fills a papyrus roll 1333 feet long, with seventy-
nine pages of a large size, is divided into five sections, according to the
recipients of the gifts. The first contains the gifts to the Theban temples,
then follows the gifts to Heliopolis, those to Memphis, and those to the
H. W. — VOL. I. <J
226 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
smaller sanctuaries of the country; finally, the fifth section contains the
total of all the donations.
Taking together the similar items amongst the donations, tributes, and
sacrificial offerings, we have then the chief items of the sum of the income
of the Egyptian temples during one and thirty years, somewhat as follows :
about 1 ton (1015 kg. 336. g.) of gold; about 3 tons (2993 kg. 964 g.) silver
and the value of silver ; 940 kg. 3 g. of black bronze ; about 13 tons
(13,059 kg. 865 g.) bronze; about 14 Ibs. (7 kg. 124 g.) precious stones;
1,093,803 pieces of valuable stone ; 169 towns, 1,071,780 plots of arable
land ; 514 vineyards and orchards ; 178 ships ; 133,433 slaves ; 514,968
head of cattle (especially oxen); 680,714 geese; 494,800 fish; 2,382,605
fruits ; 5,740,352 sacks of corn ; 6,744,428 loaves of bread ; 256,460 jars of
wine; 466,303 jars of beer; 368,461 jars of incense, honey, oil, etc., 1,933-
766 items.
In order to give the reader some idea of the large sums here dealt with,
I may remark that even in our own time, when the value of the metals has
so greatly decreased, the quantity of precious metals in question would be
worth about four million marks (about $1,000,000, or £200,000). And it
must not be forgotten that on those same six or seven millions of Egyptians
who, in addition to the state taxes, had to produce these treasures " ad
majorem dei gloriam" there devolved at the same time the building of the
temples of Medinet Habu, Karnak, Tel-el-Tehudeh, and others. Truly the
forces of the little country were unduly strained for the unproductive pur-
poses of worship.
But what made these conditions so completely unsound was the dispro-
portionate division of the treasure expended. If the many temples of the
country had participated equally in these gifts, no one of them would have
attained to an extreme height of power and wealth. But, probably on polit-
ical grounds, which we can now no longer determine, Ramses III favoured
one temple in the most partial manner, and that the very one to which his
predecessors had already conferred the richest endowments. This was the
sanctuary of the Theban Amen, which carried off the lion's share of all the
gifts of the generous sovereign.
Thus, for example, of the total 113,433 slaves which Ramses gave away,
no fewer than 86,486 fell to Amen ; of the 493,386 head of cattle, 421,362 ;
of the 1,071,780 divisions of land, 898,168 ; of the 514 vineyards, 433 ; and so
on : the 2756 gold and silver images of the gods were destined exclusively
for him, and so were the nine foreign towns ; it must even here be regarded
as an exceptionally mean gift, when he received only 56 of the 160 Egyp-
tian towns. On the whole, it will scarcely be wrong to assume that of the
total of the gifts, three-fourths found their way into Amen's treasuries ; of
the 86,486 slaves, the god Khonsu and the goddess Mut received in all only
3908.
Since, then, the earlier sovereigns of the New Kingdom had also laboured
to fill the treasury of their favourite god Amen, this god ended by possess-
ing resources, beside which those of all the other gods shrank to nothing,
and again it is the document of Ramses III which enables us to estimate it
in figures.
If we compare these figures with one another, we cannot doubt that
under the XXth Dynasty the Amen of Thebes possessed at least five times
as much property as the sun-god of Heliopolis, and ten times (if not far
more) as much as Ptah of Memphis. And yet these latter were the two
gods who had formerly been the most distinguished, and certainly also the
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 227
richest, in the whole country. The enormous magnitude of temple property
like this, of course, demanded a much more complicated machinery for its
administration than had been required for the modest possessions of the
ancient sanctuaries. Even one of the larger temples of the middle kingdom
could have its treasure, its granaries, and its affairs of writing carried on by
certain members of its priestly college, for the labours which they entailed
could be executed side by side ; beyond the inferior servants there had been
scarcely any regular officials in these temples. It is quite otherwise in the
New Kingdom ; the priests can no longer manage the administration un-
aided, and call in a host of officials to help. This is true of all the temples,
but, of course, especially so of that of the Theban Amen. This god pos-
sessed a general administration of the house, i.e. the temple furniture; he
has special departments for the treasure, for the lands, for the barns, for the
oxen, and for the peasants, and every one of these departments has its over-
seer of princely rank, and its scribe. There is also a superior chief scribe for
Amen, who keeps the roll of the sanctuary's possessions. And since in a
great temple of the New Kingdom the erection of new buildings and the
works of restoration are never interrupted, he has also his own administra-
tion of construction, to which all works are subordinated; of course, pro-
vision is also made for the required number of labourers and craftsmen of
all kinds, from the painter down to the stone-mason. To secure order in
the temple and on the estates, the god keeps his own military forces with
superior and inferior officers, and since amongst his dependents very secular
proceedings often take place, he has also his own prison. Of the large staff
of subordinate officials, who must have existed in such an administration,
we, of course, know very little, as this class keeps out of sight. Still such
people as the overseer of the sacrificial storehouses, doorkeepers of every
description, and barbers have left us monuments, and must consequently
have enjoyed a certain prosperity.
What we have here stated respecting the temple administration would
be of still greater interest if we knew the mutual relations of all these
offices, and how it came to pass that we find, now these, now those,
united in the same hands. That the high priest arrogated to himself, at
least nominally, now one, now another, especially important office, is com-
prehensible enough; but it remains unexplained how, for instance, the
management of the constructions can be at one time handed over as a
secondary function to the chief scribe, and another time to the superin-
tendent of barns, the more since the former presided in addition over the
god's bulls, and the latter has the treasury under his protection, and " seals
all contracts in Amen's temple." It is, moreover, a characteristic circum-
stance that these high temple officials are frequently also state function-
aries ; the gradual transformation of the old kingdom into the priestly state
of the XXIst Dynasty, which is ruled by the high priests of Amen, already
distinctly reveals itself in such dual officers. Still, the kingly power did
not submit to the spiritual without resistance, and it may be that both the
reformation of Khun-aten and the disturbances at the end of the XlXth
Dynasty, when no sacrifices were brought into the temples, were in good
part called forth by the effort to oppose a barrier to the individual and
increasing power of the Amen priesthood. It must be owned that the latter
issued from both trials stronger than ever.c
The opulence of the Egyptian temples is the more amazing for being
lavished upon mere beasts. This animal-worship deeply impressed classical
authors. The account of Diodorus is particularly full and vivid.
228 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
DIODORUS ON ANIMAL WORSHIP
The Adoration and Worshipping of Beasts among the Egyptians seems
justly to many a most strange and unaccountable thing, and worthy Enquiry ;
for they worship some Creatures even above measure, when they are dead as
well as when they are living ; as Cats, Ichneumons, Dogs, Kites, the Bird
Ibis, Wolves and Crocodiles, and many other such like. The Cause of which
I shall endeavour to give, having first premis'd something briefly concerning
them. And first of all, they dedicate a piece of Land to every kind of Creature
they adore, assigning the Profits for feeding and taking care of them. To
some of these Deities the Egyptians give Thanks for recovering their Chil-
dren from Sickness, as by shaving their Heads, and weighing the Hair, with
the like Weight of Gold or Silver, and then giving that Mony to them that
have the Care of the Beasts. To the Kites, while they are flying they cry
out with a loud Voice, and throw pieces of Flesh for them upon the Ground
till such time as they take it. To the Cats and Ichneumons they give Bread
soakt in Milk, stroaking and making much of them, or feed them with pieces
of Fish taken in the River Nile. In the same manner they provide for the
other Beasts Food according to their several kinds.
They are so far from not paying this Homage to their Creatures, or being
asham'd of them, that on the contrary they glory in them, as in the highest
Adoration of the Gods, and carry about special Marks and Ensigns of Honour
for them through City and Country ; upon which Account those that have
the Care of the Beasts (being seen afar off) are honour'd and worshipp'd by
all by falling down upon their Knees. When any one of them dye they
wrap it in fine Linen, and with Howling beat upon their Breasts, and so
carry it forth to be salted, and then after they have anointed it with the Oyl
of Cedar and other things, which both give the Body a fragrant Smell and
preserve it a long time from Putrefaction, they bury it in a secret place.
He that wilfully kills any of these Beasts, is to suffer Death ; but if any kill
a Cat or the Bird Ibis, whether wilfully or otherwise, he's certainly drag'd
away to Death by the Multitude, and sometimes most cruelly without any
formal Tryal or Judgment of Law. For fear of this, if any by chance find
any of these Creatures dead, they stand aloof, and with lamentable Cries and
Protestations tell every body that they found it dead.
And such is the religious Veneration imprest upon the Hearts of Men
towards these Creatures, and so obstinately is every one bent to adore and
worship them, that even at the time when the Romans were about making
a League with Ptolemy, and all the People made it their great Business to
caress and shew all Civility and Kindness imaginable to them that came out
of Italy, and through Fear strove all they could that no Occasion might in
the least be given to disoblige them or be the Cause of a War, yet it so hap-
p'ned that upon a Cat being kill'd by a Roman, the People in a Tumult ran
to his Lodging, and neither the Princes sent by the King to dissuade them,
nor the Fear of the Romans could deliver the Person from the Rage of the
People, tho' he did it against his Will ; and this I relate not by Hear-say,
but was myself an Eye-witness of it at the time of my Travels into Egypt.
If these things seem incredible and like to Fables, those that we shall here-
after relate will look more strange. For it's reported, that at a time when
there was a Famine in Egypt, many were driven to that strait, that by turns
they fed one upon another ; but not a Man was accused to have in the least
tasted of any of these sacred Creatures. Nay, if a Dog be found dead in
a House, the whole Family shave their Bodies all over, and make great
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 229
Lamentation ; and that which is most wonderful, is, That if any Wine,
Bread or any other Victuals be in the House where any of these Creatures
die, it's a part of their Superstition, not to make use of any of them for any
purpose whatsoever. And when they have been abroad in the Wars in for-
eign Countries, they have with great Lamentation brought with them dead
Cats and Kites into Egypt, when in the mean time they have been ready to
starve for want of Provision.
Moreover what Acts of Religious Worship they perform'd towards Apis
in Memphis, Mnevis in Heliopolis, the Goat in Mendes, the Crocodile in the
Lake of Mceris, and the Lyon kept in Leontopolis, and many other such like,
is easie to describe, but very difficult to believe, except a Man saw it. For
these Creatures are kept and fed in consecrated Ground inclos'd, and many
great Men provide Food for them at great Cost and Charge ; for they con-
stantly give them fine Wheat-Flower, Frumenty, Sweet-meats of all sorts
made up with Honey, and Geese sometimes rosted, and sometimes boyl'd ;
and for such as fed upon raw Flesh, they provide Birds. To say no more,
they are excessive in their Costs and Charges in feeding of these Creatures ;
and forbear not to wash them in hot Baths, to anoint them with the most
precious Unguents, and perfume them with the sweetest Odours. They
provide likewise for them most rich Beds to lye upon, with decent Furni-
ture, and are extraordinary careful about their generating one with another,
according to the Law of Nature. They breed up for every one of the Males
(according to their Kinds) the most beautiful She-mate, and call them their
Concubines or Sweet-hearts, and are at great Costs in looking to them.
When any of them dye, they are as much concern'd as at the Deaths of
their own Children, and lay out in Burying of them as much as all their
Goods are worth, and far more. For when Apis through Old Age dy'd at
Memphis after the Death of Alexander, and in the Reign of Ptolemy Lagus,
his Keeper not only spent all that vast Provision he had made, in burying of
him, but borrow'd of Ptolemy Fifty Talents of Silver for the same purpose.
And in our time some of the Keepers of these Creatures have lavisht away
no less than a Hundred Talents in the maintaining of them. To this may
be further added, what is in use among them concerning the sacred Ox,
which they call Apis. After the splendid Funeral of Apis is over, those
Priests that have the Charge of the Business, seek out another Calf, as like
the former as possibly they can find ; and when they have found one, an end is
put to all further Mourning and Lamentation ; and such Priests as are appointed
for that purpose, lead the young Ox [or Bull] through the City of Nile, and
feed him Forty Days. Then they put him into a Barge, wherein is a Golden
Cabbin, and so transport him as a God to Memphis, and place him in Vulcan's
Grove. During the Forty Days before mention'd, none but Women are ad-
mitted to see him, who being plac'd full in his view, pluck up their Coats.
After, they are forbad to come into Sight of this New God. For the Adora-
tion of this Ox, they give this Reason. They say that the Soul of Osiris
pass'd into an Ox ; and therefore whenever the Ox is Dedicated, to this very
Day the Spirit of Osiris is infus'd into one Ox after another to Posterity.
But some say, that the Members of Osiris (who was kill'd by Typhon) were
thrown by Isis into an Ox made of Wood, cover'd with Ox-Hides, and from
thence the City Busiris was so call'd. Many other things they fabulously
report of Apis, which would be too tedious particularly to relate. But in as
much as all that relate to this Adoration of Beasts are wonderful and indeed
incredible, it's very difficult to find out the true Causes and Grounds of this
Superstition.
230 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
We have before related, that the Priests have a private and secret account
of these things in the History of the Gods ; but the Common People give
these Three Reasons for what they do. The First of which is altogether
Fabulous, and agrees with the old Dotage: For they say, that the First
Gods were so very few, and Men so many above them in number, and so
wicked and impious, that they were too weak for them, and therefore trans-
form'd themselves into Beasts, and by that means avoided their Assaults and
Cruelty. But afterwards they say that the Kings and Princes of the Eartli
(in gratitude to them that were the first Authors of their well-being) directed
how carefully those Creatures whose shapes they had assum'd should be fed
while they were alive, and how they were to be Buried when they were dead.
Another Reason they give is this : The antient Egyptians, they say, being
often defeated by the Neighbouring Nations, by reason of the disorder and
confusion that was among them in drawing up of their Battalions, found out
at last the way of Carrying Standards or Ensigns before their Several Regi-
ments ; and therefore they painted the Images of these Beasts, which now
they adore, and fixt 'em at the end of a Spear, which the Officers carry'd
before them, and by this means every Man perfectly knew the Regiment he
belong'd unto ; and being that by the Observation of this good Order and
Discipline, they were often Victorious, they ascrib'd their Deliverance to
these Creatures ; and to make to them a grateful Return, it was ordain'd
for a Law, that none of these Creatures, whose Representations were for-
merly thus carry'd, should be kill'd, but religiously and carefully ador'd, as
is before related.
The Third Reason alledg'd by them, is the Profit and Advantage these
Creatures bring to the common support and maintenance of Humane Life.
For the Cow is both servicable to the Plow, and for breeding others for the
same use. The Sheep yeans twice a Year, and yields Wool for Cloathing
and Ornament, and of her Milk and Cream are made large and pleasant
Cheeses. The Dog is useful both for the Guard of the House, and the pleas-
ure of Hunting in the Field, and therefore their God whom they call Anubis,
they represent with a Dog's Head, signifying thereby that a Dog was the
Guard both to Osiris and Isis. Others say, that when they fought for Osiris,
Dogs guided Isis, and by their barking and yelling (as kind and faithful Asso-
ciates with the Inquisitors ) drove away the wild Beasts, and diverted others
that were in their way ; and therefore in celebrating the Feast of Isis, Dogs
lead the way in the Procession. Those that first instituted this Custom,
signifying thereby the ancient kindness and good Service of this Creature.
The Cat likewise is very serviceable against the Venemous Stings of Serpents,
and the deadly Bite of the Asp.
The Ichneumon secretly watches where the Crocodile lays her Eggs,
and breaks them in pieces, and that he does with a great deal of eagerness,
by natural instinct, without any necessity for his own support ; and if this
Creature were not thus serviceable, Crocodiles would abound to that degree,
that there were no Sailing in Nile : Yea, the Crocodiles themselves are
destroy'd by this Creature in a wonderful and incredible manner. For the
Ichneumon rouls himself in the Mud, and then observing the Crocodile
sleeping upon the Bank of the River with his Mouth wide open, suddenly
whips down through his Throat into his very Bowels, and presently gnaws
his way through his Belly, and so escapes himself, with the Death of his
Enemy.
Among the Birds, the Ibis is serviceable for the destroying of Snakes,
Locusts and the Palmer Worm. The Kite is an Enemy to the Scorpions,
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 231
horn'd Serpents, and other little Creatures, that both bite and sting Men to
Death. Others say, that this Bird is Deify'd, because the Augurs make use
of the swift flight of these Birds in their Divinations. Others say, that
in ancient Time, a Book bound about with a Scarlet Thred (wherein were
written all the Kites and Customs of Worshipping of the Gods) was carry'd
by a Kite, and brought to the Priests at Thebes : For which Reason the
Sacred Scribes wore a red Cap with a Kite's Feather in it. The Thebans
worship the Eagle, because she seems to be a Royal Bird, and to deserve
the Adoration due to Jupiter himself. They say, the Goat was accounted
amongst the number of the Gods as Priapus is honour'd among the Grecians :
For this Creature is exceeding Lustful, and therefore is to be highly honour'd.
By this Representation they would signify their Gratitude to the Gods, for
the Populousness of their Country.
The Sacred Bulls Apis and Mnevis (they say) they honour as Gods by
the Command of Osiris, both for their Usefulness in Husbandry, and like-
wise to keep up an honourable and lasting Memory of those that first found
out Bread-corn and other Fruits of the Earth. But however, it's lawful to
sacrifice red Oxen, because Typhon seem'd to be of that Colour, who treacher-
ously murder'd Osiris, and was himself put to Death by Isis for the Murther
of her Husband. They report likewise, that anciently Men that had red
Hair, like Typhon, were sacrifis'd by the Kings at the Sepulcher of Osiris.
And indeed, there are very few Egyptians that are red, but many that
are Strangers : And hence arose the Fable of Busiris his Cruelty towards
Strangers amongst the Greeks, not that there ever was any King call'd
Busiris ; but Osiris his Sepulcher was so call'd in the Egyptian Language.
They say they pay divine Honour to Wolves, because they come so near
in their Nature to Dogs, for they are very little different, and mutually
ingender and bring forth Whelps.
They give likewise another reason for their Adoration, but most fabulous
of all other ; for they say, that when Isis and her Son Orus were ready to joyn
Battle with Typhon, Osiris came up from the Shades below in the form of a
Wolf, and assisted them, and therefore when Typhon was kill'd the Con-
querors commanded that Beast to be worshipp'd, because the Day was won
presently upon his Appearing. Some affirm, that at the time of the Irrup-
tion of the Ethiopians into Egypt, a great Number of Wolves flockt together,
and drove the invading Enemy beyond the City Elaphantina, and therefore
that Province is call'd Lycopolitana ; and for these Reasons came these Beasts
before mention'd, to be thus ador'd and worshipped.
Now it remains, that we speak of Deifying the Crocodile, of which many
have inquir'd what might be the Reason ; being that these Beasts devour
Men, and yet are ador'd as Gods, who in the mean time are pernicious Instru-
ments of many cruel Accidents. To this they answer, that their Country is not
only defended by the River, but much more by the Crocodiles ; and therefore
the Theeves out of Arabia and Africa being affraid of the great number of
these Creatures, dare not pass over the River Nile, which protection they
should be depriv'd of, if the Beasts should be fallen upon, and utterly
destroy'd by the Hunters.
But there's another Account given of these Things : For one of the
Ancient Kings, called Menes, being set upon and pursu'd by his own Dogs,
was forc'd into the Lake of Moeris, where a Crocodile (a Wonder to oe
told) took him up and carri'd him over to the other side, where in Grati-
tude to the Beast he built a City, and call'd it Crocodile ; and commanded
Crocodiles to be Ador'd as Gods, and Dedicated the Lake to them for a
232 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
place to Feed and Breed in. Where he built a Sepulcher for himself with a
foursquare Pyramid, and a Labyrinth greatly admir'd by every Body. In
the same manner they relate Stories of other Things, which would be too
tedious here to recite. For some conceive it to be very clear and evident
(by several of them not Eating many of the Fruits of the Earth) that Gain
and Profit by sparing has infected them with this Superstition: for some never
Taste Lentils, nor other Beans ; and some never eat either Cheese or Onions
or such like Food, although Egypt abounds with these Things. Thereby
signifying that all should learn to be temperate ; and whatsoever any feed
upon, they should not give themselves to Gluttony. But others give another
Reason ; for they say that in the Time of the Ancient Kings, the People
being Prone to Sedition, and Plotting to Rebel, one of their wise and pru-
dent Princes divided Egypt into several Parts, and appointed the Worship
of some Beast or other in every Part, or forbad some sort of Food, that by
that means everyone Adoring their own Creature, and slighting that which
was worshipped in another Province, the Egyptians might never agree among
themselves.
But some give this Reason for Deifying of these Creatures : They say,
that in the beginning, Men that were of a fierce and beastly Nature herded
together and devoured one another ; and being in perpetual War and Dis-
cord, the stronger always destroy'd the weaker. In process of time, those
that were too weak for the other (taught at length by Experience) got in
Bodies together, and had the Representation of those Beasts (which they
afterwards worshipped) in their Standards, to which they ran together when
they were in a Fright, upon every occasion, and so make up a considerable
Force against them that attempted to assault them. This was imitated by
the rest, and so the whole Multitude got into a Body ; and hence it was that
that Creature, which everyone suppos'd was the cause of his Safety, was
honour'd as a God, as justly deserving that Adoration. And therefore at
this day the People of Egypt differ in their Religion, everyone Worship-
ping that Beast which their Ancestors did in the beginning .<*
A MODERN ACCOUNT OP THE WORSHIP OF APIS, THE SACRED BULL
Among the ceremonies connected with Osiris, the fete of Apis holds a
conspicuous place.
For Osiris was also worshipped under the form of Apis, the Sacred Bull
of Memphis, or as a human figure with a bull's head, accompanied by the
name "Apis-Osiris." According to Plutarch, "Apis was a fair and beauti-
ful image of the Soul of Osiris ; " and the same author tells us that " Mnevis,
the Sacred Ox of Heliopolis, was also dedicated to Osiris, and honoured by
the Egyptians with a reverence next to that paid to Apis, whose sire some
pretend him to be." This agrees with the statement of Diodorus, who says,
Apis and Mnevis were both sacred to Osiris, and worshipped as gods through-
out the whole of Egypt ; and Plutarch suggests that, from these well-known
representations of Osiris, the people of Elis and Argos derived the idea of
Bacchus with an ox's head ; Bacchus being reputed to be the same as Osiris.
Herodotus, in describing him, says, " Apis, also called Epaphus, is a young
bull, whose mother can have no other offspring, and who is reported by
the Egyptians to conceive from lightning sent from heaven, and thus to
produce the god Apis. He is known by certain marks : his hair is black ;
on his forehead is a white triangular spot, on his back an eagle, and a
beetle under his tongue and the hair of his tail is double." Ovid represents
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 233
him of various colours. Strabo says his forehead and some parts of his
body are of a white colour, the rest being black; "by which signs they
fix upon a new one to succeed the other, when he dies ; " and Plutarch
thinks that, " on account of the great resemblance they imagine between
Osiris and the Moon, his more bright and shining parts being shadowed
and obscured by those that are of a darker hue, they call the Apis the
living image of Osiris, and suppose him begotten by a ray of generative
light, flowing from the moon, and fixing upon his mother, at a time when
she was strongly disposed for it."
Pliny speaks of Apis "having a white spot in the form of a crescent
upon his right side, and a lump under his tongue in the form of a beetle."
Ammianus Marcellinus says the white crescent on his right side was the
principal sign, and ^Elianus mentions twenty-nine marks, oy which he was
recognised, each referable to some mystic signification. But he pretends
that the Egyptians did not allow those given by Herodotus and Aristagoras.
Some suppose him entirely black ; and others contend that certain marks,
as the predominating black colour, and the beetle on his tongue, show
him to be consecrated to the sun, as the crescent to the moon. Ammianus
and others say that " Apis was sacred to the Moon, Mnevis to the Sun " ;
and most authors describe the latter of a black colour.
It is difficult to decide if Herodotus is correct respecting the peculiar
marks of Apis. There is, however, evidence from the bronzes, found in
Egypt, that the vulture (not eagle) on his back was one of his characteristics,
supplied, no doubt, like many others, by the priests themselves ; who prob-
ably put him to much inconvenience, and pain too, to make the marks and
hairs conform to his description.
To Apis belonged all the clean oxen, chosen for sacrifice ; the necessary
requisite for which, according to Herodotus, was, that they should be entirely
' free from black spots, or even a single black hair ; though, as I shall have occa-
sion to remark in treating of the sacrifices, this statement of the historian is
far from accurate. It may also be doubted if the name Epaphus, by
which he says Apis was called by the Greeks in their language, was of
Greek origin.
He is called in the hieroglyphic legends Hapi ; and the bull, the demon-
strative and figurative sign following his name, is accompanied by the crux
ansata, or emblem of life. It has seldom any ornament on its head ; but the
figure of Apis- (or Hapi-) Osiris generally wears the globe of the sun, and the
Asp, the symbol of divine majesty; which are also given to the bronze
figures of this bull.
Memphis was the place where Apis was kept, and where his worship was
particularly observed. He was not merely looked upon as an emblem, but,
as Pliny and Cicero say, was deemed " a god by the Egyptians " : and Strabo
calls "Apis the same as Osiris." Psamthek I there erected a grand court
(ornamented with figures in lieu of columns twelve cubits in height, forming
an inner peristyle), in which he was kept when exhibited in public.
Attached to it were the two stables (delubra, or thalami), mentioned by
Pliny : and Strabo says " Before the enclosure where Apis is kept, is a
vestibule, in which also the mother of the sacred bull is fed ; and into this
vestibule Apis is introduced, in order to be shown to strangers. After being
brought out for a little while, he is again taken back ; at other times he is
only seen through a window." " The temple of Apis is close to that of Vul-
can ; which last is remarkable for its architectural beauty, its extent, and
the richness of its decoration."
234 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Festivals and Ceremonials of Apis Worship
The festival in honour of Apis lasted seven days ; on which occasion a
large concourse of people assembled at Memphis. The priests then led the
sacred bull in solemn procession, all people coming forward from their houses
to welcome him as he passed.
When the Apis died, certain priests, chosen for this duty, went in quest
of another, who was known from the signs mentioned in the sacred books.
As soon as he was found, they took him to the city of the Nile, preparatory
to his removal to Memphis, where he was kept forty days ; during which
period women alone were permitted to see him. These forty days being
completed, he was placed in a boat, with a golden cabin prepared to receive
him, and he was conducted in state upon the Nile to Memphis.
Pliny and Ammianus, however, declare that they led the bull Apis to
the fountain of the priests, and drowned him with much ceremony, as soon
as the time prescribed in the sacred books was fulfilled. This Plutarch
limits to twenty-five years (" the square of five, and the same number as the
letters of the Egyptian alphabet "), beyond which it was forbidden that he
should live ; and having put him to death, they sought another to succeed
him. His body was embalmed, and a grand funeral procession took place at
Memphis, when his coffin, " placed on a sledge, was followed by the priests,"
" dressed in the spotted skins of fawns (leopards), bearing the thyrsus in their
hands, uttering the same cries, and making the same gesticulations as the
votaries of Bacchus during the ceremonies in honour of that god."
When the Apis died a natural death, his obsequies were celebrated on the
most magnificent scale ; and to such extravagance was this carried, that those
who had the office of taking charge of him were often ruined by the heavy
expenses entailed upon them. On one occasion, during the reign of the first
Ptolemy, upwards of fifty talents were borrowed to defray the necessary
cost of his funeral ; " and in our time," says Diodorus, " the curators of other
sacred animals have expended a hundred talents in their burial."
The Egyptians not only paid divine honours to the bull Apis, but, consider-
ing him the living image and representative of Osiris, they consulted him as
an oracle, and drew from his actions good or bad omens. They were in the
habit of offering him any kind of food with the hand : if he took it, the
answer was considered favourable ; if he refused, it was thought to be a
sinister omen. Pliny and Ammianus observe that he refused what the
unfortunate Germanicus presented to him ; and the death of that prince,
which happened shortly after, was thought to confirm most unequivocally
the truth of those presages. The Egyptians also drew omens respecting the
welfare of their country, according to the stable in which he happened to be.
To these two stables he had free access ; and when he spontaneously entered
one, it foreboded benefits to Egypt, as the other the reverse ; and many other
tokens were derived from accidental circumstances connected with this sacred
animal.
Pausanias says that those who wished to consult Apis first burnt incense
on an altar, filling the lamps with oil which were lighted there, and deposit-
ing a piece of money on the altar to the right of the statue of the god.
Then placing their mouth near his ear, in order to consult him, they asked
whatever questions they wished. This done, they withdrew, covering their
two ears until they were outside the sacred precincts of the temple ; and
there listening to the first expression any one uttered, they drew from it the
desired omen.
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Children, also, according to Pliny and Solinus, who attended in great
numbers during the processions in honour of the divine bull, received the
gift of foretelling future events ; and the same authors mention a supersti-
tious belief at Memphis, of the influence of Apis upon the Crocodile, during
the seven days when his birth was celebrated. On this occasion, a gold and
silver patera was annually thrown into the Nile, at a spot called from its
form the "Bottle" ; and while this festival was held, no one was in danger
of being attacked by crocodiles, though bathing carelessly in the river. But
it could no longer be done with impunity after the sixth hour of the eighth
day. The hostility of that animal to man was then observed invariably to
return, as if permitted by the deity to resume its habits.
Apis was usually kept in one or other of the two stables — seldom going
out, except into the court attached to them, where strangers came to visit
him. But on certain occasions he was conducted through the town with
great pomp. He was then escorted by numerous guards, who made a way
amidst the crowd, and prevented the approach of the profane ; and a chorus
of children singing hymns in his honour headed the procession.
The greatest attention was paid to the health of Apis ; they took care to
obtain for him the most wholesome food ; and they rejoiced if they could
preserve his life to the full extent prescribed by law. Plutarch also notices
his being forbidden to drink the water of the Nile, in consequence of its
having a peculiarly fattening property. " For," he adds, " they endeavour
to prevent fatness, as well in Apis, as in themselves : always studious that
their bodies may sit as light about their souls as possible, in order that their
mortal part may not oppress and weigh down the more divine and immortal."
Many fetes were held at different seasons of the year ; for, as Herodotus
observes, far from being contented with one festival, the Egyptians celebrate
annually a very great number: of which that of Diana (Pakht), kept at the
city of Bubastis, holds the first rank, and is performed with the greatest
pomp. Next to it is that of Isis, at Busiris, a city situated in the middle of
the Delta, with a very large temple, consecrated to that Goddess, the Ceres
of the Greeks. The third in importance is the fete of Minerva (Nit), held
at Sais ; the fourth, of the Sun, at Heliopolis ; the fifth, of Latona, in the city
of Buto ; and the sixth is that performed at Papreims, in honour of Mars.«
Strabo, the famous geographer of antiquity, visited Egypt in 24 B.C., and
ascended the Nile. Among other records of his trip, he has left us a pictu-
resque account of his peep at the sacred bull.
At Heliopolis, he says, we saw large build-
ings in which the priests lived. For it is said
that anciently this was the principal residence of
the priests, who studied philosophy and astron-
omy. But there are no longer either such a
body of persons or such pursuits. No one was
pointed out to us on the spot, as presiding
over these studies, but only persons who per-
form sacred rites, and who explained to
strangers (the peculiarities of) the temples.
In sailing up the river we meet with Baby-
Ion, a strong fortress, built by some Babylo-
nians who had taken refuge there, and had
obtained permission from the kings to establish a settlement in that place.
At present it is an encampment for one of the three legions which garrison
Egypt. There is a mountainous ridge, which extends from the encampment
236 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
as far as the Nile. At this ridge are wheels and screws, by which water
is raised from the river, and one hundred and fifty prisoners are (thus)
employed.
The pyramids on the other side (of the river) at Memphis may be clearly
discerned from this place, for they are not far off.
Memphis itself also, the residence of the kings of Egypt, is near, being
only three schoeni distant from the Delta. It contains temples, among which
is that of Apis, who is the same as Osiris. Here the ox Apis is kept in a sort
of sanctuary, and is held, as I have said, to be a god. The forehead and
some other small parts of the body are white ; the other parts are black.
By these marks the fitness of the successor is always determined, when the
animal to which they pay these honours dies. In front of the sanctuary is
a court, in which there is another sanctuary for the dam of Apis. Into this
court the Apis is let loose at times, particularly for the purpose of exhibiting
him to strangers. He is seen through a door in the sanctuary, and he is
permitted to be seen also out of it. After he has frisked about a little in the
court, he is taken back to his own stall. The temple of Apis is near the
Hephsesteum (or temple of Vulcan) ; the Hephaesteum itself is very sump-
tuously constructed, both as regards the size of the naos and in other respects.
In front of the Dromos is a colossal figure consisting of a single stone. It
is usual to celebrate bull-fights in this Dromos; the bulls are bred expressly
for this purpose, like horses. They are let loose, and fight with one another,
the conqueror receiving a prize./
THE METHODS OF EMBALMING THE DEAD
Even more striking than the worship of Apis was the custom of embalm-
ing the dead, which was in vogue uninterruptedly for some thousands of
years. Herodotus tells us of the exact method of procedure :
There are certain persons appointed by law to the exercise of the
profession of embalming. When a dead body is brought to them, they
exhibit to the friends of the deceased, different models highly finished in
wood. The most perfect of these they say resembles one whom I do not
think it religious to name in such a matter ; the second is of less price, and
inferior in point of execution ; another is still more mean ; they then inquire
after which model the deceased shall be represented : when the price is
determined, the relations retire, and the embalmers thus proceed: In the
most perfect specimens of their art, they draw the brain through the nostrils,
partly with a piece of crooked iron, and partly by the infusion of drugs ;
they then with an Ethiopian stone make an incision in the side, through
which they extract the intestines ; these they cleanse thoroughly, washing
them with palm-wine, and afterwards covering them with pounded aro-
matics : they then fill the body with powder of pure myrrh, cassia, and all
other perfumes, except frankincense. Having sown up the body, it is cov-
ered with nitre for the space of seventy days, which time they may not
exceed ; at the end of this period it is washed, closely wrapped in bandages
of cotton, dipped in a gum which the Egyptians use as glue : it is then
returned to the relations, who enclose the body in a case of wood, made to
resemble a human figure, and place it against the wall in the repository of
their dead. The above is the most costly mode of embalming. They who
wish to be less expensive, adopt the following method : they neither draw
out the intestines, nor make any incision in the dead body, but inject an
unguent made from the cedar ; after taking proper means to secure the
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION
237
injected oil within the body, it is covered with nitre for the time above
specified : on the last day they withdraw the liquor before introduced,
which brings with it all the bowels and intestines ; the nitre eats away the
flesh, and the skin and bones only remain : the body is returned in this state,
and no further care taken concerning it. There is a third mode of embalm-
ing appropriated to the poor. A particular kind of ablution is made
to pass through the body, which is afterwards left in nitre for the
above seventy days, and then returned. The wives of men of rank, and
such females as have been distinguished by their beauty or importance, are
not immediately on their decease delivered to the embalmers : they are
usually kept for three or four days, which is done to prevent any indignity
being offered to their persons. An instance of this once occurred.^
Diodorus gives a slightly different account of the methods of the
embalmer, adding certain most instructive details as to burial customs:
" Now tho' we have said perhaps more than is needful of their sacred
Creatures, yet with this we have set forth the Laws of the Egyptians, which
are very remarkable. But when a Man comes to understand their Rites and
Ceremonies in Burying their Dead, he'll be struck with much greater
Admiration.
" For after the Death of any of them, all the Friends and Kindred of the
deceased throw Dirt upon their Heads, and run about through the City ;
mourning and lamenting till such time as the Body be interr'd, and abstain
from Baths, Wine and all pleas-
ants Meats in the mean time; and
forbear to cloath themselves with
any rich Attire. They have three
sorts of Funerals : The Stately
and Magnificent, the Moderate,
and the Meanest. In the first
they spend a Talent of Silver, in
the second twenty Minas [about
£62 10s. or $300], in the last
they are at very small Charges.
They that have the Charge of
wrapping up and burying the
Body, are such as have been
taught the Art by their Ances-
tors. These give in a Writing
to the Family of every thing that
l-j .. ,,_ TTI i GOLDEN EWKRS AND BASINS FROM THE TOMB OF
is to be laid out in the Funeral, RAMSES ni
and inquire of them after what
Manner they would have the Body interr'd. When every thing is agreed
upon, they take up the Body and deliver it to them whose Office it is to
take Care of it. Then the Chief among them (who is call'd the Scribe)
having the Body laid upon the Ground, marks out how much of the
left Side towards the Bowels is to be incis'd and open'd, upon which
the Paraschistes (so by them call'd) with an Ethiopian Stone dissects so
much of the Flesh as by the Law is justifiable, and having done it, he
forthwith runs away might and main, and all there present pursue him
with Execrations, and pelt him with Stones, as if he were guilty of some
horrid Offence, for they look upon him as an hateful Person, who wounds
and offers Violence to the Body in that kind, or does it any Predjudice
whatsoever.
238 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
"But as for those whom they call the Taricheutse [the Embalmers],
they highly honour them, for they are the Priests Companions, and as
Sacred Persons are admitted into the Temple. As soon as they come
to the dissected Body, one of the Taricheutse thrusts up his Hand through
the Wound, into the Breast of the Dead, and draws out all the Intestins,
but the Reins and the Heart. Another cleanses all the Bowels, and
washes them in Phoenician Wine mixt with diverse Aromatick Spices.
Having at last wash'd the Body, they first anoint it all over with the Oyl
of Cedar and other precious Ointments for the space of forty days together ;
that done, they rub it well with Myrrhe, Cinnamon, and such like things,
not only apt and effectual for long Preservation, but for sweet scenting of
the Body also, and so deliver it to the Kindred of the Dead, with every
Member so whole and intire, that no Part of the Body seems to be alter'd
till it come to the very Hairs of the Eyelids and the Eye-brows, insomuch
as the Beauty and Shape of the Face seems just as it was before. By which
Means many of the Egyptians laying up the Bodies of their Ancestors in
stately Monuments, perfectly see the true Visage and Countenance of those
that were buried, many Ages before they themselves were born. So that in
viewing the Proportion of every one of their Bodies and the Lineaments of
their Faces, they take exceeding great Delight, even as much as if they were
still living among them.
" Moreover, the Friends and nearest Relations of the Dead acquaint the
Judges and the rest of their Friends with the Time prefixt for the Funeral
IMPLEMENTS USED IN EMBALMING
(Now In the British Museum)
of such an one by Name, declaring that such a day he is to pass the Lake.
At which Time forty Judges appear and sit together in a Semicircle, in a
Place beyond the Lake ; where a Ship (before provided by such as have the
Care of the Business) is hal'd up to the Shoar, goveru'd by a Pilot, whom
the Egyptians call Charon. And therefore they say, that Orpheus seeing
this Ceremony when he was in Egypt, invented the Fable of Hell, partly
imitating them in Egypt, and partly adding something of his own ; of
which we shall speak particularly hereafter.
" The Ship being now in the Lake, every one is at Liberty by the Law to
accuse the Dead before the Coffin be put aboard ; and if any Accuser ap-
pears and makes good his Accusation, that he liv'd an ill Life, then the
Judges give Sentence, and the Body is debarr'd from being buried after the
usual Manner ; but if the Informer be convicted of a scandalous and mali-
cious Accusation, he's very severely punish'd. If no Informer appear, or
that the Information prove false, all the Kindred of the Deceased leave off
Mourning, and begin to set forth his Praises ; but say nothing of his Birth
(as is the Custom among the Greeks) because they account all in Egypt to
be equally noble. But they recount how the deceased was educated from
a Child, his Breeding till he came to Man's Estate, his Piety towards the
Gods and his Justice towards Men, his Chastity and other Virtues, wherein
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 239
he excell'd ; and they pray and call upon the infernal Deities to receive the
deceas'd into the Society of the Just. The common People take it from the
other, and approve of all that is said in his Praise with a loud Shout, and
set forth likewise his Vertues with the highest Praises and Strains of Com-
mendation, as he that is to live for ever with the just in the Kingdom of
Jove.
" Then they (that have Tombs of their own) interr the Corps in Places
appointed for that Purpose ; they that have none of their own, build a small
Apartment in their own Houses, and rear up the Coffin to the Sides of the
strongest Wall of the Building. Such as are deny'd common Burial, either
because they are in Debt, or convicted of some horrid Crime, they bury in
their own Houses ; and in After-times it often happens that some of their
Kindred growing rich, pay off the Debts of the deceas'd, or get him ab-
solv'd, and then bury their Ancestor with State and Splendour. For
amongst the Egyptians it's a Sacred Constitution, that they should at their
greatest Costs honour their Parents and Ancestors who are translated to an
Eternal Habitation.
" It's a Custom likewise among them to give the Bodies of their Parents
in Pawn to their Creditors, and they that do not presently redeem them,
fall under the greatest Disgrace imaginable, and are deny'd Burial after
their Deaths. One may justly wonder at the Authors of this excellent
Constitution, who both by what we see practis'd among the living, and by
the decent Burial of the dead, did (as much as possibly lay within the
Power of Men) endeavour to promote Honesty and faithful Dealing one
with another. For the Greeks (as to what concern 'd the Rewards of the
Just and the Punishment of the Impious) had nothing amongst them
but invented Fables and Poetical Fictions, which never wrought upon
Men for the Amendment of their Lives, but on the contrary, were despis'd
and laught at by the lewder Sort.
" But among the Egyptians, the Punishment of the bad and the Rewards
of the good being not told as idle Tales, but every day seen with their own
Eyes, all Sorts were warn'd of their Duties, and by this Means was wrought
and continu'd a most exact Reformation of Manners and orderly Conversa-
tion among them. For those certainly are the best Laws that advance
Virtue and Honesty, and instruct Men in a prudent Converse in the World,
rather than those that tend only to the heaping up of Wealth, and teach
Men to be rich."d
CHAPTER XI. EGYPTIAN CULTURE
Egypt remains a light-house in the profound darkness of remote an-
tiquity. — BENAN.
BY far the greater number of the remains of Egyptian civilisation that
have come down to us, are monuments that may be classed as works of art.
Indeed, when one speaks of ancient Egypt, one thinks instinctively of her
art remains ; her pyramids, temples, and sphinxes, her obelisks and colossal
sculptures. As one wanders through the halls of such great collections as
those of the British Museum, or of the Louvre, it seems to him as if art
must have been the very life of Egypt, and as if a considerable proportion
of her people must have been engaged in producing the multitude of monu-
ments that are here preserved. But there is, of course, a certain illusion in
this thought.
The number of art monuments preserved in Egypt is, indeed, very
large in the aggregate, but it must be remembered that they represent
the accumulated treasures of many centuries. Thanks to the climate of
Egypt, a vastly larger proportion of her monuments have been preserved
than have come down to us from any other people of antiquity, and this
fact should be borne constantly in mind when one endeavours to estimate
the real status of art in that country. Now that the results of many
centuries of labour are gathered into a comparatively few collections, the
impression made upon the observer is naturally somewhat different from
what it would have been could he have seen the same monuments in their
original locations scattered throughout the kingdom.
Nevertheless, after making all deductions for the perverted historical
perspective thus induced, the fact remains that we are quite justified in
speaking of the Egyptians as a singularly artistic race. Indeed, it would
be absurd to deny this position to the people who, first of any on the earth
so far as known, created a truly great and truly individual art.
It has been held a matter for surprise that the Greeks, who so fully
appreciated, and, indeed, so greatly overestimated, the learning and the
occult wisdom of the Egyptians, should have failed to be impressed by their
works of art. But, rightly considered, there is nothing at all remarkable
in this. It must be remembered that Herodotus, who gives us our earliest
glimpses of Egypt through Grecian eyes, lived in the age of Pericles, when
the masterpieces of Phidias and his contemporaries were constantly before
the eyes of the Greek traveller as the criterion by which other works of art
were to be judged. It can hardly be wondered at that, judged by this test,
the Egyptian sculptures did not seem remarkable. Herodotus had not the
spirit of the antiquarian nor of. the modern scientific historian, and he there-
fore made no allowance for the fact that the major part of the sculptures
240
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 241
visible had been made almost a thousand years before the age of Phidias ;
but it is that fact which the modern investigator should bear constantly in
mind.
It would be absurd to claim for the Egyptian statues that they com-
pare for a moment as finished works of art with the Grecian productions
of the Golden Age. But when one reflects that it was the Egyptians who
led the way and first pointed out the possibility of modelling in stone ;
when one reflects that, so far as extant remains can give us any clew,
there were no forerunners of the Egyptians who even remotely approached
their standard ; when, in a word, one remembers that this art was an indig-
enous product, as nearly independent of outside influences as any human
creations ever can be — then, and then only, is one prepared to appreciate
the real merit of the Egyptian sculptor.
To one who approaches this work merely in the cold spirit of the
modern critic, untouched by the enthusiasm of the antiquarian, the sculp-
ture of the Egyptians may well be characterised as crude in the extreme.
In the first instance it is cold, rigid, immobile, lacking utterly the
plasticity and action of the Greek product. Secondly, it is but crudely
modelled. No Egyptian artist ever learned to draw in the modern accept-
ance of that word, or to model in more than the most elementary fashion.
These, indeed, taken by themselves, are radical defects, and at first sight
they render the Egyptian monuments grotesque, rather than pleasing, to
the trained artistic eye. But when one has lived long enough among these
statues to enter more fully into their spirit, when one has learned to put
away the classical traditions and to relax somewhat his standards of tech-
nique, he will see this work in quite another light. He will recognise it
as the titanic effort of a constructive genius in that earlier and more truly
creative period when technique has not been mastered, but when a true
artistic impulse is impelling the aspirant towards new and beautiful ideals
which he himself will never quite attain, but to which his work points the
way. It is large work in the fullest sense of the word, this art of the
Egyptians, and he who can get no farther than to note its often faulty
drawing, its imperfect modelling, is forever shut out from a true appre-
ciation of its merits. But, on the other hand, the dreamer who sees, as
some antiquarians are wont to do, matchless perfections in its very crudi-
ties, and intentional artistic effects in the mere faults of its technique —
this enthusiast misses the true lessons of Egyptian art as widely as the
overcritical and unsympathetic carper.
However much the various schools of critics may differ in their estimates,
the task of the historian at least is clear. He must think of Egyptian
art in its relations of time and place. To him it is important because of
its position in the scale of the evolution of art in the world. .And in
this view, putting aside at once hypercriticism and overfervid enthusiasm,
Egyptian art can hardly fail to impress the observer as one of the most
marvellous of human creations."
While Greece was still in its infancy, Egypt had long been the leading
nation of the world ; she was noted for her magnificence, her wealth, and
power, and all acknowledged her pre-eminence in wisdom and civilisation.
It is not, therefore, surprising that the Greeks should have admitted
into their early art some of the forms then most in vogue ; and though
the wonderful taste of that gifted people speedily raised them to a point
of excellence never attained by the Egyptians or any others, the rise and
first germs of art and architecture must be sought in the valley of the
R. W. — TOL. I. R
242
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
TEMPLE ON THE ISLAND OF PHIL.E
Nile. In the oldest monuments of Greece, the sloping or pyramidal line
constantly predominates ; the columns in the oldest Greek order are almost
purely Egyptian, in the proportions of the shaft, and in the form of its shal-
low flutes without fillets ; and it is a remarkable fact that the oldest Egyptian
columns are those which bear the closest resemblance to the Greek Doric.
Though great variety was permitted in objects of luxury, as furniture,
vases, and other things depending on caprice, the Egyptians were forbidden
to introduce any material innovations into the human figure, such as would
alter its general character ; and all subjects connected with religion retained
to the last the same conventional type. A god in the latest temple was of
the same form as when represented on monuments of the earliest date ; and
King Menes would have recognised Amen, or Osiris, in a Ptolemaic or a
Roman sanctuary. In sacred subjects the law was inflexible ; and religion,
which has frequently done so much for the development and direction of
taste in sculpture, had the effect of fettering the genius of Egyptian artists.
No improvements, resulting from experience and observation, were admitted
in the mode of drawing the human figure ; to copy nature was not allowed ;
it was therefore useless to study it, and no attempt was made to give the
proper action to the limbs. Certain rules, certain models, had been estab-
lished by the priesthood ; and the faulty conceptions of ignorant times were
copied and perpetuated by every successive artist. For, as Plato and Syne-
sius say, the Egyptian sculptors were not suffered to attempt anything con-
trary to the regulations laid down regarding the figures of the gods ; they
were forbidden to introduce any change, or to invent new subjects and
habits ; and thus the art, and the rules which bound it, always remained the
same.
Egyptian bas-relief appears to have been, in its origin, a mere copy of
painting, its predecessor. The first attempt to represent the figures of gods,
sacred emblems, and other subjects consisted in drawing, or painting, simple
outlines of them on a flat surface, the details being afterwards put in with
colour; but in process of time these forms were traced on stone with a
tool, and the intermediate space between the various figures being after-
wards cut away, the once level surface assumed the appearance of a bas-relief.
It was, in fact, a pictorial representation on stone, which is evidently the
character of all the bas-reliefs on Egyptian monuments ; and which readily
accounts for the imperfect arrangement of their figures.
Deficient in conception, and above all in a proper knowledge of grouping,
they were unable to form those combinations which give true expression ;
EGYPTIAN CULTURE
243
every picture was made up of isolated parts, put together according to some
general notions, but without harmony, or preconceived effect. The human
face, the whole body, and everything they introduced, were composed in the
same manner of separate members placed together one by one according to
their relative situations : the eye, the nose, and other features composed a
face, but the expression of feelings and passions was entirely wanting ; and
the countenance of the king, whether charging an enemy's phalanx in the
heat of battle, or peaceably offering incense in a sombre temple, presented
the same outline and the same inanimate look. The peculiarity of the front
view of an eye, introduced in a profile, is thus accounted for : it was the
ordinary representation of that feature added to a profile, and no allowance
was made for any change in the position of the head.
It was the same with drapery : the figure was first drawn, and the drapery
then added, not as part of the whole, but as an accessory ; they had no
general conception, no previous idea of the effect required to distinguish the
warrior or the priest, beyond the impressions received from costume, or from
the subject of which they formed a part ; and the same figure was dressed
according to the character it was intended to perform. Every portion of a
picture was conceived by itself, and inserted as it was wanted to complete
the scene ; and when the walls of the building, where a subject
was to be drawn, had been accurately ruled with squares, the
figures were introduced, and fitted to this mechanical arrange-
ment. The members were appended to the body, and these
squares regulated their form and distribution, in whatever
posture they might be placed.
The proportions of the human figure did not continue always
the same. During the IVth and other early dynasties it differed
from that of the Augustan age of the XVIIIth and
XlXth; and another change tpok place under the
Ptolemies. The chief alteration was in the height
of the knee from the ground, which was higher dur-
ing the XVIIIth and XlXth than in the ancient and
later periods. The whole height of the figure in
bas-reliefs and paintings was then divided into
nineteen parts ; and the wall having been ruled in
squares, according to its intended size, all
the parts of it were put in according to their -y—
established positions; the knee, for instance,
falling on the sixth line. But the length of
the foot was not, as in Greece, the standard
from which they reckoned ; for being equal
to 3 spaces, it could not be taken as the base
of 19 ; though the height of the foot being
1 might answer for the unit.
In the paintings of the tombs greater
license was allowed in the representation of subjects relating to private life,
the trades, or the manners and occupations of the people ; and some indica-
tion of perspective in the position of the figures may occasionally be observed :
but the attempt was imperfect, and, probably, to an Egyptian eye, unpleas-
rng; for such is the force of habit, that even where nature is copied, a
conventional style is sometimes preferred to a more accurate representation.
In the representation of animals, they appear not to have been restricted
to the same rigid style ; but genius once cramped can scarcely be expected
244
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
to make any great effort to rise, or to succeed in the attempt ; and the same
union of parts into a whole, the same preference for profile, and the same stiff
action, are observable in these as in the human figure. Seldom did they
attempt to draw the face in front, either of men or animals ; and when this
was done, it fell far short of the profile, and was composed of the same
juxtaposition of parts. It must, however, be allowed, that in general the
character and form of animals were admirably portrayed ; the parts were
put together with greater truth ; and the same conventionality was not
maintained, a§ in the shoulders and other portions of the human body.
The mode of representing men and animals in profile is primitive, and
characteristic of the commencement of art : the first attempts made by an
uncivilised people are confined to it ; and until the genius of artists bursts
forth, this style continues to hold its ground. From its simplicity it is
readily understood ; the most inexperienced perceive the object intended
to be represented, and no effort is required to comprehend it. Hence it
is that, though few combinations can be made under such restrictions, those
few are perfectly intelligible.
As the wish to record events gave the first, religion gave the second, im-
pulse to sculpture. The simple pillar of wood or stone, which was originally
chosen to represent the deity, after-
wards assumed the human form,
the noblest image of the power that
created it ; though the ffermce of
Greece were not, as some have
thought, the origin of statues, but
were borrowed from the mummy-
shaped gods of Egypt.
Pausanias thinks that " all
statues were in ancient times of
wood, particularly those made in
Egypt " ; but this must have been
at a period so remote as to be far
beyond the known history of that
country ; though it is probable
that when the arts were in their
infancy, the Egyptians were con-
fined to statues of that kind ; and
they occasionally erected wooden
figures in their temples, even till
the times of the latter Pharaohs.
Long after men had attempted
to make out the parts of the figure,
statues continued to be very rude ;
the arms were placed directly down
the sides to the thighs, and the legs
were united together ; nor did they
pass beyond this imperfect state in Greece until the age of Daedalus. For-
tunately for themselves and for the world, the Greeks were allowed to free
themselves from old habits ; while the Egyptians, at the latest periods, con-
tinued to follow the imperfect models of their early artists, and were forever
prevented from arriving at excellence in sculpture : and though they made
great progress in other branches of art, though they evinced considerable
taste in the forms of their vases, their furniture, and even in some architec-
HEAD
(Now in the British Museum)
EGYPTIAN CULTURE
1'ir,
tural details, they were forever deficient in ideal beauty, and in the mode of
representing the natural positions of the human figure.
In Egypt, the prescribed automaton character of the figures effectually
prevented all advancement in the statuary's art, the limbs being straight,
without any attempt at action, or, indeed, any indication of life : they were
really statues of the person they represented, not the person " living in
marble " ; in which they differed entirely from those of Greece. No statue
of a warrior was sculptured in the varied attitudes of attack and defence ;
no wrestler, no discobolus, no pugilist exhibited the grace, the vigour, or the
muscular action of a man ; nor were the beauties, the feeling, and the elegance
of female forms displayed in stone : all was made to conform to the same
invariable model, which confined the human figure to a few conventional
postures.
A sitting statue, whether of a man or woman, was represented with the
hands placed upon the knees, or held across the breast ; a kneeling figure
sometimes supported a small shrine or sacred emblem ;
and when standing, the arms were placed directly down
the sides of the thighs, one foot (and that always the
left) being advanced beyond the other, as if in the
attitude of walking, but without any attempt to separate
the legs.
The oldest Egyptian sculptures on all large monu-
ments were in low relief, and, as usual at every period,
painted (obelisks and everything carved in hard stone,
some funereal tablets, and other small objects, being in
intaglio); and this style continued in vogue until the
time of Ramses II, who introduced intaglio very gener-
ally on large monuments ; and even his battle scenes at
Karnak and the Memnonium are executed in this man-
ner. The reliefs were little raised above the level of the
wall ; they had generally a flat surface with- the edges
softly rounded off, far surpassing the intaglio in effect ;
and it is to be regretted that the best epoch of art, when
design and execution were in their zenith, should have
abandoned a style so superior ; which, too, would have
improved in proportion to the advancement of that
period.
Intaglio continued to be generally employed, until
the accession of the XXVIth Dynasty, when the low
relief was again introduced ; and in the monuments of
Psamthek and Aahmes are numerous instances of the
revival of the ancient style. This was afterwards uni-
versally adopted, and a return to intaglio on large monu-
ments was only occasionally attempted, in the Ptolemaic
and Roman periods.
After the accession of the XXVIth Dynasty some attempt was made to
revive the arts, which had been long neglected ; and independent of the
patronage of government, the wealth of private individuals was liberally
employed in their encouragement. Public buildings were erected in many
parts of Egypt, and beautified with rich sculpture; the city of Sais, the
royal residence of the Pharaohs of that dynasty, was adorned with the ut-
most magnificence ; and extensive additions were made to the temples of
Memphis, and even to those of the distant Thebes.
SXATUBTTE OF FlOURB
WITH HAWK'S HKAD
(After Budon)
246
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
The fresh impulse thus given to art was not without effect ; the sculp-
tures of that period exhibit an elegance and beauty which might even induce
some to consider them equal to the productions of an earlier age ; and in the
tombs of Assassif, at Thebes, are many admirable specimens of Egyptian
art. To those, however, who understand the true feeling of this peculiar
school, it is evident that though in minuteness and finish they are deserving
of the highest commendation, yet in grandeur of conception and in boldness
of execution, they fall far short of the sculptures of Seti and the second
Ramses.
The skill of the Egyptian artists in drawing bold and clear outlines is,
perhaps, more worthy of admiration than anything connected with this
branch of art ; and in no place is the freedom of their drawing more con-
spicuous than in the figures in the unfinished part of Belzoni's tomb at
Thebes. It was in the drawing alone that they excelled, being totally igno-
FisHiNa WITH A DRAG NET
(Wilkinson)
rant of the correct mode of colouring a figure ; and their painting was not
an imitation of nature, but merely the harmonious combination of certain
hues, which they well understood. Indeed, to this day, the harmony of
positive colours is thoroughly felt in Egypt and the East ; and it is strange
to find the little perception of it in northern Europe, where theories take
upon themselves to explain to the mind what the eye has not yet learned, as
if a grammar could be written before the language is understood.
Egyptian architecture evidently derived much from the imitation of
different natural productions, as palm trees and various plants of the
country; but Egyptian columns were not borrowed from the wooden
supports of the earliest buildings. Columns were not introduced into
the interior of their houses until architecture had made very great prog-
ress; the small original temple and the primitive dwelling consisted
merely of four walls ; and neither the column nor its architrave were
borrowed from wooden constructions nor from the house. And though
the architrave was derived in Egypt, as elsewhere, from constructed
buildings, that member originated in the stone beam, reaching from pillar
to pillar in the temples. And if the square stone pillar was used in the
quarry, the stone architrave was unknown to the Egyptians until they
found reason to increase the size of, and add a portico to, their temples.
And that the portico was neither a necessary nor an original part of their
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 247
temples is plainly shown by the smaller sanctuaries being built, even at
the latest times, without it. Some members of Egyptian architecture, it
is true, were derived from the woodwork of the primitive house or temple,
as the overhanging cornice and the torus that runs up the ends of the walls,
which it separates from the cornice, the former being the projecting roof of
palm branches, and the other the framework of reeds bound together, which
secured the mud (or bricks) composing the walls.
As painted decoration preceded sculpture, the ornaments (in later times
carved in stone) were at first represented in colour, and the mouldings of
Egyptian monuments were then merely painted on the flat surfaces of the
walls and pillars. The next step was to chisel them in relief. The lotus
blossom, the papyrus head, water-plants, the palm tree, and the head of a
goddess, were among the usual ornaments of a cornice, or a pillar ; and these
favourite devices of ancient days continued in after times to be repeated in
relief, when an improved style of art had substituted sculpture for the mere
painted representation. But when the square pillar had been gradually con-
verted into a polygonal shape, the ornamental devices not having room
enough upon its narrow facettes, led to the want and invention of another
form of column ; and from that time a round shaft was surmounted by the
palm-tree capital, or by the blossom or the bud of the papyrus, which had
hitherto only been painted, or represented in relief, upon the flat surfaces of
a square pillar. Hence the origin of new orders differing so widely from
the polygonal column.
For the capitals the Egyptians frequently selected objects which were
favourites with them, as the lotus and other flowers, and these, as well as
various animals or their heads, were adopted, to form a cornice, particularly
in their houses and tombs, or to ornament fancy articles of furniture and
of dress.
In this they committed an error, which the Greeks, with a finer perception
of taste and adaptability, rightly avoided. These refined people knew that in
architecture conventional devices had a much more pleasing effect than objects
merely copied from nature ; for, besides the incongruity of an actual repre-
sentation of flowers to compose mouldings and other decorative parts of
architecture, the imperfect imitation in an unsuitable material has a bad effect.
CARTED EGYPTIAN CHAIRS
(Now In the British Museum)
The ceilings of Egyptian temples were painted blue and studded with
stars, to represent the firmament (as in early European churches) ; and on
the part over the central passage, through which the king and the religious
processions passed, were vultures and other emblems ; the winged globe
248
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
always having its place over the doorways. The whole building, as well as
its sphinxes and other accessories, were richly painted ; and though a person
unaccustomed to see the walls of a large building so decorated, might suppose
the effect to be far from pleasing, no one who understands the harmony of
colours will fail to admit that they perfectly understood their distribution
and proper combinations, and that an Egyptian temple was greatly improved
by the addition of painted sculptures.
Gilding was employed in the decoration of some of the ornamental details
of the building ; and was laid on a purple ground, to give it greater rich-
ness ; an instance of which may be seen in the larger temple at Kalabshi,
in Nubia. It was sparingly employed, and not allowed to interfere, by an
undue quantity, with the effect of the other colours ; which they knew well
how to introduce in their proper proportions ; and such discords as light
green and strawberry-and-cream were carefully avoided.
The Egyptians showed considerable taste in the judicious arrangement of
colours for decorative purposes ; they occasionally succeeded in form, as in
the shapes of many of their vases, their furniture, and their ornaments ; and
they had still greater knowledge of proportion, so necessary for their gigantic
monuments ; but though they knew well how to give to their buildings the
effect of grandeur, vastness, and durability, they had little idea of the beauti-
ful; and were far behind
the Greeks in the appre-
ciation of form. It is,
however, rare to find
any people who combine
colour, form, and pro-
portion ; and even the
Greeks occasionally
failed to attain perfec-
tion in their beautiful
vases, some of which
are faulty in the handles
and the foot.
Among the pecul-
iarities of Egyptian
architecture, one of the
most important is the
studied avoidance of
uniformity in the ar-
rangement of the col-
umns, and many of the
details. Of these some
are evident to the eye,
others are only intended
to have an influence on
the general effect, and are not perceptible without careful examination.
Thus the capitals of the columns in the great hall at Karnak are at different
heights, some extending lower down the shaft than others ; evidently with
a view to correct the sameness of symmetrical repetition, and to avoid fatigu-
ing the sight with too much regularity. This is not to be perceived until
the eye is brought on a level with the lower part of the capitals ; and its
object was only effect, like that of many curved lines introduced in a Greek
temple, as at the Parthenon.
RUINS OF AN EGYPTIAN TEMPLE
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 249
But the Egyptians often carried their dislike of uniformity to an ex-
treme, beyond even what is justified by the study of variety. Where they
avoided that extreme their motive was legitimate ; and it is remarkable
that they were the first people whose monuments offer instances of that
diversity so characteristic of Saracenic and Gothic architecture.
The arch was employed in Egypt at a very early period ; and crude
brick arches were in common use in roofing tombs at least as early as
Amenhotep I, in the sixteenth century before our era. And since one was
discovered one at Thebes bearing his name, others have been found of
the age of Tehutimes III (his fourth successor) and of Ramses V.
It even seems to have been known in the time of the Xllth Dynasty, judg-
ing from what appear to be vaulted granaries at Beni-Hasan.6
Egyptian architecture was long a marvel to the later world, since it was
so thoroughly overscrolled with strange designs of animals, and gods, and
symbols that provoked a helpless curiosity. These figures, graceful as
they were, were not of merely decorative import. They were less art
than literature ; less literature than chronicle : in a word, they were the
characters of a strange system of writing.
THE HIEROGLYPHICS
It is extremely difficult to give in brief space, or, indeed, to give at all, a
clear idea of the exact character of this Egyptian writing, which for so many
centuries fascinated, while puzzling, the observers, utterly baffling all their
efforts to decipher it. The Egyptians were the aristocrats of antiquity. It
is true that the Greeks described all non-Hellenic nations as barbarians, but
it should not be inferred from this that the Greeks applied to this term
the exact significance it has come to have in more recent times. What the
Greek really seems to have implied was that the speech of all other nations
was barbarous or unintelligible ; but he by no means regarded all other
nations as less civilised than himself. To be sure, he did hold this atti-
tude towards Romans, Persians, Scythians and various other contempo-
rary nations, but he made an exception in the case of the Babylonians, and
particularly in the case of the Egyptians. The latter people, indeed, he re-
garded with something akin to reverence, as a people who could claim an
antiquity of civilisation to which Greece could not at all pretend.
The wise men of Greece, as we have seen, travelled in Egypt and sat at
the feet of the Egyptian priests. There is nothing to show that they were
not received courteously, but there are many evidences that they were given
no more than a half-hearted welcome, and that what they gained of Egyp-
tian lore was but a surface knowledge ; for the Egyptians, like the Greeks,
regarded all other nations as barbarians, and it would seem that they applied
this term with the full weight of its modern meaning. To them the Greeks,
no less than their other neighbours, were uninteresting parvenus, unworthy
of the serious regard of an aristocratic people. It is believed that in the
early days all commerce of outside nations with Egypt was as fully interdicted
as could be done by Egyptian laws. At a later period the outsiders made
forcible intrusion, and, in time, apparently the Egyptians became partially
reconciled to this new order of things. But it was long before any scholars
from the outer world were permitted to penetrate the Egyptian mysteries.
In particular, we have no evidence that any Greek or Roman of the early day
ever had the slightest comprehension of the true character of Egyptian
writing.
250 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Listen for example to the strange theories of Claudius ^Elianus, the
Roman historian of the third century, who solemnly explained the hiero-
glyphics as follows — to quote the quaint diction of a sixteenth century
translation : <*
"BY WHAT CHARACTERS, PICTURES, AND IMAGES, THE LEARNED EGIP-
TIANS EXPRESSED THE MYSTERIES OF THEIR MINDES
"When they would signifie wrathe and fury, they set downe the image of
a Lyon. When they would signifie talke, they set downe the figure of a
toung. When they would signifie fleshly pleasure, they set down the number
of XVI. When they would signifie lerning, they set down the picture of
Dew dropping from the clowdes. By a Kat they meane destruction. By a
Flye, they meane shamelesnes. By the Ant running into the Corne, they
meane provision. By a man walking in water without a bed, they meane
a thing unpossible. By a swarme of Bees following the maister Bee, they
signifie obedient subjects. By a man hiding his privy members with his
hands, they meane Temperance. By the floures of Poppy, they signifie
sicknes. By an armed man shooting in a Bowe of steele, they meane
Rebellion. By an Eagle flying against the Sun, they meane windy weather.
By an Owle standing uppon a tree, they signifie death. By a Lace tyed in
many knots, they meane mutual Love. By Bookes and Scrowles, they meane
Auncientnes. By a Ladder set against a Castle wall, they meane a seedge
about a Town or a Fortresse. By a Mule, they signifie a Woman with a
barrain wombe. By a Mole, they meane blindnesse. By a Lapwing sitting
uppon a Cluster of Grapes, they meane a plentiful Vintage. By a Sceptre
and an eye on the top thereof looking downwarde, they meane power and
polisie. By a Spindle ful of thred broken of from the Distaf, they mean
the shortnes of mans life." «
This is very absurd, yet nothing more rational was known of the subject
in classical times. The very name which the Greeks supplied to the strange
Egyptian script shows their ignorance of it. They called it hieroglyphics,
from tepo'?, sacred, yXvfaiv, to carve, implying their belief that this writing was
purely of a sacred character, which, it is now well known, is by no means the
case. It would seem as if in the later day, when, after the death of Alexan-
der, Egypt came under the rule of the Macedonian Ptolemies, there must
have been Greeks who acquired a knowledge of the Egyptian writing, just as
there were undoubtedly Egyptians who learned Greek. Yet the number of
these was probably more limited than one might suppose, for the Greeks
were the Frenchmen of antiquity ; imbued with a reverential love of their
own language, they were little given to acquiring any other. Even so, it
would seem that there must have been, here and there, an inquiring mind,
which would take up the study of the hieroglyphics and ferret out their
secrets under the guidance of Egyptian tutors ; but if such there were, few
records of their accomplishments have come down to us, and none at all that
can serve to give the slightest clew to the true character of the strange
inscriptions.
About the beginning of our era, Egypt having become a Roman province,
all its personal life was stamped out. The hieroglyphic language was no
longer written or read. Long before that, the language of the people had
been greatly modified from its ancient purity, and in the day of Egypt's
greatness it was only the scholarly few, chiefly the priests, who could read
and write the language. Now the speech became still further modified, until
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 251
finally, through the slow mutations of time, modern Coptic has developed as
its lineal descendant. In the early days, however, — probably before the time
of the oldest extant records, — the original picture writing, or hieroglyphics
proper, had been modified into a sort of running script, which the Greeks
called hieratic ; and this again had undergone another modification some four
or five centuries before our era, in the development of a script, called enchorial
or demotic, which in the day of the Ptolemies represented the language of
the Egyptian people. But after the complete disruption of Egypt under the
Romans, the hieratic and demotic forms of the writing, as well as the hiero-
glyphics proper, ceased to be employed ; and presently, as has been said, all
three forms became quite unintelligible to any person living. From that
time on, until the early days of the nineteenth century, the records of Egypt,
preserved so numerously on their monuments, on the papyrus rolls and
mummy-cases, were a closed book. No man lived, during this period, in
Egypt or out of Egypt, who did more than effect the crudest guess at the
meaning of this strange writing.
For something like two thousand years the Egyptian language was a dead
language in the fullest sense of the term, and the records, locked imperishably
in the hieroglyphics, seemed likely to hold their mysterious secret from the
prying minds of all generations of men. But then, in the early days of the
nineteenth century, the key was unexpectedly found, and, to the delight of
the scholarly world, the Egyptian Pandora box was opened."
THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX
This came about through a study of the famous Rosetta stone, an Egyp-
tian monument now preserved in the British Museum. On this stone three
sets of inscriptions are recorded. The upper one, occupying about a
fourth of the surface, is a pictured scroll, made up of chains of those strange
outlines of serpents, hawks, lions, and so on, which are recognised, even by
the least initiated, as hieroglyphics. The middle inscription, made up of
lines, angles, and half-pictures, one might suppose to be a sort of abbreviated
or shorthand hieroglyphic. It is called the enchorial or demotic character.
The third, or lower, inscription is manifestly Greek. It is now known that
these three inscriptions are renderings of the same message, and that this
message is a " decree of the Priests of Memphis conferring divine honours
on Ptolemy V, Epiphanes, King of Egypt, B.C. 195."
" This stone was found by the French in 1798 among the ruins of Fort
St. Julian, near the Rosetta mouth of the Nile. It passed into the hands of
the British by the treaty of Alexandria, and was deposited in the British
Museum in the year 1801."
The value of the Rosetta stone depended on the fact that it gave promise,
even when originally inspected, of furnishing a key to the centuries-old
mystery of the hieroglyphics. For two thousand years the secret of these
strange markings had been forgotten. Nowhere in the world — quite as
little in Egypt as elsewhere — had any man the slightest clew to their
meaning; there were even those who doubted whether these droll pictur-
ings really had any specific meaning, questioning whether they were not
merely vague symbols of esoteric religious import and nothing more.
And it was the Rosetta stone that gave the answer to these doubters,
and restored to the world a lost language and a forgotten literature.
The trustees of the British Museum recognised that the problem of the
252 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Rosetta stone was one on which the scientists of the world might well
exhaust their ingenuity, and they promptly published to the world a care-
fully lithographed copy of the entire inscription, so that foreign scholarship
had equal opportunity with British to try to solve the riddle. How diffi-
cult a riddle it was, even with this key in hand, is illustrated by the fact
that, though scholars of all nations brought their ingenuity to bear upon it,
nothing more was accomplished for a dozen years than to give authority to
three or four guesses regarding the nature of the upper inscriptions, which,
as it afterwards proved, were quite incorrect and altogether misleading.
This in itself is sufficient to show that ordinary scholarship might have
studied the Rosetta stone till the end of time without getting far on
the track of its secrets. The key was there, but to apply it required
the inspired insight — that is to say, the shrewd guessing power — of
genius.
The man who undertook the task had perhaps the keenest scientific imag-
ination and the most versatile profundity of knowledge of his generation —
one is tempted to say, of all generations. For he was none other than the
extraordinary Dr. Thomas Young, the demonstrator of the vibratory nature
of light.
Young had his attention called to the Rosetta stone by accident, and his
usual rapacity for knowledge at once led him to speculate as to the possible
aid this tri-lingual inscription might give in the solution of Egyptian prob-
lems. Resolving at once to attempt the solution himself, he set to work to
learn Coptic, which was rightly believed to represent the nearest existing
approach to the ancient Egyptian language. His amazing facility in the
acquisition of languages stood him in such good stead that within a year of
his first efforts he had mastered Coptic, had assured himself that the ancient
Egyptian language was really similar to it, and had even made a tentative
attempt at the translation of the Egyptian scroll. His results were only
tentative, to be sure. Yet they constituted the very beginnings of our
knowledge regarding the meaning of hieroglyphics. Just how far they
carried, has been a subject of ardent controversy ever since. Not that there
is any doubt about the specific facts ; what is questioned is the exact impor-
tance of these facts. For it is undeniable that Young did not complete and
perfect the discovery, and, as always in such matters, there is opportunity
for difference of opinion as to the share of credit due to each of the workers
who entered into the discovery.
Young's specific discoveries were these : (1) that many of the pictures
of the hieroglyphics stand for the names of the objects actually delineated ;
(2) that other pictures are sometimes only symbolic ; (3) that plural num-
bers are represented by repetition ; (4) that numerals are represented by
dashes ; (5) that hieroglyphics may read either from the right or from the
left, but always from the direction in which the animals and human figures
face ; (6) that proper names are surrounded by a graven oval ring, making
what he called a cartouche ; (7) that the cartouches of the preserved por-
tion of the Rosetta stone stand for the name of Ptolemy alone ; (8) that
the presence of a female figure after such cartouches, in other inscriptions,
always denotes the female sex ; (9) that within the cartouches the hiero-
glyphic symbols have a positively phonetic value, either alphabetic or syl-
labic, and (10) that several different characters may have the same phonetic
value.
Just what these phonetic values are, Dr. Young pointed out in the case
of fourteen characters, representing nine sounds, six of which are accepted
THE ROSETTA STONE
(Original in British Huacnm, London)
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 253
to-day as correctly representing the letters to which he ascribed them, and
the three others as being correct regarding their essential or consonantal
element. It is clear, therefore, that he was on the right track thus far, and
on the very verge of complete discovery. But, unfortunately, he failed to
take the next step, which would have been to realise that the phonetic values
given to the characters within the cartouches were often ascribed to them
also when used in the general text of an inscription ; in other words, that
the use of an alphabet was not confined to proper names. This was the
great secret which Young missed, but which his French successor, Jean
Frangois Champollion, working on the foundation that Young had laid, was
enabled to ferret out.
Young's initial studies of the Rosetta stone were made in 1814; his later
publications bore date of 1819. Champollion's first announcement of results
came in 1822 ; his second and more important one in 1824. By this time,
through study of the cartouches of other inscriptions, he had made out almost
the complete alphabet, and the "Riddle of the Sphinx " was practically solved.
He proved that the Egyptians had developed a relatively complete alphabet
(mostly neglecting the vowels, as early Semitic alphabets did also) centuries
before the Phoenicians were heard of in history. What relation this alphabet
bore to the Phoenician, we shall have occasion to ask in another connection ;
for the moment it suffices to know that these strange pictures of the Egyptian
scroll are really letters.
Even this statement, however, must in a measure be modified. These
pictures are letters and something more. Some of them are purely alpha-
betical in character, and some are symbolic in another way. Some charac-
ters represent syllables. Others stand sometimes as mere representatives
of sounds, and again, in a more extended sense, as representatives of things,
such as all hieroglyphics doubtless were in the beginning. In a word, this
is an alphabet, but not a perfected alphabet such as modern nations are
accustomed to ; hence the enormous difficulties and complications it presented
to the early investigators.
Champollion did not live to clear up all the mysteries of the hieroglyphics.
His work was taken up and extended by his pupil Rosellini, and in par-
ticular by Richard Lepsius in Germany ; followed by M. Renouf, and by
Samuel Birch, of the British Museum, and more recently by such well-
known Egyptologists as MM. Maspero, Mariette, and Chabas, in France ;
Drs. Brugsch, Meyer, and Erman in Germany; Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge,
the present head of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British
Museum, and Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie. But the work of later
investigators has been largely one of exhumation and translation of records,
rather than of finding methods.
Let us now turn more specifically to the writing itself. A glance shows
that the objects delineated are, as might be expected, those which were
familiar to the people that originated the writing. Here we see Egyptian
hawks, serpents, ibises, and the like, and the human figure, depicted in the
crude yet graphic way characteristic of Egyptian art. But in addition to
these familiar figures there are numerous conventionalised designs. These
also, there is reason to believe, were originally representations of familiar
objects, but, for convenience of rendering, the pictures have been supplanted
by conventionalised designs. It is now known that this writing of the
Egyptians was of a most extraordinary compound character. Part of its
pictures are used as direct representations of the objects presented. But
let us examine some examples :
254
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
mat eye.
maui
eyes.
birds.
But, again, the picture of an object may stand for some idea symbolised
by that object, thus becoming an ideograph, as in the following instances :
—ba
soul
net honey*
pet to see.
Here the sacred ibis or the sacred bull symbolises the soul. The bee
stands for honey, the eyes for the verb "to see."
Yet again the Egyptian pictures may stand neither as pictures of things,
nor as ideographs, but as having the phonetic value of a syllable.
pa
fo protect.
the C*Q^ meh to fill.
pet Hie sky or heaven .
I
t'a
male.
Such syllabic signs may be used either singly, as above, or in combination,
as we shall see illustrated in a moment.
But one other stage of evolution is possible ; namely, the use of signs
with a purely alphabetical significance. The Egyptians made this step also,
and their strangely conglomerate writing makes use of the following alphabet:
or\\
>rK) u II fr n p ^f^ f ^\or/*""" m
fj]A RA Oxw ji*"}8 ans(»h)
^x
In a word, then, the Egyptian writing has passed through all the stages of
development, from the purely pictorial to the alphabetical, but with this strange
qualification — that while advancing to the later stages it retains the use of
the crude earlier forms. As Canon Taylor has graphically phrased it, the
Egyptian writing is a completed structure, but one from which the scaffold-
ing has not been removed.
The next step would have been to remove the now useless scaffolding,
leaving a purely alphabetical writing as the completed structure. Looking
at the matter from the modern standpoint, it seems almost incredible that so
intelligent a people as the Egyptians should have failed to make this advance.
EGYPTIAN CULTURE
Yet the facts stand, that as early as the time of the Pyramid Builders, say
4000 years B.C., the Egyptians had made the wonderful analysis of sounds
without which the invention of an alphabet would be impossible. They had
set aside certain of their hieroglyphic symbols and given them alphabetical
significance. They had learned to write their words with the use of this
alphabet ; and it would seem as if, in the course of a few generations, they
must come to see how unnecessary was the cruder form of picture writing
which this alphabet would naturally supplant ; but in point of fact they
never did come to a realisation of this seemingly simple proposition. Gen-
eration after generation, and century after century, they continued to use
their same cumbersome, complex writing, and it remained for an outside na-
tion to prove that an alphabet pure and simple was capable of fulfilling all
the conditions of a written language.
Thus in practice there is found in the hieroglyphics the strangest combi-
nation of ideographs, syllabic signs, and alphabetical signs or true letters,
used together indiscriminately.
It was, for example, not at all unusual after spelling a word syllabically
or alphabetically to introduce a figure giving the idea of the thing intended,
and then even to supplement this with a so-called determinative sign or
figure :
qeften monkey n/Hft </enu cavalry.
tematt wings. |«^<*Cr^[&te quadrupeds.
Here qeften, monkey, is spelled out in full, but the picture of a monkey
is added as a determinative ; second, qenu, cavalry, after being spelled is
made unequivocal by the introduction 01 a picture of a horse ; third, temati,
wings, though spelled elaborately, has pictures of wings added ; and fourth,
tot a. quadrupeds, after being spelled, has a picture of a quadruped, and
then the picture of a hide, which is the usual determinative of a quadruped,
followed by three dashes to indicate the plural number.
These determinatives are in themselves so interesting, as illustrations of
the association of ideas, that it is worth while to add a few more examples.
The word pet, which signifies "heaven," and which has also the meaning
" up " or " even," is represented primarily by what may be supposed to be a
conventionalised picture of the covering to the earth. But this picture
used as a determinative is curiously modified in the expression of other
ideas, as it symbolises "evening" when a closed flower is added, and "night"
when a star hangs in the sky, and " rain or tempest " when a series of
zigzag lines, which by themselves represent water, are appended.
darkness.
senar Tempest.
256
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
As aids to memory such pictures are obviously of advantage, but this
advantage, in the modern view, is outweighed by the cumbrousness of the
system of writing as a whole.
Why was such a complex system retained ? Chiefly, no doubt, because
the Egyptians, like all other highly developed peoples, were conservatives.
They held to their old method after a better one had been invented, just as
half the Western world to-day holds to an antiquated system of weights and
measures after a far simpler system of decimals has been introduced. But
this inherent conservatism was enormously aided, no doubt, by the fact that
the Egyptian language, like the Chinese, has many words that have a varied
significance, making it seem necessary, or at least highly desirable, either to
spell such words with different signs, or, having spelled them in the same
way, to introduce the varied determinatives.
Here are some examples of discrimination between words of the same
sound by the use of different signs :
pa
the.
house.
nine.
e
company.
pout
Here, it will be observed, exactly the same expedient is adopted which
we still retain when we discriminate between words of the same sound by
different spelling, as, to, two, too ; whole, hole ; through, threw, etc.
But the more usual Egyptian method was to resort to determinatives ;
the results seem to us most extraordinary. After what has been said, the
following examples will explain themselves :
robe
, un appearance.
un shaved
un, lighfness.
un to pull ouMiair
Do
F±sj pet
pet
a
The sky.
heaven * earth.
pet heaven earth fc hell.
to see. UATW ~Yto°p6nJl?
d A I to extend..
pet a kind of unguent.
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 257
It goes without saying that the great mass of people in Egypt were
never able to write at all. Had they been accustomed to do so, the Egyp-
tians would have been a nation of artists. Even as the case stands, a remark-
able number of men must have had their artistic sense considerably
developed, for the birds, animals, and human figures constantly presented on
their hieroglyphic scrolls are drawn with a degree of fidelity which the
average European of to-day would certainly find far beyond his skill. <i
LITERATURE
The literary remains of Egypt have come to us through two channels,
one of these being the inscriptions on walls and monuments, to which
reference has just been made, and the other the papyrus rolls that
constituted books proper. Of course the main body of the monumental
inscriptions can only by courtesy be said to belong to the literature of
the country. For the most part they are records of political and religious
affairs such as hardly come within the domain of literature. On the other
hand, there are certain examples of a more distinctly literary character.
One of the most important illustrations of this class of inscription is a
poem which recounts certain of the deeds of Ramses the Great, in par-
ticular the great fight which this monarch made against the Kheta or
Hittites. We have quoted it in the chapter devoted to Ramses II.
There are other monumental inscriptions that have a purely historical
character, inasmuch as they give lists of names of the kings of the
various dynasties. Unfortunately, no one of these chronological inscrip-
tions is complete. The same is true of the most important historical
document on papyrus — a document known as the Turin papyrus because
it is preserved in the museum in that city. It is worth noting, however,
that these chronological lists, as far as they go, tend to support the list of
Manetho, to which reference has previously been made. These lists of
Manetho, it will be recalled, have come down to us only through certain
excerpts made by Josephus and others, the original work having been lost
in its entirety. But a comparison of these lists at second-hand with the
original Egyptian documents has shown, as Professor Petrie remarks, what
a real history the work of Manetho must have been, and how great a depri-
vation its loss is to the modern historian.
The papyrus rolls on which most of the literary remains of Egypt are
inscribed are true books. The book of folded leaves is a comparatively
modern invention. Throughout antiquity, including the classical times,
the roll constituted the only form of book in use, unless, indeed, we
include waxen tablets, which are hardly to be considered books in the
proper sense of the word; at least it is not known that they were ever
used for the transcription of lengthy works to be placed on sale, though
it is probable that authors used them, at least for the rough drafts of their
compositions. It is well known that in later classical times the parchment
roll came to be substituted for the roll of papyrus, though the latter held
its own for a long time, and was still employed exceptionally in the Middle
Ages ; but the old Egyptian parchment was unknown, and though inscrip-
tions were sometimes made on pieces of linen, 'the regular material for book-
making was papyrus.
The papyrus sheet was made by gluing together pieces of the outer rind
or bark of the stem of the papyrus plant, these pieces being placed in two
layers and dried under pressure. The sheets of papyrus were from six or
u. w. — VOL. i. a
258
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
eight to about fourteen inches in width, and were often many feet in length.
The inscription, made with a reed pen, not altogether unlike a modern quill,
was written in columns at right angles to the length of the papyrus sheet,
these columns being of varying width, but usually of a size convenient for
the scribe in writing and for the reader. If we may judge from a statue
that has been preserved, the scribe at work sat with his feet crossed like
a modern tailor. Papy-
rus is, of course, a very
fragile and perishable
substance ; therefore it is
only in the dry climate
of Egypt that documents
of this nature are likely
to be preserved. Thanks
to the unusual atmos-
phere of Egypt, however,
large numbers of these
documents have come
down to us, some of
them dating from the
third millennium B.C.
These documents repre-
sent various classes of
literature. Of historical
writings, the most impor-
tant is the Turin papy-
rus, already referred to.
A still more ancient docu-
ment is known as the
Prisse papyrus, being
named after its discov-
erer, Prisse d'Avenne.
It is virtually a series of
essays containing moral
precepts and disserta-
tions on the art of right living. Aside from its contents, this particular
papyrus roll has unusual interest because it shows us the hieratic writing
of the Egyptians in its oldest known form, the hieratic character being a
much modified cursive form of hieroglyphic simplified in the interest of
rapid writing. It was believed by the French philologist, De Rouge, that
this hieratic character formed the basis of the Phoenician alphabet, and a
large number of scholars have accepted this conclusion, which, however, is
now seemingly about to be abandoned. Other essays of the Egyptians, on
medical and mathematical subjects, have been preserved in considerable
numbers.
There is yet another form of literary production that is abundantly
represented among the papyrus documents. This is the religious work
known as the Book of the Dead, a book that was substantially the Bible of
the Egyptians, numerous copies of which in whole or in part are still in
existence. An additional interest attaches to many copies of the Book of
the Dead in the fact that pictures are introduced to illustrate the narrative.
One is prone to think of book illustration as a relatively modern art ; but
in point of fact, as these documents prove, it is an art that was practised by
STATUB OF A SCRIBE (FIFTH DYNASTY)
(Now in the Louvre)
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 259
the ancient Egyptians more than two thousand years before the Chris-
tian era.
From a purely literary standpoint, the most important remains preserved
on papyrus are the various more or less perfect copies of romances and of
poems. The romances are somewhat of the character of what we should
call fairy tales, though elements of realism are not lacking in some of them ;
and the poems include love songs and other lyrics. It is extremely difficult
to judge the artistic merits of productions in so alien a tongue, and it has been
noted by Egyptologists that certain recitals were apparently very popular in
Egypt, the merits of which are lost upon the modern interpreter, because
even the greatest of modern students can hardly claim a degree of pro-
ficiency in the language that suffices for the appreciation of the niceties of
usage. There are certain of the tales and poems, however, which in point
of conception, thought, and construction must be admitted to have con-
spicuous merit, even when judged by modern standards.
As soon as the tales of ancient Egypt had been recovered in sufficient
number to allow some idea of its popular literature, it was seen that stories
of travel and adventure formed a considerable portion. But for a long time
no tale of the sea came to light. In fact, it seemed doubtful that such a one
existed. The Greek and Latin writings constantly reiterate the statement
that the Egyptians regarded the sea as impure, and that none would venture
on it of his own will, and upon this authority modern investigators had a
well-formed theory that Egypt never had a navy or native sailors.
To them Queen Hatshepsu's voyages of exploration and the naval vic-
tories of Ramses III were the deeds of hired Phoenicians. But the dis-
covery of a tale at St. Petersburg — a tale which takes us far back to
the XII th Dynasty, before any Phoenicians had yet appeared on the shores
of the Mediterranean, or Egypt had any thought of Syrian conquest —
tends to upset these old ideas, and lead us to the belief that the sailors
whom Pharaoh sent for the perfumes and goods of Arabia were native born
Egyptians.
The tale of The Castaway was discovered in the Imperial Hermitage Mu-
seum at St. Petersburg by M. Golenischeff in 1880. No one knows where
the papyrus was found, or .how it got in Russia, or even came to be in the
Hermitage Museum. It has taken its place as a classic of the Xllth
Dynasty, as that of the Two Brothers is of the XlXth.
On reading it, one immediately thinks of Sindbad the Sailor, except that
the serpents it was Sindbad's fortune to meet were far from being the
amiable creatures described by the Egyptian sailor. There is, indeed, no
very good reason to consider the famous tale of the Thousand and One Nightt
as a modern version of the Egyptian narrative. The sailors' love for the
recital of marvellous adventure is too natural, too far-spread, for us to fasten
the one upon the other.
The tale of The Castaway seems clearly to be a theological idea dressed
up in romance form. The mysterious island is the Isle of the Double, i.e.
the home of dead souls, and the serpent is its guardian. The voyage describes
the long journey to the other world — that trip on the mysterious western
sea, and the final reaching of the home of the soul. The basic conception of
the whole thing is typically Egyptian. Perhaps our estimate of Egyptian
literature cannot be completed better than by the presentation of the actual
text of this romance. Our version is from G. Maspero's rendering of
M. Golenischeff's translation of the original papyrus in the Imperial Hermit-
age Museum, St. Petersburg."
260 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
THE CASTAWAY : A TALE OF THE TWELFTH DYNASTY
The learned attendant said : " Rejoice thy heart, O my chief, for we
have just reached the fatherland; after having manned the prow of the
ship and worked the oars, the prow has grazed the sand. All our men
are rejoicing and embracing each other, for if others beside ourselves have
come safely home, not a man among us is missing, and, moreover, we have
gone to the farthest limits of Uauat, and have crossed the regions of
Senmut. Here we are returned in peace, and here we are back in our
fatherland. Listen, O my chief, for if thou dost not uphold me, I have no
support. Wash thee, pour water over thy hands, then go, address thyself
to Pharaoh, and may thy heart preserve thy speech from confusion, for if
a man's mouth may save him, on the other hand, his words may cause his
face to be covered over ; l act according to the impulse of thy heart, and
anything thou mayest say will put me at ease.
" Now I shall relate to thee what happened to me personally. I set out
for the mines of Honhem, and went to sea in a ship one hundred and fifty
cubits long and forty wide, with one hundred and fifty of the best sailors in
the land of Egypt, men who had seen heaven and earth, and whose hearts
were stouter than those of lions. They had foretold that the wind would
not be unfavourable, or that we would have none at all ; but a gust of wind
sprang up as soon as we were on the deep, and as we approached the shore,
the breeze freshened and stirred the waves to a height of eight cubits. As
for myself, I seized a plank, but the rest perished, without one remaining.
A wave of the sea threw me upon an island after I had spent three days
with no other companion than my own heart. I lay down to rest in a
thicket, and darkness enveloped me ; then I employed my legs in search
of something for my mouth. I found figs and grapes and many kinds of
fine vegetables, berries, nuts, melons of all kinds, fish, birds, — nothing was
lacking. I satisfied my hunger, and threw away the surplus of what I had
gathered. I dug a ditch, lit a fire, and prepared a sacrifice to the gods.
" Suddenly I heard a voice like thunder, caused, as I believed, by a wave
of the sea. The trees trembled, the earth shook ; I uncovered my face, and
saw that a serpent was approaching. He was thirty cubits long, with a
beard that hung down for over two cubits ; his body was as if incrusted
with gold on a colour of lapis lazuli. He planted himself before me,
opened his mouth, and while I remained dumbfounded before him, he said :
" ' What has brought thee, what has brought thee, little one, what has
brought thee ? If thou delayest to tell me what has brought thee to this
isle, I will make thee know what thou art ; either thou shalt disappear like
a flame, or thou shalt tell me something I never before have heard, and
which I knew not before.' Then he seized me in his mouth, carried me
to his lair, and laid me down unharmed ; I was safe and sound and whole.
" Then he opened his mouth, and while I remained speechless before
him, he said, ' What has brought thee, what has brought thee, little one, to
this isle which is in the sea and whose shores are in the midst of the
waves ? '
" I replied with arms hanging low before him.2 I said : ' I embarked for
1 Possibly an allusion to the custom of covering the faces of criminals while they were being
led to the scaffold. The order, "Cover his face," was equivalent to a condemnation. — M. MAS-
PERO.
2 This is the attitude in which the monuments represent suppliants or inferiors before their
masters. — MASPEKO.
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 261
the mines, by Pharaoh's order, in a ship one hundred and fifty cubits long
and forty wide. It was manned by one hundred and fifty of the best
sailors of the land of Egypt, who had seen heaven and earth, and whose
hearts were stouter than those of the gods. They had declared that the
wind would not be unfavourable, or even that there would be none at all,
for each one of them surpassed his companions in the prudence of his heart
and the strength of his arms, and I, I yielded to them in nothing ; but a
storm arose while we were on the deep, and as we approached the shore the
gale still freshened and threw up the waves to a height of eight cubits.
As for myself, I seized a plank, but the rest on the ship perished and not
one remained with me during three days. And now here I am with thee,
for I was cast on this isle by a wave of the sea.'
"Thereupon he said to me: 'Fear not, fear not, little one, let not thy
face show sorrow. If thou art here with me, it is because God has let thee
live. 'Tis he who has brought thee to the Isle of the Double, where nothing
is lacking, and which is filled with all good things. Behold ; thou shalt
pass month after month here until thou hast stayed four months in this
isle, then a ship shall come from thy country with sailors ; thou mayest then
depart with them to thy country and thou shalt die in thy native city.
Let us talk and be happy ; whosoever enjoys chatting can support misfor-
tune ; let me tell thee what there is on this island. I am here surrounded
by my brothers and children, together we are seventy-five serpents, children
and retainers, without including a young girl whom Fortune sent me, on
whom the fire of heaven fell and burnt to ashes. As for thee, if thou art
strong and thy heart is patient thou shalt yet press thy children to thy
heart and embrace thy wife ; thou shalt again behold thy house, and best
of all thou shalt reach thy country and be among thy people.' Then he
bowed to me and I touched the ground before him. ' Now this is what I
have to tell thee on this subject, I shall describe thee to Pharaoh and make
thy greatness known to him. I shall send thee paint and offertory per-
fumes,1 pomades, cinnamon, and incense employed in the temples, the kind
that is offered to the gods. I shall also tell all that, thanks to thee, I was
enabled to see, and the whole nation together shall give thee thanks. For
thee I shall slay asses in sacrifice. I shall pluck birds for thee, and send
ships to thee filled with all the marvels of Egypt, as if to a god, friend of
men in a distant country which men know not.'
" He smiled at what I said on account of what was on his heart, and
said : ' Thou art not rich in essences, for all that thou hast enumerated
unto me is naught after all but incense, while I, I am lord of the land of
Punt, and there have I plenty of essences. But the offertory perfume of
which thou speakest of sending me is not plentiful in this isle ; but when
once thou leavest it, never shalt thou see it again, for it shall be changed
into waves.'
" And behold the ship appeared as he had predicted. I perched myself
upon a high tree to try to distinguish who were on it. I hastened to tell
him the news, but found that he Knew it already ; and he said to me, 'Good
journey, good journey home, little one, let thine eyes rest upon thy chil-
dren, and may thy name remain fair in thy city — these are my wishes for
thee.' Then I bent before him with low-hanging arms, and he gave me
presents of essences, offertory perfume, pomade, cinnamon, thuya, sapan
wood, powdered antimony, cypress, ordinary incense in great quantity,
1 Hakonu was one of the seven canonical oils which were offered to the gods and departed
spirits during sacrifice. — MASI-ERO.
262
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
elephants' teeth, greyhounds, baboons, green monkeys, and all kinds of good
and precious things. I put all on board the ship that had come, and pros-
trating myself, I offered him worship. He said to me, ' Behold, thou shalt
arrive in thy country after two months, thou shalt press thy children to thy
heart and thou shalt lie in thy tomb.' And after that I went down to
the shore towards the ship and called to the sailors on board. I gave thanks
on the shores to the lord of the isle as well as to those who lived upon it.
" When we had come, the second month, to the city of Pharaoh, just as
the other had predicted, we drew near the palace. I entered unto Pharaoh,
and gave him all the presents I had brought into the country from that
island, and he thanked me before the assembled people. That is why he
made an attendant of me, and let me join the king's courtiers. Look upon
me, now that I have reached the shore once more, and having seen and
undergone so much. Hear my prayer, for it is good to listen to people.
Some one said to me, ' Become a learned man, my friend, thou wilt arrive at
honours,' and behold I have arrived."
This is taken from beginning to end as it is found in the book. Who
has written it is the scribe with nimble fingers. Ameni-Amen-aa, Life,
Health, Strengths
COSTUME OF A QUEEN OF ANCIENT EGYPT
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUDING SUMMARY OF EGYPTIAN
HISTORY
IN thus following the course of Egyptian history as outlined in the pages
of such ancient authorities as Herodotus, Manetho, and Diodorus, and such
recent students as Brugsch Pasha, Mariette Pasha, and Professors Erman,
Maspero, and Petrie, we have been enabled to gain a tolerably clear picture
of the life of the most celebrated nation of antiquity.
There is one feature of that life, however, which this story leaves quite
in the dark ; namely, its beginnings. The ancients, beyond vaguely hinting
at an Ethiopian origin of the Egyptians, confessed themselves in the main
totally ignorant of the subject. And it must be confessed that the patient
researches of modern workers have not sufficed fully to lift the veil of this
ignorance. Theories have been propounded, to be sure. It was broadly
suggested by Heeren that one might probably look to India as the original
cradle of the Egyptian race. Hebrew scholars, however, naturally were dis-
posed to find that cradle in Mesopotamia, and some later archaeologists,
among them so great an authority as Maspero, believe that the real begin-
nings of Egyptian history should be traced to equatorial Africa. But there
are no sure data at hand to enable one to judge with any degree of certainty
as to which of these hypotheses, if any one of them, is true.
The whole point of view of modern thought regarding this subject has
been strangely shifted during the last half century. Up to that time it was
the firm conviction of the greater number of scholars that, in dealing with
the races of antiquity, we had but to cover a period of some four thousand
years before the Christian era. Any hypothesis that could hope to gain
credence in that day must be consistent with this supposition. But the
anthropologists of the past two generations have quite dispelled that long
current illusion, and we now think of the history of man as stretching back
tens, or perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years into the past.
Applying a common-sense view to the history of ancient nations from
this modified standpoint, it becomes at once apparent how very easy it may
be to follow up false clews and arrive at false conclusions. Let us suppose,
for example, that, as Heeren believed and as some more modern investigators
have contended, the skulls of the Egyptians and those of the Indian races of
antiquity, as preserved in the tombs of the respective countries, bear a close
resemblance to one another. What, after all, does this prove ? Presumably
it implies that these two widely separated nations have perhaps had a com-
263
264 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
mon origin. But it might mean that the Egyptians had one day been
emigrants from India, or conversely, that the Indians had migrated from
Egypt, or yet again, that the forbears of both nations had, at a remoter epoch,
occupied some other region, perhaps in an utterly different part of the globe
from either India or Egypt. And even such a conclusion as this would have
to be accepted with a large element of doubt. For, up to the present, it
must freely be admitted that the studies of the anthropologists have by no
means fixed the physical characters of the different races with sufficient
clearness to enable us to predicate actual unity of race or unity of origin
from a seeming similarity of skulls alone, or even through more comprehen-
sive comparison of physical traits, were these available.
More than this, any such comparison as that which attempts to link the
Egyptians with Indians or Hebrews or Ethiopians is, after all, only a narrow
view of the subject extending over a comparatively limited period of time.
If it were shown that the first members of that race which came to be known
as the Egyptians came to the valley of the Nile from India or Mesopotamia
or Ethiopia, the fact would have undoubted historic interest, but it would
after all only take us one step farther back along the course of the evolution
of that ancient civilisation, and the question would still remain an open one
as to what was the real cradle of the race. For in the modern view, as has
just been said, when one speaks of the evolution of civilisation, his mind
must grasp the idea of tens of thousands of years, during which, the most
casual reflection will make it clear, races may have migrated this way and
that, northward, eastward, westward, southward, and may have reversed
their course of migration over and over again, leaving few traces through
which the historian of a later time could follow them in imagination.
There is indeed a tradition, which Diodorus has preserved to us, that
the Egyptian of an early day made a great conquering tour through Greece
and all of western Asia to India, and back again to the region of the Nile.
We have already pointed out that such vague traditions as this probably
represent a racial memory of actual historical events, distorted of course as
to all details. But all this, it must be repeated over and over again, is
only conjecture.
Anthropology is the newest of sciences, and it will scarcely in our day
attain a knowledge that will enable the historian to solve the problem of the
origin of any one of the remoter races of antiquity. The history of such
relatively newer races as the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans may
indeed be, at least conjecturally, made out at no distant day ; but we must
expect that the probably far remoter civilisation of China, India, Mesopo-
tamia, and Egypt will long continue to baffle the investigator.
But even present knowledge suffices to change utterly the point of view
with which the modern historian regards these so-called ancient races. So
long as one regarded the history of the world as comprising only some four
thousand years before the Christian era, it was quite clear that in speaking
of the earliest historical ages of Egypt, one was dealing with time that
might properly be called the childhood of our race. One came to speak
trippingly of the " Dawn of Civilisation " as illustrated by the events of the
time of the Pyramid Builders. But now all that has changed, and it has
become clear that we know nothing of the dawn of civilisation.
The earliest records of Egypt that have come down to us, as illustrated, for
example, in the document known as the Prisse papyrus, which is some-
times spoken of as the oldest book in the world, show that, at a time which
probably preceded the building of the Pyramids, namely, as early as the
CONCLUDING sr.MMAKY OK EGY1TIAN HISTORY
Ilnd Dynasty, the Egyptians regarded the civilisation of their day as
already past its prime. Men of that time were already tiring of the degen-
erate epoch in which they lived, and looking back to the good old days
when, as it seemed to them, the Egyptians were a great people. As Dr.
Taylor has remarked, it was a curious irony of fate that should have pre-
served to us such thoughts as these in the oldest written document which
has been spared for our inspection. But the moral is quite clear. Professor
Mahaffy has well outlined it when he says that one is perhaps justified in
feeling that, in point of fact, the old Egyptian who traced the words of the
Prisse papyrus was right, and that that ancient time was really not the
spring-time of humanity, but the veritable autumn of civilisation. Such a
thought as this would have been incomprehensible to the student of any
generation before our own, but the long vistas of time that have been
opened up to our eyes through the investigations of the last half century
make such a strange estimate seem more than plausible. For, after all,
what is the sweep of, say, six or eight thousand years which is opened to us
as the truly historic period of man's existence, compared to the tens of
thousands of years that preceded ?
Almost at the beginning of Egyptian history, as we have seen, a race
was in the field which constructed the most gigantic monuments that human
ingenuity has even yet conceived. Surely it was no dawn of civilisation
that could achieve such works as these. In the broadest view, then, there
is no such thing as ancient history open to the observation of the modern
historian. All history that we can know from the time of the Pyramid
Builders to our own day is in this view properly but recent history, and, as
has just been suggested, perhaps only the history of an oscillating decline
through the period of the senility of our race. But, however fascinating
such a view as this may be, for practical purposes one must look a little
more narrowly. Still, the broad view which regards the ancient Egyptian
as a brother in blood to the modern European will be the surest ground on
which to build a record of universal history.
Professor Mahaffy has pointed out, in the same connection just quoted,
that, not merely in practical civilisation, but in the appreciation of all the
moral bearings of an advanced life, the Egyptian of two or three, or per-
haps five, thousand years before the Christian era, was on a plane differing
in no essential from the plane of modern Christendom ; and this thought is
the one that should perhaps be the most prominently borne in mind by
any one who will gain the truest lesson from the study of the sweep of
universal history.
So long as the ancient Egyptian is regarded as playing the part of a
weird strange member of a civilisation utterly alien to the modern, so long
the modern is shut out from the best lessons of that ancient history. But
when, on the other hand, one considers the ancient resident of the valley of
the Nile as a human being, with desires, emotions, and aspirations almost pre-
cisely like our own ; a man struggling to solve the same problems of prac-
tical socialism that we are struggling for to-day, — then, and then only, can
the lessons of ancient Egyptian history be brought home to us in their
true meaning and with their true significance. And clearest of all will this
significance be, perhaps, if we constantly bear in mind the possibility that
the whole sweep of Egyptian history, during the three or four thousand
years that separated the Pyramid Builders from the contemporaries of
Alexander, was a time of national decay — a dark age, if you will, in
Egyptian history.
266
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
It is probably because such a view as this is justified that the current
conception has arisen which regards the Egyptian as a mystic, a religion-
haunted person ; for, in point of fact, it is true that, during the greater
part of the period of this Egyptian history, their race was a priest-ridden one.
To turn once more to a phrase of Professor Mahaffy's, " The priesthood of
Egypt perhaps embalmed the civilisation of the Nile, but they surely killed
it." Yet there must have been a time when the nation was young and
aspiring, when its mixed population — no matter whence derived — had
that vigour which is only known to mixed races. There were giants in
these days, not in stature, but in ideas ; the great Pyramids, the mighty
Sphinx, attest their existence. Then there came that development of
culture, accompanied of course by a degree of weakened virility, which made
the great literature of the Xllth Dynasty possible, and then priestcraft throt-
tled the nation with a grip which, despite severe and heroic struggles, was
never altogether shaken off. Just what it means when the clammy hand of
a fixed theology clutches at the throat of progressive civilisation, we have a
near-at-hand illustration in the European Dark Ages, out of which we, at the
beginning of the twentieth century, are only just striving to emerge, after
some fourteen or fifteen centuries of combat. Our own experience, then,
prepares us well to understand the Egyptian history.
It will doubtless be at least another century, perhaps two or three cen-
turies, before the inhabitants of Christendom can look out upon the world
with as rational a view as that which Plato attained in the fifth century B.C.,
or Cicero in the first, or Marcus Aurelius some two or three centuries
later, just as the storm-cloud of Oriental superstition was thickening. So it
need not surprise us that Egypt should have suffered in a like manner for
a like period.
In the last analysis, then, it would seem that it is the likeness of Egyp-
tian history to our own history, rather than its mysterious differences, that
gives it the greatest charm. The differences are the surface details ; the
resemblances are as deep as human nature itself. In obtaining this con-
viction, we curiously reversed the old estimate of the strange weird people
of the Nile, but in so doing we prepare ourselves far better than we other-
wise could to grasp the import of universal history.*
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts. No
anchor, no cable, no fences, avail to keep a fact. Babylon, Troy, Tyrr,
Palestine, and even early Borne are passing already into fiction. The
Garden of Eden, the sun standing still in Gibeon, is poetry thencefor-
ward to all nations. Who cares what the fact was, when we have made
a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign ? — EMEKSON.
SUCH is the land which, viewed with the eyes of later epochs, seems a
theatre of marvels ; such the people whose fortune it was to step first, or
among the first, from the ranks of barbarians into the phalanx of civilisation.
How and when and where they took this step — or rather made this long
slow climb — we do not know. But they themselves had traditions regard-
ing their origin and early history, some of which have come down to us,
chiefly through the medium of Greek historians.
These traditions are not, of course, to be weighed in the same scale with
the concrete findings of the modern historical investigators. But neither, on
the other hand, should they be altogether set aside. We live in a world
curiously woven full of paradox and illusion. Often it chances that the
records, even of recent times, which bear the fullest stamp of authenticity,
are really nothing more than fables — a mixture of prejudice, and falsehood,
and myth, and fetich. And, on the other hand, it may chance that a purely
fabulous record contains the very essence of history. Indeed, always, where
the tradition is of long standing and widely accepted among a people at some
stage of its evolution, such tradition must be redolent of the Zeitgeist of its
epoch.
It may be, as such fables commonly are, an impossible tale of gods and
godlike heroes, of superhuman feats and supernatural revelations ; yet
none the less it is in one sense historically true. If nothing more, it is the
epitomised history of the psychology of an epoch. But generally it is more
than that : it is the idealised expression of a racial memory of actual events
— idealised, glorified, transfigured, yet perhaps never actually created save
upon a substratum of facts. And how infinitely expressive this idealised
record becomes. It condenses the events of centuries, sometimes into a
phrase ; it embodies the essence of the civilisation of an epoch in a parable.
267
268 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Who would give up the Homeric legends, with their records of gods and
supernatural heroes, for the realistic recitals of a Thucydides ? Who would
give up the myths of Greece for a record of actual wars and conquests ?
Fortunately we have not to make the choice ; we may retain the one record
to supplement and complete the other. So the historian should do with the
early records of every people, wherever accessible.
Apart from the monuments of the Egyptians themselves, the oldest
account of this people which has come down to us in profane literature is that
given by Herodotus. This account has peculiar interest because it is given
by an eye-witness. Herodotus travelled in Egypt some time about the begin-
ning of the fifth century B.C., when Egypt was just being opened up to the
foreigner. It does not appear that Herodotus knew the language of the
country, and he was, therefore, necessarily debarred from attaining as intimate
a knowledge of the people as might otherwise have been possible. It has
been suspected also that the Egyptian priests amused themselves not a little
in filling the mind of Herodotus with tales of very doubtful authenticity.
But be that as it may, Herodotus had a keen eye, and he has left us vivid and
interesting descriptions of the many marvels that he saw, some of which are
here presented. In making these citations we shall not for the moment
attempt the role of the critic, accepting rather the entertaining narrative just
as it is given.
It will be obvious that in many points this narrative partakes of the
ludicrous ; yet even these portions of the tale have their value. What
Herodotus tells us of the causes of the rises of the Nile, for example, is im-
portant as showing the attitude of Greek thought towards this singular
phenomenon. The naive recital in which Herodotus tells how the wind blows
the sun from his course, serves in itself to give a clew, not to the mind of
Herodotus alone, but to the minds of his contemporaries, — a clew which will
be of the utmost value in aiding one to estimate the status of various histori-
cal reports that come to us from antiquity. But, on the other hand, what
Herodotus has to tell us of his actual observations as to the land and the
manners and customs of its people, is of the utmost importance as the con-
temporary record of a keen observer, and may be accepted, so far as it relates
to the actual observations of the author, as historically accurate in the fullest
modern sense of the word.
Next to the works of Herodotus, the amplest description of Egypt that
has come down to us from antiquity is that of Diodorus the Sicilian. This
author was a contemporary of Caesar and Augustus. He wrote a very
famous history of the world under the title of The Historical Library, in
forty books, of which only about eleven have reached us intact.
It is not clear whether Diodorus, like Herodotus, visited Egypt in person,
but he at least was familiar with all the knowledge and tradition of his time
relating to that country. He lived several centuries later than Herodotus,
when Egypt had long been the field of foreign invasion. Whatever the
Greek and the Roman had been able to learn of Egyptian history was there-
fore accessible to him, and what he has to tell us of Egypt has the peculiar
merit of epitomising practically all classical knowledge of the people of the
Nile. Practically nothing more was added to the stock of Western know-
ledge regarding Egyptian history from his day till the nineteenth century.
Certain statements which Diodorus accepted were indeed such as latter-
day scepticism would instinctively reject, but, that qualification aside, the
history of Egypt as Diodorus relates it was practically her history as known
to the Western world until nineteenth century enterprise found the key to
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
269
the Egyptian monuments. For this reason, if for no other, the story of
Diodorus will havo peculiar and lasting interest; but in addition to this, the
narrative has intrinsic merits that render it well worthy of preservation.
It will be of the utmost interest here, at the very beginning, to compare
and contrast his account of Egypt with that of Herodotus. If we shall find
in it certain things, such as his account of the spontaneous generation of
mice from the mud of the Nile, which seem to justify what has been quoted
from the critics as to his credulity, we shall find, on the other hand, in his
critical analysis of the different stories as to the origin of the Nile, and, in
his finally correct choosing of a true explanation of the annual rise of that
river, clear proof that he did possess and did sometimes utilise a keen critical
judgment. Meantime it will be equally clear that he possessed, in no small
degree, a capacity to write interesting history very different from the more
arid records which make up some of his later annals. <*
Let us turn, then, to the pages of Herodotus and listen to a classical
account of the Nile.
In its more extensive inun-
dations, the Nile does not over-
flow the Delta only, but part of
that territory which is called
Libyan, and sometimes the Ara-
bian frontier, and extends about
the space of two days' journey on
each side, speaking on an average.
Of the nature of this river I
could obtain no certain informa-
tion, from the priests or from
others. It was nevertheless my
particular desire to know why
the Nile, beginning at the sum-
mer solstice, continues gradually
to rise for the space of one hun-
dred days, after which for the
same space it as gradually recedes,
remaining throughout the winter,
and till the return of the sum-
mer solstice, in its former low
and quiescent state : but all
my inquiries of the inhabitants
proved ineffectual, and I was unable to learn why the Nile was thus dis-
tinguished in its properties from other streams. I was equally unsuccess-
ful in my wishes to be informed why this river alone wafted no breeze from
its surface.
From a desire of gaining a reputation for sagacity, this subject has em-
ployed the attention of many among the Greeks. There have been three
different modes of explaining it, two of which merit no further attention
than barely to be mentioned ; one of them affirms the increase of the Nile to
be owing to the Etesian winds, which by blowing in an opposite direction,
impede the river's entrance to the sea. But it has often happened that no
winds have blown from this quarter, and the phenomenon of the Nile has
still been the same. It may also be remarked, that were this the real cause,
the same events would happen to other rivers, whose currents are opposed
to the Etesian winds, which, indeed, as having a less body of waters, and
HKAD-DBBSS or A QUKEN or AMCIBNT EOTPT
270 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
a weaker current, would be capable of still less resistance : but there are
many streams, both in Syria and Libya, none of which exhibit the same
appearances with the Nile.
The second opinion is still less agreeable to reason, though more calcu-
lated to excite wonder. This affirms, that the Nile has these qualities, as
flowing from the Ocean, which entirely surrounds the earth.
The third opinion, though more plausible in appearance, is still more
false in reality. It simply intimates that the body of the Nile is formed
from the dissolution of snow, which coming from Libya through the regions
of Ethiopia, discharges itself upon Egypt. But how can this river, descend-
ing from a very warm to a much colder climate, be possibly composed of
melted snow ? There are many other reasons concurring to satisfy any per-
son of good understanding, that this opinion is contrary to fact. The first
and the strongest argument may be drawn from the winds, which are in
these regions invariably hot : it may also be observed that rain and ice are
here entirely unknown. Now if in five days after a fall of snow it must
necessarily rain, which is indisputably the case, it follows that if there were
snow in those countries, there would certainly be rain. The third proof is
taken from the colour of the natives, who from excessive heat are universally
black ; moreover, the kites and the swallows are never known to migrate
from this country : the cranes also, flying from the severity of a Scythian
winter, pass that cold season here. If, therefore, it snowed although but
little in those places through which the Nile passes, or in those where it
takes its rise, reason demonstrates that none of the above-mentioned circum-
stances could possibly happen.
The argument which attributes to the ocean these phenomena of the
Nile, seems rather to partake of fable than of truth or sense. For my own
part, I know no river of the name of Oceanus ; and am inclined to believe
that Homer, or some other poet of former times, first invented and after-
wards introduced it in his compositions.
But as I have mentioned the preceding opinions only to censure and con-
fute them, I may be expected perhaps to give my own sentiments on this
subject. It is my opinion that the Nile overflows in the summer season,
because in the winter the sun, driven by the storms from his usual course,
ascends into the higher regions of the air above Libya. My reason may be
explained without difficulty ; for it may be easily supposed, that to whatever
region this power more nearly approaches, the rivers and streams of that
country will be proportionably dried up and diminished.
If I were to go more at length into the argument, I should say that the
whole is occasioned by the sun's passage through the higher parts of Libya.
For as the air is invariably serene, and the heat always tempered by cooling
breezes, the sun acts there as it does in the summer season, when his place is
in the centre of the heavens. The solar rays absorb the aqueous particles,
which their influence forcibly elevates into the higher regions ; here they are
received, separated, and dispersed by the winds. And it may be observed,
that the south and southwest, which are the most common winds in this
quarter, are of all others most frequently attended with rain : it does not,
however, appear to me that the sun remits all the water which he every year
absorbs from the Nile ; some is probably withheld. As winter disappears, he
returns to the middle place of the heavens, and again by evaporation draws
to him the waters of the rivers, all of which are then found considerably
increased by the rains, and rising to their extreme heights. But in summer,
from the want of rain, and from the attractive power of the sun, they are
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
271
again reduced ; but the Nile is differently circumstanced, it never has the
benefit of rains, whilst it is constantly acted upon by the sun, — a sufficient
reason why it should in the winter season be proportionably lower than in
summer. In winter the Nile alone is diminished by the influence of the sun,
which in summer attracts the water of the rivers indiscriminately ; I impute,
therefore, to the sun the remarkable properties of the Nile.
To the same cause is to be ascribed, as I suppose, the state of the air in
that country, which from the effect of the sun is always extremely rarefied,
so that in the higher parts of Libya there prevails an eternal summer. If it
were possible to produce a change in the seasons, and to place the regions of
the north in those of the south, and those of the south in the north, the sun,
driven from his place by the storms of the north, would doubtless affect
the higher parts of Europe, as it now does those of Libya. It would
also, I imagine, then act upon the waters of the Ister, as it now does on those
of the Nile.
That no breeze blows from the surface of the river, may, I think, be thus
accounted for : Where the air is in a very warm and rarefied state, wind
can hardly be expected, this generally rising
in places which are cold. Upon this subject
I shall attempt no further illustration, but
leave it in the state in which it has so long
remained.
In all my intercourse with Egyptians,
Libyans, and Greeks, I have only met with
one person who pretended to have any know-
ledge of the sources of the Nile. This was
the priest who had the care of the sacred
treasures in the temple of Minerva, at Sals.
He assured me, that on this subject he pos-
sessed the most unquestionable intelligence,
though his assertions never obtained my
serious confidence. He informed me, that
betwixt Syene, a city of the Thebald, and
Elephantine, there were two mountains, re-
spectively terminating in an acute summit :
the name of the one was Crophi, of the
other Mophi. He affirmed, that the sources
of the Nile, which were fountains of un-
fathomable depth, flowed from the centres
of these mountains ; that one of these streams
divided Egypt, and directed its course to
the north ; the other in like manner flowed
towards the south, through Ethiopia. To
confirm % his assertion, that those springs
were unfathomable, he told me, that Psam-
metichus [Psamthek I], sovereign of the
country, had ascertained it by experiment ;
he let down a rope of the length of several thousand orgyice, but could
find no bottom. This was the priest's information, on the truth of which
I presume not to determine. If such an experiment was really made, there
might perhaps in these springs be certain vortices, occasioned by the rever-
beration of the water from the mountains, of force sufficient to buoy up the
sounding line, and prevent its reaching the bottom.
A WATKB-CAERIKK ON THE NILE
272 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
I was not able to procure any other intelligence than the above, though
I so far carried my enquiry, that, with the view of making observation, I
proceeded myself to Elephantine : of the parts which lie beyond that city,
I can only speak from the information of others. Beyond Elephantine this
country becomes rugged ; in advancing up the stream it will be necessary
to hale the vessel on each side by a rope, such as is used for oxen. If this
should give way, the impetuosity of the stream forces the vessel violently
back again. To this place from Elephantine is a four days' voyage.
Thus, without computing that part of it which flows through Egypt, the
course of the Nile is known to the extent of four months' journey, partly by
land and partly by water ; for it will be found on experience, that no one can
go in a less time from Elephantine to the Automoli. It is certain that the
Nile rises in the west, but beyond the Automoli all is uncertainty, this part
of the country being, from the excessive heat, a rude and uncultivated desert.
It may not be improper to relate an account which I received from cer-
tain Cyrenaeans. On an expedition which they made to the oracle of Ammon,
they said they had an opportunity of conversing with Etearchus, the sover-
eign of the country : among other topics the Nile was mentioned, and it was
observed, that the particulars of its source were hitherto entirely unknown.
Etearchus informed them, that some Nassamonians once visited his court;
(these are a people of Africa who inhabit the Syrtes, and a tract of land
which from thence extends towards the east) on his making enquiry of them
concerning the deserts of Libya, they related the following incident : some
young men, who were sons of persons of distinction, had on their coming to
man's estate signalised themselves by some extravagance of conduct. Among
other things, they deputed by lot five of their companions to explore the soli-
tudes of Libya, and to endeavour at extending their discoveries beyond all
preceding adventurers.
All that part of Libya towards the Northern Ocean, from Egypt to the
promontory of Soloeis, which terminates the third division of the earth,
is inhabited by the different nations of the Libyans, that district alone
excepted, in possession of the Greeks and Phoenicians. The remoter
parts of Libya beyond the sea-coast, and the people who inhabit its
borders, are infested by various beasts of prey; the country yet more dis-
tant is a parched and immeasurable desert. The young men left their com-
panions, being well provided with water and with food, and first proceeded
through the region which was inhabited ; they next came to that which was
infested by wild beasts, leaving which, they directed their course westward,
through the desert.
After a journey of many days, over a barren and sandy soil, they at
length discerned some trees growing in a plain ; these they approached,
and seeing fruit upon them, they gathered it. Whilst they were thus
employed, some men of dwarfish stature came where they were, seized
their persons, and carried them away. They were mutually ignorant of
each other's language, but the Nassamonians were conducted over many
marshy grounds to a city, in which all the inhabitants were of the same
diminutive appearance, and of a black colour. This city was washed by a
great river, which flowed from west to east, and abounded in crocodiles.
Such was the conversation of Etearchus, as it was related to me; he
added, as the Cyrenseans further told me, that the Nassamonians returned
to their own country, and reported the men whom they had met to be all of
them magicians. The river which washed their city, according to the con-
jecture of Etearchus, which probability confirms, was the Nile. The Nile
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 273
certainly rises in Libya, which it divides ; and if it be allowable to draw
conclusions from things which uru well known, concerning those which are
uncertain and obscure, it takes a similar course with the Ister. This river,
commencing at the city of Pyrene, among the Celtic, flows through the
centre of Europe. These Celtic are found beyond the Columns of Her-
cules ; they border on the Cynesians, the most remote of all the nations who
inhabit the western parts of Europe. At that point which is possessed by
the Istrians, a Milesian colony, the Ister empties itself into the Euxine.
The sources of the Ister, as it passes through countries well inhabited,
are sufficiently notorious ; but of the fountains of the Nile, washing as it
does the rude and uninhabitable deserts of Libya, no one can speak with
precision. All the knowledge which I have been able to procure from the
most diligent and extensive enquiries, I have before communicated. Through
Egypt it directs its course towards the sea. Opposite to Egypt are the moun-
tains of Cilicia, from whence to Sinope, on the Euxine, a good traveller may
pass in five days : on the side immediately opposite to Sinope, the Ister is
poured into the sea. Thus the Nile, as it traverses Libya, may properly
enough be compared to the Ister. But on this subject I nave said all that
I think necessary. 6
ANOTHER ANCIENT ACCOUNT OF THE NILE
The River Nile, says Diodorus, breeds many Creatures of several Forms
and Shapes, amongst which, Two are especially remarkable, the Crocodile and
the Horse as it's call'd: Amongst these the Crocodile of the least Creature be-
comes the greatest; for it lays an Egg much of the bigness of that of a Goose,
and after the young is hatcht, it grows to the length of Sixteen Cubits, and
lives to the Age of a Man : It wants a Tongue, but has a Body naturally arm'd
in a wonderful manner. For its Skin is cover'd all over with Scales of an
extraordinary hardness ; many sharp Teeth are rang'd on both sides its Jaws,
and Two of them are much bigger than the rest. This Monster does not
only devour Men, but other Creatures that come near the River. His Bites
are sharp and destructive, and with his Claws he tears his Prey cruelly in
Pieces, and what Wounds he makes, no Medicine or Application can heal.
The Egyptians formerly catcht these Monsters with Hooks, baited with raw
Flesh ; but of later times, they have us'd to take 'em with strong Nets like
Fishes ; sometimes they strike them on the Head with Forks of Iron, and so
kill them. There's an infinite Multitude of these Creatures in the River
and the Neighbouring Pools, in regard they are great Breeders, and are
seldom kill'd. For the Crocodile is ador'd as a God by some of the In-
habitants ; and for Strangers to hunt and destroy them is to no purpose,
for their Flesh is not eatable. But Nature has provided relief against the
increase of this destructive Monster ; for the Ichneumon, as it's call'd
(of the Bigness of a little Dog) running up and down near the Water-
side, breaks all the Eggs laid by this Beast, wherever he finds them ;
and that which is most to be admir'd, is, that he does this not for Food
or any other Advantage, but out of a natural Instinct for the meer Benefit
of Mankind.
The Beast call'd the River Horse, is Five Cubits long, Four Footed, and
cloven Hoof'd like to an Ox. He has Three Teeth or Tushes on either side
' his Jaw, appearing outwards larger than those of a Wild-Boar ; as to his
Ears, Tayl and his Neighing, he's like to a Horse. The whole Bulk of his
Body is not much unlike an Elephant ; his Skin is firmer and thicker almost
H. W. — VOL. I. t
274
THE HISTOKY OP EGYPT
than any other beast. He lives both on Land and Water ; in the Day time
he lies at the Bottom of the River, and in the Night time comes forth to
Land, and feeds upon the Grass and Corn. If this Beast were so fruitful
as to bring forth Young every Year, lie would undo the Husbandman, and
destroy a great part of the Corn of Egypt. He's likewise by the help of
many Hands often caught, being struck with Instruments of Iron ; for
when he is found, they hem him round with their Boats, and those on
Board wound him with forked Instruments of Iron, cast at him as so many
Darts ; and having strong Ropes to the Irons, they fix in him, they let him
go till he loses his Blood, and so dies : His Flesh is extraordinary hard, and
of ill digestion. There's nothing in his inner Parts that can be eaten, neither
his Bowels, nor any other of his Intrails.
Besides these before mention'd, Nile abounds with multitudes of all sorts
of Fish ; not only such as are fresh taken to supply the Inhabitants at hand,
but an innumerable Number likewise which they salt up to send Abroad.
To conclude, no River in the World is more Beneficial and Serviceable to
Mankind, than Nile.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BOAT, SHOWING THE METHOD OF USING RUDDER, SAIL, AND OARS
Its Inundation begins at the Summer Solstice, and increases till the
Equinoctial in Autumn; during which time he brings in along with him
new Soyl, and waters as well the Till'd and Improv'd Ground as that which
lies waste and untill'd, as long as it pleases the Husbandman ; for the Water
flowing gently and by degrees, they easily divert its Course, by casting up
small Banks of Earth ; and then by opening a Passage for it, as easily turn
it over their Land again, if they see it needful. It's so very advantageous
to the Inhabitants, and done with so little pains, that most of the Country
People turn in their Cattel into the sow'd Ground to eat, and tread down
the Corn, and Four or Five Months after they reap it. Some lightly run
over the Surface of the Earth with a Plow, after the Water is fallen, and
gain a mighty Crop without any great Cost or Pains: But Husbandry
amongst all other Nations is very laborious and chargable, only the Egyp-
tians gather their Fruits with little Cost or Labour. That part of the Coun-
try likewise where Vines are planted after this watering by the Nile, yields
a most plentiful Vintage. The Fields that after the Inundation are pastur'd
by their Flocks, yield them this advantage, that the Sheep Yean twice in a
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 275
Year, and are shorn as often. This Increase of the Nile is wonderful to
Beholders, and altogether incredible to them that only hear the Report ; for
when other Rivers about the Solstice fall and grow lower all Summer long,
this begins to increase, and continues to rise every day, till it comes to that
height that it overflows almost all Egypt ; and on the contrary in the same
manner in the Winter Solstice, it falls by degrees till it wholly returns into
its proper Channel. And in regard the Land of Egypt lies low and Cham-
pain, the Towns, Cities and Country Villages that are built upon rising-
ground (cast up by Art) look like the Islands of the Cyclades : Many of
the Cattel sometimes are by the River intercepted, and so are drown'd ;
but those that fly to the higher Grounds are preserv'd. During the time
of the Inundation, the Cattel are kept in the Country Towns and small
Cottages, where they have Food and Fodder before laid up and prepar'd for
them. But the common People now at liberty from all Imployments in the
Field, indulge themselves in Idleness, feasting every day, and giving them-
selves up to all sorts of Sports and Pleasures. Yet out of fear of the Inun-
dation, a Watch Tower is built in Memphis, by the Kings of Egypt, where
those that are imploy'd to take care of this concern, observing to what height
the River rises, send Letters from one City to another, acquainting them how
many Cubits and Fingers the River rises, and when it begins to decrease ;
and so the People coming to understand the Fall of the Waters, are freed
from their fears, and all presently have a foresight what plenty of Corn they
are like to have ; and this Observation has been Registred from time to time
by the Egyptians for many Generations.
There are great Controversies concerning the Reasons of the overflowing
of Nile, and many both Philosophers and Historians have endeavour'd to
declare the Causes of it. Some who have attempted to give their Rea-
sons, have been very wide from the Mark. For as for Hellanicus, Cad-
mus, Hecatseus, and such like ancient Authors, they have told little but
frothy Stories, and meer Fables. Herodotus, above all other Writers very
industrious, and well acquainted with General History, made it his Business
to find out the Causes of these things, but what he says is notwithstanding
very doubtful, and some things seem to be repugnant and contradictory one
to another.
No Writer hitherto has pretended that he himself ever saw or heard of
any one else that affirm'd he had seen the Spring-heads of Nile : All there-
fore amounting to no more but Opinion and Conjecture, the Priests of Egypt
affirm that it comes from the Ocean, which flows round the whole Earth :
But nothing that they say is upon any solid grounds, and they resolve
Doubts by things that are more doubtful ; and to prove what they say, they
bring Arguments that have need to be proved themselves.
Thales, who is reckon'd one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, is of Opin-
ion that the Etesean Winds that beat fiercely upon the Mouth of the River,
§ive a check and stop to the Current, and so hinder it from falling into the
ea, upon which the River swelling, and its Channel fill'd with Water, at
length overflows the Country of Egypt, which lies flat and low. Though
this seem a plausible Reason, yet it may be easily disprov'd. For if it were
true what he says, then all the Rivers which run into the Sea against the
Etesean Winds would overflow in like manner ; which being never known
in any other part of the World, some other reason and more agreeable to
Truth must of necessity be sought for. Anaxagoras the Philosopher ascribes
the Cause to the melting of the Snow in Ethiopia, whom the Poet Euripides
(who was his Scholar) follows.
276 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
Neither is it any hard Task to confute this Opinion, since it's apparent to
all, that by reason of the parching Heats, there's no Snow in Ethiopia at that
time of the Year. For in these Countries there's not the least Sign either of
Frost, Cold or any other effects of Winter, especially at the time of the over-
flowing of Nile. And suppose there be abundance of Snow in the higher
Parts of Ethiopia, yet what is afh'rm'd is certainly false : For every River
that is swell'd with Snow, fumes up in cold Fogs, and thickens the Air ; but
about Nile, only above all other Rivers, neither mists gather, nor are there
any cold Breezes, nor is the Air gross and thick. Herodotus says that Nile
is such in its own nature, as it seems to be in the time of its increase ; for
that in Winter, when the Sun moves to the South, and runs its daily course
directly over Africa, it exhales so much Water out of Nile, that it decreases
against Nature ; and in Summer when the Sun returns to the North, the
Rivers of Greece, and the Rivers of all other Northern Countries, fall and
decrease ; and therefore that it is not so strange for Nile about Summer time
to increase, and in Winter to fall and grow lower. But to this it may be an-
COLOSSAL SEATED FIGURES OF GODS
swer'd, that if the Sun exhale so much moisture out of Nile in Winter time,
it would do the like in other Rivers in Africa, and so they must fall as well
as Nile, which no where happens throughout all Africa, and therefore this
Author's Reason is frivolous ; for the Rivers of Greece rise not in the Winter,
by reason of the remoteness of the Sun, but by reason of the great Rains that
fall at that time. Ephorus, who gives the last account of the thing, en-
deavours to ascertain the Reason, but seems not to find out the Truth.
The whole Land of Egypt (says he) is cast up from the River, and the
Soyl is of a loose and spungy nature, and has in it many large Clifts and
hollow Places, wherein are abundance of Water, which in the Winter-time
is frozen up, and in the Summer issues out on every side, like Sweat from
the Pores, which occasions the River Nile to rise. This Writer does not
only betray his own Ignorance of the nature of Places in Egypt, that he
never saw them himself, but likewise that he never was rightly inform'd by
any that was acquainted with them. And indeed no Man is to expect any
certainty from Ephorus, who may be palpably discern'd not to make it his
business in many things to declare the Truth.
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 277
The Philosophers indeed in Memphis have urg'd strong Reasons of the
Increase of Nile, which are hard to be confuted ; and though they are im-
probable, yet many agree to them. For they divide the Earth into Three
Parts, one of which is that wherein we inhabit ; another quite contrary to
these Places in the Seasons of the Year ; the Third lying between these Two,
which they say is uninhabitable by reason of the scorching heat of the Sun ;
and therefore if Nile should overflow in the Winter-time, it would be clear
and evident that its Source would arise out of our Zone, because then we
have the most Rain : But on the contrary being that it rises in Summer, it's
very probable that in the Country opposite to us it's Winter-time, where
then there's much Rain, and that those Floods of Water are brought down
thence to us : And therefore that none can ever find out the Head-Springs
of Nile, because the River has its Course through the opposite Zone ; which
is uninhabited. And the exceeding sweetness of the Water, they say, is
the Confirmation of this Opinion ; for passing through the Torrid Zone, the
Water is boil'd, and therefore this River is sweeter than any other in the
World ; for Heat does naturally dulcorate Water. But this reason is easily
refuted ; for it's plainly impossible that the River should rise to that height,
and come down to us from the opposite Zone ; especially if it be granted
that the Earth is round. But if any yet shall be so obstinate as to affirm it is
so as the philosophers have said, I must in short say it's against and contrary
to the Laws of Nature.
For being they hold Opinions that in the nature of the things can hardly
be disprov'd, and place an inhabitable part of the World between us and
them that are opposite to us ; they conclude, that by this device, they have
made it impossible, and out of the reach of the Wit of Man to confute them.
But it is but just and equal, that those who affirm any thing positively,
should prove what they say, either by good Authority or strength of Reason.
How comes it about that only the River Nile should come down to us from
the other opposite Zone ? Have we not other Rivers that this may be as
well apply'd to ? As to the Causes alledg'd for the sweetness of the Water,
they are absurd : For if the Water be boyl'd with the parching Heat,
and thereupon becomes sweet, it would have no productive quality, either
of Fish or other Kinds of Creatures and Beasts ; for all Water whose
Nature is chang'd by Fire, is altogether incapable to breed any living
thing, and therefore being that the Nature of Nile contradicts this decoction
and boyling of the Water, we conclude that the Causes alledg'd of its in-
crease are false.
But to the true cause, Agartharchides of Cnidus comes nearest. For he
says, that in the Mountainous parts of Ethiopia, there are Yearly continual
Rains from the Summer Solstice to the Equinox in Autumn, and therefore
there's just cause for Nile to be low in the Winter, which then flows only from
its own natural Spring-heads, and to overflow in Summer through the abund-
ance of Rains. And though none hitherto have been able to give a Reason of
these Inundations, yet he says his Opinion is not altogether to be rejected; for
there are many things that are contrary to the Rules of Nature, for which
none are able to give any substantial Reason. That which happens in some
parts of Asia, he says, gives some confirmation to his Opinion. For in the
Confines of Scythia, near Mount Caucasus, after the Winter is over, he
affirms that abundance of Snow falls every Year for many Days together :
And that in the Northern Parts of India, at certain Times, there falls abund-
ance of Hail, and of an incredible Bigness : And that near the River Hydas-
pis, in Summer-time, it rains continually ; and the same happens in Ethiopia
278
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
for many Days together ; and that this disorder of the Air whirling about,
occasions many Storms of Rain in Places near adjoyning ; and that there-
fore it's no wonder if the Mountainous Parts of Ethiopia, which lies much
higher than Egypt, are soakt with continual Rains, wherewith the River
being fill'd, overflows ; especially since the natural Inhabitants of the Place
affirm, that thus it is in their Country. And though these things now re-
lated, are in their nature contrary to those in our own Climates, yet we are
not for that Reason to disbelieve them. For with us the South Wind is
cloudy and boysterous, whereas in Ethiopia it's calm and clear ; and that the
North Winds in Europe are fierce and violent, but in those Regions low and
almost insensible.
But however (after all) though we could heap up variety of Arguments
against all these Authors concerning the Inundation of Nile, yet those which
we have before alledg'd shall suffice, lest we should transgress those bounds
of Brevity which at the first we propos'd to our selves.
A GREEK VIEW OF THE ORIGINS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
The Egyptians report, says
Diodorus, that at the beginning
of the World, the first Men were
created in Egypt, both by rea-
son of the happy Climate of the
Country, and the nature of the
River Nile. For this River being
very Fruitful, and apt to bring
forth many animals, yields of it
self likewise Food and Nourish-
ment for the things produc'd.
For it yields the Roots of Canes,
the Fruit of the Lote-Tree,
the Egyptian Bean, that which
they call Corseon, and such like
Rarities, always ready at hand.
And that all living Creatures were first produc'd among them, they use
this Argument, that even at this day, about Thebes at certain Times, such
vast Mice are bred, that it causes admiration to the Beholders ; some of which
to the Breast and Fore-feet are animated and begin to move, and the rest
of the Body (which yet retains the nature of the Soyl) appears without
form.
Whence it's manifest, that in the beginning of the World, through the
Fertileness of the Soyl the first Men were form'd in Egypt, being that in
no other parts of the World any of these Creatures are produc'd ; only in
Egypt these supernatural Births may be seen.
The first Generation of Men in Egypt, therefore contemplating the
Beauty of the Superior World, and admiring with astonishment the frame
and order of the Universe, judg'd there were Two chief Gods that were
Eternal, that is to say, The Sun and the Moon, the first of which they
call'd Osiris, and the other Isis, both Names having proper Etymologies ;
for Osiris in the Greek Language, signifies a Thing with many Eyes, which
may be very properly apply'd to the Sun darting his Rays into every
Corner, and as it were with so many Eyes viewing and surveying the
whole Land and Sea.
WALL INSCRIPTION WITH FIGURES IN RED
(Now in the British Museum)
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 279
Some also of the antient Greek Mythologists call Osiris Dionysus, and
sirname him Sinus. Some likewise set him forth cloath'd with the
spotted Skin of a Fawn (call'd Nebris) from the variety of Stars that
surround him.
Isis likewise being interpreted, signifies Antient, that Name being
ascrib'd to the Moon from Eternal Generations. They add likewise to
her, Horns, because her Aspect is such in her Increase and in her Decrease,
representing a Sickle ; and because an Ox among the Egyptians is offer'd
to her in Sacrifice. They hold that these Gods govern the whole World,
cherishing and increasing all things ; and divide the Year into Three Parts
(that is to say, Spring, Summer, and Autumn) by an invisible Motion per-
fecting their constant course in that time : And though they are in their
Natures very differing one from another, yet they compleat the whole Year
with a most excellent Harmony and Consent. They say that these Gods
in their Natures do contribute much to the Generation of all things, the one
being of a hot and active Nature, the other moist and cold, but both having
something of the Air ; and that by these, all things are brought forth and
nourish'd : And therefore that every particular Being in the Universe is
perfected and compleated by the Sun and Moon, whose Qualities, as before
declar'd, are Five ; A Spirit or quickning Efficacy, Heat or Fire, Dryness or
Earth, Moisture or Water, and Air, of which the World does consist, as a
Man made up of Head, Hands, Feet, and other parts. These Five they
reputed for Gods, and the People of Egypt who were the first that spoke
articulately, gave Names proper to their several Natures, according to the
Language they then spake. And therefore they call'd the Spirit Jupiter,
which is such by Interpretation, because a quickning Influence is deriv'd
from this into all Living Creatures, as from the original Principle ; and
upon that account he is esteem'd the common Parent of all things.
Fire they call'd by Interpretation Vulcan, and him they had in Venera-
tion as a Great God, as he that greatly contributed to the Generation and
Perfection of all Beings whatsoever.
The Earth, as the Common Womb of all Productions, they call'd
Metera, as the Greeks in process of time, by a small alteration of one Letter,
and an omission of Two Letters, call'd the Earth Demetra, which was
antiently call'd Gen Metera, or the Mother Earth.
Water or Moisture, the Antients call'd Oceanus ; which by Interpreta-
tion is a nourishing Mother, and so taken by some of the Grecians.
But the Egyptians account their Nile to be Oceanus, at which all the
Gods were Born. For in Egypt only among all the Countries in the World,
are many Cities built by the ancient Gods, as by Jupiter, Sol, Mercury,
Apollo, Pan, Elithia, and many others.
To the Air they gave the Name of Minerva, signifying something proper
to the nature thereof, and call'd her the Daughter of Jupiter, and counted a
Virgin, because the Air naturally is not subject to Corruption, and is in the
highest part of the Universe ; whence rises the Fable, that she was the issue
of Jupiter's Brain : They say she's call'd also Tritogeneia, or Thrice Begot-
ten, because she changes her natural Qualities thrice in the Year, the Spring,
Summer, and Winter ; and that she was call'd Glaucopis, not that she hath
Grey Eyes (as some of the Greeks have suppos'd, for that's a weak Conceit)
but because the Air seems to be of a Grey Colour, to the view. They report
likewise, that these Five Gods travel through the whole World, representing
themselves to Men sometimes in the shapes of Sacred living Creatures, and
sometimes in the Form of Men, or some other Representation. And this is
280 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
not a Fable, but very possible, if it be true, that these generate all things ;
and the Poet [Homer] who travell'd into Egypt, in some part of his Works,
affirms this Appearance, as he learnt it from their Priests,
The Gods also like Strangers come from far
In divers Shapes within the Towns appear,
Viewing Men's good and wicked Acts.
And these are the Stories told by the Egyptians of the Heavenly and
Immortal Gods. And besides these, they say there are others that are Ter-
restrial, which were begotten of these former Gods, and were Originally
Mortal men, but by reason of their Wisdom and Beneficence to all Man-
kind, have obtain'd Immortality, of which some have been Kings of
Egypt. Some of whom by interpretation, have had the same Names
with the Celestial Gods, others have kept their own proper Names. For
they report that Sol, Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter (surnam'd by some Ammon),
Juno, Vulcan, Vesta, and lastly, Mercury, reign'd in Egypt ; and that Sol
was the first King of Egypt, whose Name was the same with the Celestial
Planet call'd Sol.
But there are some of the Priests who affirm Vulcan to be the first of
Kings, and that he was advanc'd to that Dignity upon the account of being
the first that found out the use of Fire, which was so beneficial to all Man-
kind. For a Tree in the Mountains hapning to be set on Fire by Lightning,
the Wood next adjoyning was presently all in a Flame ; and Vulcan
thereupon coming to the Place, was mightily refresht by the heat of it,
being then Winter Season ; and when the Fire began to fail, he added
more combustible Matter to it, and by that means preserving it, call'd in
other Men to enjoy the Benefit of that which he himself was the first
Inventer, as he gave out.
Afterwards they say Saturn reign'd, and marry'd his Sister Rhea, and
that he begat of her Osiris and Isis ; but others say, Jupiter and Juno,
who for their great Virtues, rul'd over all the World. That of Jupiter and
Juno were born Five Gods, one upon every day of the Five Egyptian inter-
calary Days. The Names of these Gods are Osiris, Isis, Typhon, Apollo
and Venus. That Osiris was interpreted Bacchus, and Isis plainly Ceres.
That Osiris marry'd Isis, and after he came to the Kingdom, did much, and
perform'd many things for the common Benefit and Advantage of Mankind.
For he was the first that forbad Men eating one another ; and at the same
time Isis found out the way of making of Bread of Wheat and Barley, which
before grew here and there in the Fields amongst other common Herbs and
Grass, and the use of it unknown : And Osiris teaching the way and manner
of Tillage, and well management of the Fruits of the Earth, this change of
Food became grateful ; both because it was naturally sweet and delicious,
and Men were thereby restrain'd from the mutual Butcheries of one another:
For an evidence of this first finding out the use of these Fruits, they alledge
an antient Custom amongst them : For even at this day, in the time of
Harvest, the Inhabitants offer the first Fruits of the Ears of Corn, howling
and wailing about the Handfuls they offer, and invoking this Goddess Isis :
And this they do in return of due Honour to her for that Invention at the
first. In some Cities also, when they celebrate the Feast of Isis in a Pom-
pous Procession, they carry about Vessels of Wheat and Barley, in memory
of the first Invention, by the care and industry of this Goddess. They say
likewise, that Isis made many Laws for the good of .Human Society, whereby
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 281
Men were restrain'd from lawless Force and Violence one upon another, out
of fear of Punishment. And therefore Ceres was call'd by the ancient
Greeks, Themophorus (that is) Lawgiver, being the Princess that first con-
stituted Laws for the better Government of her People.
Osiris moreover built Thebes in Egypt, with an Hundred Gates, and call'd
it after his Mother's Name : But in following Times, it was call'd Diospolis,
and Thebes ; of whose first Founder not only Historians, but the Priests of
Egypt themselves, are much in doubt. For some say that it was not built
by Osiris, but many Years after by a King of Egypt, whose History we shall
treat of hereafter in its proper place. They report likewise, that he built
Two magnificent Temples, and Dedicated them to his Parents, Jupiter and
Juno ; and likewise Two Golden Altars, the greater to the great God Jupi-
ter ; the other to his Father Jupiter, who had formerly reign'd there, whom
they call Ammon. That he also erected Golden Altars to other Gods, and
instituted their several Kites of Worship, and appointed Priests to have the
Oversight and Care of the Holy things. In the time of Osiris and Isis, Pro-
jectors and ingenious Artists were in great honour and Esteem ; and there-
fore in Thebes there were then Goldsmiths and Braziers, who made Arms
and Weapons for the Killing of Wild Beasts, and other Instruments for the
husbanding of the Ground, and improvement of Tillage ; besides Images of
the Gods, and Altars in Gold. They say that Osiris was much given to
Husbandry, that he was the Son of Jupiter, brought up in Nysa, a Town of
Arabia the Happy, near to Egypt, call'd by the Greeks Dionysus, from hia
Father, and the Place of his Education.
Here near unto Nysa (they say) he found out the use of the Vine, and
there planting it, was the first that drank Wine ; and taught others how to
plant it and use it, and to gather in their Vintage, and to keep and preserve
it. Above all others, he most honoured Hermes, one of an admirable Inge-
nuity, and quick Invention, in finding out what might be useful to Mankind.
This Hermes was the first (as they report) that taught how to speak dis-
tinctly and articulately, and gave Names to many things that had none
before. He found out Letters, and instituted the Worship of the Gods ;
and was the first that observ'd the Motion of the Stars, and invented Musick;
and taught the manner of Wrestling ; and invented Arithmetick, and the
Art of curious Graving and Cutting of Statues. He first found out the
Harp with Three Strings, in resemblance of the Three Seasons of the Year,
causing Three several Sounds, the Treble, Base and Mean. The Treble, to
represent the Summer ; The Base, the Winter ; and the Mean, the Spring.
He was the first that taught the Greeks Eloquence ; thence he's call'd Her-
mes, a Speaker or Interpreter. To conclude, he was Osiris's Sacred Scribe,
to whom he communicated all his Secrets, and was chiefly steer'd by his Ad-
vice in every thing. He (not Minerva, as the Greeks affirm) found out the
use of the Olive-tree, for the making of Oyl.
It's moreover reported, that Osiris being a Prince of a publick Spirit, and
very ambitious of Glory, rais'd a great Army, with which he resolv'd to go
through all parts of the World that were inhabited, and to teach Men how to
plant Vines, and to sow Wheat and Barly. For he hop'd that if he could
civilize Men, and take them off from their rude and Beast-like Course of
Lives, by such a publick good and advantage, he should raise a Foundation
amongst all Mankind, for his immortal Praise and Honour, which happen 'd
accordingly. For not only that Age, but Posterity ever after honour'd
those among the chiefest of their Gods, that first found out their proper
and ordinary Food. Having therefore settl'd his Affairs in Egypt, and
282 THE HISTOKY OF EGYPT
committed the Government of his whole Kingdom to his Wife Isis, he join'd
with her Mercury, as her chief Councellor of State, because he far excell'd
all others in Wisdom and Prudence. But Hercules his near Kinsman, he
left General of all his Forces within his Dominions, a Man admir'd by all for
his Valour and Strength of Body. As to those parts which lay near Phce-
nicia, and upon the Sea-Coasts of them, he made Busiris Lord Lieutenant,
and of Ethiopia and Lybia, Anteus.
Then marching out of Egypt, he began his Expedition, taking along with
him his Brother, whom the Greeks call'd Apollo. This Apollo is reported
to have discover'd the Laurel-Tree, which all Dedicate especially to this
God. To Osiris they attribute the finding out of the Ivy-Tree, and dedicate
it to him, as the Greeks do to Bacchus : And therefore in the Egyptian
Tongue, they call Ivy Osiris's Plant, which they prefer before the Vine in
all their Sacrifices, because this loses its Leaves, and the other always con-
tinues fresh and green : Which Rule the Ancients have observ'd in other
Plants, that are always green, dedicating Mirtle to Venus, Laurel to Apollo,
and the Olive-Tree to Pallas.
It's said, that Two of his Sons accompany'd their Father Osiris in this
Expedition, one call'd Anubis, and the other Macedo, both valiant Men :
Both of them wore Coats of Mail, that were extraordinary remarkable,
cover'd with the Skins of such Creatures as resembled them in Stoutness
and Valour. Anubis was cover'd with a Dog's, and Macedon with the Skin
of a Wolf; and for this reason these Beasts are religiously ador'd by the
Egyptians. He had likewise for his Companion, Pan, whom the Egyptians
have in great Veneration ; for they not only set up Images and Statues up
and down in every Temple, but built a City in Thebides after his Name,
call'd by the Inhabitants Chemmin, which by interpretation is Pan's City.
There went along with them likewise those that were skilful in Husbandry,
as Maro in the planting of Vines, and Triptolemus in sowing of Corn, and
gathering in the Harvest.
All things being now prepar'd, Osiris having vow'd to the Gods to let
his Hair grow till he return'd into Egypt, marcht away through ^Ethiopia ;
and for that very Reason it's a piece of Religion, and practis'd among the
Egyptians at this Day, that those that travel Abroad, suffer their Hair to
grow, till they return Home. As he pass'd through ^Ethiopia, a Company of
Satyrs were presented to him, who (as it's reported) were all Hairy down to
their Loyns : For Osiris was a Man given to Mirth and Jollity, and took
freat pleasure in Musick and Dancing ; and therefore carry'd along with
im a Train of Musicians, of whom Nine were Virgins, most Excellent
Singers, and expert in many other things (whom the Greeks call Muses) of
whom Apollo was the Captain ; and thence call'd the Leader of the Muses :
Upon this account the Satyrs, who are naturally inclin'd to skipping, danc-
ing and singing, and all other sorts of Mirth, were taken in as part of the
Army : For Osiris was not for War, nor came to fight Battels, and to decide
Controversies by the Sword, every Country receiving him for his Merits
and Virtues, as a God. In Ethiopia having instructed the Inhabitants in
Husbandry, and Tillage of the Ground, and built several stately Cities
among them, he left there behind him some to be Governors of the Country,
and others to be Gatherers of his Tribute.
While they were thus imploy'd, 'tis said that the River Nile, about the
Dogdays (at which time it uses to be the highest) broke down its Banks,
and overflow'd the greatest part of Egypt, and that part especially where
Prometheus govern'd, insomuch as almost all the Inhabitants were drown'd ;
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 283
so that Prometheus was near unto Killing of himself for very grief of
heart ; and from the sudden and violent Eruption of the Waters, the River
was call'd Eagle.
Hercules, who was always for high and difficult enterprizes, and ever of
a stout Spirit, presently made up the Breaches, and turn'd the River into its
Channel, and kept it within its ancient Banks ; and therefore some of the
Greek Poets from this fact have forg'd a Fable, That Hercules kill'd the
Eagle that fed upon Prometheus his Heart. The most ancient Name of
this river was Oceames, which in the Greek pronunciation is Oceanus ; after-
wards call'd Eagle, upon the violent Eruption. Lastly it was call'd Egyptus,
from the Name of a King that there reign'd. The last Name which it still
retains, it derives from Nileus, a King of those Parts.
Osiris being come to the Borders of Ethiopia, rais'd high Banks on either
side of the River, lest in the time of its Inundation it snould overflow the
Country more than was convenient, and make it marish and boggy; and
made Floodgates to let in the Water by degrees, as far as was necessary.
Thence he pass'd through Arabia, bordering upon the Red Sea as far as to
India, and the utmost Coasts that were inhabited: He built likewise many
Cities in India, one of which he call'd Nysa, willing to have a remembrance
of that in Egypt where he was brought up. At this Nysa in India, he
planted Ivy, which grows and remains here only of all other Places in India,
or the Parts adjacent. He left likewise many other Marks of his being in
those Parts, by which the latter Inhabitants are induc'd to believe, and do
affirm that this God was born in India.
He likewise addicted himself much to hunting of Elephants; and took
care to have Statues of himself in every place, as lasting Monuments of his
Expedition. Thence passing to the rest of Asia, he transported his Army
through the Hellespont into Europe ; and in Thrace he kill'd Lycurgus
King of the Barbarians, who oppos'd him in his Designs. Then he order'd
Maro (at that time an Old Man) to take care of the Planters in that Coun-
try, and to build a City, and call it Maroneo, after his own Name. Macedon
his Son he made King of Macedonia, so calling it after him. To Triptolemus
he appointed the Culture and Tillage of the Land in Attica. To conclude,
Osiris having travell'd through the whole World, by finding out Food fit
and convenient for Man's Body, was a Benefactor to all Mankind. Where
Vines would not grow and be fruitful, he taught the Inhabitants to make
Drink of Barley, little inferiour in strength and pleasant Flavour to Wine
it self. He brought back with him into Egypt the most pretious and richest
things that ever place did afford ; and for the many Benefits and Advantages
that he was the Author of, by the common Consent of all Men, he gain'd the
Reward of Immortality and Honour equal to the Heavenly Deities.
After his Death, Isis and Mercury celebrated his Funeral with Sacrifices
and other Divine Honours, as to one of the Gods, and instituted many Sacred
Rites mystical Ceremonies in Memory of the mighty Works wrought by this
Hero, now Deify'd. Antiently the Egyptian Priests kept the manner of the
Death of Osiris secret in their own Registers among themselves ; but in after-
times it fell out, that some that could not hold, blurted it out, and so it came
Abroad. For they say that Osiris, while he govern'd in Egypt with all Jus-
tice imaginable, was Murder'd by his wicked Brother Typhon ; and that he
mangled his dead Body into Six and Twenty Pieces, and gave to each of his
Confederates in the Treason a Piece, by that means to bring them all within
the same horrid Guilt, and thereby the more to ingage them to advance him
to the Throne, and to defend and preserve him in the Possession.
284
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
But Isis, the Sister and Wife likewise of Osiris, with the assistance of her
Son Orus, reveng'd his Death upon Typhon and his Complices, and possess'd
her self of the Kingdom of Egypt. It's said the Battel was fought near a
River not far off a Town now call'd Anteea in Arabia, so call'd from
Anteus, whom Hercules slew in the time of Osiris. She found all the Pieces
of his Body, save his Privy Members ; and having a desire to conceal her
Husband's Burial, yet to have him honour'd as a God by all the Egyptians,
she thus contriv'd it. She clos'd all the Pieces together, cementing them
with Wax and Aromatick Spices, and so brought it to the shape of a Man of
the bigness of Osiris ; then she sent for the Priests to her, one by one, and
swore them all that they should not discover what she should then intrust
AN EGYPTIAN HUNTSMAN
them with. Then she told them privately that they only should have the.
Burial of the King's Body ; and recounting the many good Works he had
done, charg'd them to bury the Body in a proper place among themselves,
and to pay unto him all Divine Honour, as to a God. That they should
Dedicate to him one of the Beasts bred among them, which of them they
pleas'd, and that while it was alive, they should pay it the same Veneration
as they did before to Osiris himself ; and when it was dead, that they should
Worship it with the same Adoration and Worship given to Osiris. But being
willing to incourage the Priests to these Divine Offices by Profit and Advan-
tage, she gave them the Third part of the Country for the Maintenance of
the Service of the Gods and their Attendance at the Altars.
In memory, therefore, of Osiris's good Deeds, being incited thereunto by
the Commands of the Queen, and in expectation of their own Profit and
Advantage, the Priests exactly perform'd every thing that Isis injoin'd them ;
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 286
and therefore every Order of the Priests at this Day are of opinion that Osiris
is bury'd among them. And they have those Beasts in great Veneration,
that were so long since thus consecrated ; and renew their Mournings for
Osiris over the Graves of those Beasts. There are Two sacred Bulls espe-
cially, the one call'd Apis, and the other Mnevis, that are Consecrated to
Osiris, and reputed as Gods generally hy all the Egyptians. For this Crea-
ture of all others was extraordinarily serviceable to the first Inventers of
Husbandry, both as to the sowing Corn, and other Advantages concerning
Tillage, of which all reapt the Benefit. Lastly, they say, that after the Death
of Osiris, Isis made a Vow never to Marry any other Man, and spent the rest
of her Days in an exact Administration of Justice among her Subjects, excel-
ling all other Princes in her Acts of Grace and Bounty towards her own
People ; and therefore after her Death, she was numbred among the Gods,
and as such had Divine Honour and Veneration, and was buri'd at Memphis,
where they shew her Sepulchre at this day in the Grove of Vulcan.
Yet there are some that deny that these Gods are Buri'd at Memphis ;
but near the Mountains of Ethiopia and Egypt, in the Isle of Nile, lying near
to a place call'd Philas, and upon that account also nam'd the Holy Field.
They confirm this by undoubted Signs and Marks left in this Island,
as by a Sepulchre built and erected to Osiris, religiously Reverenc'd
by all the Priests of Egypt, wherein are laid up Three Hundred and
Threescore Bowls, which certain Priests, appointed for that purpose, fill
every Day with Milk, and call upon the Gods by Name, with Mourning and
Lamentation.
The several parts therefore of Osiris being found, they report were bury'd
in this manner before related; but his Privv-members (they say) were thrown
into the River by Typhon, because none of his Partners would receive them ;
and yet that they were divinely honour'd by Isis ; for she commanded an
Image of this very part to be set up in the Temples, and to be religiously
ador'd ; and in all their Ceremonies and Sacrifices to this God, she ordered
that part to be held in divine Veneration and Honour. And therefore the
Grecians, after they had learn'd the Rites of the Feasts of Bacchus, and the
Orgian Solemnities from the Egyptians in all their Mysteries ard Sacrifices
to this God, they ador'd that Member by the Name of Phallus.
From Osiris and Isis, to the Reign of Alexander the Great, who built a
City after his own Name, the Egyptian Priests reckon above Ten Thousand
Years, or (as some write) little less than Three and Twenty Thousand Years.
They affirm, that those that say this God Osiris was born at Thebes in Boe-
tia of Jupiter and Semele, relate that which is fake. For they say that
Orpheus after he came into Egypt, was initiated into the Sacred Mysteries
of Bacchus or Dionysus, and being a special Friend to the Thebans in Boetia,
and of great esteem among them, to manifest his Gratitude, transferr'd the
Birth of Bacchus or Osiris over into Greece.
And that the Common People, partly out of Ignorance, and partly out of
a desire they had that this God should be a Grecian, readily receiv'd these
Mysteries and Sacred Rites among them ; and that Orpheus took the occa-
sion following to fix the Birth of the God and his Rites and Ceremonies
among the Greeks : As thus, Cadmus (they say) was born at Thebes in
Egypt, and amongst other Children begat Semele : That she was got with
Child by one unknown, and was deliver'd at Seven Months end of a Child
very like to Osiris, as the Egyptians describe him. But such Births are not
us'd to live, either because it is not the pleasure of the Gods it should be so, or
that the Law of Nature will not admit it. The Matter coming to Cadmus
28G
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
his Ear, being before warn'd by the Oracle to protect the Laws of his Coun-
try, he wrapt the Infant in Gold, and instituted Sacrifices to be offer'd to him,
as if Osiris had appear'd again in this shape ; and caus'd it to be spread
abroad, that it was begotten of Jupiter, thereby both to honour Osiris, and to
cover his Daughter's Shame.
The Priests say that the Grecians have arrogated to themselves both their
Gods and Demy-Gods (or Heroes), and say that divers Colonies were trans-
ported over to them out of Egypt : For Hercules was an Egyptian, and by
his Valour made his way into most parts of the World, and set up a Pillar
in Africa ; and of this they endeavour to make proof from the Grecians
themselves, c
APPENDIX B.
THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN
CHRONOLOGY
The Egyptians that pretended so great antiquity, three hundred
kings before Amasis : and as Mela writes, 13,000 yean from the be-
ginning of their chronicles, that bragged so much of their knowledge
of old, for they invented arithmetic, astronomy, geometry ; of their
wealth and power, that vaunted of 20,000 cities ; yet at the same time
their idolatry and superstition was most gross; they worshipped, so
Diodorus Siculus records, sun and moon under the name of Isis and
Osiris, and after, such men as were beneficial to them, or any creature
that did them good. In the city of Bnbasti they adored a cat, saith
Herodotus, ibis and storks, an oz (saith Pliny), leaks and onions,
Maiiobius.
Forrum et ca>pe deos imponere nubibus ausi,
Hos tu Nile deos colis. — BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy.
NOTWITHSTANDING the light thrown upon Egyptian history by the rec-
ords from the monuments, the lists of the priest Manetho still form the basis
of all computations of Egyptian chronology of the earlier periods. There are
several reasons for this. In the first place, the records themselves, though
in the aggregate wonderfully voluminous, yet, so far as deciphered, cover,
after all, only scattered bits of the long periods of time involved. Mostly
the individual records are the glorifications of the deeds of a single king.
Some kings left scanty records, and often even these were wilfully destroyed
by some subsequent ruler of another dynasty. Or, a king might leave the
record of his predecessor, but substitute his own name for the rightful one
in the chronicle. Even the great Ramses II was guilty of such an act as
this. The fact of such tampering with the record would generally be per-
ceptible, but it may not be so easy to determine whose was the rightful name
which the falsifier erased.
Much more important than this, however, is the obstacle that arises from
the fact that the Egyptians, like all other nations of antiquity, lacked a fixed
era from which to reckon. They computed years with reasonable accuracy,
but they never reckoned long periods consecutively from any single date.
Hence the record of any particular king stands more or less by itself, or
associated at most with recent predecessors. If the records of some of these
predecessors have been lost, the gap may be of such a doubtful character as
to throw uncertainty upon the chronology of long periods, or, indeed, of
the entire remoter history. Thus it is that the records from the monuments,
despite their great historic value and absorbing personal interest, do not in
themselves, as yet, suffice to reveal in its entirety the history of the long suc-
cession of Egyptian dynasties. But fortunately these contemporary records
have been found in many cases to accord marvellously with Manetno's lists.
Hence the faith in these lists as a whole has been greatly strengthened, and
the historian of to-day, in basing his Egyptian chronology upon Manetho
287
288 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
for the periods not covered by known monuments, is by no means working
altogether in the dark. It is true that there have been two schools of opinion
as to how far this reliance should be carried : one school contending very
warmly that Manetho's lists are probably in places the records of contempo-
raneous dynasties, — it being known that the government was in many
periods divided, — and hence that the entire period of time required for the
dynasties as listed must be materially shortened ; the other school maintain-
ing that Manetho himself took note of such contemporaneous dynasties and
eliminated them from his list, retaining only a single line of what he regarded
as legitimate succession.
For the general student, it really does not matter greatly which of these
views is correct. The general accuracy of Manetho is admitted on all hands,
and the monuments sustain him to the extent of making sure a long list of
dynasties, whether or not his exact number be admitted. When we recall
that Manetho himself was, relatively speaking, a modern, living in the
third century B.C., and hence writing about periods that were, even accord-
ing to minimum estimates, farther separated from his age than he is from
our own, it would not seem strange if he should have made some mistakes.
But it is well enough also to remember that his lists would probably not
have been challenged with so much fervour in our time, had it not been for
certain ulterior bearings of this question of chronology. The clew will be
evident to whoever notices that in the different estimates of Egyptian
chronology the older historians — those of the earlier decades of the nine-
teenth century — are pretty generally the ardent advocates of a lower or
more recent date for the beginning of the first dynasty.
In a word, during the period when the question of the antiquity of man
was still matter of ardent controversy, even the most fair-minded historian
could not help letting his prejudice on that subject influence his judgment
regarding Egyptian chronology. The year 2349 B.C., which his Bible margin
had taught him to recall as a date when the history of mankind began anew
after an all-devastating flood, stood out in his mind as a danger mark that
he must not let himself be carried past if he could possibly avoid it. If he
preferred the Septuagint reckoning, he gained a few centuries more of lee-
way, say till 3250 B.C., but this was the ultimate limit, behind which no
evidence could carry him.
Meantime historians who had not this bias were unequivocally fixing the
beginning of the Egyptian dynasties a thousand years or so farther back.
But their reckoning could count for nothing in the general verdict so long
as the old estimate of man's antiquity was held. No sooner, however, had
it come to be generally conceded that the long-authoritative dates were
incorrect, than a reaction set in among the Egyptologists. Once it was
conceded that man had been an inhabitant of the earth for hundreds of
thousands of years, and that the years of his early civilisation must reach
back into the tens of thousands, the form of the bias of the average searcher
into ancient history was changed. That very human tendency which makes
one like to excel his neighbour, caused the Egyptologists now to vie with
their only competitors, the Assyriologists, in lengthening out their records,
instead of shortening them. We do not mean that a bias was consciously
admitted in one case or the other ; but historians are human, and their
judgments, like those of other mortals, are never altogether free from human
prejudice.
The clear and simple fact seems to be, that no knowledge is at hand that
enables the historian to fix with certainty the remoter dates of Egyptian his-
APPENDIX B. THE PROBLEM OK EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 289
tory. The very most that can be done, at present, is to determine minimum
dates, as is done bv the most recent German writers of authority, and to con-
tent ourselves witli stating these, understanding that they make no pretence
to absolute accuracy. When Professor Meyer, for example, says that the
minimum date for the founding of the Old Memphis Kingdom by King
Menes is 3180 B.C., he does not at all imply that Mariette is wrong in fixing
the same event at 5004 B.C., or about two thousand years earlier. He simply
means that in the present state of knowledge he does not feel justified in
choosing a definite date ; he is certain, however, that the true date cannot be
placed later than 3180 B.C.
Some such latitude as this we must admit, then, in dealing with ancient
Egyptian chronology. Of course the amount of possible variation progres-
sively decreases as we come down the ages ; but the chronology does not
become absolutely fixed until we reach the comparatively recent period of
King Psamthek I, who reigned from near the middle of the seventh
century before our era.
Fortunately, however, these uncertainties of exact chronology need inter-
fere but little with our interest and enjoyment in considering Egyptian his-
tory. Chronology is, indeed, as Professor Petrie has phrased it, "the
backbone of history." But this applies rather to the general sequence of
events than to the exact citation of years ; and fortunately there is no un-
certainty at all about the sequence of important events in Egyptian history,
even from the remotest times. We may not know the exact year in which
the great Pyramid was built ; but we do know exactly who built it, and the
names and deeds of his predecessors and successors, as well as the general
epoch in which the events took place. For the purpose of any one but the
specialist, we could scarcely ask more than this. And a like certainty
attaches to all other of the really great epochs of Egyptian history. The
general student may feel quite content with the degree of precision of the
attainable records ; and, paying but slight attention to the less important
dynasties, may well fix his attention upon those culminating periods when
the great deeds were accomplished which render the history of Egypt mem-
orable for all generations of men. The first of these periods, and the one
which now claims our attention, was the epoch of the so-called Old Kingdom
of Memphis — the epoch of the ushering in of Egyptian history, as known
to succeeding generations ; yet also the epoch of the building of the Pyra-
mids — the most gigantic and permanent structures ever created by human
minds and human hands.
Apart from questions of chronology, the sequence of chief events in
Egyptian history is now fairly established and accepted by all schools of
Egyptologists. This course of history proper we have followed under guid-
ance of specialists who have devoted tneir lives to the elucidation of this
subject. It may be well, however, to repeat a word of warning that has
already been said as to the incompleteness of the records on which this narra-
tive is based. It is one thing to assert that the main events of Egyptian
history are known in proper sequence, and it is quite another to assume that
a knowledge of all the events of that history is accessible. In point of fact,
it must be freely admitted that our knowledge of Egyptian history as a
whole is meagre indeed. Here and there a great event or a great name
stands out prominently, but there are long stretches of time between, when
not so much as the name of a single man is known in many generations.
Generally speaking, however, the periods marked by dearth of records
may be presumed to be periods equally marked by dearth of great events ;
H. W. — VOL. I . U
290 THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
and in one sense our history of these distant times assumes truer relation of
perspective than can possibly be given to the chronicle of later periods which
are replete with insignificant and bewildering details of minor events.
Without scruple or regret, therefore, we may here and there condense the
narrative of many generations of Egyptian history into a line or paragraph,
while giving extended treatment to the deeds and accomplishments of a few
great heroes who make Egyptian history illustrious.
But before turning to the history proper, it will be well to make a more
detailed examination of the chronological foundations on which our know-
ledge rests. Eduard Meyer has outlined them succinctly.0 From our sources
of information, he says, it is evident that we can place ourselves on certain
chronological ground for Egyptian history.
Manetho has rightly retained its general outline. He divides the kings,
from the foundation of the kingdom by Menes until the fall of the last
Darius, into thirty-one ruling houses, or dynasties. His division does not
seem to be always correct ; for instance, the Turin papyrus makes several
more divisions out of the 1st Dynasty. Nevertheless, Manetho's order has
long been commonly accepted, and for many reasons its further retention
commends itself.
The Turin papyrus just mentioned seems to have been written under
Ramses III, as the name of this king appears in the accounts on the back.
It contains a record of the Egyptian kings (the dynasties of the gods
precede them), with a statement of the years of their reigns, and to some
degree of their ages. Unfortunately the papyrus is much mutilated, and
amidst numerous small fragments there exist only a few large pieces- But
it is possible to obtain a general view of the papyrus by putting the most
important fragments into their right places. It contains (if pages have not
been torn off at the end) ten columns of from twenty-seven to twenty-eight
lines, and it mentions about two hundred and twenty kings' names, from
Menes until before, or during, the Hyksos period.
These are divided into dynasties, which are sometimes specified only by
a title, and sometimes by the word " reigned " being repeated after the
king's name. Under the longer lists totals are given. In the few cases
where the figures of the papyrus have been verified by the help of the
memorials, they have been found to be correct. However, the author is
guilty of a great error in the total of the Xllth Dynasty.
The gaps in the papyrus are partially filled by the royal monumental
tablets, which are altogether of a funereal character — a later king or citizen
is shown offering sacrifice to the old rulers.
Three lists carry historical weight :
(1) The tablet of Seti I in Abydos, discovered in 1864 and quite com-
plete, contains seventy-six names. The tablet of Ramses II, now in London,
is a copy of this.
(2) The tablet of Tehutimes III from Karnak, now in the Louvre, very
much injured and promiscuously put together, contains sixty-one names.
(3) The tablet from the tomb of Tunrei at Saqqarah (under Ramses
II, discovered in 1860), contains fifty-one names, of which forty-seven
remain.
Manetho's list in its different editions comes next to these accounts.
It was long thought that by putting it in its original form, we should arrive
at a safe basis of Egyptian chronology. A more careful examination, how-
ever, shows us that Manetho is not to be trusted. Where we can verify his
figures in the more ancient periods they are almost without exception
APPENDIX B. THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 291
wrong, anil this from no fault of the copyists and makers or extractors ; there
are constant confusion and gaps in the succession of names. Numerous
examples of such errors may be seen in the comparison of Manetho's list
with the monuments. It is only about the XXth Dynasty that his figures
seem to be reliable. Another circumstance must be added. According to
Manetho's arrangement, the dynasties follow each other, so that he includes
a Theban and a contemporaneous Hyksos family in the XVIIth Dynasty,
and does not reckon each one as a separate ruling house. In truth, such
contemporaneous governments did repeatedly take place, and consequently
they must reduce the dates of Manetho, even if the numbers be correct.
King Menes would not, according to Manetho (under Unger's calculation),
be placed in the year 5613 B.C., but considerably later.
So we must give up the search for absolute dates as hopeless, and limit
ourselves to an approximate computation of the periods of Egyptian history.
The genealogies of the ruling houses, as well as those of private people,
are of great service, for where we can trace a pedigree through long periods,
we are able to give an approximate estimate of the number of generations.
Thus we arrive at the " minimum " dates, with which we must content
ourselves for the present.
For the long periods from the Vllth to the Xlth Dynasties and from the
XlVth to the XVIIth, which are almost completely destitute of monuments,
the dates are extremely problematic. The dates therefore given for the
Xllth Dynasty, for the Pyramid period and for Menes, only prove that they
cannot well be put later, whilst they leave the way open for any one to put
them farther back.6
The lists of Manetho, above referred to, are so important as to require
fuller notice.
MANETHO'S TABLE OF THE EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES
Dynasty
Name
of Dynasty
Capital
Province
Length
Tear.
Tears
before
ll.'Cirs
Tear*
before
Christ
I
II
in
Thinis . . .
Thinis . . .
Memphis .
Harabat-el-Madf uneh . .
Harabat-el-Madf uneh . .
Girgeh. . .
Girgeh . . .
Gizeh . . .
263
302
214
5626
5373
6071
5004
4761
4440
rv
Mitrahineh
Gizeh . . .
284
4857
4236
v
Memphis .
Gizeh . . .
248
4573
3861
VI
VII
Elephantine .
Memphis
Gezireh-Assuan . . . .
Esneh . . .
Gizeh . . .
203
TOdays
4326
4122
3703
3600
VIII
Memphis . .
Mitrahineh
Gizeh . . .
142
4122
3600
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
Heracleopolis .
Heracleopolis .
Thebes . . .
Thebes . . .
Thebes . . .
Xol's
Abnas-el-Medineh . . .
Ahnas-el-Medineh . . .
Medinet Habu ....
Medinet Habu ....
Medinet Habu ....
Sakha ....
Beni Suef . .
BeniSuef. .
Keneh i
Keneh i
Keneh . . .
Menufleh .
100
185
213
453
184
3980
3871
3686
3173
3020
3358
3249
3064
2851
2398
XV
Hyksos . .
San .
Sharkieh \
XVI
San
Sharkieh [ .
611
2836
2214
XVII
San
Sharkieh )
XVIII
XIX
XX
Thebes . . .
Thebes . . .
Thebes . . .
Medinet Habu ....
Medinet Habu ....
Medinet Habu ....
Keneh . . .
Keneh . . .
Keneh . . .
241
174
178
2325
2084
1010
1703
1462
1288
292
THE HISTOEY OF EGYPT
Dynasty
Name
of Dynasty
Capital
Province
Length
of
Tears
Tears
before
Hegira
Tears
before
Christ
XXI
Tanis. . . .
San
Sharkieh . .
130
1732
1110
XXII
I iul us! is .
Tel-Basta
Sharkieh .
170
1602
980
XXIII
Tanis. . . .
San
Sharkieh .
89
1432
810
XXIV
Sais ....
Sa-el-Hagar
Gharbieh .
6
1343
721
XXV
Ethiopian
Sa-el-Hagar
Gharbieh .
50
1 337
715
XXVI
Sais ....
Sa-el-Hagar
Gharbieh .
138
1287
665
XXVII
Persian
Sa-el-Hagar . ...
Gharbieh .
121
1149
527
XXVIII
Sais ....
Sa-el-Hagar
Gharbieh .
7
1028
406
XXIX
XXX
Mendes . . .
Sebennytes .
Ashmun-el-Ruman
Samanudi
Dakalieh . .
Gharbieh .
21
38
1021
1000
399
378
XXXI
Persian .
Samanudi
Gharbieh .
8
962
340
End of list according to Manetho
XXXII
Macedonian
27
954
332
XXXIII
Greek . . .
275
927
305
XXXIV
Roman .
411
652
30
Edict of Theodosius . .
241
A.D.
381
No one can help being struck by the enormous total to which Manetho's
summing up of the dynasties brings us. By means of the Egyptian priest's
lists we are in truth carried back to the times that for all other peoples are
purely mythical, but for Egypt are certainly historic.
Embarrassed by this fact and finding no other means of discrediting
Manetho's authenticity and veracity, some modern writers have supposed
that Egypt has been at various periods of its history divided into several
kingdoms, and that Manetho gives us as successive some royal families
whose reigns were in fact simultaneous.
According to these authorities the Vth Dynasty, for example, would have
reigned at Memphis at the same time that the Vlth governed at Ele-
phantine. It is not necessary to demonstrate the advantages of such an
arrangement. By bringing certain dates closer together and by correcting
others it is possible by an ingenious and clever arrangement of the dynasties
to shorten almost at will the space of time covered by Manetho's lists ; thus
while, in the table, we have the date 5626 A.H., that is, before the Hegira,
[5004 B.C.] as that of the foundation of the Egyptian monarchy, other
writers like Bunsen do not go farther back than 4245 A.H. or 3623 B.C.
On whose side does the truth lie ? The more one studies the question,
the more it is seen how difficult it is to reply. The greatest of all obstacles
to the establishment of a definite Egyptian chronology is that the Egyptians
never had a chronology proper. The employment of an era, properly so
called, was unknown to them, and up to the present time it has never been
proved that they reckoned otherwise than by the years of the reign. And
moreover these years were far from having a fixed point of beginning, since
sometimes they began at the commencement of the year in which the preced-
ing king died, and sometimes with the coronation of the new king. What-
ever may be the apparent precision of its calculations, modern science will
always be baffled in its attempts to establish that which the Egyptians
themselves did not possess.c
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
[The letter « it reserved for Editorial Matter]
CHAPTER I. THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN
* EDUAED METER, Oeschiehte der Allen Aegyptens. — dW. M. FLINDERS PET»IE, from the
article " Egyptology" in the New Volumes of the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia Briton
nica, — o ADOLF ERMAN, Aegypten und Aegyptisches Leben im Alterthum.
CHAPTER II. THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM
»EDHARD MEYER, Oeschiehte des Alterthums. —* h.. WIEDEMANN, Aegyplitche Oeschiehte.
— • DIODORDS SICULUS, The Historical Library (translated from the Greelc by Q. Booth). —
/G. C. C. MASPERO, The Dawn of Civilisation (translated from the French by M. L. McClure).
— 'SAMUEL BIRCH, translation of the Inscription of Una in Records of the Past. — MI. C.
BRUOSCH, Oeschiehte Aegyptens unter den Pharaonen.
CHAPTER III. THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM
* H. C. BRUOSCH, Oeschiehte Aegyptens unter den Pharaonen. — « G. C. C. MASPERO, His-
toire ancienne des peuples de I' Orient. — ''HERODOTUS, The History of Herodotus (translated
from the Greek by William Beloe). — « WILLIAM BELOE, Translator of the History of Herodotus.
— / K. R. LEPSIUS, Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Peninsula of Sinai (translated from
the German by Leonora and Joanna B. Homer). — »KDUARD MEYER, Oeschiehte des Alter-
thums. — * W. N. FLINDERS PETRIE, A History of Egypt. — ' FLATIUS JOSEPH us, The Works of
Josephus (translated from the Greek by William Whiston). — MANKTHO, cited by Josephus.
CHAPTER IV. THE RESTORATION
"• SAMUEL BIRCH, Records of the Past.—'Q. C. C. MASPERO, The Struggle of the Nations
(translated from the French by M. L. McClure). — d G. C. C. MASPERO, Histoire ancienne des
peuples de V Orient.
CHAPTER V. THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY
»G. C. C. MASPERO, Histoire ancienne des peuples de F Orient. — «EDUARD MEYER, Oe-
schiehte des Alterthums. — d II. C. BRUGSCH, Oeschiehte Aegyptens unter den Pharaonen.
CHAPTER VI. THE FINDING or THE ROYAL MUMMIES
"G. C. C. MASPERO, La Trouvaille de Deir-el-Bahari.
CHAPTER VII. THE PERIOD OF DECAY
*G. C. C. MASPERO, The Struggle of the Nations (translated from the French by M. L.
McClure). — °G. C. C. MASPERO, Histoire ancienne des peuples de ? Orient. — dEDUARD MEYER,
Oeschiehte des Alterthums.
CHAPTER VIII. THE CLOSING SCENES
6L. MKNARD, Histoire des anciens peuples de F Orient. — «DiODORUS SICULUS. The Histor-
ical Library (translated from the Greet by G. Booth). — * EDUARD MEYER, Oeschiehte des Al-
terthums.
294 BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
CHAPTER IX. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS
b3. GARDNER WILKINSON, A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians. — »J. P. C.
CHAMPOLLION, Descriptions de I'Egypte; VEgypte sous les Pharaohs; etc. — <*P. LE PAGE
RENOUF, in Birch's Records of the Patt. — "AMELIA B. EDWARDS, A Thousand Miles Up the
Nile. — /FRANCOIS CHABAS, in Birch's Records of the Past. — »E. A. T. W. BUDGE, The Book
of the Dead. — hK. R. LEPSIUS, Denkmaler — 'SAMUEL BIRCH, Records of the Past. — ^HERO-
DOTUS, The History of Herodotus (translated from the Greek by William Beloe). — * GEORG
EBERS, An Egyptian Princess; A History of Egypt ; etc. — mG. C. C. MASPERO, Histoire an-
cienne despeuples del' Orient. — "AuousTE MARIETTE, Aperfu de I'histoire d'Egypte. — "W.
N. FLINDERS PETRIE, Numerous Works ; see Bibliography, p. 302.
CHAPTER X. THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION
6 HERODOTUS, The History of Herodotus (translated from the Greek by William Beloe). —
0 ADOLF ERMAN, Aegypten und Aegyptisches Lebenim Alterthum. — d DIODORUS SICULUS, The
Historical Library (translated from the Greek by G. Booth). — "J. GARDNER WILKINSON, A
Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians. — / STRABO, The Geography of Strabo (translated
from the Greek by J. Falconer and H. C. Hamilton).
CHAPTER XI. EGYPTIAN CULTURE
6J. GARDNER WILKINSON, A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians. — « G. C. C.
MASPERO, rendering in Les Contes Populaires de I'Egypte Ancienne cf M. Golenischeff s transla-
tion of the original papyrus in the Imperial Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. — <* HENRY
SMITH WILLIAMS, The History of the Art of Writing. — « CLAUDIUS ^LIANUS, The Variable
History of ^Elianus (translated from the Greek by A. Fleming).
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
6 HERODOTUS, History of Herodotus (translated from the Greek by William Beloe). —
0 DIODORUS SICULUS, The Historical Library (translated from the Greek by G. Booth).
APPENDIX B. THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY
*EDUARD MEYER, Geschichte des Alterthums. — «A. MARIETTE, Aperfu de I'histoire
d'Egypte.
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
BASED ON THE WORKS QUOTED, CITED, OR EDITORIALLY CONSULTED IN
THE PREPARATION OF THE PRESENT HISTORY, WITH CRITICAL AND
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
IN the preparation of the present work the editors have had occasion to consult a very
large number of books, in addition to those actually quoted. Not all of these are 'here
listed; neither is any effort made to have the present bibliography complete in other
respects. Many names of recent works that might easily be added are purposely omitted
because of the facility with which the student will come upon them. On the other hand,
a good many works are included because their very obscurity would lead to their being
overlooked. Some of these had great importance in their day, and must be looked to by
any one who would appreciate the nistory of development and research in this field. Others
had at best only incidental importance, yet should not be quite forgotten. Brief critical
estimates are in many cases added to orientate the would-be investigator ; and in the case
of the more important authorities, biographical notes are also appended.
Adams, W. M., The Mystery of Ancient Egypt. The New Review, 1893 ; The House
of the Hidden Places. London, 1895. — JElianus, Claudius, The Variable History of
^Kliaiuis. London, 1576.
Claudius jEliantu was a Roman citizen who lived in the second century A.D., the exact
date being uncertain. Though a Roman, he preferred Greek to Latin, and wrote all his
works in the former language. He has been denominated the " honey-tongued," from the
character of his style, and the " sophist," from his teaching rhetoric. Two of his works
are still extant: the Varia Historia, from which our excerpts are taken, and a book on
natural history, which enjoyed great repute in later classical and mediaeval times. Both of
these works are written apparently without system, though the author himself declared
that it was his intention to shift from one topic to another to keep up the reader's
interest. The work on natural history, having of course no other than an antiquarian
interest in modern times, has never been translated ; but the Varia Historia has been
rendered into English twice ; the quaint old translation of Fleming, made in 1576, being
the one which we select for our excerpts. The value of this work depends largely upon
the fact that it is made up from the writings of still more ancient historians whose works
are mainly lost.
Ame'lineau, E., La Geographic de 1'Egypte a I'dpoque copte. Paris, 1893; Rcsumd da
1'histoire de 1'tfgypte. Paris, 1894; Les nouvelles fouilles d'Abydos, Angero; Les Moines
egyptiens. Paris, 1890 ; La morale Igyptienne. Paris, 1892 ; Les id&s morales dans 1'Ivgypte
ancienne. Paris, 1895 ; Essai sur Involution historique et philosophique des id^es morales
dans 1'Egypte ancienne. Paris, 1896; Histoire de la sepulture et des fune'railles dans
1'ancienne Egypte. Paris, 1896. — Anonymous, Ausfuhrliches Verzeichniss der aegypti-
schen Altertumer, Gipsabgu&se und Papyrus der Berl. Samml. Berlin, 1S94.
Batten, S. II., Pharaoh of the Exodus. Melbourne, 1880. — Be"n< dlte, G., Le temple
de Phil*. Paris, 1895. — Berkley, E., Pharaohs and their People. London, 1884.—
Birch, S., Records of the Past. London, 18 vols., 1873; Egypt to 300 B.C. London, 1875;
Two Tablets of the Ptolemaic Period (Archeologia, vol. 39). London, 1863.
296
296 A GENEEAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
Dr. Samuel Birch was born in London, 3rd November, 1813 ; died there 27th December,
1885. He was a scholar of recognised profundity and also of remarkable versatility. He
went early to the British Museum in the department of antiquities, his specialty at that
time being Chinese. Later on he became chief of the department of antiquities, including
oriental, classical, mediaeval, and early British archaeology. He became recognised as an
expert in all these departments, and his publications cover almost the entire range of
archaeology. He was an innovator in both Assyriology and Egyptology. In the latter field
his publications are many and varied, one of the most important being his Grammar of the
Egyptian Language, which was incorporated with the great work on Egyptian history by
Baron Bunsen. As the science of Egyptology was then in a transition state, this and the
other works of Dr. Birch are of course now superseded, though by no means rendered value-
less. One of the most important editorial tasks of Dr. Birch was the bringing out of a
series known as The Records of the Past, which consisted of translations from Egyptian
and Assyrio-Babylonian records. Dr. Birch himself contributed several of these. He also
had the distinction of being the first translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. To
some extent Dr. Birch suffered from his versatility ; being known in so many fields, he is
not thought of pre-eminently in connection with any one of them, but he will always be
remembered as an innovator in the field of Egyptology.
Bokh. A., Manetho und die Hundstern-Periode. Berlin, 1845. — Borchardt, Zur
Geschichte der Pyramiden, Ztschr. fiir Aegypt. Spr., 1894. — Boudier, E., Vers dgyptiens,
me'trique demotique. Paris, 1897. — Breasted, I. H., De hymnis in solem sub rege Ameno-
phide IV conceptis. Berlin, 1894. — Brimmer, M., Egypt. Three Essays on the History,
Religion, and Art of Egypt. Boston, 1891. — Brugsch, H. C., Geschichte Aegyptens unter
den Pharaonen. Leipsic, 1877, 2 vols. Genesis of the Earth and of Man. London, 1880.
Die aegyptischen AltertUmer in Berlin. Berlin, 1857. Recueil des monuments e"gyptiens.
Leipsic, 1862-1863. Dictionnaire geographique de 1'ancienne fegypte. Leipsic, 1877-
1880. Thesaurus inscriptionum aegyptiarum. Leipsic, 1883-1891. Religion und Mytho-
logie der alten aegypter. Leipsic, 1890. Die aegyptologie, Abriss der Entzifferungen
und Forschungen. Leipsic, 1891.
Heinrich Carl Brugsch was born at Berlin, 1827 ; died there, 1894. He belonged to that
rather large company of German investigators, who are at once scholars and diplomatists.
His residence in Egypt was not as an ordinary tourist or investigator, but as an officer
of the Egyptian Government, with the title of Bey and later of Pasha. Like his famous
countrymen, Niebuhr and Bunsen, before him, he found time in the midst of official duties
for a wide range of scholarly activities, and he soon became known, not only as one of the
foremost Egyptologists, but as incomparably the highest authority on one form of the
Egyptian writing, namely, the demotic. His History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, derived
entirely from the monuments, is a work of the most standard authority. It is, in the
main, a work rather for the scholar than for the general public; but it is by no means
without popular interest, and, notwithstanding its bulk, it has been translated into English.
The reader will recall that we have based our chronology upon the system of Dr. Brugsch, —
a system confessedly artificial, which, however, meets the difficulties of the subject perhaps
better than any other yet devised.
Budge, E. A. W., The Book of the Dead. London, 1895 ; Egyptian Ideas of the Future
Life. London, 1899 ; Egyptian Magic. London, 1899 ; The Mummy : Chapters on Egyptian
Funeral Archaeology. Cambridge, 1893 ; Egypt in the Neolithic and Archaic Periods.
London and New York, 1902.
Ernest A. Wallis Budge, M.A., Litt.D., D.Lit., F.S.A., Keeper of Assyrian and Egyptian
Antiquities, British Museum. Dr. Budge has at once the profundity and the versatility of
his famous predecessor at the British Museum, Dr. Birch. The list of his writings on
oriental archaeology is much too long to be cited in full here. Among other things he has
put would-be students of the subject under lasting obligations by preparing an elementary
treatise on the Egyptian language, and following it up with a more advanced work for the
use of the student. He has also made an elaborate translation of the Book of the Dead,
utilising the recent advances in the knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics to improve upon
the former translations. His latest work in this field is a popular history of Egypt, in eight
volumes, published at London, 1902. In addition to his recognised profound scholarship,
Dr. Budge has in a high degree the capacity for literary presentation, and he has not felt
himself above considering the needs of the unscholarly public and of the beginner in
oriental studies. Thus his catalogue of Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum,
which is ostensibly only a guide-book to the collection there, is in itself a work of real
literary merit, which would serve as a valuable introduction to the study of archaeology
even if placed in the hands of students who have not access to the collection which it
specifically describes.
Bunsen, C. K. J., Egypt's Place in Universal History. London, 1848-1867.
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 207
Baron Christian Karl Josias von Rumen was born at Korbach, Germany, 2/ith August,
1701, and died at Bonn, 28th November, 1860. Baron Bunsen had the original instinct* of
the scholar, as proved by his numerous writings ; but it was his fate to be shifted early in
life from the field of professional scholarship to that of the diplomatist, and his researches
were carried on under somewhat disadvantageous circumstances. He had come early under
the influence of Niebuhr, and had planned a life of scholarship ; but becoming the tutor of
Frederick William III, and being advanced through royal influence to a diplomatic post in
Rome, and afterwards in London, he came to be more widely known as a diplomatist and
statesman than as a scholar. Nevertheless, he contributed much to a popular knowledge of
history, through his Aegyjttens Sidle in tier \Veltgeichichte, and its English translation
as above. It had a wide circulation, and did perhaps more than almost any other single
work to popularise the relatively new subject of Egyptology. His Gott in der Geschichte
(God in History) also had great popularity. The eminently philosophical character of
these writings is valued even at the present day, though it must be conceded that the point
of view regarding many of the subjects treated has quite radically changed in the past half
century. It follows that the interest in Baron Bunsen's books must to a large extent be
antiquarian rather than historical at the present day, though they cannot be ignored by any
one who wishes to have a full comprehension of the growth and development of the science
of Egyptology.
Cailliaud, F., Travels in the Oases of Thebes. London, 1829. — Casanova, Memoirs
on the History and Archaeology of Egypt. — Chabas, J. F., in Birch's Records of tht Past.
London, 1873, 12 vols. ; Etude sur I'antiquite' historique. Paris, 1873; Melanges Egypto-
logiques. Chalons, 1863-1873.
Joseph Francois Chabas was born 2nd January, 1817, in Hri;im,'"n ; died 17th May, 1882,
at Versailles. He was a specialist in Egyptology, who wrote widely and was recognised as
an authority of importance. He is best known to the English reader through certain trans-
lations, notably of the inscriptions on the obelisks, published in Birch's Records of the
Past. He produced no general historical work, such as would have brought his name
before the public at large, and hence he is less familiarly known than many other Egyptolo-
gists of less worth.
Chaill6-Long. C., L'lJgypte et ses provinces perdues. Paris, 1892. — Champollion. J. F.,
L'Egypte sous les Pharaohs. Paris, 1814 ; Descriptions de I'fegypte, etc. ; De 1'e'criture hie'-
ratiques des anciens iJgyptiens. Paris, 1824 ; Precis du Systeme Hie>oglyphique des anciens
Egyptiens. Paris, 1824, 2 vols.; Monuments de 1'Egypte et de la Nubie. Paris, 1836-
1845, 4 vols.
Jean Francois Champollion was born at Figdac, Lot, France, 23rd December, 1790; died
at Paris, 4th March. 1832. Champollion's work has received comprehensive attention in
our text (see Egypt, Chapter XI) in connection with the interpretation of the hiero-
glyphics, in which work Champollion was an innovator of the first rank. His fame rests
chiefly upon this accomplishment, but his entire life was devoted to Egyptology, and he
would have been remembered always as one of the fathers of the science, even had he not
been the chief originator in the particular work of interpreting the hieroglyphics. Natu-
rally much of his work has been superseded by more recent investigations. This must be true,
in the nature of things, of the work of any innovator in science ; but, as we have seen, the
whole modern science of Egyptology rests securely on the foundation which Champollion laid.
Charines, G., L'Egypte archeol. hist. lit. Paris, 1891. — Chesney, I., The Land of
the Pyramids. London, 1884. — Clot-Beg, A. B., Apercu ge"ne"ral sur 1'Egypte. Paris,
1840; De la peste observed en Egypte. Paris, 1840; Description de 1'Egypte; Coup d'oeil
sur la peste et les quarantaines. Paris, 1851. — Cook, F. C., Records of the Past. London,
1873, 18 vols. — Cooper, W. A., Short History of Egyptian Monuments. London, 1876. —
Cory, I. P., Ancient Fragments of Phwnician, Chaldean, Egyptian, and other writers.
London, 1826, second edition, 1832.
This work has been revised by E. Richmond Hodges in an edition published in 1876,
containing some improvements but lacking the original Greek and Latin texts. The work
is purely a compilation consisting solely of fragmentary remains of various classical authors.
It gathers into a single work a great variety of matter, much of which was hitherto inac-
cessible to the average scholar ; fragments, many of which give us an interesting view of
various historical characters. We shall have occasion to quote some of these excerpts in
other connections. The original work contained certain Neo-Platonic forgeries known as
the Oracles of Zoroaster, the Hermetic Creed, and the Orphic and Pythagorean fragments
which are discarded by the editor of the new edition as being of doubtful authenticity and
little value. Even these, however, have an antiquarian interest, and the fact that the
excerpts are given in the original languages as well as in the translation, makes the earlier
edition of the work, as publ;shed by Cory himself, still particularly valuable.
298 A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
Cougny, G., L'art antique (L'figypte, etc.). Paris, 1891. — Cusleri., Storia fisica e politi-
cia dell 'Egitto delle prime memorie de suoi abitanti al 1842. Florence, 1862, 2 vols.
Daresay, I., Contribution a 1'etude de la 21eme dynastie e'gyptienne in Rev. Arche"ol.
3e aerie 27. — Davis, Ch. H. S., The Book of the Dead. New York ; Egyptian Mythology.
In Biblia, VI, 9. — Daunou, P. C. F., Cours d'etudes historiques. Paris, 1842, 20 vols. —
Diodorus Siculus, The Historical Library. London, 1700.
A somewhat extended account of Diodorus and his work will be found in Part I in
the chapter on world histories, and a further note in Egypt, Appendix A, p. 268. It is un-
necessary to make further comment here, beyond mentioning the translation from which our
excerpts are made. This, as will be seen, was published just at the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century ; but it has never been superseded, few scholars having cared to undertake
the task of translating an author whose works are so voluminous. Even were more recent
translations available, the one we have used would still have been selected, because of the
quaintness of its diction, which, as has been suggested, conveys to the average reader a
better idea of the original language than would a more modern rendering.
Driault, E., La Question d'Orient depuis ses origines jusqu' a nos jours. Paris, 1898. —
Dttmichen, J., Geographic des alien Aegyptens. Berlin, 1887 ; Bauurkunde der Tempel-
anlagen von Dendera. Leipsic, 1865 ; Historische Inschriften. Leipsic, 1867-1869, 2 vols. ;
Der Grosspalast des Petnamenap. Leipsic, 1894 ; Karte des Stadtgebietes von Memphis und
benachbarter Districte. Leipsic, 1895 ; Die Flotte einer aegyptischen Konigin. Leipsic,
1868.
Johannes Diimichen was born 15th October, 1833, in Weisholz, Germany ; died 7th Feb-
ruary, 1894, at Strassburg. Dr. Diimichen was a student of Lepsius and Brugsch, and he
devoted his entire life to Egyptology. He made several journeys to Egypt and wrote exten-
sively regarding the archaeological features of the subject. His works are mainly technical,
and while very valuable for specialists, are not always equally interesting to the general
reader. What would have been perhaps his most important contribution, his comprehen-
sive history of Egypt undertaken for the Oncken series, was incomplete at the time of his
death ; having dealt only with the geographical and archaeological features. The work
was completed by Eduard Meyer (see below).
Duncker, M., Geschichte des Alterthums. Berlin, 1855, 1877, etc., 6 vols; History of
Antiquity (translated by Evelyn Abbott). London, 1877, 6 vols.
Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker was born 15th October, 1811, at Berlin; died 21st July,
1896. The writings of Duncker cover a wide range of historical subjects, but he will
chiefly be remembered for his History of Antiquity, which took rank on publication as the
most important contribution to the subject. It was improved in successive editions, and
was translated into English. Its merits of style are unusually great for a German work,
and, needless to say, it was built on authorities with the usual German comprehensiveness
of view. Dealing with the subject of oriental history, however, it is necessarily out of
date regarding many subjects, and the more scientific, if somewhat less popular, work of
Meyer has latterly superseded it to a large extent.
Ebers, G., Egypt. London, 1880 ; Uber das hieroglyph. Schriftsystem, Berlin, 1875.
Georg Moritz Ebers was born 1st March, 1837; died August, 1898. The name of Ebers is
probably better known to the general public than that of any other Egyptologist. But the
average reader of his very popular novels is not perhaps aware that the author was a technical
Egyptologist of the highest rank. Ebers made personal explorations in Egypt, the most
notable result being the discovery of the papyrus which has since borne his name, — a
remarkable document dealing with the practice of medicine in old Egypt, which remains
our chief source of knowledge regarding this subject.
Ermaii, A., Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben in Altertum. Tubingen, 1887; Life in
Ancient Egypt. London, 1894; Die Entstehung eines Totentextbuches, in Ztschr. fiir
Aegypt. Spr. no. 32, 1894.
Dr. Adolf Erman, Professor of Egyptology in the University of Berlin, Director of the
Berlin Egyptian Museum, member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, at Berlin,
etc., was born 31st October, 1854, at Berlin. Professor Erman is the successor of Lepsius
in the chair of Egyptology at the University of Berlin, and it is felt that the mantle of the
great Egyptologist has fallen on worthy shoulders. Professor Erman's writings have
mainly had to do with grammatical and literary investigations. His editions of the
romances of old Egypt are models of scholarly interpretation. They give the original
hieratic text with translations into Egyptian hieroglyphics, into Latin, and into German.
Such works are, of course, intended chiefly for the scholar. Persons capable of such works
of scholarship are seldom interested in the exact manner of presentation of their subject,
and very generally they scorn popular treatment in their writings. But Professor Erman,
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTKS 299
following the precodent of here and there a forerunner such as Heeren, has written a strictly
popular work on the life of the ancient Egyptians that is by far the most complete treatise
on the subject attempted since the time of Wilkinson. The reader will not have overlooked
the masterly characterisation of Egyptian history which Professor Ermau has written for
the present work.
Ferguson, J., History of Architecture. London, 1874, 4 vols.
James Ferguson was born at Ayr, Scotland, 22nd January, 1808 ; died 9th January, 188<J.
The personal history of Ferguson is quite unlike that of almost any other Anglo-Saxon of
similar achievements except Grote; out is in some ways closely suggestive of the great
historian of Greece. It even more closely resembles tne life of Schliemann, the great
German, whose rediscovery of Troy has made his name familiar to every one. Like
Schliemann Ferguson devoted the years of his early manhood to a purely commercial
pursuit, and like him he followed this pursuit with such success as to acquire a fortune,
which enabled him to retire while still in the prime of manhood. Oddly enough, the parallel
between these two lives is made still closer by the fact that the particular commodity with
which each dealt chiefly was indigo. But beyond this the parallel no longer holds, for the
seat of Schliemann's commercial activities, as will be recalled, was Russia, while Ferguson
made his fortune in India. No sooner had Ferguson acquired a fortune that would justify
him in retiring, than he turned at once to a field of study that undoubtedly stood in need of
investigation, and made that study his life-work. Guided by the same energy and judgment
that gained him a fortune in his commercial pursuits, Ferguson soon made himself master
of the subject of architecture, and presently came to be Known as the chief authority on
the history of architecture in antiquity.
Fleay, I. G., Egyptian Chronology. London, 1899 (Jour. Brit. Archeol. Assoc., 1899). —
Fries, S. A., 1st Israel jemals in Aegypten gewesen ? In Sphinx, I, 207-221.
Gagnol, Cours d'histoire ancienne des penples de 1'Orient. Tours, 1891. — Ganeval, I,..
L'Egypte. Lyon, 1882. — Gardner, A., Naukratis. London, 1889.— Oau, F. C., Antiqnites
de la Nubie, ou monuments ine'dite des bords du Nil. Paris, 1822. — Geyersburg. C. H. de,
Egypt and Palestine in Primitive Times. London, 1895. — Glrard, Description de 1'Egypte.
— Goleniacheff, Imperial In ventaire de la Collection egyptienue de I'Ermitage. St. Peters-
burg, 1891. — Gradenwitz, O., Einfuhrung in die Papyruskunde. Leipsic, 1900. Grand-
bey, Rapport sur Irs temples e'gyptiens. Cairo, 1888. — Gravierre, I. de la, La marine des
Ptole'me'es. Paris, 1885, 2 vols. — Groff, W., La fille de Pharaoh. Cairo. — Oruson, H.,
Im Reiche des Litches (Pyramiden nach den altesten Quellen) . Braunschweig, 1893. — Gul-
met, Plutarque et 1'figypte. Paris, 1898. — Gntschmid, A. von, Kieine Schriften,
vol. 1. Schriften zur Aegyptologie. Leipsic, 1889.
HaleVy, Jos., Revue Se"mitique d'e"pigraphie et d'histoire ancienne. Paris, 1893. — Hark
ness, M. E., Egyptian Life and History. London, 1884. — Heeren, A. H. L., Ideen ueber
die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel der vornehmsten Volker der Alten Welt, 3 edit
G6ttingen, 1815, 4 vols. English translation : Historical Researches, etc. Oxford, 1878,
5 vols.
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren was born at Arbergen, near Bremen, 1760; died at
Gdttingen, 1842. The celebrated author of Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse,
and Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians was, during the greater part of
his life, Professor of History at Gottmgen ; he had, however, earlier in his career, filled
the chair of Philosophy in the same university, and the happy mingling of the philosophi-
cal with the historical cast of mind is at all times evidenced in his writings. The historical
writings of Professor Heeren cover a wide field, but his greatest renown was achieved with
his History of the Nations of Antiquity. In this Professor Heeren broke new ground. His
scheme of treatment was quite different from that of any one who had preceded him. His
intention was not so much to elucidate the political history, as to deal with those commer-
cial relations and social customs which, after all, are the chief foundations of a nation's
life. In particular he was perhaps the first great historian who fully grasped the import of
the commercial relations of ancient nations. He made himself master of all knowledge
obtainable in his day bearing on this topic, and his work at once took rank as the foremost
authority on its subject. So much as this goes almost without saying, for hardly any one
attains to professorship in a German university who has not the qualities of scholarship cal-
culated to make him an authority on any topic whioh he will undertake to treat. But,
what is much more unusual among the Germans, Professor Heeren had also the gift of
style. His work is not only authoritative, but readable. Indeed, in this regard, it is sur-
passed even now by very few works in the domain of history. As evidence of this charac-
teristic, the works of Professor Heeren were at once translated both into French and into
300 A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
English, and have the widest popularity in France, England, and America. In the nature
of the case, the authoritative character of his works cannot have been maintained at their
original standard, since the new discoveries and excavations in the Orient have so altered
the phases of our conception of oriental history. In one sense, therefore, it is unfortu-
nate that Professor Ileeren could not have written after the excavations of Layard in
Nineveh had given the new stock of material for ferreting out the history of Mesopotamia.
Nevertheless, as far as it went, the history of Heeren was founded firmly upon facts which
the new researches have left unshaken, and his work, as a whole, still has great value for
the historical student of the period. There are sections of it, indeed, which have neither
been supplanted nor duplicated.
Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the Philosophy of History. London, 1857. — Herodotus,
History of Herodotus. London, 1806, 4 vols.
Herodotus, the celebrated "Father of History," or, as K. O. M tiller styles him, the
" Father of Prose," was born at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, about 484 B.C., and died
at Hurii, Italy, about 424 B.C. ; there is no certainty as to the exact dates. Reference has
been made to Herodotus in Egypt. Here it is desirable to add a few words as to the trans-
lation from which our excerpts are chosen. Needless to say, there have been numerous
translations of Herodotus of varying degrees of merit. Doubtless the most authoritative,
historically considered, is the famous one which Professor George Rawlinson, with the aid
of his brother, Sir Henry Rawlinson, and of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, made about the
middle of the nineteenth century. This particular translation, however, is of chief value
not so much for its text as for the scholarly notes which the translators have appended.
As to the text itself, there is at least one still more recent translation — that by Macaulay
— which may perhaps claim to give even a closer rendering. For the use of the scholar
these translations cannot be too highly commended, but it still remains true that by far
the most readable and, so to say, Herodotus-like, English rendering of the " Father of
History " is that which was made about a century ago by the Rev. William Beloe (1756-
1817), an English divine, who from 1803 to 1806 was keeper of printed books at the
British Museum, and who produced a variety of writings of considerable note in their
day. His version of Herodotus has been said, properly enough, to lack the close verbal
accuracy of some more recent performances ; but, on the other hand, the accuracy of
its rendering as a translation in the best sense, rather than a mere literary transcription, is
not in question, and modern critics concede that in point of readableness, Beloe is quite
without a peer. And, broadly considered, one surely is justified in saying that Herodotus
not readable is not Herodotus at all. Beloe explicitly repudiates the literal plan of transla-
tion, aiming, as he states in his preface, to give as nearly as possible the spirit of the author,
along with a clear interpretation of his text. How well he succeeded is evidenced by a
critical estimate which says of him that " something in his mental constitution qualified
him admirably for reproducing the limpid simplicity and amiable garrulity of Herodotus."
Hieratische Papyrus aus den Kgl. Museen zu Berlin, hrsg, von der Generalverwaltung
Berlin. — Hommel, V. Der Babylonische Ursprung der aegyptischen Cultur. Miinchen,
1892.
Jacotin, Carte topographique de PEgypte. Paris, 1869. — St. John, Egypt and Nubia.
1 * n 1 r- •»• TT T1 T^ J • «_?___ £ J_1 TL f . __ J A * J.
mdon
Books.
London, 1845. — Johnson, V. E., Egyptian Science from, the Monuments and Ancient
London, 1892. — Jornard, E. F., Description de 1'Egypte. Paris, 1809.
Kayser, F., Aegypten einst und jetzt. Frieburg, 1879, 2nd ed. — Kenrick. J., Ancient
Egypt under the Pharaohs. London, 1850, 2 vols. — Kminek-Szedlo, I., Catalogo di
antichita egizie. Torino, 1895. — Krall.,1.. Studien zur Geschichte des alten Aegyptens, in
Sitzber, d. Wiener Acad. d. Wiss. Wien, 1890; Beitrage zur Geschichte der Blennyer und
Nubier. Wien, 1898. — Krummel, L., Die Religion der alten Aegypter. Heidelberg, 1893.
Lassus, L'Art dgyptien. Paris, 1898. — Laurent, F., Eludes sur 1'histoire de 1'humanitd.
Paris, 1865, 18 vols. — Lauth, Aegyptische Chronologic. Strassburg, 1877. — Lefe~bure,
LTmportance du nom chez les egyptieus. Sphinx, I; Le contre-charme. Sphinx, I;
Pites egyptiens. Paris, 1890. — Lenormant, F., Chaldean Magic and its Origin and
Development. London, 1877. — Lepsius. K. R., Letters from Egypt. London, 1853;
Konigsbuch der alten Aegypter. Berlin, 1858; Das Totenreich der egypter. Leipsic, 1842 ;
Denkmaler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien. Berlin, 1849-1859, 12 vols. ; Chronologic der
Aegypter. Berlin, 1848 ; tlber einige Beriihrungspunkte der Aegypt., griech. und rom.
Chronologie. Berlin Acad., 1859 ; t)ber die zwolfte Aegypt. Konigsdynastie. Berlin Acad.,
1853.
Karl Richard Lepsius was born 23rd December, 1810, at Naumburg, Prussia; died 10th
July, 1884, at Berlin. Professor Lepsius was one of the most distinguished of Egyptolo-
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 301
gists. In his maturer years he had a professorship in Berlin, itself a matter of distinction
in that land of scholarship. He made excursions to Egypt in an official capacity, and
familiarised himself at first hand with the monuments and records that were his life study.
As a writer Professor Lepsius was less distinguished than some of his confreres in the field,
though all that he wrote had, of course, the stamp of the highest authority. His letters
from Egypt and Nubia, being of a more popular character than hU other writings, were
translated into English and widely circulated. It must be admitted, however, that hU
descriptions of the famous ruins have interest rather because they reflect the opinions of a
great scholar than because of their intrinsic literary merit.
Iiieblein, Aegyptische Chronologic, Christiana, 1803 ; Recherches sur la chronologic
e'gyptienne. Paris, 1878; Hieroglyph. Namenworterbuch. Leipsic, 1871-1892; Index
alphabdthique de tous les mots contenus dans le livre des morta. Paris, 1875; (iainmel-
pharaohnique. Paris, 1892
Mahler, Ed., Materialen zur Chronologic des alien Aegyptens in Ztechr., fiir ag. Spr.
no. 32, 1894. — Mallet, D., Les premiers etablissements des (irecs en Egypte. Paris, 1893.
-— Magrizl, Description topographique et historique de 1'Egypte. Paris, 1895. (Trans,
from Arabic). — Mariette. Choix des monuments et des dessins. Paris, 1856 ; Le Se'rapeum
de Memphis. Paris, 1857-1866,9 parts; Apercu de 1'histoire de 1'Egypte. Paris, 1864 ; Nou-
velle table d'Abydos. Paris, 1865 ; Fouilles executees en Egypte, en Nubie, et au Soudan.
Paris, 1867 ; Abydos description des fouilles. Paris, 1870-1880, 2 vols.; Catalogue g£ne>al des
monuments d'Abydos. Paris, 1880; Dende'ra: description ge'nerale du grand temple de
cette ville. Paris, 1870-1880, 5 vols.; Les papyrus e"gyptiens du muse'e Bolaq. Paris, 1871-
1873, 3 vols.; Karnak, £tude historique et archeol. Paris, 1875; Deinri al-Bahari. Paris,
1877; Monuments Divers. Paris, 1872-1889; Les Mastabas de 1'ancien empire, ed. by
G. Maspero. Paris, 1882-1886; Voyage dans la Haute-Egypte. Paris, 1878 (2nd ed., 1893).
August Eduard Mariette was born 12th February, 1821, at Boulogne; died 18th January,
1881, at Bulaq. He was one of the most assiduous workers, and came to be one of the
greatest authorities in the field of Egyptology. He early made explorations in Egypt, and
after founding the famous Museum at Bulaq spent the remainder ol his life on the ground,
almost incessantly occupied with explorations and with the interpretation of his archteolog-
ical finds. His first famous excavations were made at Memphis, about the middle of the
nineteenth century; later on he excavated the famous temple of Abydos. His publications
are very numerous, but they are chiefly of a scholarly rather than a popular character. He
was the highest authority on the hieratic form of Egyptian writing. Notwithstanding the
technical character of much of his writing, he had a wide popular reputation, partly due to
his official position as director of the Museum at Bukuj. Like most Frenchmen, Mariette
could write in a popular vein when he chose, and his Aperfu, above noted (translated
into English by Miss Mary Brodrick under the title of Outlines of Ancient Egyptian History)
is one of the most entertaining popular studies of the subject.
Martine. Histoire du monae oriental dans 1'antiquite. Paris, 1894. — Maspero. G.,
Du genre epistolaire chez les e"gyptiens. Paris, 1872; Sur quelques papyrus du Louvre.
Paris, 1875; Etudes e"gyptiennes. Paris, 1879-1882; Histoire ancienne des peuples de
1'Orient. Paris, 1886, 4th ed. ; L'archdologie e'gyptienne. Paris, 1887 ; Les contes popu-
laires de 1'Egypte ancienne. Paris, 1889 ; Les momies royales de Deir et Bahari. Paris,
1889; Lectures historiques ; histoire ancienne; Egypte, Assyrie. Paris, 1890; Histoire
ancienne des peuples de 1'Orient classique. Paris, 1895 ; The Struggle of the Nations. Soc.
Prom. Chr. Know. London, 1896; Etudes de mythologie et d'arch&>logie 6"gyptienne.
Paris, 1893 ; The Dawn of Civilisation. Soc. Prom. Chr. Know. London, 1897 ; Manual of
Egyptian Archseology. Paris, 1893 ; La carriere administrative de deux hauts fonctionnaires
e"gyptiens vers la fin de la III dynastie, in Journal asiatique, Vol. XV.
Gaston Camille Charles Maspero was born at Paris 24th June, 1846; member of the In-
stitute, formerly Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Ethnology in the College de France,
more recently Director of the Egyptian Museum at Bulaq. Professor Maspero is one of the
most famous of living orientalists, and since the death of Mariette Pasha, whose work
he has continued in Egypt, he is doubtless the most authoritative of French Egyptologists,
While making a specialty of this field, however, he has by no means confined himself to it.
and his brilliant writings cover the entire field of oriental antiquity. While _ Professor
Maspero is known everywhere to scholars, and recognised by them, as an authority on the
topics of which he treats, his fame as a popular writer is stdl wider. In fact in this field
he, perhaps, has no peer among Egyptologists and orientalists, living or dead,
entitled Les Origines has been translated into English, under the title of The Daion of
302 A GENERAL BIBLIOGEAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
Civilisation, as have also its companion volumes, one of which bears the striking title of
The Struggle of the Nations, but these more elaborate works in no wise detract from the
importance and authority of the brilliant earlier Histoire du peuple de V Orient, from which
we shall have occasion to make numerous extracts, and which, for some unaccounta-
ble reason, has not hitherto been made accessible to English readers. The gift of style is
no rarity among French historians, but Professor Maspero has it in a degree unusual even
among his compatriots, and the whole range of historical literature can show few works
which combine the qualities of authority and readableness in a higher degree than his.
Melida, Historia del arte Egipcio. Madrid, 1890. — Me"moires, publiees par les mem-
bres de la mission archeologique francaise au Caire sous la direction de Maspero; Memoirs
of the Egypt Exploration Fund. London. — M&iard, L., La vie privee des anciens.
Paris, 1880-1883, 4 vols. ; L'histoire des anciens peuples de 1'Orient. Paris, 1883. These
works are valuable because of their admirable style. They are the work of one who
is a writer, rather than an Egyptologist ; nevertheless, they are based on a careful study of
the authorities, and they may be turned to with confidence. — Meglin, F., Histoire de
1'Egypte. Paris, 1823. — Meyer, E., Geschichte des alten Aegyptens. Berlin, 1887; Ge-
schichte des Alterthums. Stuttgart, 1884, etc., 5 vols. (in progress).
Eduard Meyer was born in 1855, at Hamburg, Germany ; he is at present ordinary
Professor of Ancient History in the University of Halle, of which university he is also a
graduate. Professor Meyer's historical studies, from the outset, have looked particularly
to the history of antiquity. Quite early in life he developed a plan for writing a compre-
hensive history of both oriental and classical antiquity, and the first volume of this work,
under the title of Geschichte des Alterthums, appeared in 1884. It is, in some regards,
the most valuable history of antiquity as yet written, combining, as it does, the character-
istic qualities of German scholarship, with a degree of condensation very unusual in Ger-
man works, and a fair measure of popularity of style. The first volume of Professor
Meyer's history deals solely with the nations of the Orient, and it furnishes perhaps the
best available outline for the studies of any one who would undertake a full investigation of
Egyptian history. Unfortunately the work is out of print ; but a new edition is promised.
The more extended work on Egyptian history was contributed to the Oncken series.
Milne, History of Egypt under Roman Rule. London, 1899. — Minutoli, ttber die
aegypt. Pigments und Maltechnik der Alten. 1892. — Molchow. E., Aegypten und Palas-
tina. Ziirich, 1881. — Mook, F., Aegypten's vormetallische Zeit. Wurzburg, 1880. —
Morgan, Fouilles & Dahschour. Wien, 1895; Catalogue des monuments et inscriptions de
l']5gypte antique par Morgan, Bouriant, Legrain, Jequier et Barsant. Wien, 1894. (Valu-
able technical works.) — Miiller, W. Max, Who were the Ancient Ethiopians ? Philadel-
phia, 1894 ; Asien und Aegypten nach altaegyptischen Denkmalern. Leipsic, 1895.
Naville, The Temple of Deir al-Bahari. London, 1894 ; The Store-city of Pithom and
the Route of the Exodus. London, 1888. (Valuable works of an original explorer.) —
Norovitch, L'Europe et 1'^gypte. Paris, 1898.
Ollivier-Beauregard, La caricature dgyptienne. Paris, 1894. — Osburn, W., Monu-
mental History of Egypt. London, 1854. (Of antiquarian interest.) — Oxley, W., Egypt.
London, 1884.
Palmer. W., Egyptian Chronicles. London, 1861, 2 vols. — Parsons, A. R., New Light
from the Great Pyramid. New York, 1894. — Parthey, I. F. O., Erdkunde des alten
Aegyptens. — Paturet, La condition juridique de la femme dans 1'ancienne Egypte. Paris,
1886. — Pensa, G., Les Cultures de 1'Egypte. Paris, 1897. — Pentaur, in Brugsch's Egypt.
London, 1881, 2 vols. (The work ascribed to Pentaur is a poem describing the exploits of
Ramses II, like the Battle of Kadesh. Pentaur, however, is not the author of it, but
merely the transcriber of one copy of this poem. See p. 212.) — Perring, I. S., Pyramids of
Gizeh. London, 1839-1842, 3 vols. — Perrot and Chipiez. Histoire de 1'art dans de
1'antiquite. Paris, 1881-1889. (The series of works on ancient art by these French authors
constitutes one of the most important contributions to the subject ever written. The works
are accessible in an English translation.) — Petrie, W. M. F., A History of Egypt from the
Earliest Times to the XVIth Dynasty. London, 1894 ; Inductive Metrology. London, 1877 ;
Plans, Descriptions, and Theories. London, 1880 ; The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.
London, 1883 ; Tanis I. London, 1885; Tanis II, Nebesheh and Defenneh. London, 1887;
Naukratis I. London, 1886 ; Racial Portraits, 190 Photographs from the Egyptian Monu-
ments. London, 1888 ; Historical Scarabs. London, 1889 ; Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe.
London, 1889; Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara. London, 1890; Tell el Hesy (Lachish.).
London, 1891; Ten Years' Diggings. London, 1892; Tell-el-Amarna. London, 1894;
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 303
Egyptian Tales. London, 1894-1895; Egyptian Decorative Art. London, 1895; Syria and
rs. Lon
K(,'.vl't from tho Tell-el-Amarna letters. London, 1898.
1-i-ofesaor W. M. Flinders Petrie was born in 1853 at Charlton, England; D.C.L. Oxford,
1893; LL.D. Edinburgh, 1895; be is at present Professor of Egyptology in University Col-
lege, London. Professor Petrie is perhaps more widely known to the public at large than
any other living Egyptologist. Though still a comparatively young man, he has devoted
more than twenty years to almost continuous exploration of the ruins of ancient Egypt.
From the very outset he gained a reputation as a discoverer of buried cities, which his sub-
sequent exertions have amply sustained. Professor Petrie corn*'* naturally by the instincts
of the explorer, as he is a grandson of Captain Matthew Flinders, who was celebrated for
his explorations of the Australian coast at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The
recitals of the fabulous wonders of Australia are not more fascinating or more marvellous
than the narratives Professor Petrie has been enabled to give of the long lost and long for-
gotten mysteries of Egypt.
Piehl, Deux ddesses e'gyptiennes (in Melanges de Harlez). Leiden; Inscriptions hie'ro
glyphiques recueillies en Europe et en Egypte. Leipsic, 1895. — Poole, R. S., Cities of
Egypt. London, 1882 ; Egypt. London, 1881.
Rawlinaon, G., Egypt and Babylon. London, 1885 ; Ancient Egypt. London, 1887 ;
History of Ancient Egypt. London, 1881, 2 vols. (Canon Rawlinson's works on Egypt
were perhaps written to round out his series of oriental histories. They are of course
based on the authorities, and are at once dependable and entertaining.) — Regaldi, L'Egitto
antico. Firenze, 1882. — Renouf, P. le Page, The Book of the Dead in Proc. Soc. BibL Arch.,
Vol. XI, 1894-1896 ; Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion. London, 1880. (These
works, written by the successor of Dr. Birch, and the predecessor of Dr. Budge as Keeper of
the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, have, of course, the fullest
authority. The religious phases of oriental archaeology had a peculiar interest for the
author, and his writings are confined to this field and the field of philology.) — Reynier, I,.,
State of Egypt after the Battle of Heliopolis. London, 1802 ; De 1'kgypte sous la domination
des Remains. Paris, 1807. — Revillout, Lettres sur les monnaies egyptiennes. Paris, 1895;
Melange sur la mdtrologie, 1'econ. polit. et 1'histoire de 1'ancienne Egypte. Paris, 1895.
— Riegl, Zur Frage des Nachlebens der altaegyptischen Kunst in der spatern Antike.
— Robinson, C. S., Pharaoh of the Bondage and Exodus. New York, 1887. — Robiou,
F., La religion de 1'ancienne Egypte et les influences Itrangeres. Paris, 1888. — Roiellini,
I monumenti dell' Egitto e defla Nubia. Pisa, 1832-1844. (The work of one of the most
famous pupils of Chatnpollion still has interest and value, though necessarily antiquated in
many regards.) — Rouge1, E. de, Recherches sur les monuments qu'on peut attribuer aux
six premieres dynasties de Mane*thon. Paris, 1866 ; Etudes sur divers monuments du regne
de Tutmes III, de"couverts a Thebes par E. Marietta. Paris, 1861 ; Geographic ancienne de
la Basse-Egypte. Paris, 1890. (The name of De Rouge* is permanently associated with
the theory that the Phoenician alphabet was derived from an early form of the Egyptian
hieratic writing. The original paper in which De Rouge1 advanced this theory was accident-
ally destroyed, and the theory did not gain prominence until after the death of the author.
Its correctness is still in doubt, though it has able champions.)
Salvolini. F., Campagne de Ramses le Grand contre les Scheta. Paris, 1835. (The
work of another famous pupil of Champollion, and innovator in Egyptology.) — Bayce,
A. H., Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotus. London, 1895; Ancient Empires of the East.
London, 1844; Records of the Past. — Schack-Schackenburg, Aegyptolische Studien.
1894. — Schiaparelli, II libro dei funerali de antichi Egiziani. Torino, 1890. — Schmidt, O.
P., A Self-verifying Chronological History of Ancient Egypt Cincinnati, 1889. — Schwein-
furth, Der Moerissee nach den neuesten Forschungen. In Petermann's Mitteil. 1893. —
Sethe, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Alterthumskunde Aegyptens. Leipsic, 1900,
3 parts (in progress). — Sylvestre de Saoy, Abd-al-latif. translated by Sacy. Paris, 1810,
3 vols. — Simaiki. A. A., La province romaine d'Egypte. Paris, 1892. — Sharpe, The Chro-
nology and Geography of Ancient Egypt. London. 1849 ; History of Egypt to Arab Con-
quest. London, 1876, 2 vols. (Works that are out of date, though still having considerable
value, particularly for the later period of Egyptian history; most entertainingly written.) —
Smith, P., The Ancient History of the East" from Earliest Times to Conquest of Alexander
the Great. London, 1871. — Smyth. C., Piazzi, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid.
London, 1890. — Spiegelberg, W., Studien sum Rechtswesen des Pharaohenreiches der
Dynastie XVIII-XXI. Hanover, 1892; Rechnungen aus der Zeit Setis I. Strassburg,
1896 ; Zur Geographic des alten Aegyptens by Dumichen. Ed. by Spiegelberg. Leipsic,
1894; Die Novelle in alten Aegypten. Strassburg, 1898 ; Arbeiter und Arbeiterbwegung in
Pharaonenreich unter den Ramessiden. Strassburg, 1895 ; Die erste Erwahnung Israels in
304 A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OP EGYPTIAN HISTORY
eine aegyptischen Text. Berlin Acad., 1896. — Stangen, Aegypten. Leipsic, 1882. — Stein-
dorff, Aegypten und mykenische Cultur. Berlin, 1892; Grabfunde des mittleren Reichesin
den kgl. Museen zu Berlin; Zur Geschichte der Hyksos. Leipzig, 1894 ; Zur Geschichte der
XI Dynastie in Ztschr. fur Aegypt. Spr. no. 33. 1895 ; Bliitezeit des Pharaonenreiches.
Bielefield, 1900. — Strabo, The Geography of Strabo. (Strabo was one of the greatest
geographers of antiquity. A somewhat extended reference to his work has been made
already, and further notice will be taken of it in a later book.) — Strauss, V. von Torney,
Der altaegyptische Gotterglaube. Heidelberg, 1890, 2 parts. — Stucken, Ed. Die Astral-
mythen der Hebraer, Babylonier und Aegypter. Leipsic.
Tiele, Histoire comparee des anciennes religions et des peuples se'mitiques. Paris, 1882.
— Tomkina, H. G., Campaign of Ramses II against the Kadesh on Orontes. London, 1882.
— Torr, Cecil, Memphis and Mycenae and Examination of Egyptian Chronology and its
Application to the Early History of Greece. Cambridge. — Tylor and Somers Clarke, The
Tomb of Sebeknekht. London. — Tylor and L. Griffith, The tomb of el-Paheri at El-Kab.
London.
Valbuena, R. F., Egipto y Asiria resucitados. Madrid, 1895. — Vise, R.W., Operations
carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837. London, 1840-1842, 3 vols.
Wallis, H., Egyptian Chemic Art. London, 1900. — Watkins, I. W., Popular History
of Egypt. London, 1886. — 'Watson, G. H., Art and Antiquities of Ancient Egypt. Lon-
don, 1843. — Wendel, History of Egypt. New York, 1890. — Wessley, Studien iiber das
Verhaltniss des griechischen zum aegyptischen Rechtim Lagidenreich. Leipsic, 1891. —
Wiedemann, A., The Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul. Lon-
don, 1895 ; Aegyptische Geschichte. Gotha, 1884 ; Geschichte von Altaegypten. Coin and
Stuttgart, 1891 ; Die Religion der alten Aegypter. Miinchen, 1890, and Engl. translation ;
Religion of the Ancient Egyptians. London, 1897 ; Zum Tierkult der alten Aegypter.
Leiden (In Melanges Ch. de Harlez). (Admirable works combining authoritative treat-
ment with relatively popular presentation.) — Wilcken, N., Griechische Ostraca aus
Agypten und Nubien. 1899, 2 vols. — 'Wilkinson, Sir G., Popular Account of the Ancient
Egyptians. London, 1854, 2 vols. ; The Egyptians in the Time of the Pharaohs. London,
1857; Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. London, 1878, 3 vols.
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson was born in 1797 at Hardendale, Westmoreland ; died Octo-
ber, 1875. Whoever would know the Egyptian as he was and become conversant with the
manners and customs of his everyday life, must turn to the pages of Wilkinson. His
Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians has been from the day of its publication the chief
source of information on this subject. Wilkinson had the good fortune to enter the field of
Egyptian exploration at a time when the subject was new, and he at once made the field of
manners and customs of the Egyptians peculiarly his own. He travelled extensively, and
lived for long periods continuously in Egypt, studying all accessible monuments of this mar-
vellous people, with the result that he was able in the end to reproduce the story of life in
ancient Egypt with something not very far removed from the distinctness of an eye-witness.
Wilson, Sir W., Egypt of the Past. London, 1881. — Woltmann and Woefmann, K.,
History of Painting. London, 1880, 2 vols. (One of the most authoritative works on
ancient art.)
Young, T., Account of Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphics. London, 1823. (Refer-
ence to Young's connection with the discovery of the meaning of the hieroglyphics will be
found in Book II, Chapter III.)
Zincke, E. B., Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedives. London, 1873.
PART III
THE HISTOKY OF BABYLONIA
AND ASSYRIA
BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES
E. BABELON, E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, F. DELITZSCH, JOSEPH HAL^VY, A. H. L,
HEEREN, H. V. HILPRECHT, F. HOMMEL, L. W. KING, A. H. LAYARD,
F. LENORMANT, G. C. C. MA8PERO, JOACHIM MENANT, EDOARD
MEYER, J. OPPERT, J. P. PETERS, HUGO RADAU, HENRY
RAWLINSON, R. W. ROGERS, A. H. SAYCE, E. SCHRADER,
C. P. TIELE, H. WINCKLER, A. WIEDEMANN
TOGETHER w I I H AN E88AT OK
THE RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER SEMITIC
COUNTRIES
BT
JOSEPH HALEVY
WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM
CLAUDIUS JELIANUS, C. J. BALL, G. B. BARTON, G. BERTIN, THE HOLY BIBLE,
P. E. BOTTA, D. G. BRINTON, EUGENE BURNOUF, ISAAC PRESTON CORY,
MICHAEL J. DE GOEJE, DIODORUS SICULUS, ADOLF ERMAN, E. FLAN-
DRIN, G. K. C. GERLAND, G. S. GOODSPEED, G. F. GROTEFEND,
L GUIDI, H. GUNKEL, HERODOTUS, EDWARD HINCKS, MORRIS
JASTROW, P. JENSEN, ALFRED JEREMIAS, C. H. W. JOHNS,
C. JOHNSTON, FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, A. H. KEANE,
A. VON KREMER, CHRISTIAN LASSEN,
J. F. McCURDY, M. MONTGOMERY, J. P. MAHAFFY, J. DE MORGAN, G. NAGEL,
THEODOR N5LDEKE, W. G. PALGRAVE, W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, T. G.
PINCHES, PLINY MAJOR, QUINTUS CURTIUS, H. RASSAM, GEO. RAW-
LINSON, KARL RITTER, G. C. E. DE SARZEC, V. SCHEIL, NATHAN
SCHMIDT, GEORGE SMITH, C. JULIUS SOLINUS, ALOYS
SPRENGER, B. STADE, STRABO, W. H. FOX TALBOT,
G. WEBER, J. GARDNER WILKINSON, HENRY
SMITH WILLIAMS, W. WRIGHT
306
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
By HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
All rights reserved.
MESOPOTAMIA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAOB
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. THE RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER SEMITIC
COUNTRIES. BY JOSEPH HALEVY 309
MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 318
CHAPTER I. LAND AND PEOPLE 337
CHAPTER II. OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY 349
CHAPTER III. THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 366
CHAPTER IV. FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS .... 397
CHAPTER V. THE DECLINE AND FALL or ASSYRIA 438
CHAPTER VI. RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON 446
CHAPTER VII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA . . . 460
CHAPTER VIII. THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS . . . 515
CHAPTER IX. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 634
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 571
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA, AND THEIR RESULTS . . . 000
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 627
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY 629
307
THE RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER
SEMITIC COUNTRIES
WBITTEN SPECIALLY roR THE PRESENT WOBK
BT JOSEPH HALfeVY
Professor in the College de France, Paris
INGRATITUDE in masses, as in individuals, is very apt to be the reward
of great benefactors. Egypt, taciturn, proud, and self-contained, was
respected and admired by all her neighbours, while Greece and Judea,
the shining beacons of Mediterranean civilisation, from the point of view
of morals and science, have had the mortification of receiving ineffaceable
stigmas. In the popular language of our own day, "Greek" and "Jew"
are such offensive sobriquets that the descendants of these two glorious
races seek to avoid the use of those names when describing their origins.
Babylonia, after her conquest and disappearance from the scene of the
world, although she was vastly superior to her destroyers, did not escape this
little-deserved fate. To the contemporaries of her fall, Babylon is only the
city of courtesans and insipid magic; nevertheless, in the days of her
strength, she ruled the barbarian world that surrounded her by other
means than naked flesh and empty formulas of incantation. For thousands
of years she shone with an unparalleled brilliancy, and illuminated with her
vivifying rays the rude peoples with which she was in contact. Her influence
left indelible traces even on the civilisations of western Asia and of the Greek
world, partly through the agency of the Phosnicians and Aramaeans. And
if her disappearance caused no disturbance in the march of progress, it is
because her mission was fulfilled long before the epoch of her decline. From
the reign of Xerxes, plundered Babylon gradually decayed; on the arrival
of Alexander she was already three-fourths in ruins. The war of the Dia-
dochi and the advent of the Parthian dynasty completed her entombment.
There was none to assume her moral heritage at that time, for the heir had
already taken all that was precious and truly imperishable.
A truly intellectual culture is manifested in the possession of a form of
writing. The existence of it in Babylon is proved by documents that go
back to the fifth millennium B.C. The letters consist as yet of linear strokes
representing certain parts of the human body, various kinds of animals,
plants, and natural or manufactured objects. It was not until later that
these strokes assumed the wedge form that has caused the name "cunei-
form" system to be applied to them. The primitive characters are few in
number — about fifteen — and are joined with one another to form a syllabary
that is both ideographic and phonetic.
309
310 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
The intrinsic nature of these values is a striking proof of the Semitic
origin of the system, and completely refutes the hypothesis of the earlier
decipherers that there existed on Babylonian soil prior to the Semites an
alien race called " Sumerian " or " Accadian," from whom came the cunei-
form characters, as well as the entire Semitic civilisation of Babylonia. Such
syllables as ab, " father " ; an, " god " ; el, " pure, bright " ; en, " lord " ; sal,
"servant, woman"; il, "high"; is, "tree, wood"; ul, "past"; mu, "name";
rat, "canal"; sag, "summit, head"; rig, "plant, green leaf," etc., are taken
from fundamental Semitic words of the Babylonian language, which, except
for slight variations, was also that of Elam and Assyria. Nowhere, and at
no period of their existence, is any linguistic modification noticed which
could be attributed to the intrusion of a foreign element.
Without risk of being accused of exaggeration, we may place the begin-
nings of writing in the sixth, or even in the seventh, millennium before our
era ; and yet the Babylonian language has the worn and phonetically impov-
erished character which it always preserved in comparison with its sister
languages. This is an astonishing phenomenon, and gives an idea of the
extreme antiquity, not only of the existence of the Semites in Babylonia, but
of the development of the great civilisation of which they were the creators.
For, after the appearance of the written documents on stone and on clay
tablets, we meet with a most remarkable ancient civilisation : monarchical
institutions, communal organisations, flourishing agriculture, systematic canal-
isation, metal working, proprietorship of land, extensive commercial transac-
tions, fixed taxes, the establishment of governors in subject countries. With
regard to science, astronomy was cultivated and there were observatories for
the study of the movements of the stars and the eclipses. The Babylonians
had the divisions of the year, the month, and the day ; they fixed weights
and measures, and calculated square and cube roots. A rational classifica-
tion facilitated the knowledge of botany and zoology. Dynastic lists were'
drawn up with care, in which the principal historical events of the reigns
were recorded. Finally, the spiritual needs of the nation were satisfied by a
vast mythological system which is lost in the night of time, and on the basis
of which innumerable epic tales were developed. Among these the stories
of the creation and of the deluge, the descent of Ishtar into Hades, the
adventures of Gilgames and Etanna, etc., rank among the most beautiful
products of the poetic imagination. On the other hand, the fetichistic mysti-
cism of prehistoric times was transformed into a learned magic, which was
combined with religious and moral elements, and claimed to be based upon
miraculous facts that had, however, been proved by experience.
A Babylonian furnished with these elements of intellectual culture must,
in spite of his superstitions and the real gaps in his knowledge, have seemed
a superior being to the neighbouring tribes which had the same racial
instincts, but whose development was still embryonic and had taken place
under totally different conditions. It is nothing astonishing, then, that the
most capable of these semi-savages hastened to adopt, in different degrees,
a large part of the Babylonian civilisation, the advantages of which they had
learned to appreciate. As usual, it is the apparent and material side that
was accepted first ; after a more intimate acquaintance with the Babylonian
mode of life, these peoples were captivated by the religious conceptions
and the powerful attraction of the legends and the magic. All this
slowly filtered into the mind of the other Semitic peoples, and became so
well embodied there that some centuries later it formed an integral part of
their national substance, and to such a degree that it has been possible to
RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTIIKIt COUNTRIES 311
disentangle their true origin only by means of an arduous research which
has not yet said the last word.
The extension of Babylonian civilisation beyond its primitive cradle h.i<l
its greatest strength during the glorious reign of Sargon I, the lirst monarch
known to have made military expeditions into the countries of the west.
We shall have, then, to consider, first, the pre-Sargonic, second, the post-Sar-
gonic, epochs.
Before the reign of Sargon, about thirty-eight hundred years before our
common era, Babylonia had succeeded in forming itself into a national body,
having the same manners, speaking the same language, and using the same
alphabet. No alien people broke into this unity of race and genius, which
included on its eastern side the inhabitants of the Elamitic plain, forming
a simple annex to Babylonia on that side of the Tigris. The great excess
of population flowed into the fertile plains extending between the Tigris
and the mighty chain of the Zagros, and founded the little kingdoms of
Suti, Lulubi, Namar, and with greater success the powerful kingdom of
Assyria, which during the years of its prosperity became the most powerful
military state of the oriental world.
These very ancient colonies were often in conflict with the mother
country, and Assyria even succeeded in imposing its iron yoke for several
generations ; but, save for Sennacherib's moment of violent passion, Baby-
lonia remained for all of them a centre of light and of religious mystery.
The Babylonian divinities have their temples and serve as types for various
localisations. In Assyria, especially, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela,
Ishtar of Kidmur, etc., are worshipped. The Babylonian origin is perpetu-
ated in the new capital Ninua (Nineveh), which is the name of a locality of
Babylonia, while the ancient capital Asshur recalls the name of the most
ancient god of the Babylonian epic of creation.
It goes without saying that among the neighbouring tribes of different
languages Babylonian influence could not penetrate so completely. In the
south the numerous Aramtean tribes persisted in their nomadic state ; in
the mountainous districts of the east the Susio-Amardians, in the north the
Vannians and the Mitannians, while accepting Babylonian civilisation, use
along with the ordinary Babylonian syllabary a more limited one for writing
their own languages. Traces of Assyrian influences in ancient epochs have
been proved in Cappadocia, which shows the great antiquity of the kingdom
of Assyria. But the most important and most enduring influence manifests
itself in the Semitic region of the extreme west, in Syrio- Phoenicia and in
Palestine.
Through the discovery of the tablets of Tel-el- Amarna, which date from
the reigns of Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV, it was learned with
astonishment that in the fourteenth century before our era, Babylonian was
the diplomatic language, not only of the western Semites, but also of the
sovereigns of Egypt. Syria and Phoenicia then formed a vassal province of
the Pharaohs, probably as a result of the conquests of Tehutimes III; the
use of Egyptian writing, or at least of the special Assyrian type, was to be
expected there, but it is the Babylonian alphabet, the Babylonian dialect, that
we find in use. We are forced to conclude that the extension of Baby-
lonian culture was due to an occupation of Syria by the Babylonians at
an extremely early period, when Assyria was still too feeble to bar the way
to the country of its origin. History shows the truth of this, for it tells us
that Sargon I spent three years in Syria, and finally made himself master of
it ; in one of his maritime expeditions he even crossed to the island of
312 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Cyprus and took possession. It is probable that this vassalage of Syria to
Babylonia underwent frequent reactions and interruptions of continuity, due
in great part to the policy of Egypt, which was seeking an outlet to the
north. The plan of thwarting the covetousness of the Pharaohs for this
province, if not of simply annexing the valley of the Nile to the great empire
of the East, was carried out by Sargon I in an invasion of Egypt, the success
of which is recorded in the account of the haruspices [Tablet of Omens].
His son Naram-Sin, according to the same documents, likewise invaded Egypt
and killed its king, whose name has unfortunately disappeared on account
of the breaking of the tablet. Egypt, intimidated, made no hostile move-
ment for several centuries, which undoubtedly strengthened the Babylonian
authority in Syria under all the dynasties that successively occupied the
throne in the capital of Chaldea.
In the age of Abraham, when Elam exercised supremacy over Babylonia,
the king of the latter country, Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis, figures
among the kings who had accompanied the Elamite suzerain in his expedition
against several tribes of eastern and southern Palestine (Gen. xiv.). Seven
centuries later the Egyptian functionaries of Syrio-Phoenicia correspond in
Babylonian with the court of Thebes. This province had been conquered a
half -century before by Tehutimes III ; and the Egyptian supremacy left its
trace in the invention of the Phoenician alphabet, which marks the decision
to break with Babylonian sympathies in favour of the intellectual culture of
Egypt, of which the city of Byblus was to be the principal centre.
A remarkable circumstance furnished the occasion for this decision. In
this city, where mystic tendencies seem to have prevailed over the desire for
the riches that navigation and commerce bring, a local goddess was wor-
shipped, called Baal-Gebal, " Lady of Byblus," who represented one of the
numerous Semitic goddesses known under the name of Baalat or Belit. She
was identified with the great Egyptian goddess Isis, and the myth of Osiris
was attached to the shore of this city to such an extent that the priesthood
of Byblus was believed to be in possession of the true meaning of these mys-
teries. At the bottom of this process was the desire of finding a ground of
agreement for all the religious conceptions of the civilised nations of the age.
In the matter of religion, as in the arts and industry, the role of the Phceni-
cians consisted in serving as intermediaries, as zealous apostles who saw the
advantage of being useful to the barbarians after having obtained profit from
them, and hoped to profit further in the future.
So, after this reconcilement with the Egyptian religion, the exportation of
manufactured articles to the valley of the Nile, or of imitations of Egyptian
art, which was so strongly marked with a religious stamp, could develop in-
definitely in all the Mediterranean regions and contribute to the prosperity
of the mother country and her colonies. So, after the fourteenth century
before the common era, the invention of alphabetic writing had barred the
way for the extension of Babylonian writing into the European world. The
ancient spiritual legacy of Babylonia's thousand years of domination, a nat-
ural product of the Semitic genius, was too strongly anchored in Syrio-Phce-
nicia to be totally eclipsed, or even to descend to an inferior rank under the
pressure of Egyptian influence.
Egypt, with its language deprived of all outlet and with its essentially
funereal mythology, was incapable of producing a movement of renaissance
in foreign peoples. The spiritual condition remained without notable
change, but, direct contact with Babylonia having become more difficult, the
Phoenicians were obliged to record in their own language their ancestral and
RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER COUNTRIES 313
divine traditions, in which the universal elements received from Babylonia
always remained preponderant.
Of Phoenician literature nothing is known in the original language, but
some cosmogonic data taken from the book of Sanchoniathon by Philo of
Byblus reflect myths that can have been produced only on the soil of Babylon,
although the Philhellenic author is unable to interpret them with exactness.
The primordial couple of chaos, Apason and Tomoth, are in reality the
Babylonian divinities prior to the creation : Apsu, " ocean, abyss," and Tia-
mat, "sea"; but Philo, carried away by Neoplatonic doctrine and confound-
ing similar consonants, attributes to Apason the meaning of " desire," and
seems to discern in Tiamat the divinity Mot, " death," symbolical of matter.
Another goddess, Chosartes, recalls the consort of Asshur, Kishar, of cosmo-
gonic character. On the Syrio-Ph(enician monuments we often read the name
of the goddess Anath, bearing the title of " force of life or of the living," but
the masculine consort is not met with. The Babylonian inscriptions fill the
gap by very frequently furnishing the couple Anu and Anata. Philistia
worshipped principally the ichthyomorphous god Dagon, who is no other
than the Babylonian Daganu, associated with Anu.
Among other divine personages we note in the first place Tammuz, con-
sort of Astarte, who was slain by a boar in the flower of his youth. His
death was mourned for a month each year, and his resurrection was later
celebrated with frenzied demonstrations of joy. This myth of nature, sym-
bolical of the passing of summer and metaphorically of that of ardent and
passionate youth, has as its basis the Babylonian tale of Du'uzu, eponym of
the month of that name (Tammuz), who died prematurely, and whom the
goddess Ishtar (Astarte), the incarnation of ardent passion, endeavours,
though in vain, to bring back from the kingdom of death. The grief and
the heroic effort of the goddess are told in a touching manner in the
beautiful poem, entitled The Descent of Ishtar into Hades. The Phoenicians
mourned Tammuz under the honorary title of Adon, Adonim, "lord,"
whence the Greek Adonis. From Phoenicia this rite passed to Greece, and
was celebrated there with no less pomp, while the descent of Ishtar became
there the point of departure for several analogous legends.
Less known is the cult of the Babylonian god of war, Nergal, who had
sanctuaries in Phoenicia. Among celestial gods we identify Hadad or Hadod,
styled " king of the gods," Rimmon, Nabu, Sin, and Mar, called among the
Babylonians Adad, Ramman (god of the air), Nabu, Sin, Allat, and Marduk
(god of Babylon). The inscriptions of Sam'al add to these Nusk and Be'el-
Kharran, one of whom is the Babylonian Nusku, the other a local Bel of the
Babylonian city of Kharran, whose cult was transplanted to the city of the
same name in Upper Mesopotamia.
Since very remote antiquity certain names of Babylonian divinities have
been fixed in Syrio-Phoenicia as names of places and persons : the city of
Nebo in Moab, the desert of Sin, and probably also Mount Sinai in Arabia
Petraea, the fortress of Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin ; Ana, a chief
of Esau, Anath, a judge of Israel, Hadad, the common name of a king of
Aram and a king of Idumsea. So many reminiscences of the superior rank
of the Babylonian religion clearly prove how the mind of the western Semites
was imbued and moulded into permanent form by their ancient masters in
the ages preceding the occupation of Syria by the Egyptians. Egypt did
almost nothing to modify the tendencies of the subject peoples ; she con-
tented herself with collecting the taxes, and gave nothing in exchange. We
must not then be surprised that, if we except the maritime coast, Egyp-
314 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
tian dominion left no trace on the civilisation of the interior of Syria. These
peoples, when they became independent, continued to cultivate the germs of
civilisation they had received in such abundance, but regarded them as their
own creations.
Passing to the nomads of northern Arabia we find ourselves before an
ethnographic unknown, the ancient tribes having disintegrated and new ones
formed, a transformation that was certainly repeated several times. There is
as yet no agreement on the question whether the tribes called in ancien.t
times Ishmaelites and Ceturians spoke Arabic or Aramaean. It is, however,
certain that fragments of southern tribes of true Arabian race moved to the
north at periods very difficult to determine. It is not very long since it was
affirmed that these unstable populations lacked every element of civilisation,
and it was even claimed that they were a pure example of unmixed Semitic
race, to which an instinctive monotheism was attributed.
These speculations have been dissipated by the testimony of the Assyrian
texts, which show that the Arabs possessed statues of their gods. These
proud children of the desert even signed their submission to the government
of Nineveh, in order to recover the statues which the Assyrians had taken
from them in the course of an expedition into the interior of Arabia. The
possession of statues implies the existence in the oases of fixed sanctuaries,
of religious rites, and of a traditional priesthood.
When we consider that the conquering nation of the Persians did not
arrive at the idea of anthropomorphic gods until the time of Artaxerxes II,
and then solely under the influence of the Babylonian cult, we cannot doubt
that the worship of statues by the nomadic Arabs in the seventh century
before our era was due to the same influence. The Ishmaelites were par-
ticularly devoted to Atar Celeste, that is, to the great goddess Ishtar, whose
cult spread from Babylon among all the Semites of Syria.
In the oasis of Teyma a stele has been found that fixes the revenues of a
priest, who had lately been installed, to provide for the expenses of the cult
of an adopted divinity, and this priest is dressed in the mode of the Baby-
lonian priesthood. Such a borrowing is all the more remarkable because the
garments of sacrificing priests had in antiquity a meaning intimately con-
nected with the religious mysteries. This fact supposes the presence of
Babylonian instructors at some previous epoch.
Hedjaz forms the first province, whose inhabitants belong to the Arabian
race, properly so called, whose idiom and whose writing are very different
from those of the Aramaean populations of the north. Some of these tribes
settled in the east of Syria, on the edge of the desert, especially in the oasis
of Safa, south of Damascus. We must wait until the numerous graffiti, dis-
covered in recent times, are published, before we can get an exact idea of the
theophorous names used among these tribes. The names Bel and Hadad
figure here, however ; but this may be a late borrowing from their Aramaean
neighbours. From northern Hedjaz we have a considerable number of
inscriptions and graffiti, copies of which are still to be regarded with caution,
and there, too, the names Bel, Hadad and compounds of the Babylonian
Nabu, are found in the list of names of the nomads.
More interesting is the ancient name of Mecca, Macoraba, which originally
designated the celebrated central sanctuary of the region. This name is
derived from the verb karaba, which in Babylonian means " worship, bless,
pray," an evident proof of an ancient borrowing from the idiom of the cune-
iform texts. We shall know some day what the inscriptions of middle and
southern Hedjaz contain in the way of theophorous names. These inscrip-
RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER COUNTRIES 315
tions certainly exist, and await a traveller courageous enough to save them
from total destruction at the stupid hands of the pilgrims. The famous
black stone of Kaaba seems to bear an inscription of which it would be well
to have a photograph.
We know still less what is reserved for us in the graffiti scattered in the
intermediate region between Hedjaz and Yemen ; the graphic chain cannot
have been interrupted in this latitude, which from great antiquity formed
the entrance to the highly civilised kingdom of Sheba, and which, owing to its
production of aromatic essences, had commercial relations with the peoples of
the Mediterranean.
Yemen was composed of four kingdoms, of which that of Sheba seems to
have been the most ancient and most powerful ; the other three are Catabania,
Hadramaut, Mahrah or Tafat. Of the latter we have no indigenous infor-
mation prior to Islamism, and there is reason to believe that it formed a vassal
state of Hadramaut. The latter is pre-eminently the spice-producing region,
and Catabania may be considered as an ancient colony of Hadramaut, which
was founded on the northern route for a commercial purpose, and later gained
its independence.
In its turn Catabania founded, again, on the northern route, another
colony, which, on gaining its freedom, called itself the Minyaean people,
after the principal city, Ma'in. The Minyaei left traces of their activity at
Egra on the frontier of Nabatia, and in central Egypt at Oxyrhyncus, where
they had a settlement at the time of the first Ptolemies ; but their presence
in Egypt in the Persian period is proved by a votive inscription, thanking
their gods for having saved their caravan from the danger by which it had
been threatened during the war between the Egyptians and the Medes, i.e.,
the Persians. From Egypt they sent their caravans to Gaza in Phtenicia and
into all Syria.
Prior to this the trade in incense and spices seems to have been in the
hands of the Sabseans. Solomon (about the year 1000 B.C.) sought to
make a treaty with this people, whose queen had made him an official visit
at Jerusalem. It is to be presumed that the Sabseans also sent caravans
directly to Nineveh and Babylon by way of the oases of Negran, Wady
Dawassir, and Gebel-Sammar. Owing to these almost uninterrupted visits,
the peoples of southern Arabia were in a position to learn and practise
customs and rites peculiar to the eastern Semites ; for example, the em-
ployment of aromatic fumigation as a means of purification after sexual
intercourse. The Sabsean pantheon contained El (the Assyrio-Babylonian
Ilu) under the guise of a divine personage, and not simply as an abstract
term for "god." The Babylonian Ishtar, daughter of Sin, is transformed
into a male divinity, Athtar, son of Sin. The manifold diversification of
the Babylonian goddess appears also in the Sabsoan Athtar ; the great
religious centres of Sheba each possess their own Athtar. Nabu, the Baby-
lonian god of writing and prophecy, was also worshipped by the Cataba-
nians under the somewhat disguised form of Anbai. From the point of
view of art, the technique of sculpture and decoration often recalls the
Babylonian style. Finally, we meet in the kingdom of Sheba the Assyrian
institution of the limmi, or annual archons, an institution that existed
also at Carthage, but nowhere else on the Asiatic continent, least of all in
;i monarchical state.
We know very little of the religion of the Agazi or Semites of Abys-
sinia ; a pre-Christian inscription asserts, however, that the cult of El and
of Astar (Astarte) flourished among them. Their pantheon included also
316 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
a god of war called Mahram, the equivalent of the Ninib or Adar of the
Semites of the north.
On the opposite side, at the extreme east of the Arabian peninsula, along
the Persian gulf, the most important agglomeration formed the kingdom of
Gerrha. The Gerrhaeans maintained commercial relations with both Egypt
and Chaldea. One of their cities bore the name of Bilbana, " Bil (Bel) has
built," a certain indication that it had adopted the cult of the most popular
Babylonian god. Facing this coast is the Bahrein group of islands, the
largest of which contains a number of tombs in which cuneiform inscriptions
in the Babylonian language have been found.
We have now made the round of the whole Semitic region, and every-
where we have been able to show striking Babylonian influences in spite of
the enormous distance in time and space that separates the converging rays
from their point of radiation. But before concluding, we must halt upon
a particular territory, a territory that forms but an imperceptible point in
this vast region, but which in spite of its material diminutiveness brought
forth a nation that was destined to assume the glorious role of being the
legitimate heir of the great Babylonian ancestor, and of directing the con-
science not only of the Semitic race, but of the most civilised portion of the
human race in general.
This nation, which chance seems to have thrown into the world without
defence, in the midst of hostile elements that were furious for its destruc-
tion, and whose name, Israel, exactly symbolises the unremitting struggle
against the terribly destructive powers that surround it, this nation, I say,
had the strength to transform the splendid polytheistic heritage that had
fallen to it from Babylon into a monotheistic theory of an astounding origi-
nality. The transformation of the antique legacy took place only after
centuries of struggle between the best part of the nation, the party of the
prophets, and the conservatism of the mass of the people, who were every-
where attached to the ancient traditions.
The writings of this monotheistic minority, which finally imposed itself
upon the entire nation, enable us to appreciate the importance of the ancient
elements, the dross of which was rejected in the refining process of the
prophets. Genesis has preserved two great and very characteristic Baby-
lonian epics, — the Creation, and the Deluge, — but how different in spirit,
in spite of the close similarity in outline and external form.
In the Babylonian cosmogony, chaos, incarnate in the female dragon
Tiamat, the primordial ocean, brings forth at the same time the gods and
the most horrible, malevolent monsters. Having learned that the gods wish
to build themselves a more commodious residence in her domain, she gathers
her forces, furiously attacks the clan of gods, and puts them to flight. They
unite again and choose as their champion Marduk, the son of Yan, who suc-
ceeds in vanquishing the terrible ancestress. Marduk cuts the body of
Tiamat into two pieces, and of them he constructs heaven and earth. Then
he proceeds to make the heavenly bodies, and arranges them in an immutable
order; he stocks the earth with plants and animals, and has man made by
the goddess Arura, who fashions him out of the dust of the earth.
This myth, splendid as an epic invention, is too rude to contain the
least philosophical principle. The Hebrew thinker, while retaining the gen-
eral outline, has eliminated the whole crowd of monstrous or ugly divinities
unworthy to receive the homage of the human race. The picture has lost
nothing in extent; but a single, all-powerful god first creates chaotic matter,
and then organises it, step by step, for the sole benefit of the human race.
RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER COUNTRIES 317
The cycle of the ten antediluvian patriarchs, which includes millions of
years, is reduced to sixteen hundred years, and thus brought within the
range of actual humanity. Finally, the deluge, in the primitive legend the
result of the mad arrogance of the god Bel, is justified by the extraordinary
corruption of the men of that epoch.
Like a true reformer the prophetic narrator has raised upon the Baby-
lonian basis a new system whose rational and moral side need not fear com-
parison with any other religious doctrine of humanity. Among the Greeks,
no religious or social reform could be developed and preserved that took
for a basis their castes of irresponsible gods. Egypt perished without
having attempted to rise from its coarse animal-worship. Babylonianism
alone, by its hymns and its epics, still lives to-day as an important factor
in universal religion, although under a form idealised by genius. Materi-
ally, Babylon is but a memory, but a delicate part of its atoms passed into
the vigorous constitution of its spiritual heir, the sacred book of Hebrew
monotheism, to become the common property of humanity.
MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OP THE SOURCES
OF MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY AND OF THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A
TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY
THE Babylonians and Assyrians were two very important peoples of re-
mote antiquity, inhabiting the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in
southwestern Asia. The Greeks regarded these peoples as constituting one
nation and called their country Mesopotamia, a name that could properly be
applied to only a part of their territory. The Babylonians and Assyrians,
themselves, on the other hand, regarded each other as alien peoples, though
both belonged to the same Semitic stock. The Babylonians were the more
ancient, and their territory lay to the south, where, many scholars believe,
they had been preceded by a people of a different race.
Though the seat of this early civilisation is geographically small in ex-
tent, yet the peoples who entered into it were by no means homogeneous,
nor was their history a continuous record of unbroken political succession.
On the contrary, at least two different races of people were involved, — a
Turanian stock in the early Babylonian history, a Semitic stock in all the later
periods, — and at least three successive kingdoms or empires, not to speak
of mere changes of dynasty. The earliest period known to us — that which
left records at Nippur and Shirpurla, in old Babylonia — had its seat in the
southern portion of the territory bordering on the sea ; thence, seemingly,
civilisation spread northward. Assyriologists are not fully agreed as to the
share which the non-Semitic race had in this early civilisation. It has even
been questioned whether these so-called Sumerians really existed at all.1
In any event the Semitic Babylonians acquired full control at a very early
period.
The Assyrian kingdom — which came to be a veritable world-empire —
had its seat at Calah and afterwards at Nineveh. It conquered and absorbed
the old Babylonian kingdom, and then reached out for domination to the east
and to the west, finally overrunning even Egypt.
The Bible accounts preserve records of some of its most famous kings,
including Sennacherib. The Greek legends are chiefly concerned with a
mythical Semiramis, the alleged founder of Nineveh, and with a seemingly
[l The theories of those who deny the existence of the Sumerians have been already given in
the Introductory Essay, pages 309-317, by Professor Halevy, the leader of the anti-Sumerian
school. The present trend of opinion is, however, largely toward the Sumerian theory.]
318
MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY IN OUTLINE 319
mythical Sardanapulus, who perished after an inglorious reign, in the destruc-
tion of Nineveh, which came about suddenly and dramatically in the year
606 B.C. — the Sardanapalus myth U'ing, however, based on an actuality.
After the destruction of Nineveh, Babylon, the capital of Babylonia,
resumed renewed importance as a world metropolis. Nebuchadrezzar, the
most famous king of this period, besieged Jerusalem and carried the Israelites
to his capital (the Babylonian capital). The classical accounts preserve
reminiscences of the magnificence of Babylon in this period. The course of
the New Babylonian empire, though brilliant, was brief, ending with the over-
throw of Babylon by the Persians under Cyrus in the year 588 B.C. Babylon
was not, like Nineveh, totally destroyed ; but it never regained autonomy or
anything approaching its former importance. It was one of the Persian
capitals for two centuries, until in 331 B.C., with the downfall of the Persian
empire, it passed into the hands of Alexander the Great, who, after his eastern
conquests, chose it as the capital of his newly acquired empire. But Alex-
ander died in his new capital almost immediately, and his death was the last
great world-historic event that occurred in Mesopotamia. In the course of
a few centuries thereafter, the whole region that for so many years had been
the very heart of the world's civilisation, became a barren wilderness, and
Babylon itself, like Nineveh before it, was reduced to a mere earth-covered
mound of ruins, the very location of which was practically forgotten.
Such a fate was tragic enough ; yet after all it seems less cruel than the
destiny of such nations as Egypt, and in later time, Greece, which live on
in senescence long after all vestige of their power has departed. And in any
event, Mesopotamia had had its full share of glory, for no other region of
the globe, within historic times, with the possible exception of Egypt alone,
has so long held rank as a centre of influence and civilisation. If the earlier
walls of the Temple of Bel (Baal) at Nippur really date from 6000 or 7000
years B.C. as the records seem to prove, there was a continuous, powerful
empire in Mesopotamia for at least five or six thousand years. The civilisa-
tions of Greece, of Rome, or of any modern state, seem mere mushroom
growths in comparison.
In studying the history of Egypt we have caught occasional glimpses of
this oldest Asiatic civilisation of Babylonia and Assyria, and it is almost
impossible to avoid drawing comparisons between these two countries, so
closely related are the two peoples in the minds of all students. It is true
that the ethnological types are quite different, and that the two peoples,
during the greater part of their existence, did not mingle much with one
another. Often they were at war, and it is traditional that for the most part
the Egyptians repelled rather than invited any advances from their Asiatic
neighbours. Nevertheless, their own interests dictated a commercial policy
that led first and last to an extensive intermingling between all the con-
temporary civilisations of western Asiatic antiquity, and there are abundant
evidences that the same influence extended also to the Nile Valley.
But even had this not been the case, — even had Egypt and Mesopotamia
been shut off absolutely one from the other, — it would still be impossible
for the modern student to disassociate the two, so many are the links of asso-
ciation between them. The fact that these two are the oldest civilisations
known to us, and the further fact that there has been a constant question in
the minds of investigators as to which one of these ancient peoples can claim
priority of development, form in themselves an indissoluble bond of union.
Vet in some respects the story of the Babylonians and Assyrians is unique ;
because this well-nigh greatest of civilisations was blotted out absolutely
320 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
almost before the oldest European civilisation was under way. Egypt, indeed,
declined in power at about the same period and permanently lost autonomy,
but its pyramids and temples and numberless antiquities remain as obvious
testimonials of its former greatness; whereas the monuments of Mesopo-
tamia— the ruins of such wonderful cities as Nippur, Babylon, and Nineveh
— were completely buried under the accumulating earth deposits of centuries,
and almost absolutely lost to view. For more than two thousand years the
names of these once famous cities were only reminiscences. No one knew
accurately even their site, and scarcely an antiquity of any description was
known to be preserved that evidenced the sometime greatness of the Meso-
potamian civilisation.
During this long period a few reminiscences preserved in the writings of
Berosus, Diodorus, Herodotus, and a few other classical writers, and in the
text of Hebrew writings, gave all the clews that were obtainable, and ap-
parently all that could ever be obtained regarding one of the most remarkable
peoples of antiquity.
We have said that the entire destruction of the Mesopotamian civilisation
gave it peculiar interest. It should not be forgotten, however, that at least
one other very important people of antiquity, namely the Hittites, met with
a like fate. Probably there were still others whose names even are unknown
to us. But the story of Mesopotamia stands quite by itself in the fact that
it has been very largely restored to us through the efforts of modern ex-
plorers. We have seen that the decipherment of the hieroglyphics led to a
much fuller understanding of Egyptian history than had previously been
possible ; yet, after all, these new revelations sufficed to fill in the outlines of
an old story, rather than to create an altogether new one. But in the case
of Babylonia and Assyria the modern investigators had virtually a blank
canvas upon which to work in reconstructing the history. The Bible
references and the classical myths gave but the most shadowy outlines. Yet
traditions are all powerful for the transmission of knowledge in a vague
form, and throughout all generations it had never been doubted that the
reminiscences of Mesopotamian greatness had a firm foundation in fact,
though few historians were visionary enough to dare hope that more tangible
evidence would ever be forthcoming, and not even the most enthusiastic
dreamer could have suspected that such records as the nineteenth century
has restored to us had been preserved.
Even now, looking back from the standpoint of accomplishment, it seems
almost incredible that the monuments of a great civilisation — treasures of
art, and voluminous literary records — should have been absolutely hidden
from human view for a minimum period of more than two thousand years,
and should then have been restored in almost their original condition.
Yet such is the fact regarding the antiquities of Mesopotamia.
OUR SOURCES FOR MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY
The reports that have come down to us from antiquity dealing with the
history of Babylonia and Assyria are relatively meagre in extent and decid-
edly untrustworthy from an historical standpoint. Without doubt numerous
classical writers dealt with the subject, but of such writings, only a few have
been preserved. So far as known, the principal native historian of the later
period of Babylonian history was Berosus. He was a Chaldean priest living
in the time of Alexander the Great, as his own writings testify. He had
THE ASSYRIAN GOD NABU
MESOPOTAMIAN HI8TOEY IN OUTLINE 321
access to the ancient documents of his country, and is believed to have made
excellent use of them. Unfortunately, only meagre remnants of his history
have come down to us, and these more or less distorted through the medium
of transcribers, the chief of these being Alexander Polyhistor and Eusebius.
Had we the entire work of Berosus, he would, perhaps, perform some such
function for Mesopotamia as Manetho performed for Egypt ; but as the case
stands, the remnants of Berosus serve to transmit certain interesting tradi-
tions, particularly with reference to Babylonian cosmogony, rather than to
preserve any considerable historical records.
The classical historian whose account of the Babylonians and Assyrians
has been most largely copied was Ctesias. This writer was a Greek who
served for seventeen years (415-398 B.C.) as court physician to the Persian
king Artaxerxes Mnemon, and who wrote a history of Persia alleged to be
based upon native documents. In this history Ctesias considered the con-
temporary civilisation, but he was interested rather in picturesque traditions
than in the sober historical narratives, and the records he preserved are
chiefly of a nature which the modern critical historian pronounces fabulous.
The original work of Ctesias has perished, but its character is fairly
established through the writings of other authors who used Ctesias as a
source. Foremost among the latter is Diodorus, whose account of the
Assyrians represents the ideas that were current throughout classical
times, and continued in vogue until the nineteenth century.
The most authentic classical accounts of the Babylonians are those given
by Herodotus and by Strabo, both of whom spoke as eye-witnesses. Unfor-
tunately, these writers did not have access to the native materials, and their
accounts, while throwing interesting sidelights upon the later civilisation,
do very little towards enlightening us as to the actual history of the greatest
of Asiatic peoples of antiquity.
A few other fragments have been preserved from the classical writings,
notably some bite from Abydenus, preserved through Eusebius. To these
must be added numerous references to the Babylonians and Assyrians
in the biblical writings. Taken altogether, however, these classical
and oriental traditions fail to give us more than the vaguest picture of
Mesopotamian history.
The real sources of that history are the original chronicles of the Baby-
lonians and Assyrians themselves, which were inscribed on stone slabs and
on tablets of clay. The clay tablets, after being inscribed, were dried,
forming almost imperishable bricks. Tens of thousands of these were pre-
served beneath the ruins of Mesopotamian cities, and were first brought to
light in the nineteenth century. Among these are several lists of kings, and
other chronological documents of a somewhat general character. One docu-
ment attempts the synchronism of Babylonian and Assyrian history. Then
there are numerous tablets and cylinders and wall inscriptions which record
the deeds of individual kings, including such famous monarchs as Sennache-
rib. Vast quantities of documents are doubtless still buried in Mesopotamia,
and a large proportion of the inscriptions that have been exhumed are still
undeciphered. But enough of these documents have been discovered and
read to restore the outline of Babylonian and Assyrian history as a whole ;
and for certain periods, including the time of greatest Assyrian power, very
full records are at hand. The result of these recent discoveries has been
the practical substitution of secure historical records for the old classical
and oriental traditions regarding the Babylonians and Assyrians.
The modern workers who have assisted in the restoration of Meso-
B.W. — VOL. i. T
322 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
potamian history through the recovery and decipherment of the monumental
inscriptions make up in the aggregate a large company. The chief explor-
ers of the earliest period were Botta and Layard. Then came Fresnel,
Thomas, and Oppert, followed by Rassam, George Smith, Ernest de Sarzec ;
the Germans, Koldewey and Moritz, and the Americans, Peters, Hilprecht,
and Haynes.
The work of interpreting the newly found Assyrian records began with
Sir Henry Rawlinson in England, Eberhard Schrader in Germany, and a small
company of other workers, about the middle of the nineteenth century.
The difficulties of deciphering records in an unknown language, and of an
extremely intricate character, at first seemed almost insuperable ; but with
the aid of the knowledge of Ancient Persian, already acquired earlier in the
century through the efforts of Grotefend and his followers, together with
the hints gained by comparison with the Hebrew language and other extant
Semitic tongues, a working knowledge of the Assyrian language was at last
attained. Since then the decipherment of the inscriptions has gone on
unceasingly, and a constantly growing band of workers has added to our
knowledge.
Most of the excavators and explorers have, very naturally, given us
personal accounts of their labours. Botta's labours, however, were chiefly
made public through the publications of Victor Place ; and in more recent
times, Heuzey has published the chief accounts of the excavations of
De Sarzec. Layard, on the other hand, the greatest of all Assyrian ex-
plorers, gave full accounts of his own discoveries, and interpreted the
monuments as well as described them. He restored to us a picture of Meso-
potamian civilisation somewhat as Wilkinson had done for Egypt. Of the
more recent workers who have written about Babylonia and Assyria the
most important are Meyer, Hommel, Winckler, Muerdter, and Delitzsch in
Germany ; Tiele in Holland ; Lenormant, Babelon, Menant and Halevy
in France ; Sayce in England, and Peters, Hilprecht, Harper and Rogers
in America.
Thanks to the records thus made available, the history of this most ancient
civilisation is no longer a mere hazy figment of tradition, but has become a
sharply outlined picture. We are able to trace, not indeed the origin of the
Mesopotamian civilisation — for the beginnings of national life evade us here
as elsewhere — but its very early development in the cities of old or southern
Babylonia. Antiquarian documents, aided by estimates as to the rate of
deposit of sediment at the mouth of the rivers, enable us to fix, at least
approximately, the dates for this early civilisation. These figures cannot
pretend to exact accuracy, but the Assyriologist assures us with some con-
fidence that they carry us back to a period something like six or seven
thousand years B.C. At this remote time the civilisation of southern
Babylonia was already established in its main features. The people of Ur,
Nippur, Shirpurla, and Babylon were able even then to build elaborate pal-
aces and temples, to carve interesting sculptures, to make ornaments of
glass, and to record their thought in words traced in the most complex
script. In a word, the main characteristics of Mesopotamian civilisation
were fully established several millenniums before the Christian era, and
abundant proofs of this fact have been preserved to us.
It must not be supposed, however, that the records exhumed from the
ruins of these ancient capitals have given us full information regarding the
entire stretch of this long material existence. The fact is quite otherwise.
Only comparatively short periods are covered fully by the historical records
MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY IN OUTLINE :;:>.!
in the wedge writing, and there are reaches of some thousands of years in
the aggregate, regarding which our knowledge is still most fragmentary.
Indeed, the history of the old Babylonian kingdom in its entirety is known
at present only in the most general way. But it seems almost miraculous
that we should know even the outlines of this ancient story.
THE ANCIENT KINGDOMS OF BABYLONIA
THE earliest known inhabitants of Babylonia were a people of whose
origin nothing is known except that they were not Semites. After a time
they are called sometimes Sumerians, sometimes Accadians. Sumer was the
southern portion of Babylonia, Accad the northern. The Accadian language
is now considered a dialect of the Sumerian, the older form.
Civilisation in the land goes back at least to 6000 B.C. Between 5000
and 4000 B.C. this people was invaded by a warlike Semitic race, the
Babylonians of history, who came, perhaps, from Arabia. What portion
of the aborigines the invaders did not expel or destroy they assimilated,
gradually assuming the older civilisation.
The chronology of the earlier period is largely speculative. Recent
chronology begins with the kingdom of Babylon about the time of Kham-
murabi. For the earlier kingdoms, we, for the most part, follow the dates
of Professor Rogers.
Without referring to the legendary history of Babylonia, related by Bero-
sus, which is mentioned elsewhere, our earliest knowledge of the land is of a
country of independent kingdoms, the cities with the temples forming their
centres. The ruler is often the patesi or high priest.
THE KINGDOM OF KENGI
B.C.
Before 4500 En-shag-kush-anna is king of Kengi, in southern Babylonia, but
whether he was Sumerian or Semite, we do not know. He is patesi
of Eu-lil, the later Bel. Of his kingdom, Shirpurla-Girsu (or Sun-
gir) is the capital and Nippur the religious centre. Later, Sungir is
called Sumer and gave its name to the whole of southern Babylonia.
The chief rival of Kengi is the Semitic kingdom of Kish in the
north, which En-shag-kush-anna defeated but only temporarily
checked. We know of no other king of Kengi.
Monuments. — Several vase inscriptions found at Nippur.
THE KINGDOM OF KISH
Recovers itself quickly after its reverse by En-shag-kush-anna.
A certain U-dug is patesi of Kish at the time of this revival.
B.C.
4400 Mesiilm, king of Kish, subjugates Shirpurla, at the time of Lugal-shug-
gur. This supremacy is maintained for a short period, until
4200 E-anna-tum, king of Shirpurla, shakes off the yoke. Kish is left
very feeble after this, but gradually recovers its power.
8850 Aiusharshid. the last great king of Kish before the conquest of Sargon I.
Monuments. — Many vase inscriptions.
324 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
THE KINGDOM OF GISHBAN
4400 Ush is patesi, contemporary of Mesilim of Kish. He wages war with
Shirpurla on the question of boundaries. Gishban is subjugated by
4200 E-anna-tum of Shirpurla. At the latter's death, Ur-lumma, patesi,
invades Shirpurla and probably suffers a slight defeat.
4120 Great defeat of Ur-lunima by Entemena of Shirpurla.
4000 Lugai-zaggisi, patesi, son of Ukush, leads a victorious army against the
south. The whole of Babylonia to the southern gulf is subjugated.
He becomes king of Erech and is styled "king of the whole world."
He revives the ancient cults of Lower Mesopotamia.
Monuments. — Vase inscriptions.
THE KINGDOM OF SHIRPURLA
Shirpurla, sometimes called Lagash — the modern Telloh — is
situated north of Mugheir on the east side of the Shatt-el-Khai.
The oldest king that we know is
4500 Urukagina. — A great warrior and administrator. He builds and
restores temples and also a canal for the capital Sungir (Girsu).
4400 One of his successors is En-ge-gal, and another, Lugal-shuggur, is
reduced by Mesilim of Kish to a patesi.
4300 In the enfeebled kingdom, dominated by the rulers of Kish, a new
family headed by Ur-Nina comes to the throne. He is famous as a
temple builder, but also begins to prepare his kingdom to throw off
the yoke of Kish. He calls himself king though his son is still patesi.
Monuments. — Vase inscriptions.
4250 Akurgai succeeds Ur-Nina. He is the father of E-anna-tum and En-
anna- turn I.
4200 E-anna-tum, the hero who delivers his country from the thraldom of
Kish, and resumes the royal title. After this he puts Gishban under
his yoke, and wages successful wars against Erech, Ur, Larsa, Az,
and Ukh. He builds a wall around one of the suburbs of Shirpurla,
digs canals for boundary lines, etc. Is a great and wise adminis-
trator as well as a mighty warrior.
Monuments. — The famous " Vulture Stele " now in the Louvre —
many inscriptions.
Eu-anna-tum I succeeds his brother E-anna-tum. An unsuccessful
invasion of Shirpurla by the patesi of Gishban.
4120 En-teme-na, son of En-anna-tum I, defeats and destroys army of the
patesi of Gishban.
Monuments. — The Cone of En-teme-na. The " silver vase " — an ex-
quisite piece of art placed on the altar of the god Nina at Singur.
4100 En-anna-tum II, the last patesi of the dynasty of Ur-Nina, since his son,
Lummadu, bears no title. Conquest of Shirpurla by Lugal-zaggisi
of Gishban.
4100-3800 There are patesis in Shirpurla, ruled over by Lugal-zaggisi and
his successors.
3800-3100 The darkest age of Babylonian history. Lugal-ushumgal was
patesi and vassal of Sargon I. In all probability the kings of Agade
ruled over Shirpurla until dispossessed by the second dynasty of Ur.
Of all the patesis, the vassal rulers, of this period Ur-Bau 3500 (?)
MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY IN OUTLINE 326
and Oudea 3300 (?) are the most prominent. Ur-Bau's rule seems
to have been peaceful ; Gudea is a warrior ; he wrests the territory
of Anshan from Elam. Builds the temple of Nina at Singur.
Monuments. — Many inscriptions.
The civilisation of Shirpurla was a high one, and it contained no Se-
mitic elements.
THE KINGDOM OF UR (THE BIBLICAL "UR OF THE
CHALDEES")
IOT DYNASTY
The first king of this dynasty appears after the conquest of Erech
by Lugal-zaggisi of Gishban. He would appear to have over-
thrown Lugal-zaggisi.
8900 Lugal-kigubni-dudu.
Lugal-kisali, his si ill.
Their rule includes Ur, Erech, and Nippur, and possibly they con-
quered Shirpurla. The fate of this dynasty with the names of its
other rulers is unknown, but it probably falls before the power of
Agade.
Monuments. — Inscriptions of the two above-mentioned kings.
THE KINGDOM OF GUTI AND LULUBI
There are inscriptions relating to two kings, Laalrab of Guti and
Anu-banini of Lulubi. They seem to have been contemporaneous
with Sargon I (3800 B.C.).
THE KINGDOM OF AGADE
3800 The earliest known dynasty is Semitic, and the first ruler is Sargon I
(Bhargani-shar-all), son of Itti-Bel. By conquest he founds an
empire from Elam to the Mediterranean, and from the extreme
south of Babylonia to Apirak and Guti.
Monuments. — Engraved seals of wonderful execution, inscriptions, and
contract tablets.
3750 Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, succeeds him. First to assume title " King
of the Four Quarters of the World" — a great conqueror and
builder. Campaigns against Apirak and Magan (Arabia).
Builds temples at Nippur and Agade. Temple E-barra of Shamash
at Sippar. This temple is the one in which Nabonidus found the
" tablet with the writing of the name of Naram-Sin," by which we
are able to fix the date of his reign.
Under Sargon I and Naram-Sin there is a high state of organisation
and civilisation in the kingdom. There were judges, musicians,
physicians, good roads, etc. Thureau-Dangin says : " The epoch of
Sargon and Naram-Sin certainly marks a culminating point in the
history of the old Orient."
Monuments. — Inscriptions.
326 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
3700 Bingani-shar-alt, son of Naram-Sin.
Further history of the kingdom of Agade is still unknown. Appar-
ently the later kings gradually lose their power before that of the
second dynasty of Ur.
The first period of Babylonian history is now closed. The Semites
are in full possession of the land. We have the main seat of power
at Agade with the rulers of Shirpurla reduced to patesis.
THE SECOND DYNASTY OF UR
These kings add the title " King of Sumer and Accad " to that of
Ur, combining the hostile elements of the North and South under
one rule ; " restoring," says Radau, " in old Babylonia the peace
which had been disturbed for many centuries, even from the time of
the original Semitic invasion."
3200 Ur-gur holds sway over both Semites and Sumerians (Agade and
Shirpurla). His capital is at Ur. Famous as a temple builder.
Builds temple Teimila to Nannar (moon god) at Ur, temple E-anna
to Ishtar at Erech, temple E-barra to Shamash at Larsa.
Monuments. — Pyramidal tower at Nippur. Inscriptions.
3150 Dun-gi I succeeds. Continues his father's work.
Builds temples of Nin-mar, Nina, Ningirsu, Dam-gal-nunna, and Ea,
in Sungir, Nippur, and Kutha.
These two were ancestors of a long line of kings, concerning whom
history is still silent. Apparently ground in southern Babylonia
was soon lost, for we find
THE KINGDOM OF ERECH
3100-3000 Two kings of pure Semitic names are known at this period.
Singashid, probably the founder of the dynasty, and Bin-gamil. The
probable history of this kingdom is that of a strong Semitic colony
in southern Babylonia making itself independent and establishing a
king and capital at Erech. With Sin-gamil, the thread of its his-
tory is lost.
Monuments — Inscriptions relating to building of palace, temples, and
restoration of temples at Erech.
THE KINGDOM OF ISIN
A Semitic kingdom, similar to that of Erech, is established at Isin
in the north. These kings extend their power to Nippur, Ur,
Eridu, and finally to Erech, extinguishing the dynasty ruling there.
The kings add " king of Sumer and Accad " to that of Isin, show-
ing also that the second dynasty of Ur has ceased to exist.
3000 Libit-Ishtar.
Monuments and cylinder inscriptions.
Other kings are, Ishbigarra, Bur-Sin I, Ur-Ninib, Idin-Dagan.
2850 Ishme Dagan, the last to bear the title of Sumer and Accad. His son
En-anna-tum is a vassal of the third dynasty of Ur.
Monuments. — Tablet inscriptions.
MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 327
THE THIRD DYNASTY OF UR
The early kings call themselves simply Kings of Ur.
2800 Gungunu puts an end to the dynasty of Isin.
He is succeeded by Ur-gur n and Dungi n, order uncertain.
They build many temples, and Ur-gur II fortifies the wall of his
capital, hence he must have been harassed by enemies. We have
records that the patesis of Shirpurla still existed at this time.
Monuments. — Votive and seal inscriptions.
2700 Dungi in. — The kings from now on add " King of the Four Quarters
of the World " to their title, and for this reason some scholars reckon
this king as the first of a fourth dynasty. He is followed by Bur-
Sin n, Gamii-Sin. and ine-Siu ; the latter ruling about 2580. We
have no knowledge of other kings, but about
2450-2400 the " Kingship of the Four Quarters of the World " is over-
thrown in the north by the 1st Dynasty of Babylon and in the
south by Nur-Adad of Larsa.
Monuments. — Building records and contract tablets.
THE KINGDOM OF LARSA
2400 Successful rebellion of southern Babylonia against the kings of Ur.
The kingdom of Larsa founded by Nur-Adad.
2370 Bin-iddln succeeds his father and extends his kingdom over Sumer and
Accad.
2350 Kudur-nankhundi. king of Elam, inviul.'s southern Babylonia. Under
Kudur-nankhundi's successor, Kudur-lagamar (Kndur-dugmal, prob-
2340 ably the Hebrew Chedorlaomer) the Elamites establish a kingdom in
Larsa with Rim-Sin (Erl-aku) at its head. He adopts Sin-iddin's
2312 titles. The latter appeals to Khammurabi, king of Babylon, who
overpowers Rim-Sin.
THE KINGDOM OF BABYLON
I»T DYNASTY, 2460-2160 B.C.
In the days of Sumer and Accad there is no mention of Babylon,
which must, however, have developed into some importance during
the supremacy of Isin (3000-2850). Dates are now more reliable.
2450 Bumu-abi overthrows the Ur Dynasty in Babylon, but the rebellion
does not extend beyond that city.
2440 Sumu-la-liu. — He builds six strong fortresses in Babylon.
2405 Zabu. — He builds temple E-dubar in Sippar. The country is evi-
dently in revolution, for mention is made of a pretender, Immeru.
2290 Apil-Sln.
2370 Sin-muballit.
Only monuments of these reigns, contract tablets.
2342 Khammurabi. — Probably the Amraphel of the Bible, a contemporary
of Abraham. The maker of a united Babylon, for in
2312 called upon by Sin-iddin, he expels Rim-Sin and the Elamites from
Larsa, and adding southern Babylonia to his dominions, resumes the
328 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
titles of the kings of Ur, Isin, and Larsa. He begins to develop
his new kingdom, digging canals for water supply. Builds a great
storehouse for wheat in Babylonia. Enlarges temples of E-zida and
E-sagila in Borsippa.
Monuments. — Letters and inscriptions.
2287—2150 The remaining kings of the dynasty lived in complete peace.
The few remains of their age witness a high civilisation and great
prosperity.
Monuments. — Contract tablets.
IlND DYNASTY, 2150-1783 B.C.
2150-1783 Called the dynasty of Uru-Azag (probably referring to a district
of the city of Babylon). Eleven kings of Sumerian origin reign for
368 years. There is but little known of them.
No monuments of this dynasty.
IIlBD DYNASTY, 1783-1207 B.C.
1783 The Kossseans or Kassites (Kasshu) from the mountains of Elam
establish a dynasty with Gandish or Gaddash the first king. They
had entered the country as roving bands, had overrun it, and finally
attained the power. Culture and civilisation are assimilated by
the new-comers.
1700 Agum-kakrime, the first king of the dynasty of whom we have any
details. His kingdom is greater than that of Khammurabi. The
land of Padan is subject to him. Some statues of gods that had
been previously carried away are restored to Babylon.
1450 Karaindash. — In this reign we have the first evidence of intercourse
between the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia — a treaty with
Asshur-bel-nish-eshu, king of Assyria, concerning boundary line.
Builds a temple to Nana, goddess of E-Anna.
1430 Kadashman-Bel. — He corresponds with Amenhotep III, of Egypt.
Monuments. — Letters found at Tel-el- Amarna.
1420 Bumaburiash I. — Contemporary with Puzur-Asshur of Assyria, with
whom he seems to have had difficulties regarding questions of
boundary. Builds a temple to the Sun-god at Larsa.
1410 Kurigaizu I. — The city of Dur-Kurigalzu is named after him. He
probably rebuilds it.
Monuments. — Correspondence with Pharaoh of Egypt. (Tel-el-
Amarna.)
1400 Bumaburiash II. — His successor. Long and prosperous reign.
Monuments. — Correspondence with Amenhotep IV, of Egypt. (Tel-
el-Amarna.)
1370 Kharakhardash, marries a daughter of Asshur-uballit, king of Assyria.
His son, Kadashman-Kharbe I, conducts a campaign against the
Sutu, whom he conquers, and among whom he settles some of his
subjects.
1360 Rebellion of the Kassites, who, jealous of the growing Assyrian
influence, kill the king and place on the throne Nazibugash, who
is defeated and killed by Asshur-uballit, the king of Assyria.
1350 Kurigaizu II. — Placed on the throne by the Assyrian king, invades
Elam, and conquers the city of Susa (or Shushan). Battle with
Bel-nirari, king of Assyria, with doubtful result.
MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY IN OUTLINE :;L".»
1340-1286 Continuous struggle between Babylonia and Assyria under
the following kings: Nazi - Maruttash (1340), Kadashman - Turgu,
Kadashman-Buriash (1330), Kudur-Bel (1304-1299), BhaBaraktl-
Buriaah (1298-1286).
1285-1270 The king of Assyria, Tukulti-Ninib I, invades Babylon, enters
the town, removes the treasures of the temple, and carries away the
god Marduk to Assyria. This invasion took place probably under
the reign of Bibeiashu, whose successors, Bel-shum-iddln, Kadash-
man-Kharbe II (1277-1275), and Adad-shum-lddln (1274-1269), were
very likely only vassals of Tukulti-Ninib, who was the real king of
Babylon for seven years.
1270 The Babylonians rise in revolt, drive the Assyrians from Babylon, and
1269 make Adad-shum-usur king, under whom the power of Babylon begins
to revive. Assyria attacked, the king, Bel-kudur-usur, slain, and a
portion of Assyrian territory annexed.
1238-1224 Meii-Shipak — Successful against the Assyrian king, Ninib-apal-
1223-1211 esharra, so that under Marduk-apal-lddin, the Babylonian
dominion extends over nearly the whole of the valley.
1210 Under the last two kings of this dynasty, Zamamu-ahum-iddin and
1209 Bei-siuiin-iddin, Babylonia threatened by the Assyrian Asshur-dan.
1207 End of the dynasty as result of a Semitic revolution.
IViH DYNASTY, 1207-1076 B.C.
The origin of this (Isin) dynasty still doubtful. There are
eleven kings, of whom four or five are unknown to us.
1135 Nebuchadrezzar I, sixth king, exhibits the old-time spirit. Invades
Assyria, but is repulsed. Is successful in campaigns against the
people of Elam and Lulubi, even penetrates into Syria.
Monuments. — Monolithic inscription concerning grant of land to Ritti
Marduk of Bit-Karziyabku.
1110 In the reign of Marduk-nadln-akhe, Tiglathpileser I of Assyria invades
Babylon and takes the capital.
1083 At death of Marduk-shapik-zer-matl, a usurper, Adad-apal-iddin takes
the throne.
1078 End of dynasty with death of Nabu-shum.
VTH, VlTH, VIlTH, VHlTH DYNASTIES, 1076-728 B.O.
A series of short-lived dynasties all struggling with the rising
power of Assyria.
1075 Dynasty of Sea Lands, at the estuaries of the Tigris and the Euphrates
upon the Persian Gulf, which later exercises great influence upon
the history of Babylonia. This dynasty numbers only three kings,
who reign together twenty-one years five months, or, according to
the Babylonian chronicle, twenty-three years; viz. Sibar-Bhlpak,
slain and buried in palace of Sargon. In his reign the Elamites
pillage Sippar and do much damage ; Ea-mukln-zer, of whom nothing
is known, and Kas»hu-nadin-akhe. These kings engaged on rebuild-
ing the temple of the Sun at Sippar.
1053-1033 The dynasty of Sea Lands in Babylonia followed by the dynasty
of Bit-Bazi, numbering also only three kings: Eulbar-shakin-
shum. Ninib-kudur-naor, and Silauim-shukamuna. followed by a
dynasty of Elam with only one king, whose name is unknown.
330 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
1027 The Vlllth Dynasty. Babylonian stock having exhausted its vigour,
now intermixed with Kassite and other foreign blood.
747 Nabu-nasir (Nabonassar) of the Vlllth Dynasty comes to the throne.
A time of literary activity.
732 Nabu-nadiiizer, his successor, slain by Nabu-shum-ukin.
731 Ukinzer replaces Nabu-shum-ukin. Tiglathpileser III invades Baby-
lon and determines to end the rule of native princes in the land.
728 Tiglathpileser, king of Babylon. End of the Old Babylonian Empire.
THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
FIRST PERIOD, 1830-1120 B.C.
ASSYRIA was colonised from Babylonia. The date is uncertain,
but Nineveh was in existence in 3000 B.C. The early rulers appear
to have been subject priest-princes of the kings of Babylonia.
1830-1810 The first known rulers (Ishakke) are Ishme-Dagan and his son,
Shamshi-Adad I, who builds a great temple in the city of Asshur,
dedicated to the gods Anu and Adad.
1800-1700 Little known of their successors Igur-kapkapu, Shamshi-Adad II,
while the dates of Khallu and Irishum are unknown.
Monuments. — A few inscriptions.
1700 Bei-Kapkapu. — The first to take the title of king, and therefore con-
sidered the real founder of the monarchy, probably the Bel-bani, of
whom Esarhaddon claimed to be a direct descendant.
1700-1450 A dark age of Assyrian history. We know nothing of it, except
that after the battle of Megiddo (ca. 1525) the ruler of Assyria sends
presents to Tehutimes III.
1450 Assyria is now recognised by Babylonia as an independent kingdom.
Its ruler, Asshur-bel-nish-eshu, makes a treaty with Karaindash, king
of Kardunyash (Babylonia) concerning boundaries.
1420 Puzur-Asshur, treats with the Babylonians concerning the boundary.
1400 Asshur-nadin-akhe n, his successor, contemporary of Amenhotep IV,
king of Egypt. Builds or restores a palace in Asshur.
Monuments. — Friendly correspondence with Amenhotep IV in the
Tel-el- Amarna letters.
1370 Succeeded by AsBhur-uballit, whose daughter, Muballitat Sheru'a, is
married to Karakhardash, king of Babylon. The murder of his
son, Kadashman-Kharbe I, brought about Assyrian intervention,
and a grandson of Asshur-uballit, Kurigalzu, is placed on the throne.
Babylonia now partially subject to Assyria. Campaigns of Asshur-
uballit against the Shubari.
1360. His son Bel-nirari said to have conquered the inhabitants of the neigh-
bouring Elamite foothills. These Assyrian conquests lead to a con-
flict between Kurigalzu II and Bel-nirari, in which the latter is
victorious. A rearrangement of the boundary lines between the
two countries is the result.
1350 His son, Pudu-ilu, a great warrior, considerably extends his kingdom.
Monuments. — A few brief inscriptions.
1345 His son and successor, Adad-nirari I, continues conquests in neighbour-
ing territory. Rebuilds captured cities. Struggle with Babylonian
king. He adds considerably to strength of kingdom.
MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 331
Monuments. — A bronze sword, on which he calls himself king of
Kishshati ; an inscription, the oldest yet found with an eponym date.
1330 His son, Shaimaneier I, establishes colonies between the Euphrates
and Tigris as a bulwark against the nomadic populations of the
farther north. Subjects the Musri in northern Syria. Assyrians
cross the Euphrates for the first time. The rapidly growing king-
dom firmly established as far as the Balikh and perhaps the Euphrates.
New capital built at Calah.
Monuments. — Two broken tablets.
1290 Under his son and successor, Tukulti-Ninib I, there is renewed trouble
between Assyria and Babylonia. Invasion of Babylonia ; capital
taken. Conquered city governed from Calah, Assyrian officers sta-
tioned both in the north and south of the country. Tukulti-Ninib
adopts the title of " King of Sumer and Accad " in addition to his
former titles, "King of Kishshati" and "King of Asshur." This
rule over Babylonia maintained for seven years only. The king is
killed in civil war. The most brilliant reign in Assyrian history up
to this time. The steady and rapid progress of the Assyrians now
checked.
1280 Rapid decline of Assyrian power under Auhurnazirpal I, Tukulti-
Ninib's son. An attack of Babylonia is repulsed with difficulty.
1250 Under his successors, Asshur-narara and Nabu-daian, the Assyrian
power continues to wane, while the Babylonian increases.
1240-1235 Under Bel-kudur-uaur and Ninib-apal-eaharra Assyria is invaded
by the Babylonians under Meli-shipak and Marduk-apal-iddin. All
the southern and part of the northern and western conquered
territory lost.
1210 Under Aiahur-dan I rehabilitation of Assyrian power. He crosses the
Lower Zab, invades Babylonian territory, and restores a small section
of it to Assyria.
1150 Further Assyrian gains under Mutakkil-Nuaku and Asshur-riah-ishi, who
1140 restores temple of Ishtar at Calah.
SECOND PERIOD, 1120-885 B.C.
1120 Tlglathpileser I (Tukultt-apal-esbarra, my help is the god Ninib). — He
builds up anew the Assyrian Empire, and thus records his work of
conquest : " In all forty-two countries and their kings from the
Lower Zab (and) the border of the distant mountains to beyond
the Euphrates to the land of the Hittites and the Upper Sea of the
Setting Sun, from the beginning of my sovereignty until my fifth
year my hand has conquered." His great success in war equalled
by a marvellous story of peaceful achievements. The capital of
Assyria brought back from Calah to Asshur ; the temples of Ishtar,
Adad, and Bel rebuilt, palaces restored and rebuilt.
Monuments. — The eight-sided prism found at Calah: several frag-
mentary annals of the early years of his reign.
1090 Under his successors, Aaahnr-bel-kala and Shamshl-Adad in. both sons
of Tiglathpileser, further peaceful development, with gradually a
falling off in the power and dignity of the kingdom. The former
king maintains terms of peace with the king of Babylonia, Marduk-
shapik-zer-mati, who thereby seems to be considered an independent
332 THE HISTORY OP MESOPOTAMIA
monarch. As to Shamshi-Adad I, he is known to us only as the
rebuilder of the temple of Ishtar in Nineveh.
1050-950 A dark age. The fortunes of Assyria are at low ebb. In this
period reigned Asshurnazirpal II, Erba-Adad, Asshur-nadin-akhe, and
Asshur-erbi. The last loses territory to the Aramteans, but he seems
to have invaded Phrenicia.
950 Tiglathpileser II, who calls himself "King of Kishshati and King of
Asshur."
930 Asshur-dan II, his SOD.
911 Adad-nirari n. — Revival of struggle with Babylonia. Defeats Sha-
mash-mudammik of Babylon in battle of Mount Yalman, also his
successor Nabu-shum-ishkun. Assyrian cities given to Babylonia.
Treaty of peace between the two nations.
890 Tukulti-Ninib II. — The period of weakness is passing. Babylon
ceases to be troublesome, and the Assyrians begin to seek tribute in
the north and west. The king ravages Armenia and the land of
Kummukh.
THIRD PERIOD, 885-722 B.C.
885 Asshurnazirpal in, begins campaigns of conquest at once. In ten
years all of Tiglathpileser I's empire in the north, east, and west,
conquered or intimidated into subjection with atrocious cruelties
and barbarous devastations, is under heavy tribute.
876 A great invasion of the west. At his approach all the cities from
Carchemish to Tyre hasten to send presents and arrange for tribute.
The campaign ends in the gathering of timber for the temple of
Ishtar at Nineveh.
867 A short and bloody campaign against Kummukh, Qurkhi and the
country around Mount Masius. Asshurnazirpal rebuilds Calah, and
constructs a canal to supply the city with water from the Lower Zab.
Monuments. — The royal palace unearthed at Nimrud ; monolith con-
taining accounts of his reign discovered by Layard at Nimrud;
several lesser inscriptions.
860 Shaimaneser n, his son, continues his father's conquests with similar
cruelty. Campaign against Nairi and first of many campaigns in
the north and east lasting until 830 with no real success.
857 The Aramaeans of Bit-Adini in the Mesopotamian valley finally con-
quered and their land placed under Assyrian government.
854 Shaimaneser proceeds successfully against a coalition of North Syrian
princes, Israel and Phrenicia. Battle of Qarqar. Yearly tribute
imposed on states of northern Syria.
852 Marduk-nadin-shun of Babylon calls Shaimaneser to help him against
his rebellious brother Marduk-bel-usati. Shaimaneser attacks and
vanquishes the rebels and Marduk-nadin-shum rules under an
Assyrian protectorate. The king of Assyria is once more the real
ruler of Babylon.
849-834 Campaigns against the west. The results are not definite, and
little is done except to pave the way for the future. Attack upon
Ben-Hadad II of Damascus and his allies. Jehu sends aid against
Damascus and the Assyrians get their first hold upon Israel.
827 Rebellion of Shalmaneser's son Asshur-danin-apli which splits the
kingdom into two discordant parts.
MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 333
825 Death of Shalmaueser.
Monument*. — The black basalt obelisk containing story of his wars ;
monolith with portrait in bas-relief ; gate inscriptions from Halauat.
823 Shamihi-Adad IV, after two years of civil war with his brother, is
acknowledged legitimate king.
822-814 Campaigns in north, east, and west to receive allegiance.
813 Invasion of Chaldea.
812 Invasion of Babylon where Marduk-balatsu-iqbi refuses to pay tribute
— a decisive victory.
Monuments. — Inscriptions.
811 Adad-nirarl ni succeeds his father — a ruler who increases Assyrian
prestige immensely. Successful campaigns in the west. Eight
brilliant campaigns against the Medes.
796-795 Babylon invaded — now practically an Assyrian province. The
king tries to efface all national differences. Temples built in
Assyria similar to those of Babylon, and Babylonian forms in-
troduced into the ritual.
Monuments. — A statue of Nabu from the temple of Calah; inscriptions.
782 Shaimaneser in, a period of decline sets in. Of his ten campaigns, six
are against the growing power of Urartu, which is trying to wrest
the land of Nairi from the Assyrians.
772 Asshur-dan m. — The decay continues. Campaigns against Damascus,
and Khatarikka in Syria. Two invasions of Babylon (771—767).
763—758 A series of rebellions in various parts of the kingdom.
754 Asshur-niran ii. — A reign of decadence. Campaigns against Arpad
and Nairi, but no attempt to collect tribute.
746 Rebellion in Calah. Asshur-nirari disappears and with him the royal
family that has ruled Assyria for centuries.
FOURTH PERIOD, 745-606 B.C.
745 Pulu. — A man of obscure origin obtains the throne, probably as the
outcome of the Calah rebellion. He takes the name of Tigiath-
piieser (m), and begins at once the formation of a great world-
empire and proceeds first against Babylonia. Reconquers the
country as far south as Nippur and reorganises the government.
Makes a fixed policy of planting colonies and transporting captives.
He next subdues the troublesome land east of Assyria, and sends
his general, Asshur-danin-ani, into Media. Second expedition into
Media (787), but withal the country remains practically inde-
pendent. He takes up a difficult problem in the north where
Argistis of Urartu had regained much territory, and his successor,
Sarduris II, has formed an alliance with many northern princes.
The armies of Sarduris and Tiglathpileser meet and the former is
forced to retire.
742 Tiglathpileser, free from Sarduris, attacks Arpad, which falls, 740.
Many neighbouring states send presents. The king of Unqi resists,
but is soon taken and his country annexed to Assyria.
739 Part of Nairi taken. Tiglathpileser sets out to break the coalition of
Syrian princes against him, aiming at Uzziah of Judah, the ring-
leader. Menahem of Israel weakens and pays the Assyrian heavy
tribute, whereupon he abandons attacks on Judah, but subdues, and
returns home with tribute from, all the other members of the league.
334 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
735 Campaign against Urartu — does not conquer but breaks the spirit of
the country.
734-732 Campaigns in Syria. Damascus taken. Ahaz of Judah gives
homage. Other lands incorporated with Assyria. Gaza captured.
731-729 He invades Babylonia to settle the internal strife raging there.
Determines to do away with native princes. Ukinzer deposed.
Merodach-baladan of Bit-Yakin gives homage.
728 Proclaimed legitimate king of Babylon.
Monuments. — The annals badly defaced by Esarhaddon ; the slabs of
Nimrud ; inscription on clay tablets.
726 Shalmaneser IV succeeds.
725 Hoshea of Israel in alliance with Shabak of Egypt refuses tribute.
Shalmaneser lays siege to Samaria.
THE SARGONIDES, 722-606 B.C.
722 Sargon n — a usurper succeeds. Samaria falls in this year. The
inhabitants are removed to the Median mountains and replaced by
colonists from Kutha.
721 Merodach-baladan rebels and is proclaimed king of Babylon. Sargon
proceeds unsuccessfully against him. Rebellion in Hamath, joined
by Gaza and Samaria.
720 The confederation defeated at Raphia.
720-710 Continuous campaigns. Successful attack on Urartu. Coalition
in the north broken up.
717 Assyrian governors installed throughout the country. The career of
Carchernish ended.
710 Merodach-baladan defeated. Sargon adopts title " Shakkanak," Gov-
ernor, of Babylon.
707 The great palace in his city of Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad) is finished.
The walls are covered with magnificent inscriptions. He enters it
the next year.
Monuments. — The palace of Dur-Sharrukin with inscriptions — other
inscriptions.
705 Sennacherib (Sin-akhe-erba) succeeds his father.
702 Visits rebellious Babylonia and makes Bel ibni king.
701 Coalition against Sennacherib of Syrian princes and Tirhaqa of Egypt.
The Assyrian attacks Phosnician cities and most of Syria submits.
Battle of Altaku. Sennacherib's army ravaged by pestilence, and he
returns to Nineveh which he has made his capital.
700 Bel-ibni becomes hostile to Assyria through force of public opinion.
Merodach-baladan and Marduk-ushezib of Chaldea join him. Sen-
nacherib defeats them and .has his own son Asshur-nadin-shum pro-
claimed king of Babylon.
694 Campaigns against the Chaldeans settled in Elam. Asshur-nadin-
shum captured by the Elamites and Nergal-ushezib crowned.
692 Mushezib-Marduk made king of Babylon. With the Elamites, the
Babylonians oppose Sennacherib at Khalule (691) and are utterly
defeated.
689 Destruction of Babylon by Sennacherib.
688-682 Sennacherib absent in Arabia.
681 Murder of Sennacherib by his sons Nergal-shar-eser and Adarmalik.
MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY IN OUTLINE 336
681 Esarhaddon ( Asshur-akhe-iddiu ) succeeds his father.
681-672 Nine campaigns to repress rebellions in different parts of the
empire.
672 Destruction of Sidon. City of Kar-Asshur-akhe-iddin built on the
same spot.
670 Esarhaddon appears in Egypt to punish Tirhaqa. Memphis taken.
The whole country surrenders to Esarhaddon who reorganises the
government.
668 Esarhaddon abdicates. He appoints his sou Shamash-shum-ukin vice-
roy of Babylonia, and another son, Asshurbanapal, receives the throne
of Assyria.
Monuments. — The " Black Stone," the stele of Zenjirli ; other inscrip-
tions.
668 As«huibanapal begins his reign.
667 Sends an army to Egypt which defeats Tirhaqa who has retaken Mem-
phis. Conspiracy of Egyptian princes to restore Tirhaqa. They
are taken and punished. Exacts tribute from King Baal of Tyre,
and other princes.
655 Psamthek I of Egypt throws off the Assyrian yoke.
Campaign against Khun.
War with Shamash-shum-ukin, who plots against Assyria, and severe
punishment of Babylonia. Cruel onslaught on Elam for assistance
to Shamash-shum-ukin and his allies. The same fate is meted out
to the Arabians.
Asshurbanapal is famous as a builder. Temple of E-kur-gal-kurra in
Nineveh adorned. Rebuilding of E-sagila in Babylon completed.
E-zida in Borsippa is embellished. The palace of Nineveh recon-
structed and a great library built and equipped. Vast building
operations in Babylonia and Arbela. His reign is one of great glory
in works of peace, but Egypt has been lost, and many foreign prov-
inces are on the verge of regaining their liberty.
Monuments. — Many records from the library of Nineveh.
626-609 Asshurbanapal succeeded by Awhur-etil-ill-ukinni, Sin-shum-iuhir,
and sin-shar-ishkum ( Saracus ), of whom we have I nit little knowledge.
625 First appearance of the Scythian tribes in Assyria. They invade the
land and burn Calah.
609 Sin-shar-ishkum attacks Babylonia, of which Nabopolassar is now king.
The latter allies himself with the Scythian tribe of the Manda, which
606 attacks Nineveh. Sin-shar-ishkum sets fire to palace and perishes
in the flames.
Nineveh taken and destroyed, as well as Dur-Sharrukin and Asshur.
The Manda secure the old land of Assyria, together with the northern
provinces as far as the river Halys. The Babylonians take the
southern and the Syrio-Phcenician possessions. End of the Auyrlan
Empire.
THE NEW EMPIRE OF BABYLON
606-538 B.C.
Nabopoiaasar ( Nabu-apai-u»ur), an Assyrian governor of Babylonia
about 625, finally becomes king, and a powerful rival of Assyria.
After the destruction of Nineveh he receives his share of the old
336 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
empire, and continues his reign in peace. Neku II of Egypt marches
upon Babylonia. Country developed by canals and great buildings.
Temple of Belit at Sippar rebuilt.
604-562 Nebuchadrezzar (Nabu-kudur-usur). Before he becomes king, he
has defeated Neku at Carchemish (605). Campaign against Judah.
Jerusalem twice besieged in 597, when Jehoiachin had to surrender,
in whose place Mattaniah, a son of Josiah, was made king under the
name of Zedekiah ; and again in 586 when the city is taken, plun-
dered, and destroyed. Population deported and Gedaliah placed as
governor.
585-573 Investment of Tyre for thirteen years. Finally taken in 573 and
King Ithobaal II deposed.
567 Invasion of Egypt in the reign of Aahmes II ; heavy booty secured,
but no lasting results. Splendid works of peace shown in numerous
inscriptions. Extensive building operations. The walls of Baby-
lon rebuilt and rendered impregnable. Canals repaired and temples
reconstructed. Temples of Borsippa repaired and the walls recon-
structed, also at Sippar, Larsa, Ur, Dilbat, Baz, and Erech.
Monuments. — Many inscriptions.
562 Amil-Marduk (the biblical Evil-merodaoh). No inscriptions found.
Assassinated by
560 Nergai-shar-usur ( NerigHssor ) . — Under him Babylon adorned and en-
larged. The temple E-sagila beautified. Canal system regulated.
Succeeded by
556 Labashi-Marduk, who was killed after a reign of only nine months, and
succeeded by
555 Nabu-Na'id (Nabonidus), a usurper. Chiefly engaged in building and
restoring temples. The temple E-ulbar restored and temples at
Sippar and Kharran in Babylonia rebuilt.
539 Babylonia invaded by Cyrus of Elam and Persia.
538 Sippar taken. Babylon surrenders. Triumphal entrance of Cyrus
into the city. Babylonia a Persian province.
CHAPTER I. LAND AND PEOPLE
Cities have been, and vanished ; fanes have sunk,
Heaped into shapeless ruin ; sands o'erspread
Fields that were Edens ; millions too have shrunk
To a few starving hundreds, or have fled
From off the page of being. Now the dead
Are the sole habitants of Babylon ;
Kings, at whose bidding nations toiled and bled,
Heroes, who many a field of carnage won,
Their names — their boasted names to utter death are done.
— JAMES GATES I'EKCIVAL.
IT should be explained here at the very beginning that in speaking of the
Mesopotamian civilisation as a unit, we are adopting for the sake of conven-
ience a form of expression that is not historically accurate. Even the word
" Mesopotamia " cannot be justified on strict analysis. The word is from
the Greek, and means, literally, " between the rivers," an obvious reference
to the fact that the important portion of the territory in question lies between
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The word was used by the Greeks in indis-
criminate application to Babylonia and Assyria, and its extreme convenience
as a generic term has led to its retention in lieu of a better one ; yet, as has been
said, it cannot be applied with strict accuracy unless its etymological signifi-
cance be quite overlooked ; for, curiously enough, neither Babylon nor Nine-
veh was wholly situated in the territory which the Greek word describes.
Babylon lay partly on the western shore of the Euphrates river, and Nine-
veh was situated on the eastern shore of the Tigris. But in common usage,
as so often happens, the exact implication of the word " Mesopotamia " has
been overlooked, and the word itself has come to be applied to the entire
region of Babylonia and Assyria. In this sense, rather than in the more
restricted one, we shall find it convenient as a substitute for the more cum-
bersome appellation, Babylonia- Assyria.
It has already been pointed out that we have to do with different races of
people in dealing with Mesopotamian history. After a long dispute, carried
on chiefly by philologists, it is now generally conceded that the earliest
civilisation of southern Babylonia was due to a non-Semitic people, the
Sumerians.1 To this people, it would seem, must be ascribed the honour of
developing the chief features of Mesopotamian civilisation, including the
invention of the cuneiform system of writing. It is not at all clear at pre-
[i Compare, however, Professor Hale'vy's Introductory Essay.]
H.W. — VOL. i. z 887
338 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
cisely what time the Semitic people, destined ultimately to become predomi-
nant in this region, made their appearance. Nor is the place of Semitic
origin agreed upon among students of the subject. Some authors,1 as Von
Kremer, Guidi, and Hommel, hold that Babylonia was itself originally the
cradle of the race. Others, including Sprenger, Sayce, Schrader, De Goeje,
Wright, and Barton, contend that the Semites invaded Babylonia from
Arabia. Yet others, including Palgrave, Gerland, Bertin, Brinton, Noldeke,
Jastrow, Keane, and Schmidt, hold to the African origin ; while a modifica-
tion of these views advocated by Wiedemann, De Morgan, and Erman supposes
that both the Semites and Hamites rose in Arabia, and had their common
civilisation before the Hamites went to Africa. Confronted with such con-
flict of opinions, the historian must be content to regard the exact antecedents
of the Semites, previous to their appearance in Babylonia, as quite unknown.
As to the date of the beginnings of Semitic civilisation in Mesopotamia,
Dr. John P. Peters, making use of Ainsworth's estimates as to the amount
and rate of alluvial deposit at the head of the Persian Gulf, computes that
the sea-coast must have been established this side of the site of the city of
Ur about 6600 B.C., which date must, therefore, represent the earliest possible
period for the foundation of that city. Ur was apparently the most south-
erly city of old Babylonia, and Nippur apparently the most northerly. Dr.
Peters' excavations at Nippur lead him to base its foundation at some period
previous to 6000 B.C., and possibly previous to 7000 B.C.O He sums up his
theory as follows :
"My suggestion, from the various facts here marshalled, would be that
the original home of civilisation in Babylonia was the strip of land from
Nippur southward to the neighbourhood of Ur, and not, as has sometimes
been argued, the region about Babylonia and northward to Sippara ; while
the latter region is in itself older, it does not seem to have been older as the
home of civilised man.
" The ancestors of the civilisation of Babylonia seem to have come from
the region between Nippur and what was then the coast of the Persian Gulf.
This would accord also with the tradition preserved to us in later sources that
civilisation came to Babylonia out of the Persian Gulf. Possibly Eridu, on the
Arabian plateau near the western shore and not far from the head of what was
then the Persian Gulf, may represent the oldest seat of that civilisation.
However that may be, at a very early period Nippur became the centre of
civilisation and religion, being founded at a time when everything below Ur
probably was still under water. As early as the close, if not the beginning,
of the seventh millennium B.C., this strip of land at the head of the then
Persian Gulf seems to have been the home of the civilised men, and from here
civilisation spread northward."/
THE LAND
The land of the Euphrates and Tigris lies between the Iranian country
on the east and the Syrio-Arabian district on the west, from the chain of
mountains of the Zagros to the rocky heights of the Lebanon and the Syrian
desert. From the mountains of Armenia, in which both rivers have their
source, the land gradually declines to the plain, extending from the point of
their union to where they fall into the Persian Gulf.
The upper-river beds, winding through a high-lying, sometimes fertile
steppe country, are surrounded by heights, where plane and cypress groves
[» See Sketch of Semitic Origins, by G. A. Barton, Ph.D. New York and London, 1902.]
LAND AND PEOPLE 339
alternate with green meads and a rich growth of many-coloured flowers and
plants.
As the land grows flatter, these valleys widen to fertile pastures on the
river-banks, whilst the wide central plain grows more and more bare and
treeless, until it ends at last in a desert trodden only by a few wandering
shepherds with their flocks, and full of ostriches, bustards, and wild game.
This is known as the between-river (Mesopotamia) district, which extends
into a wide plain of rich brown soil, about a hundred miles above the mouth,
where the two rivers approach most nearly, and the banks touch the so-called
Median wall.
This plain, famous for its uncommon fertility as well as for its historic
importance, the " Shinar " Land of the Semites, and the Babylonia of the
Greeks, is as rainless as Egypt, and would have dried up into a sandy desert,
had not nature and human artifice contrived means of irrigation.
For in the spring, when the snow melts on the Armenian mountains, both
rivers overflow their banks and water the thirsty land. This overflowing of
the gently moving Euphrates is as regular as that of the Nile ; the wide tract
of water is unopposed in its inundation of the plain and, like the Nile, it
deposits a rich mud soil, and man's resources are called into play to aid
nature by the artificial conduct of water and by means of dams to give the
neighbouring district a share in the fertilising irrigation.
But the bed of the Tigris growing decidedly more narrow as it neara the
sea, receives the devastating stream from the eastern and northern mountains,
and the force of the waters transports the fertile soil from the fields and
transforms the plains into a wide swampy land, covered with reeds and rushes.
The inhabitants, therefore, had the double task of stemming the force of
the stream to prevent destructive inundations, and of securing a course for
the fertilising waters by canals and lakes. So the Babylonian plains were
sown with such a number of small and great canals, darns and ditches, that
the waterworks and means of irrigation were a source of wonder and aston-
ishment to the whole of antiquity. These canals, cut in every direction and
decreasing in size until they were almost rivulets, were furnished with count-
less machines and pump-works. Many of these canals, which should have
been kept free by continuous clearing from the stoppage of mud, were lost
in the sand ; others, emptying into the Tigris, increased its size, the nearer
it approached the sea, while the waters of the Euphrates were decreased
through the drain of the canals. 6
The Tigris and the Euphrates have both flood seasons and carry their
waters over a wide extent of country, exactly as the Nile. This fact is so
perfectly clear that there can be no doubt concerning it, though Herodotus
directly asserts the contrary, saying, " The river does not, as in Egypt, over-
flow the corn lands of its own accord, but is spread over them by the help of
engines." The rise is indeed not so prolonged as the rise of the Nile, but its
influence is, nevertheless, distinctly to be seen. Furthermore, the water was
retained in sufficient quantity to supply an irrigation system far back from
the river for the grain harvest, after the fall of the river. This entire sys-
tem is now a vast ruin. The river rises and falls as it wills, and sweeping
far over the western bank, turns the country into a morass. The harm of
this is both negative and positive. It makes impossible any such great
ingathering of grain as existed when this great valley was the world's gran-
ary, and it fills the land with a dangerous miasma, which produces fevers and
leaves the inhabitants weak and sickly. There are few instances in the world
of a sadder waste of a beautiful and fertile country.*
340 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Old writers give the most brilliant descriptions of the wonders of the dis-
trict. Xenophon praises the quality and quantity of the dates, of the groves
of palms which line the banks of the lower course of the two rivers and break
the uniformity of the landscape, and are still very productive where the
cruel Turkish rule has not changed the garden into a desert.
Herodotus lays particular stress upon the natural fertility of the country,
for he writes : " Babylon is, as we know, famed for the best tillage of all
lands, producing always two hundredfold of fruit and, in very good years,
three hundredfold. The leaves of the wheat and barley are all four fingers
wide, and I very well know, but I would rather not say, to what size the
millet and seed grow ; for I am certain that those who have not been in
Babylon, will not believe it. There are few trees, no fig trees, no vine, no olive.
They have no oil but what they make from sesame. But palm trees grow all
over the country, and the fruit is eaten and honey and wine made from it."
This country is now almost a desert, without buildings and vegetation,
a world of tower-like ruins, which vary the monotony of the vast plains.
" From these heights," says Ritter in his Geography, " one sees in the
solemn stillness of this ruined world the far-reaching wide mirror of the
Euphrates, winding majestically through that solitude like a royal pilgrim
among the silent ruins of his departed kingdom. The palaces and temples,
and the magnificent buildings, have all dropped into dust and ruin ; hanging
gardens and blooming paradises have fallen into gray, rush-grown, swampy
marshes ; and even there, where once the captive Israelites hung up their
harps in the royal capital, and sang their songs of mourning over fallen
Jerusalem, only a few imperishable willows remain, and the silence is un-
broken by a voice of joy or mourning."
Assyria, a mountainous district between the Tigris and the mountainous
western boundary of Iran, is not so fertile as Babylonia, but its high position
gives it a bracing climate.
Like the southern plains, it has little rain, but it is partially watered by
the numerous rivers which flow eastward and westward to the Tigris, and
partially by the canals and water conduits, and is rendered tolerably fertile by
careful cultivation.
In the south only a few palm trees and cypresses break the monotony of
the wide tilled fields, as in the Babylonian plain, but in the centre of the
country are Aturia and Arbelitis (Adiabene) where the Upper Zab, the
Zabatus or Lycus of classical writers, pours its blue waters into the Tigris,
and there are fruitful hills, with protected valleys, full of corn, wine, sesame,
figs, olives, and oranges ; naphtha streams give forth their precious oil, and
farther northward on the borders of Armenia and Media there are moun-
tainous districts, the heights of which are crowned with woods of oak and
pine. The eastern district at the foot of the Zagros (Chalonitis) is particu-
larly prized for its wealth of palms, fruit trees, and olives, and the country
of Arpakha (Arrapachitis) in the Chaldean mountains is considered the
home of Abraham. From hence he descended into the river district of the
centre and settled in the land around Khar ran.
Northward lies the pasture land of Mesopotamia, whose wide plains
became the scenes of bloody battles, and where races and royal families
sought to eternalise their transitory power by the foundation of cities, which
have mostly vanished, leaving no trace behind them. Like the Assyrian hill
country, it gradually declines into grass-grown steppes until, in the south, it
becomes a desert whose waterless wastes are trodden only by wandering
Arabs.&
LAND AND PEOPLE 341
So far back as we have yet been able to penetrate, we find in the southern
part of Mesopotamia a number of petty independent kingdoms, governed
from their capital cities. Our present knowledge of this land and its inhab-
itants may be briefly summed up.
After the river Euphrates, with countless windings and sharp falls, has
cleft the Syrio-Mesopotamian plain where it fertilises the districts con-
tiguous on its banks, it approaches to within a few miles of the Tigris, and
both streams water a completely flat plain, intersected by numerous rivers
and canals, and, for the most part, flooded by the Euphrates in the summer.
The numerous districts on both sides of the lower Tigris and west of the
Euphrates which are out of reach of the irrigation have a desert character,
as rain is as rare here as in Egypt. But the irrigated land was proportion-
ately fertile ; at least it was so in antiquity and the Middle Ages. The dis-
trict at the mouth of the streams was of a marshy character with numerous
swamps and lakes. In olden times the confluence of both rivers, at latitude
about 31° N., formed a long narrow bay which has now been filled up by
their deposits. The Arabian Desert lies at the west of the Euphrates, or
rather on its western arm, the Pallakopas. The country on the east of the
Tigris rises gradually to the wild mountainous boundary of the Iranian
highlands, which descends in terrace form to the Tigris, to which it sends
numerous rivers, which in earlier times flowed direct into the sea.
At the present time the greater part of this district is a swampy desert
traversed only by wandering tribes, whilst in antiquity, and again at the
time of the Caliphs, it was made one of the most fertile countries in the world
by dint of careful irrigation, regulation, and the construction of dams and
canals.1
The most ancient population of this country formed several closely
related races which had in • connection with the other nations of Western
Asia, but in the course of historical evolution they lost their language and
nationality and were submerged in the neighbouring races.
In the laud of Makan, the district of the mouth of the two chief rivers,
were the Sumerians (Sumer, with its chief city of Ur, on the Euphrates) ;
and in the northern part of the river country (Melucha land) from Erech,
now Warka, upwards to the borders of the Mesopotamian steppes, lived the
Accadians, so called from Agade, their capital, north of Babylon. To the
east of the Tigris, far into the pathless districts of the Zagros Mountains,
dwelt the warlike races of the Kossseans (Assyrian Kasshu). From their
home, mode of life and character, they were evidently the predecessors of
the modern Kurds, who belong, by language, to the Iranians. Next came
the land of Khun, or Anshan, as it was called in the language of the coun-
try, the district of the rivers Choaspes and Eulaeos, called by the Greeks
Kissian, with the capital Shushan, the Susa of the Greeks.
Whilst the Kossaeans were always a wild mountainous people, and the
inhabitants of the plains of Elam, although they had a firmly established
state organization, were dependent on their western neighbours for culture,
Sumer and Accad (i.e. Babylonia) possessed an ancient and a complete, in-
dependently evolved culture, which, although second to that of the Lower
[' This entire system is now a vast ruin, according to Rogers, who adds : " The great valley
has a climate which appears little fitted to produce men of energy and force, for the temperature
over its entire surface is very high in the summer season. It is, however, altogether probable
that in the period of the ancient history neither the heat nor the sand was such a menace. . . .
During the period of the glory of Babylon these sand waves (from Arabia) had certainly not
gone beyond the Euphrates, and they could hardly have reached it"]
342 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Nile in innate worth and exclusive evolution, perhaps exceeded it in his-
torical influence. The surplus of water from inundations was distributed
over the country by means of canals and dykes. Thus ensued a better-
ordered life of the state from the closer union of the different provinces.
The temples of the great gods formed the centres of the different districts
from which, as with the Egyptians, the cities of Babylonia arose first every-
where.
In Ur (now El-Mugheir) there was a temple of the moon-god Sin (or
Nannar). In Eridu (now Abu Shahrein) was the temple of Ea, the
ancient god of the ocean, and in Larsa (now Senkereh) that of the sun-god
Babbar (or Shamash), the lord of the city. The latter was worshipped in
like manner in Sippar (now Abu Habba), whilst in the neighbouring Agade
(Accad) the goddess Anunit was the deity of the city. On the south lay
the sacred "Gate of the Gods" Ka-Dingira, the Semitic Babel (Babylon),
the capital of the country. [With it was later united the city of Bor-
sippa.] The city Erech (Orchoe, now Warka), the sanctuary of the
goddess Nana (Ishtar), was held in special veneration. North of Larsa
was Girsu ; on the canal Shatt-el-Khai was probably Lagash (now Telloh) ;
north of this the city of Isin; near it was for a time the chief city of all
Babylonia, Nippur, which was the home of the god Bel. It is here that the
excavations of the University of Pennsylvania have been so fruitful. About
fifteen miles northeast of Babylon was Kutha (now Tel-Ibrahim), whose
god was Nergal ; near Kutha was Kish. In the northern limit of Babylonia
were Dur-Kurigalzu, nearly opposite the present Baghdad ; and Upi [or
Opis.]
It seems therefore that the lay dynasty arose mainly from the priesthood
of these temples, for the kings are universally found in closest relation to
the city deities, in whose honour they built or restored the temples, and
down to their last day the priestly dignity ranked foremost in the title of
the Babylonian kings. «
ORIGINAL PEOPLES OF BABYLON : THE SUMERIANS
It is coming to be a common agreement among Assyriologists that the
original peoples of Babylon were of a race that was not Semitic. Just what
it was these scholars are not yet prepared to say ; although the inclination
of belief is that it was an Indo-European race and most likely of the Turanian
family. An attempt has recently been made to connect the aborigines with
the Ugro-Finnish branch of the Ural-Altaic family, but with what success it
is still too soon to say. But whatever these people, the Sumerians, may
have been, they occupied the land of Babylonia until dislodged by a great
wave of Semitic migration. This fact has not gone unchallenged, and from
the ranks of Philology there has come a strong contention for a Semitic
origin of the Babylonians, and the assertion that the Sumerian texts " do
not represent a real language, but a kind of cipher written according to an
artificial system of grammar." And throughout the following discussion,
written by Professor Hommel, it must not be forgotten that Professor
Halevy, the originator of the theory of the Sumerian texts summarised
above, still champions his contention and adduces evidence for it that seems
to him conclusive. «
It has often been observed that southern Babylonia was originally the
proper home of the Sumerians, while as early as the beginning of the fourth
millennium before the Christian era the Semitic Babylonians were already
LAND AND PEOPLE 343
settled in northern Babylonia, and, as is proved by the Naram-Sin inscrip-
tion and several dating from the time of Sargon, his father (area 3800 B.C.)
had already acquired the Sumerian character (and, by inference, the Sume-
rian civilisation). In the case of southern Babylonia, the discoveries at
Telloh have put us in possession of a number of sculptures — some of them
in relief, others severed heads of statues, dating from the period between
circa 4000 B.C., or earlier, and circa 3000. These present two different
types. One is characterised by a rounded head with slightly prominent
cheek bones, always beardless, and usually with clean-shaven crown. To
this type certainly belong the representations of vanquished foes on the
archaic sculpture, known as the Vulture stele, though the primitive method
of representing the brow and nose by a single slightly curved line gives a
merely superficial resemblance to the Semitic cast or countenance. The
other is a longer-skulled (dolichocephalous) type, with thick, black hair
and long, flowing beard.
It is certainly by no mere accident that the heads of the Telloh statues,
most of which are supposed to represent kings, are of the first-mentioned
(Sumeriau) type, while the bronze votive offerings, which likewise bear the
name of Gudea, are carried, as is evident at a glance, by Semites. And as
there were Semites among the subjects of Gudea, where the Sumerians were
the dominant race, so we find the same Semitic type clearly marked in the
figures round the stem of a vase ; while the party of musicians, who are
seen approaching with submissive gestures on the fragment of a bas-relief,
which probably also dates from the reign of Gudea, must likewise be of
Semitico-Babylonian descent.
Fortunately, ancient Babylonian art gives us the opportunity, not merely
of studying the wholly non-Semitic language of the earliest inhabitants of
Babylonia in lengthy bilingual original inscriptions such as many of the
statues of Gudea bear, but of seeing with our own eyes the bodily sem-
blance of this singular people, and so observing the striking correspondence
of non-Semitic elements in speech and facial type. In this connection we
would draw attention to an ancient Babylonian statue of a female figure,
now in the Louvre at Paris. We may confidently assume that the woman
represented is a Sumerian and not a Semitic Babylonian ; and it may thus
be regarded as a splendid counterpart to the Gudea statues, which by the
whole character of workmanship it calls to mind. Whether we have here
a queen or some other lady of high rank (the supposition that she is a god-
dess appears to be excluded by the absence of the head-dress goddesses
are wont to wear) cannot, of course, be determined with certainty. It
is only natural that various mixed types should have developed in course
of time, especially in northern Babylonia; and many of the faces we
meet with — on the seal-cylinders more particularly — may be representa-
tions of such.
That the Sumerians, like the Semites, were not an autochthonous race
in Babylonia follows from the condition of the soil, which had to be ren-
dered fit for agriculture, and indeed, for human habitation, by a system of
canals. Whence, then, did the Sumerians originally come, before they took
possession of the swampy Euphrates vallev and settled there ?
There is a word in Sumerian, "Kar" (Turkish yer), which means "coun-
try " (as does the Turkish word). But in Sumenan it has also come to
signify " mountain " and likewise " east " (since the mountains lie only in
the east of Babylonia) — meanings which the Turkish word does not bear.
This is, therefore, a clear indication that, even after the Sumerians had
344 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
settled in Babylonia, the range on the Median frontier and what lay behind
it always passed with them for their true country, the original home whence
they had come. There is also extreme significance in the fact that they
were originally unacquainted with both the lion and the horse, as also with
wine (and consequently with the vine) and the palm tree ; for they had no
names for them, and called the lion " great dog " (nug magK), the horse " ass
of the mountains " or " of the east," wine the " drink of life " (gish-tin, from
gash-tin), and the palm " tree of Magan " (mis-magan), or " the upright "
(iigin, in its Semitic form mus-ukannu) .
THE SEMITIC BABYLONIANS
By far the greater part of Babylonian literature, as well as the many offi-
cial documents of the kings of Babylon (in the more restricted sense of the
term) and Asshur is written in a language which was clearly perceived, as
early as 1849, to be intimately related to the so-called Semitic languages of
Anterior Asia. The relationship is but confirmed by the type presented to
us in various statues and sculptures in relief, apart, of course, from the Su-
A RELIGIOUS PROCESSION
merian sculptures of the very oldest period ; though in Babylonia we fre-
quently meet with a hybrid type, yet even in this the Semitic element is
unmistakable. In the heads of Assyrian figures the Semitic characteristics
are very strikingly marked. But since the Babylonians and Assyrians were
a single nation as far as language is concerned, and differed in blood only
by the fact that there seems to have been a strong admixture of some foreign
element in the former, while the latter presents a strongly marked and far
purer racial type, it may be taken as proved that this type is that of the
Semitic races, a conclusion which is doubly vouched for by language and by
facial conformation. It has already been remarked in the foregoing chapter,
that (unlike the Sumerians) the Semitic population of Babylonia, which we
meet with in northern Babylonia as early as 3800 B.C., and which predomi-
nated there from 2500 B.C. (or even earlier) onwards, was distinguished by
an abundant growth of black hair and long beards.
From the circumstance that in the third millennium before the Christian
era the old Babylonian kings who resided in Middle Babylonia (particularly
at Nisin and Erech) and in Ur and Larsa bore Semitic names, though the
inscriptions that have come down to us from their reigns are written entirely
in Sumerian, we are probably justified in concluding that in Middle Baby
Ionia, where the dominant Sumerian population of the south and the domi-
LAND AND PEOPLE
34.1
nant Semitic population of the north must have come most directly into
contact, the interfusion of the two races was at that time taking place on a
very large scale. On the other hand, in northern Babylonia, where Sume-
rians had lived from the very earliest period, but had never risen to any
political importance as compared with the Semitic immigrants, the two must
have lived strictly apart down to 2000 B.C. (the latest date of which we can
be certain), for not long before that time colonists went out from northern
Babylonia and founded the empire of Assyria. The far greater purity of
the Semitic type among the Assyrians, together with the absolute identity
of their language and civilisation with that of Babylonia, leads inevitably to
the inference that the intermixture of Sumerian blood with Semitic in North
Babylonia had either not begun, or had as yet proceeded but a very little way.
Tested thus by philology, the Assyrio- Babylonian language, together with
Canaanitish (under which title we include Phoenician, Hebrew, and Moab-
itish), Aramaic (Syrian, the so-called
Biblical Chaldee, Palmyrene, etc.), and
Arabic (and under this heading not
only the Sabsean tongue of southern
Arabia, but the Ethiopian and Am-
haric languages of Abyssinia, should be
placed), belong to a single well-defined
group which we have long been ac-
customed to call Semitic (cf. Stade's
Geschichte des Volkes Israel) and the
races which spoke and speak them are
known to ethnology as Semites. From
the remotest antiquity down to modern
times these races have maintained a
singular purity of blood and racial type ;
the Canaanites represented in Egyp-
tian tombs of the Xllth Dynasty, the
Assyrian heads in the bas-reliefs of
Nineveh, the features of Jews at the
present time living in the midst of Indo-
Germanic nations, and the Bedouins who
to-day roam the Syrian and Arabian
deserts, all exhibit a family likeness so
remarkable that we see that throughout
the whole course of history they can
have mingled but little with alien races.
The question of how and from what
causes the Semitic type in Assyria came
to be preserved in greater purity than in Babylonia itself, whence the
Assyrians emigrated, is one that has been briefly touched upon above.
tinder these circumstances it is only to be expected that the constant
type of character proper to other Semites should be discoverable, or, at least,
in part recognisable in the Babylonians and Assyrians; although we are
bound to take into account the fact that even in later days the Hebrews
retained much of their old nomadic habits, that the Aramaeans of the Assyr-
ian period were for the most part nomadic, and that the Arabs are so still ;
while from the very beginning of their appearance in history the Semitic
inhabitants of the regions about the Euphrates and Tigris are a home-dwell-
ing people on a high level of civilisation. Many traits of primitive national
Ax ASSYRIAN GOD
346
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
character tend to be obliterated or modified by such an advance to a superior
stage of civilisation, while others, foreign to the brother or kindred races
which remained longer or still remain in the nomadic stage, are developed.
In the Assyrians and Babylonians, as a matter of fact, we must meet
with so much that recalls instinctively their kin with those whom the Bible
and universal history have long rendered us familiar that it offers the fullest
confirmation of the conclusions arrived at by a study of their language and
physical type. It is very difficult to compress into a few words a correct
description of Semitic national character.
SIEGE OF A CITY (NINEVBH)
Eduard Meyer, in his otherwise admirable G-eschichte des Alterthums,
says, " A very matter of fact habit of thought, keen observation of detail, a
calculating intellect ever directed to practical aims, keeping the creations
of the imagination completely under control and averse from any freer flight
of the spirit into the Illimitable, such are the characteristics that distinguish
the Arabs and Phoenicians, Hebrews and Assyrians," — a judgment which,
though in the main correct, is nevertheless not exhaustive. [Some of
Professor Meyer's other estimates are less satisfactory to Professor Hommel,
who quotes the following with entire disapproval, claiming that they quite
misrepresent the true character of the Semitic mind : " This same abomin-
ably matter-of-fact habit of thought, which dominates the Koran and by
means of which it wrought its effect, lies at the root of the human sacri-
fices of the Canaanites, the religious phrases of the Assyrians, and, finally,
of Yahvism" (i.e. the religion of the Old Testament). "The relation
of the individual to the god is regarded in a strictly rationalistic and calcu-
lating spirit. An ethical or mystical relation to the Deity is wholly alien
to the Semitic mind."] Compare these and other passages of the same sort
[Professor Hommel continues] with the fact that, on the contrary, a mono-
theistic tendency stronger than in any other, race in the world, and combin-
ing with it the idea of a heart-felt surrender of the whole man to the Deity,
was one of the principal characteristics of the Semitic mind as a whole
(though most highly developed among the Israelites).
It is true that the cruelty of the Assyrians to foreign prisoners of war,
which often shocks us and estranges our sympathies from the whole nation,
recall certain instances of a like defect among the ancient Israelites too
strongly not to tempt us to think of it as a Semitic propensity ; but never-
theless these are mere excesses and excrescences which must not be set to
LAND AND PEOPLE 347
the account of national character. The Semite is not naturally cruel. If
he were so, the trait must have come out most strongly in the Bedouin
Arabs, who for centuries have remained at the barbaric stage in religious
matters; whereas this is not so, but rather the reverse. With many races
(some of them Indo-Germanic) of whom the most unspeakable horrors and
acts of violence are recorded in the course of history, sheer lust of blood and
torture has been the motive of such actions (or rather crimes), while the
cruelties just referred to sprang from the dark side (revolting, it must be
confessed) of a national virtue : true zeal for the Holiest.
THE ORIGINAL HOME OP THE BABYLONIAN SEMITE
On such questions as the degree of kinship in which the Babylonians and
Assyrians stood to other Semites, their original home, their last halting-
places, and consequently the sequence of Semitic migrations, Eduard Meyer
holds the same views as the famous orientalist, Sprenger, to wit, that Arabia,
i.e. the desert as distinct from the arable land, used from the very earliest
times to send forth the surplus of her predatory and rapacious Bedouin
population to the great pastoral districts in the vicinity, that is, to Palestine,
the plain of Mesopotamia (Aram), and, in times long out of mind, to northern
Babylonia also ; that they were, so to speak, deposited there from time to
time, and that all Semitic nations whom we meet with in a state of civilisation
in the course of subsequent history have come into being in this manner.
" But this ingenious theory has been directly refuted by later investiga-
tions set on foot by A. von Kremer, and followed up by Ign. Guidi at Rome,
and, more especially, by myself, with a view to discovering what domestic
animals and cultivated plants were known to the original Semitic stock.
By the year 1879 Guidi and I had come independently and, to some extent,
by different ways to the conclusion that the original home of the Semites
could not possibly be Arabia, but must be sought farther to the northeast.
In the treatise, Die gprachgeschichtliche Stellung de» Bab ylonisch- Assy ri-
schen, I succeeded in proving further that the people who afterwards
became the Babylonians and Assyrians must have separated from the
common stock in some part of central Asia where the lion was indige-
nous, and emigrated into northern Babylonia through one of the passes of
the Medio-Elamite range certainly no later than the fifth millennium B.C.
The rest, however, came by way of the southern shore of the Caspian Sea —
probably towards the end of the fourth millennium and at all events later
than the Hamites of northern Babylonia — and entered what was afterwards
Aramtean Mesopotamia from the north, then occupied it, and spread gradually
from thence to Syria, Palestine, and Arabia." (Hommel.) So, by sub-
sequent offshoots and migrations, they became the Aramaeans, Canaanites,
and Arabs.
This theory furnishes, on the one hand, the first satisfactory explanation
of many points in which Babylonian development, in language and various
respects, differs from that of other Semites. On the other hand, it seta the
large amount they have in common in a most interesting light, since it
proves to be the primitive heritage of the Semitic race.
The whole question of the manner of Semitic migrations and offshoots
is one that cannot be a matter of indifference to the historian, as may be
objected in some quarters ; and for a right understanding of the history of
Babylonia in the earliest times, it is of the utmost consequence that we should
348
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
know whether the Semitic Babylonians were a distinct branch, as compared
with their brethren, whose relations among themselves were much closer,
and whether the beginning of their migration had led their steps through
the land where grew the olive, fig, vine, and other cultivated plants not to
be found in Babylonia ; and lastly, it is imperative for a right comprehen-
sion of the history of Semitic civilisation to arrive at a decision on these
questions. The fact that we find in the Assyrio-Babylonian language no
trace of the common Semitic name (found in Aramaic, Canaanitish, and
Arabic) for the three plants just mentioned, and others of the same nature,
constitutes, together with weighty philological considerations, the positive
argument in favour of the theory I have set forth : namely, that the route
by which the Semitic settlers of the lower Euphrates came did not lie
through regions where these plants are indigenous, but that they migrated
in advance of the rest of the Semites straight from the east or northeast into
anterior Asia and so to their new home of Babylonia.**
CHAPTER II. OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY
We have here the mere dust of history, rather than history itself ;
here an isolated Individual makes his appearance in the record of his
name, to vanish when we attempt to lay hold of him ; there the stem
of a dynasty which breaks abruptly off, pompous preambles, devout
formulas, dedications of objects or buildings ; here and there the ac-
count of some battle, or the indication of some foreign country with
which relations of friendship or commerce were maintained — these are
the scanty materials out of which to construct a connected narrative.
— MASPEBO.
RECENT researches in old Babylonia have brought to light a very large
quantity of historical documents which tell a most important story, inasmuch
as they have to do with the very remotest periods of antiquity. At Telloh,
the site of the ancient city of Shirpurla, the French explorers have found an
abundance of interesting material, while the Americans have exhumed, and
are still exhuming, at Nippur, a mass of documents which bids fair to rival
in quantity the voluminous records from the libraries of the Assyrian kings.
In a single season's excavating, Mr. Haynes has very recently brought to
light thousands of inscribed tablets, some of which date from a period as
long anterior to the time of the great Assyrian kings as that time is to our
own.
The historian is to be particularly congratulated in that many of these
ancient documents have the most direct bearing upon his studies. It has
already been pointed out that the Babylonians were much more amply
endowed with historical sense than were the Egyptians. They had a toler-
ably full appreciation of the importance of chronology, and though, like the
Egyptians, they lacked a fixed era from which to reckon, they, to some
extent, compensated for this defect by the ample series of king lists and
" synchronisms " which various monarchs caused to be written. Several of
these chronological documents have been restored to us by the various exca-
vators, and, thanks to these, the outlines of considerable periods of early
Babylonian history are now more accurately known than many much more
recent epochs of occidental history.
Unfortunately, these ancient lists consist, for the most part, of tables
of names having strange and unfamiliar sounds. To the average reader
these names are necessarily repellant. Such words as E-anna-tum, Uru-
840
350 THE HISTORY OP MESOPOTAMIA
mush or Alusharshid, Sarasu-iluna, Kadashman-Kharbe cannot well be
otherwise than mystifying when unconnected with any vivid sequence of
tangible events. And for the most part the names of these earliest rulers
of Babylonia stand, in the present state of our knowledge, as mere names,
with only here and there a suggestion of tangibility. Now and then we hear
that a bas-relief of a certain king has been preserved, as in the case of one
Ur-Nina, " builder of an edifice attached to the temple of Nina at Lagash," *
and in such a case the mind conjures a curious world of associations at
thought of an actual likeness, real or alleged, being preserved for a period
of more than six thousand years. The king whose image is thus tangibly
brought to view after all these centuries of oblivion must seem a very real
personage, however little else is known of him or of his achievements.
Again, in the case of certain other monarchs, there are brief records of
campaigns and conquests against neighbouring peoples whose very names,
perhaps, have been preserved to us only through this incidental mention.
In such cases the mind is stimulated to the formation of vague pictures
of unknown peoples of that remote era, and the least imaginative person
must feel a bewildered sense of wonderment as to what these peoples
were like, whence they came, and whither they vanished. But for that mat-
ter the Babylonian kings themselves, and the peoples over whom they ruled,
seem shadowy and mysterious enough, to say nothing of their neighbours.
The present knowledge does not by any means suffice to give us a full list
of the names of these early monarchs.
In all probability there are lists still in existence buried in the ruins of
various cities, as yet unexplored, that in time will restore to us a reason-
ably full record of those long stretches of time which now seem so hazy.
In numerous places the excavations are still going on, discoveries are
daily being made, undeciphered material is being read ; in a word, new
chapters of this oldest past are being almost daily brought to light.
Whatever is written to-day regarding early Babylonian history must then,
in the nature of the case, be subject to possible revision to-morrow. At
least this is true to the extent that additions are sure to be made to the
present incomplete knowledge in the near future. It does not follow,
however, that the knowledge of the present will be altogether superseded.
Such king lists as have been already deciphered, covering in the aggregate
considerable periods of time, may be depended upon, in general, as accurate
and permanent records, which will be supplemented rather than supplanted
by the new records of future discovery. Meantime, we must be content
with the glimpses into here and there an epoch, and with the citation of
here and there a name, covering as best we may some three or four
thousand years of Babylonian history in a few meagre chapters.
Tantalising as it is to catch such mere glimpses into realms that must
be fascinating could we but know their fuller history, there is at least a
certain consolation in the thought that our generation is the first within the
past two thousand years to gain even a glimpse of these epochs of history.
Even in classical times nothing was known of early Babylonia : such
reminiscences of Mesopotamian greatness as were preserved pertained to
the later Assyrian history and to New Babylonia. And the Assyrians and
New Babylonians themselves were possessed of but little information regard-
ing their remote ancestors, whose records were, in the main, as completely
[* Such is the way in which a few Assyriologists read the more commonly accepted " Shir-
purla." Professor Hornmel interprets it " Sirgulla," in favour of which there is something to be
said.]
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY 361
(•••i. 4600 B.C.]
hidden from them as they have been from all succeeding generations of
men until our own time.
To co-ordinate properly the great mass of information, unearthed of late
years concerning the numerous states that existed in Babylonia in the
earliest historic period, is the task that Dr. Hugo Kaduu has undertaken
with great success. The following extract from his recently published work l
will give the reader the latest knowledge of these petty kingdoms, and
enable him to understand how the greater ones absorbed the lesser, and how
the way was thus paved for the union of all Babylonia under one ruler."
THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY
The oldest king of Babylonia of whom we have any record, is Enshag-
kushanna, whose date we have placed before 4500 B.C. He calls himself
"lord of Kengi," the southern part of Babylonia. As to his nationality,
whether he was a so-called " Sumerian " or a " Semite," we have no means
of knowing. Besides " lord of Kengi," he seems to have had another title,
viz. "king of . . . " The lacuna probably contained the names of the
capital of the kingdom. He must have waged war against Kish in northern
Babylonia, which city he terms "wicked of heart." He was the victor, and
presented the spoil to "Enlil, king of the lands." Enlil — the later Bel
— was the chief god in Nippur ; Nippur accordingly was called En-lil-ki,
the " city of Enlil." Hence Enlil of Nippur seems to have been the god who
wielded the chief influence over the inhabitants of Early Babylonia. From
inscriptions of certain patesis2 of Shirpurla, as well as from those of Lugalzag-
gisi, we know that this temple was under the control of the king, who called
himself accordingly patesi-gal, "the great patesi." But it also had its own
•• chief local administrator," the dam-kar-gal, who in his turn had several
minor priests or patesis under him. The cult of this god seems to have
been well arranged; the king, being the summus ejriscoput, had a host of
other officers (priests) under him, who exercised the ordinary functions of
the so-called priesthood of Bel. Few as the historical notices are, yet
they enable us to get an insight into the condition of the land and of the
people at this remote time. They show us that a struggle went on between
the south (Kengi) and the north (Kish) which struggle lasted undoubtedly
for several centuries.
Prominent cities at this time were the capital of Kengi, i.e. Shirpurla-
Girsu, as we shall see later on ; not Erech (Hilprecht), Nippur, and Kish.
It is necessary, however, before tracing the different steps in the develop-
ment of Kish, to turn our attention to a kingdom called in the inscriptions
"Shirpurla." The inscriptions of the rulers of this kingdom give us an
impression of a power and might which presupposes centuries for its
development. All that we know of its art and civilisation tends in the
same direction.
THE RULERS OF SHIRPURLA
Shirpurla is the modern Tel-Loh (or Telloh) where De Sarzec found the
inscriptions relating to the rulers of this dynasty. It is situated fifteen
n Quoted by permission from " Early Babylonian History," New York and London, 1902.1
[* The pates! was an official whose office was sacerdotal as well as administrative. We find
him at the head of a state before the ruler assumes the title of king and also a vice-regent when
the country has been conquered by a more powerful nation. The custom seems to have been
in this case for the victorious monarch to reduce the vanquished to the rank of patesi, and in
such capacity he and his successors continue the local administration.]
352 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[co. 4500-4100 B.C.]
hours north of Mugheir, on the east side of the Shatt-el-Khai, and about
twelve hours east of Warka. At this early time the city of Shirpurla seems
to have included four component parts, viz. Girsu, Nina, Uruazagga, Erim.
Thus it happened that one and the same king might call himself either
"king of Shirpurla" or "king of Girsu." These suburbs were built by
various rulers in honour of their favourite gods or goddesses. Whether
Shirpurla is the right reading, or Sirgulla (Hommel), we do not know.
According to Pinches, O-uide to the Kuyunjik Gallery, p. 7, London, 1883,
and Babyl. Records, iii, p. 24, Shirpurla may read Lagash, which reading is
adopted throughout by Jensen in K. B. iii. We retain the old reading
Shirpurla, because this writing occurs most frequently in the monuments.
The rulers of Shirpurla may conveniently be grouped under four
divisions :
(1) The dynasty of Urukagina — beginning with this ruler or his prede-
cessor^) and ending with Lugalshuggur and his successor (s).
(2) The dynasty of Ur-Nina, ending with Lummadur.
(3) The patesis between Lummadur and Ur-Ba'u.
(4) Ur-Ba'u and his successors, ending with Gala-Lama.
To Urukagina, the oldest member of the first dynasty of Shirpurla, we
have assigned the approximate date of 4500 B.C. His greatness consisted
not so much in successful wars against the neighbouring cities, as in secur-
ing a peaceful administration for his country and city. As "king of Girsu-
Shirpurla," he devoted his energy to the building of different storehouses,
that should take up "the abundance of the countries," and erected temples
for different gods — thus showing his devotion and piety. He built " for
Nina the beloved canal, the canal Nina-ki-tum-a," and thus supplied his city
with water. Bel of Nippur still exercises the highest influence. Ningirsu
("the lord of Girsu") is the chief city-god, under whose control the capital
stands. He is the Gud or "hero" of Enlil. In somewhat later inscrip-
tions, Ningirsu has the title gud-lig-ga, "the strong hero" of Enlil. Many
other gods are mentioned in his inscriptions.
To this oldest dynasty of Shirpurla belongs also a certain En-gegal ("lord
of abundance" or "very rich"). He, like Urukagina, calls himself "lugal
Pur-shir-la" "king of Shirpurla." Besides this he bears the proud title "lugal
ki-gal-la" "the great king," and terms himself shib (dingir~) Nin-gir-su,
"the priest of Ningirsu," a title similar to that of patesi-gal. From the title
"the great king" we may venture to conclude that he, unlike his predeces-
sor, must have carried his arms successfully against his enemies, who had
previously succeeded in plundering Shirpurla ; but fate decreed that his royal
capital should be reduced to the seat of a patesi. Kish, having been de-
feated some time before by Enshagkushanna, seems to have acquired new
strength. Its king, Mesilim, became lord paramount of Shirpurla, thus re-
ducing its rulers to mere patesis. The name of only one of these earliest
patesis is preserved to us, i.e. Lugal-shug-gur, who is mentioned in the in-
scription of Mesilim. The sovereignty of Kish over Shirpurla does not seem
to have lasted very long. Shirpurla regained its former glory under a new
dynasty, namely, that of Ur-Nina.
With Ur-Nina begins a new dynasty, probably the mightiest of early
Babylonia, the duration of its sovereignty extending from 4300 B.C. to
4100 B.C. Looking at the art and the inscriptions of these kings, we can-
not help thinking that in Shirpurla civilisation must have been far advanced,
so far advanced as to force upon us the conclusion that "several centuries
have elapsed before men could reach this stage of civilisation." The greater
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY .;.-,.{
[ca. 43OM200 B.C.]
number of these art treasures are preserved in the Louvre ; the inscriptions
found on them have been published in Dtcouvertet en Chaldfa and in the
Revue <T A*»yriologie.
The first king of this dynasty was Ur-Nina (servant of Nina"). The dy-
nasty of Urukagina must have been reduced to mere nothingness by the kings
of Kish, so that Ur-Nina found it easy to take possession of the throne. He
must have been of an old family, for he mentions the name of his father and
grandfather, who have the title neither of patesi nor of king. He, like his
predecessor seems to have been great in peace. He built temples and vari-
ous storehouses. A passage in nis inscriptions where he records the build-
ing of the "wall of Shirpurla," suggests that the old enemy, Kish, was still
troublesome, so that he found it necessary to fortify his capital against the
deadly enemies from the north.
The son of Ur-Nina, who succeeded him upon the throne of Shirpurla, was
Akurgal. As yet no inscriptions of this monarch have been found. All
that is known about him is gathered either from the inscriptions of his son
(Eannatum) or from those of his father (Ur-Nina). In these inscriptions
eight sons of Ur-Nina are mentioned. If we classify them according to
their height, and take this as a basis for determining their age, we would
get the following result :
UR-NINA
(1) Lid-da, (2) Mu-ri-kur-ta, (3) A-ni-kur-ra, (4) Lugal-shir,
(5) A-kur-gal, (6) Nun-pad, (7) E-ud-bu, (8) Nina-ku-tur-a.
It is remarkable that the first-born, Lidda, is mentioned in only one in-
scription. Did he never succeed his father upon the throne of Shirpurla ?
Did Akurgal, his fifth son, in preference to all the others, inherit the royal
sceptre, and thus become the immediate successor of Ur-Nina ? Interesting
as these questions are, we are yet, with the means on hand, unable to decide
them. This much only we know, that both Eannatum and Enannatum I,
call themselves, " son of Akurgal." Another interesting fact is that Eanna-
tum, in his " Stele des Vautours," calls his father lugal ("king") of Shirpurla,
while in his other inscriptions he only terms him " patesi of Shirpurla." Not
very much can be concluded from this, because even Ur-Nina is styled
by Eannatum "patesi of Shirpurla." The translation of this latter pas-
sage, is not yet certain. Ur-Nina's successor, however, — either Lidda or
Akurgal, — may have lost the title " king " in consequence of an unsuccess-
ful war. Eannatum, on the other hand, being more successful, resumes
again for a short time the title " king " after his victory over Kish. This
latter fact is very important. Eannatum expressly tells us that Innanna
gave him the nam-lugal Kish-ki, " the kingship of Kish," while as ruler of
Shirpurla he was only patesi. The state of affairs then was as follows :
Ur-Nina, a usurper, was able to constitute himself king of Shirpurla in
consequence of the weakness of the patesis of Shirpurla who preceded him,
they having been reduced by the kings of Kish to complete powerlessness.
Ur-Nina's successors, however, were not able to retain the title of their
father. Was it internal disharmony between the sons of Ur-Nina which
caused this ? They lost the title " king," and had to accept that of patesi.
Undoubtedly they were forced to do this by one of the successors of Mesilim,
t.«. by a king of Kish. Eannatum — a great hero — was able to overcome
the old enemy Kish. He even was so fortunate as to add to his old title,
" patesi of Shirpurla," that of " king " (sc. of " Kish " ) and by a stretch of
H. w. — VIIL. i. 2 A
354 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 4200 B.C.]
this latter title he may have also called himself "king of Shirpurla." The
successors of Eannatum called themselves, and are called without exception
"patesis of Shirpurla."
After these preliminary remarks about the titles of the different members
of the dynasty of Ur-Nina, we now turn our attention to Eannatum (i.e.
" The house of heaven is stable " ), the son of Akurgal himself. Whether
he reigned contemporaneously with his brother Enannatum I or not, we
cannot tell. The fact that the sons of Enannatum I succeeded upon the
throne of Shirpurla makes it reasonable to suppose that Eannatum preceded
Enannatum I. This latter ruler seems to have played only a minor rQle in
early Babylonia history. Only two of his inscriptions have so far come
down to us. Eannatum, his brother, on the contrary, is the greatest of the
whole dynasty. The deeds of this monarch have been preserved to us on
different monuments, among which the " Stele des Vautours " is the most
important. In order to obtain a full conception of his time we must
compare this " Stele " with the so-called " Cone " of Entemena. Those
monuments in connection with the Galet A, give us the following interest-
ing piece of history :
The god of Shirpurla (Ningirsu) and the god of Gishban, at the insti-
gation of Enlil (god of Nippur), agree to settle the boundaries between their
respective territories (Cone i, 1-7). Mesilim, king of Kish, — a contemporary
of Lugalshuggur, patesi of Shirpurla, — in the quality of lord paramount
of Shirpurla, corroborates the result of this "settling of boundaries," and
erects a statue on the junction of the two territories, to mark out the
boundaries of the territory of Shirpurla on the one side and of Gishban
on the other (Cone i, 8—12). Ush, however, a certain ambitious patesi of
Gishban, is not satisfied with this decision. He takes away the statue
which Mesilim had erected, and then invades Shirpurla, undoubtedly to
extend his territory beyond the boundary previously fixed (13-21). A
war between Shirpurla and Gishban ensues.
Mesilim, who feels dishonoured by this action of Ush, takes the side of
Shirpurla and defeats Gishban (22-31). Gishban in course of time again
becomes restless. It invades, under its patesi Gunammide, the territory of
Shirpurla, and more specifically the Guedin, a district sacred to Ningirsu.
" Gunammide, the patesi of Gishban, according to the command of his
god . . . the Guedin, the beloved territory of Ningirsu he destroyed."
Eannatum, after having fortified Shirpurla sufficiently (" the wall of Urua-
zagga he built "), and having led his armies victoriously against Elam and
Gishgal, feels himself strong enough to deal a deadly (?) blow at Gishban.
"Gishban he put under the yoke, twenty of its dead ones he buried."
Having done this, he restores the sacred territory, the Guedin, to Ningirsu ;
concludes a treaty with Enakalli, (one of) the successor(s) of Gunammide ;
digs a canal "from the great river (i.e. the Euphrates?) to the Guedin,"
and makes the Gishbanites swear never to invade the sacred territory of
Ningirsu again, nor to trespass this boundary.
" In the future time the territory of Ningirsu, when (the Gishbanites)
should invade it again, the dyke and the canal, if they should trespass it,
the statue, if they should take it away — at that time when they invade it,
then the aa-shush-gal (i.e. Eannatum) of Utu, the powerful king by whom
they have sworn, shall rise against Gishban."
" The Stele des Vautours " has for its main object the commemoration of
this treaty with Enakalli, patesi of Gishban, after the latter city had been
defeated by Eannatum. But Eannatum was not satisfied with this ; he im-
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY :;.v,
[ca. 4200 B.C.]
poses a heavy tribute upon Gishban, consisting of one karu of grain for Nina
and one karu for Ningirsu, besides 144,000 (?) great karu. (Cone ii, 19 ff.)
After having reduced Gishban to tranquillity, Eannatum also carries his
victorious weapons against Erech (Warka) and Ur (the Ur of the Chaldeans),
Ki-Utu (Larsa?) and Az (on the Persian Gulf) — the patesi of which latter
city he kills — against Melimme and Arua. These latter cities were all in
the neighbourhood of Shirpurla. Last of all he crushes and defeats Zuzu,
king of Ukh. But even this does not exhaust the record of his victories.
He oecomes king of Kish — Kish, which for so long had itself been sovereign
over Shirpurla. How this victory was accomplished is not evident from the
inscriptions so far extant. Probably at some future time we may find an
account of this war.
Eannatum was not only a hero in war, but also a wise administrator.
He not only renewed three suburbs of his capital, one of which — Uruazagga
— he even surrounded by a wall, but also improved the condition of Shir-
purla itself by digging different canals, which he consecrated to his god
Ningirsu : the Kishedin, which probably marked the boundary between the
Guedin and Gishban, and which the Gishbanites had to swear never to cross ;
the Lummagirnuntashagazaggipadda along the territory of Ningirsu ; and
the Lummadimshar.
Urukagina, we have seen, was the first to build a canal, viz. one for Nina,
which he called Nina-ki-tum-a. In the Cone of Entemena are also mentioned
the canal Lummasirta, the Imdubba, and the Namnundakiggara. Here,
then, we have the beginning of the most characteristic feature of Babylonia.
Babylonia becomes the '• land of canals," such as the Psalmist had in mind
when he wrote that touching psalm, " By the rivers of Babylon we sat down
and wept." Further, Eannatum was not unmindful of his duty to the gods.
He confesses that all that he is and that he has comes from his gods.
Accordingly, he shows his gratitude by erecting sanctuaries for Enlil,
Ninkharsag, Ningirsu, and Utu, and by restoring old buildings, which had
been erected by his predecessors in honour of the gods, among which is to be
found the Tirash.
In spite of the solemn promise of Gishban never to invade the territory
of Shirpurla again, or to pass over the boundary canal, it very soon — prob-
ably at the end of the reign of Eannatum, or better, at the beginning of that
of Enannatum I — becomes rebellious as before. It invades the territory of
Girsu, under the leadership of a certain Urlumma, patesi of Gishban, passes
over the boundary canals which Eannatum had made, removes the steles
erected on those canals in honour of Ningirsu, casts them into the fire, and
even destroys the sanctuaries which Eannatum had built on one of these canals
(i.e. the Namnundakigarra) in honour of Enlil, Ninkharsag, Ningirsu, and
Utu, and lays waste the country. Enannatum promptly arises to chastise
"those dogs" who had dared to break their solemn promise. Whether this
battle was decisive or not, is not evident. It seems, however, that Enan-
natum I gained but a slight victory over Gishban.
For Entemena, the son of Enannatum, finds it necessary to renew the war
with Gishban. "He puts Urlumma under the yoke," t.«. subdues him,
forces him to return to his own country, and pursues him to the very midst
of Gishban. This triumphant victory began with the decisive battle at the
canal Lummasirta in the territory of Shirpurla. "Of his (i.e. Urlumma's)
army sixty men on the side of the Lummasirta he left." On account of the
severe loss Gishban fled. Entemena pursued after it, of which pursuit he
records that "he left the bones of the soldiers (of Urlumma) in the field."
356 THE HISTOEY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 4200 B.C.]
Many of these soldiers of Gishban must have fallen, so many that Ente-
meua was obliged " to bury their dead in five different places."
Arrived in Gishban, Entemena makes a certain priest of Innannaab-ki
(or Nin-ab-ki), Hi by name, patesi of Gishban, probably after having deposed
Urlumma. As a compensation for the new dignity thus conferred, Entemena
commands Hi to build in the territory of Karkar — which latter had also
become rebellious — boundary canals and some other buildings. The canal
which Eannatum had built " from the great river (Euphrates ?) to the
Guedin " Entemena prolongs to the Tigris, and also repairs the other canals,
which had been destroyed more or less by the Gishbanites, and dedicates
them anew to Ningirsu and Nina.
Interesting also is the subscription of this Cone :
" When the men of Gishban the boundary canal of Ningirsu and the
boundary canal of Nina — for the purpose of ravaging these territories —
shall pass over, then may Enlil destroy the men of Gishban and the men of
the mountains ; may Ningirsu bring his curse over them ; may he lift up his
great power ; may the soldiery of his (Entemena's) city be filled with brav-
ery ; may in the midst of the city be courage in their hearts."
With Lummadur, the son of Enannatum II, we arrive at the last rep-
resentative of the house of Ur-Nina. Nothing but his name is known to
us. From the absence of the title patesi behind his name, we may conclude
that Enannatum II was the last patesi of the line of Ur-Nina, and that
the old enemies, Kish and Gishban, have finally succeeded in overpowering
Shirpurla.
It is hardly possible to look back upon this dynasty of Ur-Nina — which,
as we have seen, dates from before 4000 B.C. — without being impressed by
the high civilisation, cult, the many buildings and canals, military skill, and
style of writing. Surely such a people as this could not have sprung into
existence as a deux ex machina ; it must have had its history — a history
which presupposes a development of several centuries more. We would
gladly follow up the history of the successors of Lummadur, but the lack of
material prevents us from so doing. Passing, therefore, over an interval of
about two hundred years in the history of Shirpurla, we turn now to
the enemies of the " hero Ningirsu," i.e. Kish and Gishban (or, better,
Gishukh).
KINGS OP KISH AND GISHBAN
Various changes had befallen the land of Kish. When speaking of Enshag-
kushanna, we saw that Kish was defeated. It had, however, in course of
time again increased in strength. Mesilim was able to establish himself as
ruler over Shirpurla at the time of Lugalshuggur. His successors may have
retained their glory for a considerable period. They were, however, not
able to withstand the mighty weapons of Eannatum. This latter king not
only shook off the old yoke which Kish had fastened upon Shirpurla, but
even became "king of Kish." He must have reduced Kish to total impo-
tence. Hence it came about that Kish was vanquished by another power,
of which we shall hear shortly.
Just as Gishban, after its defeat by Eannatum, felt strong enough to dis-
regard the solemn promise never to invade the territory of Shirpurla, so Kish,
after its overthrow by Eannatum, seems to have rapidly regained its old
power. For we find a certain En-ne-ugun, "king of Kish," who is also
termed " king of the hordes of Gishban," desirous with the help of this latter
city to extend the power of his capital. He was, however, defeated by a cer-
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY 357
[ca. 4200-4000 B.C.]
tain king of a certain country (the names cannot be read on account of the
mutilated condition of the tablets). "His statue" — this unknown victo-
rious king records, while relating his victory over En-ne-ugun — "his
shining silver, the utensils, his property, he carried away, and presented
them to Bel at Nippur."
In course of time, however, and probably not very long after this defeat,
Kisli seems to have recovered from this blow. A certain Urzaguddu must
have been very successful in his wars, for, in addition to his title " king of
Kish," he calls himself also " king of . . . " Unfortunately here again we
have a gap, so that we cannot determine of what city he became king.
Very little is known of the next king of Kish, Lugaltarsi. At what time
subsequent to Urzaguddu he lived we cannot tell. So much only is certain,
that he reigned some time before Alusharshid, about 3850 B.C. His inscrip-
tion— the only one so far known to us — is preserved in the British Museum
in which he records the building of Bad-kisal in honour of Bel and Ishtar.
We can now place Manishtusu and Alusharshid also among the kings of
Kish. Both flourished somewhere about 8850 B.C., before Sargon I.
When reading the inscriptions of these kings, it is as if a new race were
speaking to us, so widely different is the language used by these rulers from
that of their predecessors, or of any other kings we have so far met with.
We here find for the first time the so-called Semitic-Babylonian inscriptions.
It is the same language which is also employed in the inscriptions of Shar-
ganisharali and his successors, in that of Lasirab, king of Guti, and of Annu-
banini, king of Lalubu, all of whom were more or less contemporary with
these kings of Kish. Scholars who believe that we must postulate two
different races among the inhabitants of early Babylonia call the kings who
wrote in this style " Semitic kings," while the others are referred to the
Sumerian population. As a result of this they read the names of these kings
in a Semitic way. Manishtusu becomes Ma-an-is-tu-iro (so Winckler).
Urumush becomes Alu-usharshid (i.e. "He — some deity — founded the
city").
The inscription of Manishtusu, whom we place provisionally before
Urumush, runs, " Manishtuirba, king of Kish, has presented (this) to Belit-
Malkatu."
Of more importance, from the historical point of view as well as from
the linguistic, is the next ruler who followed soon after the former. This
ruler is Alusharshid. From his inscriptions — to be found in fifty-one
fragments of vases, which have been excavated by the expedition of the
University of Pennsylvania under Dr. Peters, and partly published by
Hilprecht — we learn that he subdued Elam, on the eastern side of the
Tigris, and the country of Bara'se (Para'se), from which hinds he brought
back these marble vases, and dedicated them to his gods at Nippur and
Sippar.
For but a short period subsequent to Alusharshid does Kish seem to
have enjoyed its old power. The might of Kish gave place to that of
Agade, as we shall see shortly. Leaving, therefore, Kish for the present,
we turn our attention to the other enemy of Old Shirpurla, viz. Gishban.
At about 4000 B.C., not long after the time of Eannatum, Gishban seems
to have acquired new power and might. It directed its chief attention not
so much towards Shirpurla as towards the south. Probably the rulers of
Shirpurla had at this time been reduced to utter weakness by its old enemies
(i.e. Kish and Gishban), of which enemies Gishban was destined to play
the most important role in the development of ancient Babylonian history.
358 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 4000 B.C.]
Lugalzaggisi, the son of Ukush, patesi of Gishban, we find at the head
of the armies of Gishban, which he leads victoriously against the south.
After Erech had opened its doors, the whole of Babylonia to the Persian
Gulf fell an easy prey to the conquering hero. He, although originally
only the son of a patesi, becomes king of Erech, nay, even king of the
" whole world." " Enlil, king of the lands, has given to Lugulzaggisi the
kingship of the world ; he has made him to prosper before the world ; he it
was that had placed the lands under his sceptre — the lands ' from the
rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same.' He it also was
that gave him the tribute of those lands, which he made to dwell in peace,
notwithstanding that they had been brought under a new regime." With
these words Lugalzaggisi acknowledges, as the kings of Shirpurla did, that
Enlil, and Enlil alone, had granted to him so unprecedented a dominion,
extending from the lower sea of the Tigris and the Euphrates (i.e. the
Persian Gulf) to the upper sea (i.e. the Mediterranean). Constituted thus
"lord of the world," he now becomes its "summus episcopus." "In the
sanctuaries of Kengi, as patesi of the lands, and in Erech, as high priest,
they (the gods) established him."
To quote Hilprecht : " Babylonia, as a whole, had no fault to find with
this new and powerful regime. The Sumerian civilisation was directed into
new channels from stagnation ; the ancient cults between the lower Tigris
and Euphrates began to revive and its temples to shine in new splendour."
Thus, endowed with the highest temporal and spiritual power, he " makes
Erech to abound in rejoicing." Nor does he forget the other representative
cities of his domain : " Ur, like a steer, to the top of the heavens he raised."
" Over Larsa, the beloved city of Shamash, he poured out waters of joy."
His own native town and land receive chief attention : " Gishban, the
beloved city of ... to an unheard-of power he raised." He, as wise
ruler and statesman, not only shows his good will and favour towards the
larger and more influential cities, but also protects the weaker ones :
" Ki-Innanna-ab he kept in an enclosure, like a sheep that is to be shorn."
Indeed, " Lugalzaggisi stands out from the dawn (?) of Babylonian his-
tory as a giant who deserves our full admiration for the work he accom-
plished."
Seeing that Semitisms occur in almost all the earliest inscriptions so far
known to us, and that the rulers themselves may have been and probably
were Semites — let us confess this — then the other question arises : At
what time did the Semites come into the country, so as to induce the original
inhabitants to employ expressions foreign to their own language? Where
did they come from? To the last question, which has been repeatedly
discussed by scholars, different answers have been given. Some make
Africa the original home of the Semites; others Arabia; and Hilprecht,
who last spoke of this problem, assigns for this purpose Kish, or better,
Kharran some distance north of Babylonia. According to his theory,
Lugalzaggisi, the great conqueror from Gishban (Kharran), was the first
Semite to occupy any territory in Babylonia, and thus opened the way for
the Semitic population. But Lugalzaggisi does not antedate Ur-Nina.
Ur-Nina is a Semite, as we have seen, consequently Semites were in the
country before Lugalzaggisi.
Gishban is not Kharran, but the neighbouring state of Shirpurla ; hence the
Semites did not come from Kharran, but actually occupied already the whole
country of Babylonia. Thus the two questions — when did the Semites
invade Babylonia? and, whence did they come? — are still awaiting an
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY ::.v.»
[ca. 6000-3800 B.C.]
answer. It is possible that some tablets may give us a key to this problem,
but so far these tablets have not been found.
But further, if the Semites at so early a time as 4500 B.C. (Uruka-
gina) had possession of Babylonia and had adopted the old language of tins
country, which language they interspersed with their own idiom, they must
have been for a long time resident in the land. This would bring the
immigration of the Semites back to at least 5000 B.C. and earlier, when the
Sumerian power began to decay. We must therefore push back the height
of Sumerian influence to a yet more remote period.
Hence, whatever view we take in regard to the two peoples and their
languages, we are led to the same general result : Civilisation and history
must go back to at least 6000 B.C.
THE FIRST DYNASTY OF TIB
Of Ur — the Biblical " Ur of the Chaldees " — we have already heard at
the time of Eannatum. It was situated at the western side of the Euphrates,
opposite the place where the Shatt-el-Khai flows into it. Up to the time of
Lugalzaggisi it may not have been of very great importance. This latter
ruler, however, " raised it like a steer to the top of the heaven," hence at no
long period subsequent to Lugalzaggisi we meet two kings, father and son,
ruling at Ur. It is not impossible that this dynasty may itself have brought
about the overthrow of Lugalzaggisi, as to whose successors we have no in-
formation. Probably, also, it took possession of the more northern part of
Babylonia (Nippur), for we find that both these kings present vases to Enlil,
the "lord of the lands."
The names of these two monarchs forming the first dynasty of Ur are :
Lugalkigubnidudu, and his son (?) ; Lugalkisalsi.
Their dominion extended over Ur, Erech, and Nippur, probably also
over Shirpurla, for the kings of the south could not have gained possession of
Nippur without passing Shirpurla. This would explain why we know so very
little about Shirpurla at this time. It is, however, remarkable that both these
kings should call themselves first "kings of Erech," and then "kings of Ur";
while on the other hand, Lugalkigubnidudu expressly says that Enlil added
(tab) the lordship (nam-eri) to the kingship (nam-lugaT), which lordship so
added was Erech. We would expect that, if he were originally king of Ur,
the title, " king of Ur," would come first. Here, then, we have an analogy to
and a confirmation of the argument used in regard to Urzaguddu. The
latter king had also two titles, viz. " king of Kish " and " king of ... ,"
" was the original,
u:-~~'Ur" was
Erech."
How long this dynasty flourished, how many rulers were comprised in it,
and when and by whom it was overthrown, we cannot tell. Probably, how-
ever, it was replaced by a mighty kingdom which arose in the north (that of
Agade), destined to bear sway over " the four corners of the world."
Once more — before we leave southern Babylonia and pass over to the
north — we have to direct our attention to Shirpurla. The traces which we
possess of the life of Shirpurla and its patesis during this time (i.e. 4100-
3800 B.C.) are but fragmentary. Only one patesi is known to us from a
tablet recently published by Thureau-Dangin, in the Revue a" Atsyriologie.
This patesi, Lugalanda by name, cannot have lived very long after Lumma-
3«0
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 4000-3800 B.C.]
dur, for the writing of that tablet shows all the palaeographic peculiarities
of the inscriptions of Eannatum. Probably he belonged to those patesis
over whom Lugalzaggisi or his successors may have ruled.
With the next two patesis, Lugalushumgal and his son (?) Ur-E, we
arrive at the time of Sharganisharali [Sargon], 3800 B.C. A considerable
gap in this period has still to be filled up. Let us hope that the future
excavations, combined with the industry of the decipherer, will bring some
light into this darkest of all periods in Old Babylonian history.
Mentioning only another patesi that belongs to this period, Ur-(dingir)
Utu(?) — whose name is followed by [nam?]
patesi Uru-um-ki-ma (i.e. Ur) — we pass from
the south to the north of Babylonia, i.e. to
the city of Agade.
KINGS OF AGADE
Agade, near the modern Abu-Habba,
formed in olden times with Sippar a double
city. It was situated near the Euphrates
and north of Babylon. As early as 3800
B.C. Semitic kings ruled in this city, extend-
ing their sceptres over the whole of Baby-
lonia.
The first king, as far as our knowledge
foes, was Sharganisharali, cited by us as
argon I. He was the son of a certain Itti-
Bel. This latter is neither called a king nor
even a patesi. In this we may see a confir-
mation of the so-called " legend of Sargon,"
according to which this monarch was " of an
inferior birth on his father's side," and so
either a usurper or the founder of the dy-
nasty of Agade. This legend — probably
written in the eighth century B.C. — purports
to be a copy of an inscription written on a
statue of this great king, and bears a certain
similarity to the Biblical account of Moses.
It reads : " Shargena, the powerful king, the
INFANT SAROON king of Agade, am I. My mother was of
noble family (?) [others : was poor], my
father I did not know, whereas the brother of my father inhabited the
mountains. My town was Azipiranu, which is situated on the bank of the
Euphrates. My mother of noble family (?) (or, who was poor) conceived
me and gave birth to me secretly. She put me into a basket of shurru
(reeds?), and shut up the mouth (?) of it (?) with bitumen; she cast me
into the river, which did not overwhelm (?) me. The river carried me
away and brought me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of
water, took me up in ... Akki, the drawer of water, reared me to boyhood.
Akki, the drawer of water, made me a gardener. During my activity as
gardener, Ishtar loved me. X + IV years I exercised dominion, . . . years I
commanded the black-headed people (i.e. the Semites) and ruled them," etc.
The rest of this legend tells us something about his campaign against Dur-
ilu on the borders of Elam ; it is, however, too fragmentary to be coherent.
THE FINDING OK
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY 361
[ca. 3800 B.C.]
In connection with this legend we would call the attention of the reader
once more to the fact that not merely the identity of this Shargena with our
Sharganisharali, his deeds and warlike expeditions recorded in the so-called
" Tablet of Omens," with the date of his rule, have been doubted, but even
his very existence. A series of new facts connected with the time of Naram-
Sin and Shargan-isharali have since come to light by the publication of a
great number of contract-tablets written during the reign of these kings.
These tablets are to be found in Revue d" Assyriologie, iv, No. iii. Hence it
is now impossible to doubt the historicity of Sharganisharali, as was done
by Niebuhr.
Down to the time of Hilprecht's publication of Old Babylonian Inscrip-
tions, Part I, our knowledge of Sargon I was almost entirely drawn from
the "legend" and the "Tablet of Omens." Hence it happened that the
great deeds which were attributed to Sargon and Naram-Sin in the "Tablet
of Omens " were said to be " purely legendary " (so by Winckler, Oeschichte
Babylon, und Assyr., p. 38). Others thought that his deeds had been
simply projected backwards (so Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, New York,
1895, p. 599 ; "Sargon II is he who projected backward"); others again, not
believing that Sargon I could have undertaken such expeditions and have
become practically the "king of the four corners of the earth," invented
another Icing Sargon (so Hommel, Gesch. Baby, und Assyr., Berlin, 1883,
p. 307, note 4 ; this Sargon he places at about 2000 B.C.).
Thanks to the excavations at Telloh and the industry of Thureau-
Dangin, we are now in a position to prove that the statements of the
"Tablet of Omens" are correct in almost every particular.
Let us hear what this " Tablet of Omens " has to say. Eleven of these
"omens" are ascribed to Sargon and two to Naram-Sin. They generally
begin with the phrase: "When the moon was in such and such position,"
then Sargon, etc.
The first omen records Sargon's expedition to and subjection of Elam.
The second tells how he marched to the land Akharri (i.e. the West-
land), and subjected it, and that his army subjugated the kibrati irbitta, i.e.
"the four corners of the world."
The third tells us that he brought sorrow upon Kish and Babylon, and
built a city after the pattern (?) of Agade, and called it Ub-da-ki, »'.«.
"place (city) of the world."
The fourth records another expedition against the West and the taking
possession of the four corners of the earth. So also the fifth omen.
The sixth omen is too fragmentary to yield any certain sense.
The seventh gives us a fuller account of the expedition against Akharri ;
he crosses the sea of the West and wages war against it for three years, takes
it, erects there his statues, and transports the prisoners, whom he had taken,
over land and sea.
The eighth describes the repairing of one of his palaces, which he calls
"E-ki-a-am i-ni-lik," i.e. "the house": "so let us walk."
In the next we hear of a campaign against a certain Kashtubilla of Kasalla,
who had revolted. Sargon goes against him, conquers him and his army, and
destroys the rebellious country.
The tenth probably is one of the ^nost important. It reads: "Sargon,
against whom under this omen the elders of the whole country had revolted,
and in Agade had shut him up — Sargon went out, conquered them, and cast
them down, subdued their army, and . . ."
The last omen tells us something about Sargon's campaign against the
362 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 3750-2700 B.C.]
land Suri, how he overcame it, and took it, and how he destroyed its
army.
The two omens relating to Naram-Sin record a campaign against Apirak
(Omen i) and against Magan (Omen ii). In both expeditions Naram-Sin
was so successful, that he even took captive the kings of these countries,
viz. : Resh-Ramman (Adad), king of Apirak, and N. N. king of Magan.
According to this "Tablet of Omens," then Sargon I subdued Elam, the
"West-land," brought woe upon Babylon and Kish, conquered the country
Kasalla, suppressed a revolt which had arisen against him while on his ex-
peditions, and finally subdued the land Suri "in its totality." &
Sargon's son and successor, Naram-Sin, followed up the successes of his
father by marching into Magan, whose king he took captive. He assumed
the imperial title of "king of the four zones," and, like his father, was
addressed as a "god." He is even called "the god of Agade" (Accad),
reminding us of the divine honours claimed by the Pharaohs of Egypt, whose
territory now adjoined that of Babylonia. A finely executed bas-relief, rep-
resenting Naram-Sin, and bearing a striking resemblance to early Egyptian
art in many of its features, has been found at Diarbekir. Babylonian art,
however, had already attained a high degree of excellence ; two seal cylin-
ders 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 instituted, and one
of the documents 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.
Bingani-shar-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, Yahveh. The
Babylonian god, Ea, however, is more likely to be meant.
THE KINGS OF TJR
The fall of Sargon's empire seems to have been as sudden as its rise.
The seat of supreme power in Babylonia was shifted southward to Erech,
Isin, and Ur. At least three dynasties appear to have reigned at Ur and
claimed suzerainty over the other Babylonian states. One of these, under
Gungunu, succeeded in transferring the capital of Babylonia from Isin to
Ur. It is still uncertain whether Gungunu belonged to the second or third
dynasty of Ur; if to the second, among his successors would have been
Ur-Gur, a great builder, who built or restored the temples of the Moon-god
at Ur, of the Sun-god at Larsa, of Ishtar at Erech, and of Bel at Nippur.
His son and successor was Dungi II, one of whose vassals was Gudea the
patesi or high priest of Lagash [Shirpurla]. 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 Amanus 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
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY
[ca. 2700-2340 B.C.]
statues, now in the Louvre, are carved out of Sinaitic dolerite, and on the
lap of one of them 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 gods. Gudea claims to have conquered Anshan
in Khun, and was succeeded by his son, Ur-Ningirsu. His date may be pro-
visionally fixed at 2700 B.C.
The high priests of Lagash still owned allegiance to Ur, when the last
dynasty of Ur was dominant in Babylonia. The dynasty was Semitic, not
Sumerian, though one of its kings was Dungi II. He was followed by Bur-
Sin II, Gimil-Sin, and Ine-Sin, whose power extended to the Mediterranean,
and of whose reigns we possess a large number of contemporaneous monu-
ments in the shape of contracts and similar business documents, as well as
chronological tables. After the fall of the dynasty, Babylonia passed under
foreign influence.
ACCESSION OF A SOUTH ARABIAN DYNASTY
Sumu-abi (" 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 fourteen years, Sumu-abi was suc-
ceeded 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 Immeru, are mentioned in the contract tablets as
reigning at the same time as Sumu-la-ilu (or Samu-la-ilu) ; and under Sin-
muballit, 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-Mabuk,
who was prince of Yamudbal [or E-mutbal], 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-muballit, Khammurabi, whose name is also written Amraurapi and
Khammuram, and who was the Amraphel of Genesis xiv. 1. The Elamites,
under their king, Kudur-Lagamar or Chedorlaomer, 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 Yamud-
bal 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 independ-
ence, and the rule of Babylon was obeyed as far as the shores of the
Mediterranean. Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated in the reigns of
Khammurabi and other kings of the dynasty, have been discovered, as well
as autograph letters of the kings themselves, more especially of Khammurabi.
Among the latter is one ordering the despatch of two hundred and forty
soldiers from Assyria and Situllum, a proof that Assyria was at the time
a Babylonian dependency. Constant intercourse was kept up between
Babylonia and the West, Babylonian officials and troops passing 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 Khammu-
rabi's grandfather. Ammi-satana, the great-grandson of Khammurabi, still
entitles himself " king of the land of the Amorites," and both his father and
364 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[co. 2287-1100 B.C.]
son bear the Canaanitish (and South Arabian) names of Abesukh or Abishua
[Ebishum], and Ammi-zadok [or Ammi-sadugga] .
Samsu-satana, the son of Ammi-zadok, was the last king of the first
dynasty of Babylon, which was followed by a dynasty of eleven Sumerian
kings for 368 years. We know but little of them ; their capital has not yet
been discovered, and no trading documents dated in their reigns have been
found. They were overthrown and Babylonia was conquered by Kassites
or Kossseans from the mountains of Elam, under Kandish [Gandish] or
Gaddas (in 1800 B.C.), who established a dynasty which lasted for 576
years and nine months.
THE KASSITE DYNASTY
Under this foreign domination, Babylonia lost its empire over western
Asia. Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high priests of
Asshur made themselves kings of Assyria. The divine attributes with which
the Semitic kings of Babylonia had been invested disappeared at the same
time ; the title of " god " is never given to a Kassite sovereign. Babylon,
however, remained the capital of the kingdom and the holy city of western
Asia. Like the sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire, it was necessary for
the prince, who claimed rule in western Asia, to go to Babylon and there be
acknowledged as the adopted son of Bel before his claim to legitimacy could
be admitted. Babylon became more and more a priestly city, living on its
ancient prestige and merging its ruler into a pontiff. From henceforth,
down to the Persian era, it was the religious head of the civilised East.
One of the earlier Kassite kings was Agum-kakrime, who recovered the
images of Merodach and his consort, which had been carried away to Khani.
At a later date Kadashman-Bel and Burna-buriash I corresponded with
the Egyptian Pharaohs, Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV (1400 B.C.).
The Assyrian king Asshur-uballit still owned allegiance to his Babylonian
suzerain, and intermarriages took place between the royal families of Assyria
and Babylonia. Babylonia, moreover, still sought opportunities of recover-
ing its old supremacy in Palestine, which the conquests of the XVIIIth
Dynasty had made an Egyptian province, and along with Mitanni or Aram-
Naharain and the Hittites intrigued against the Egyptian government with
disaffected conspirators in the West. After the death of Burna-buriash, how-
ever, civil war in Babylonia led to Assyrian interference in the affairs of the
country, and from this time forward even the nominal obedience of Assyria
to its old suzerain was at an end.
ASSYRIAN CONQUEST OF BABYLON
Frequent wars broke out between the two nations, and eventually (about
1280 B.C.) Tukulti-Ninib of Assyria, in the fifth year of his reign, captured
Babylon and sent the treasures of E-sagila, the temple of Bel-Merodach, to
Asshur. For seven years the Assyrian monarch reigned over Babylonia, then
a revolt obliged him to retire ; Adad-shum-usur of the native dynasty was
placed on the Babylonian throne ; and Tukulti-Ninib was shortly afterwards
murdered by his son, Asshurnazirpal I. Assyria steadily increased in power,
while Babylonia fell more and more into decay. Shalmaneser I, the builder
of Calah (now Nimrud) in 1300 B.C., carried his victorious arms in all
directions, and Tiglathpileser I extended the Assyrian Empire as far as the
Mediterranean (1100 B.C.).
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY
[ca. 1230-745 B.C.]
The Kassite Dynasty had fallen about 1230 B.C., in consequence of an
attack on the part of the Elamites, and a new dynasty which sprang from
Isin took its place, and lasted for 132^ years. Then came a series of
short-lived dynasties, ending with that of Nabu-nasir, the Nabonassar of
classical writers, who ascended the throne of Babylon in 747 B.C. Assyria
was at the time in the throes of a revolution. Civil war and pestilence
were devastating the kingdom, and its northern provinces had been wrested
from it by Ararat (or Van) [Urartu]. In 746 B.C. Calah rebelled, and
on the thirteenth of Airu (April), in the following year, Pulu or Pul, who
took the name of Tiglathpileser III, seized the throne, and inaugurated a
new and vigorous policy.6
At this point it seems well to interrupt the story of Babylonia for a time
until we have traced the origins and rise of that Assyrian power in which
the fortunes of Babylon were soon involved and subordinated until the
destruction of Nineveh, when the New Babylonian Empire emerged into
historic prominence."
CHAPTER III. THE RISE OF ASSYRIA
Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches,
and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature ; and his top was
among the thick boughs.
The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her
rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers
unto all the trees of the field.
Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field,
and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because
of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.
All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under
his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and
under his shadow dwelt all great nations.
Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches : for
his root was by great waters. — Ezekiel xxxi. 3-7.
THE Assyrian Empire is in some respects unique in history. Despite
the proverbial tendency of history to repeat itself, there has been no dupli-
cation of the tragic history of this wonderful body politic. It rose to be the
most powerful of nations ; it reached out and gained the widest empire that
had hitherto been seen ; its capital, Nineveh, was for a few centuries the
metropolis of the world. But in the very fulness of its imperial flight it
was struck down and utterly destroyed.
Other empires have been subjugated ; Nineveh was annihilated. The
very name " Assyrian " became only a memory and a tradition. Late in the
seventh century B.C. Nineveh was the boasted mistress of the world ; two
centuries later the mounds that covered her ruins were noted by the Greek
historian Xenophon, who marched past them with the ill-fated Ten Thou-
sand, merely as the relics of some ancient city of unknown name. So brief
may be the highest fame ! Yet the sequel is stranger still. As we have seen,
these forgotten mounds treasured secrets of history which they have since
given up to the explorer, and our own generation has seen Assyria restored
to its place in history. The details of its career are more fully known to us
than those of almost any other nation of antiquity. Such a phcenix-like
regeneration is a fitting sequel to the fantastic career with its tragic denoue-
ment, which is about to claim our attention.
It must not be supposed that the Assyrian Empire came suddenly to the
height of power just suggested. On the contrary, its rise was slow, and
366
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 367
[ca. 3000 B.C.]
accomplished by intermittent impulses. Naturally enough, the growing
nation has left us no such exhaustive records of its history during earlier
days as have come to us from its time of might. Indeed, for some centuries
after Assyria began to assume importance, we have but fragmentary records
of its history. Only here and there a great monarch puts the stamp of his
achievements upon an epoch so indelibly that time itself cannot wipe it out.
Such names as Sargon II, Shalmaneser, and Tiglathpileser were remembered
by posterity as the names of great heroes whose deeds various successors
strove to emulate, and whose names were taken up, sometimes by usurpers
of the throne, sometimes by legitimate descendants of royalty, and thus
doubly perpetuated.
It is not till we are well within the last thousand years of the pre-Chris-
tian era, however, that the monarchs of Assyria come to be so well known
to us as to seem like true historic personages in the same sense in which
these terms would be applied to the Alexanders and Caesars of a later
period. Such kings as Sargon II, Asshurnazirpal, Tiglathpileser III, Shal-
maneser II and a little later, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Asshurbanapal,
left records so voluminous and so perfectly authenticated as to bring their
authors into the clearest light of history. Nowhere eke outside of Egypt
have such full records been preserved of the deeds of ancient monarchs as
in the case of these Assyrian kings. Naturally enough, the record ceases
before the destruction of Nineveh ; there was no Assyrian scribe left to tell
of that tragic event.
But now the scene shifts to Babylon ; the kings of that principality take
up the broken record, and for a few generations supply us with historical
documents of the utmost importance. And where the Babylonian records
end, the Persian chronicles begin. These are supplemented in due course
by the reports of the Grecian historians, beginning with Herodotus, so that
the historical sequence is practically unbroken.
We have seen that these Assyrian and Babylonian records were quite
unknown throughout later classical times, and from then on until restored
late in the nineteenth century. A peculiar interest, then, attaches to the
comparison of these records with the traditions of Babylonian and Assyrian
heroes which the classical writers have preserved. In general, it can hardly
be said that the comparison is flattering to the classical mind. No Assyrian
tablet tells us of any such person as Ninus, the alleged founder of Nineveh.
Nor is there any royal cylinder that tells of the mighty conquests of Queen
Semiramis. There is, indeed, a queen of that name mentioned, but she is the
consort of a late king of Nineveh, and there is nothing recorded to suggest
that her achievements were in any respect noteworthy. We are forced to
conclude, then, that the Greek historians, in recording the alleged history of
Assyria, depended upon verbal traditions. They appear to have been alto-
gether ignorant of the contents of the authentic historical documents, many
of which were still accessible in the libraries of Babylonia when Herodotus
visited that city. It is interesting to note, however, that the Greeks had a
vivid realisation of the sometime greatness of Assyria, even though they
were unable to form a clear and correct image of the picture. Semiramis
was really an idealised impersonation of the general conception of the Assyr-
ian conqueror. Sargon, Tiglathpileser, and their successors were forgotten
in name, but their deeds were vaguely remembered, and out of the reminis-
cences of their actual conquests arose the conception of a mythical ruler,
whose name was destined for centuries to supplant the names of actual
heroes. What happened here is but a repetition of what has happened else-
368
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 3000-1120 B.C.]
where under similar conditions. There is no myth without its background
of fact. Had there never been great conquerors ruling over Assyria, there
would never have arisen the legend of Semiramis. That " there is no smoke
without some fire " is a maxim which the historian should never overlook ;
it is a maxim to which the story of Assyrian history gives peculiar emphasis.
So much has been said about the sources of Assyrian history that only
a word need be added here. We shall have occasion as we proceed, to call
attention in greater detail to the specific records of various kings. In addi-
tion to these, however, there are certain historical documents of a more gen-
eral character, which have been largely instrumental in enabling the modern
investigator to reconstruct Babylonian and Assyrian history. The most
important of these are certain Babylonian king-lists and a so-called Syn-
chronistic History, in which the succession of rulers in Babylonia and in
Assyria is synchronised. These chronological documents taken together do
not enable us fully to reconstruct the history of the long periods in ques-
tion, but the gaps are relatively insignificant, in particular after about the
year 1000 B.C. ; and for the later monarchs of Assyria the records are
often so voluminous as to furnish accurate details regarding all the events
of importance.
It has already been pointed out that the
earliest history of Assyria is no less obscure
than that of early Babylonia. As nearly as
the facts can now be restored to us, it would
appear that for some centuries the people to
the north of Babylonia were struggling for
supremacy against the older civilisation of
the South. Gradually the northerners —
the Assyrians, as they became known —
gained in strength until, finally, about the
beginning of the fourteenth century B.C.,
under Shalmaneser I, Asshur obtained a
position at least equal to Babylonia. After
the death of this monarch Assyria seems to
have weakened for a time, and it is not
until about 1100 B.C. that another great
monarch appeared to put the stamp of his
personality upon the epoch. This new ruler
was known as Tiglathpileser I. He has
been called the first of the great Assyrian
conquerors, though perhaps this estimate
does scant justice to certain of his prede-
cessors. In any event, he restored the in-
fluence of Assyria, subjugated Babylonia,
and is said to have been the first Assyrian
ruler to be crowned as " King of the Four
Corners of the Earth." It is believed that
Nineveh was established as the capital of
the empire in the reign of the son and
successor of Tiglathpileser, who bore the unfamiliar name of Asshur-bel-kala.
It is curious how largely the personality of an individual monarch
dominates the history of an epoch among oriental nations. An illustration
of this familiar fact is shown by antithesis in the scantiness of the records
for about a century after the death of Tiglathpileser. Imperfect records
AN ASSYRIAN PRINCE
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 369
[.•<i. 9iSO-825 B.C.]
reappear about 950 B.C., but it is not till about three-quarters of a century
later that Assyria rises again to a time of might. Then, under Asahur-
nazirpal, one of the most enterprising and most cruel of conquerors, the
stamp of Assyrian influence was put upon all surrounding nations. Shal-
maneser II largely sustained the traditions of his father, and the power of
Assyria was upheld, if not extended, by the next rulers, Tiglathpileser III
and Shalmaneser IV.
How fully the deeds of these later Assyrian monarchs are known to us
will appear in the succeeding pages. Monarchs of even greater celebrity
were to come after ; yet perhaps the reign of Asshurnazirpal (885-860 B.C.)
may not unjustly be regarded as the period when Assyria obtained ite
greatest power and its highest civilisation. The bas-reliefs from the palace
of Asshurnazirpal, which were exhumed by Layard and which are now
exhibited in the British Museum, are in some respects the most perfect
examples of Assyrian art that have been preserved. It is true that the
artists of two centuries later had developed a more elaborate fashion in the
matter of details ; but the rugged outlines of the earlier masters tell of art
in its creative period. The models produced in this epoch were never to be
altered in their essentials during the entire course of Assyrian history.
Such hunting scenes as that in which Asshurnazirpal, standing in his
chariot, is seen shooting an arrow at an enraged and wounded lion, were
perhaps never quite equalled by any Assyrian artist of a later epoch. The
art of this time shows examples also of massive sculptures, such as the
human-headed bulls and lions, in relative abundance. A curious feature of
the later sculptures is that they usually present inscriptions written across
pedestal and figure alike. Needless to say, these inscriptions record deeds
of the great conqueror. Unfortunately, many of them are repetitions, but
even so they preserve relatively comprehensive records of the achievements
of the great king.
Even fuller records are preserved of Shalmaneser II. In particular, the
black obelisk on which the deeds of this king are presented, both in graphic
pictures and in extensive inscriptions, is one of the most famous of Assyrian
antiquities. The exact character of this inscription and of the other records
in question will be detailed in the succeeding pages. <* Before proceeding to
the history proper, let us study the theatre where the drama was played and
the origins of the actors.
LAND AND PEOPLE
The land of Assyria, in the more restricted sense of the term, lies for
the most part on the left bank of the Tigris, and is bounded on the south by
the Lower Zab. Hence, strictly speaking, it would not form part of Meso-
potamia were it not that the capital importance of the Tigris to the country
and the trend of its other rivers make it a kind of appendage to the alluvial
plain, and that the mountain ranges of the North constitute a boundary
which cuts it off from the rest of the world, and thus naturally assigns it to
Mesopotamia. Consequently, as soon as the Assyrians gained their inde-
pendence and started on a career of conquest, it was natural that they should
first extend their borders in that direction.
Mesopotamia consists of a great low-lying plain divided by no physical
barrier. It was natural, therefore, that the policy of all powerful rulers in
that region should have had for its aim the political unification of all parts
of the country, united as they were already by a common civilisation and
H. W. — VOL. I. 2 B
370 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
economic interdependence. The efforts of the Assyrians were likewise
directed towards this end, though it was long before they obtained it. In
the kingdom of Babylonia, which asserted its sway over the whole southern
portion of the plain and its dependent provinces, they were at first con-
fronted by an adversary strong enough to resist them, and all that fell to
them for the time being was the northern half of Mesopotamia, the greater
part of which remained under their dominion, and was merged into an
Assyrian empire, just as the whole of Babylonia had been merged into a
Babylonian empire. We shall see, however, that the memory of the sepa-
rate existence of the two component parts of the empire at an earlier stage
still subsisted in certain customs and relics of civil law, just as it did in
Babylonia.
The Assyrians were a Semitic race, and, but for slight differences of
dialect, spoke the same language as the Semitic-Babylonians. The Assyr-
ian branch of the race constituted, in the first instance, an outpost on the
left bank of the Tigris, where it developed on somewhat different lines
from the Semites who remained in Mesopotamia. We have every reason
for assuming that, before the Assyrians made their way into the country,
the whole of Mesopotamia, the north no less than the south, was occupied
by a Semitic population, distinct from the Aramaeans — themselves proba-
bly recent immigrants — and united by a common civilisation. This is the
race which we have styled Babylonians, as distinguished from the Sumerians,
or, more exactly, Semitic-Babylonians, in treating of Babylonia. We are
absolutely in the dark as to the extent to which these Semites of the North
may have absorbed elements of an elder Sumerian population that may have
survived, for in the earliest times concerning which we have any historic
testimony the Semites were predominant even in northern Babylonia, much
more, therefore, in northern Mesopotamia.
The Assyrians must have developed on independent lines, for in all
other respects they differ materially from the Babylonians. In the latter
we have made the acquaintance of a people peaceably disposed, nay, actually
un warlike, concerned mainly with the development of their civilisation —
qualities which, when we compare them with the Assyrians, we are inclined
to set to the account of their Sumerian blood. The latter were probably
the most warlike of all the Semitic nations of the East, and maintained the
purity of their racial type ; for the features of the figures in their sculptures
exhibit to a marked degree the characteristics which strike us nowadays as
peculiar to the Jewish race. They also differ from the Babylonians in
figure, for the latter are usually represented as short and thick-set, while the
Assyrians are of somewhat lofty stature and powerful build.
The land of Assyria is very different from Mesopotamia proper. The
nearness of the mountain ranges makes the climate cooler, and the soil is
probably less productive than that of the lowlands along the river. Nor
were the means of transport within its borders as good as in Mesopotamia
proper, for the Tigris only constituted the frontier, and the swiftness of
its current made it less well adapted for traffic than the Euphrates, which
formed the most convenient natural line of communication in the plain of
Mesopotamia.
In Babylonia we made the acquaintance of a country which had devel-
oped its own civilisation, and one where the inhabitants held in proud and
honourable remembrance the various stages of its economic and political
development, — a sentiment reflected in the religious cults of the ancient
cities, the centres of civilisation. With Assyria it is otherwise. That
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 371
country began to play its part in Mesopotamian history with the set purpose
of appropriating what Babylonia had achieved. The Assyrians had no such
gains, hallowed by the associations of thousands of years to boast of in their
own country. They were a tardy supplement to the Semitic immigration.
They felt themselves an appendage to the Semitic population already settled
in Mesopotamia, and consequently regarded its ancient cults as, in a measure,
their own. The fact implies an unconscious confession that they had nothing
analogous or equivalent to set against the old centres of Babylonian civilisa-
tion, and, as a matter of fact, the chief towns of Assyria cannot for a moment
be compared in importance with those of Babylonia. The most famous of
the former owed their day of splendour to the rise of the Assyrian Empire
or even, to some extent, to the fancy of individual kings ; and when the
Assyrian Empire passed from the stage of history these, its artificial crea-
tions, were abolished with it.
Babylonia rose again after every fresh blow, because her rise to the
position she held had its root in a vital need of the peoples of anterior Asia;
while soon after the fall of the Assyrian Empire the very names of the great
cities of Assyria had passed from the memory of the dwellers in the land.
The case is different with the cities of northern Mesopotamia, which be-
longed to the Assyrian Empire, but existed before its rise, and survived its
fall. The only other exception among the large Assyrian cities is Arbela,
which, being situate at the junction of the trade routes to northern Meso-
potamia, Armenia, and Media, had probably been in existence before the
time of the Assyrian Empire, and likewise retained its importance to a biter
period.
ASSYRIAN CAPITALS: ASSHUR AND NINEVEH
The oldest capital of Assyria was Asshur, situated on the right bank of
the Tigris, on the site of the present Kalah Sherghat. It was originally
the seat of rulers called patesis, who were probably subjects of the Baby-
lonian monarchy. In the first half of the second millennium B.C. these
rulers extended their sway over the district which they styled " the land of
the city of Asshur," and assumed the title of "king." Asshur was always
held in honour as the ancient capital, but it lay so far to the south (being, in
fact, almost beyond the borders of the country), that it soon became impera-
tive for the " kings of Assyria " to transfer the centre of government to
a more convenient place. Shalmaneser I (circa 1300) accordingly chose
Calah for his residence. The natural result was the decline of the impor-
tance of Asshur, since its situation was not such as to assure it a leading
position. In later times it subsisted mainly upon its old reputation, and
enjoyed special privileges, which were confirmed even by Sargon. It was
the seat of Asshur, the chief national divinity. The kings of Assyria, from
Shalmaneser I to Sargon, held their court at Calah (Nimrud). Its conse-
quence seems to have declined after the reign of Tiglathpileser I, for his
son, Asshur-bel-kala removed to Nineveh, which remained the royal resi-
dence till the reign of Asshurnazirpal. The latter rebuilt Calah and so
improved it that it remained the capital until Sargon chose Dur-Sharrukin
(Khorsabad), which in turn Nineveh replaced as capital.
Nineveh (Ninua), situated above Calah, on the left bank of the Tigris,
and opposite the present town of Mosul, is now represented by the two
mounds of Kuyunjik and Neby-Yunus. It was one of the oldest and most
important cities of the province of Assyria, and was highly esteemed from
the very earliest times of the Assyrian Empire as being the seat of a cult of
372 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 1741 B.C.]
an Ishtar known as " Ishtar of Ninua," to distinguish her from the Ishtar
of Arbela. We must therefore look upon it as a city which originally stood
on an equal footing with Asshur, and was subjugated by the patesi of
the latter city. It became the royal residence in the reign of Asshur-bel-
kala, the son of Tiglathpileser (or even earlier), and remained so until the
reign of Asshurnazirpal. But it really owed its fame as the capital and
chief city of Assyria, which it represented in the eyes of other nations, to
Sennacherib. He built an entirely new Nineveh, which was to show forth
worthily the power and glory of the Assyrian Empire. His successors con-
tinued to reside there, and contributed to its splendour. Esarhaddon and
Asshurbanapal built palaces there, and Nineveh formed the last bulwark of
the Assyrian Empire.
In the Euphrates Valley, and mainly on the right bank, between the
bank where the river turns towards the southwest and Babylonia, various
states had corne into being which, by the force of their natural connection
with Babylonia, inclined towards that kingdom rather than towards Assyria
and northern Mesopotamia. There are Laqi, Khindanu, and (east of the
latter) Sukhi, or Shuhi, which last extended from somewhere near the
mouth of the Khabur to Babylonia, and was under Babylonian ascendency
down to a late period. These states had probably in the first instance been
dependencies of the Babylonian Empire, but had enjoyed virtual inde-
pendence from the time of the fall of Babylonia and the rise of Assyria.
Asshurnazirpal was the first to subjugate these "governors," who, up to this
time, had " paid no tribute " to the Assyrian kings, and who were supported
by Babylonia in their struggle with Assyria. The population of these states
was composed of the same elements as that of Mesopotamia. The original
Semitic-Babylonian settlers had been ousted by Aramaean immigrants. This
was most evident in Laqi, the westernmost, which was not a homogeneous
body politic in the reign of Asshurnazirpal, but was governed by various
sheikhs. And, generally speaking, these states were semi-nomadic common-
wealths.
THE KISE OF ASSYRIA
The city of Asshur was originally a patesi-ship. The situation of Asshur
seems to point to a close connection with Babylonia rather than with northern
Mesopotamia, and for the present, at least, it seems most likely that we ought
to regard it as a vassal state to Babylonia or the Kingdom of the Four
Quarters of the World. Nor must we ignore the possibility that it may
have formed part of the realm of the " Kishshati."
A record left by an Assyrian king enables us to determine one point
of time, at least, when Asshur was still a dependency and ruled by a
patesi. Tiglathpileser I built that part of the great temple of Asshur
which was intended for the worship of the gods Anu and Ramman (Adad),
and in the record he has left he observes that this temple was built by the
patesi Shamshi-Adad, the son of Ishme-Dagan, patesi of Asshur, six hundred
and forty-one years before the reign of his own great-grandfather Asshur-
dan, sixty years earlier. Accordingly Asshur must have been ruled by
patesis sixty plus six hundred and forty-one years before 1100, when Tig-
lathpileser was on the throne, and its exaltation to the rank of a kingdom must
have taken place later than that. The names of two patesis of Asshur
and those of their fathers are known to us from inscriptions of their
own. One of them, Shamshi-Adad, and his father, Igur-Kapkapu, we
may place before or after Shamshi, the son of Ishme-Dagan, with equal
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 373
[oa. 1741-1300 B.C.]
probability, while the form of the other two names, Irishum and his father
Khallu, being simple and exhibiting nothing of the compound character of
later Assyrian names, leads us to conjecture that they belong to an earlier
period.
The names of these six patesis and their work in the building of the
temple of Asshur represent our whole stock of knowledge concerning Asshur
before it rose to be a royal city. The first king of Assyria of whom we
know anything is Asshur-bel-nish-eshu, who is introduced to us by the
Synchronistic History as a contemporary of the Koss:r:m ' kin<f Karaindash.
of Babylon. As this monarch reigned some time about the first half of the
fifteenth century B.C., there is an interval of over three hundred years
between him and the patesi Shamshi-Adad, an interval of which we Know
nothing except that the rise of Asshur and the establishment of the kingdom
of Assyria must fall within it. Of the circumstances and conditions under
which these events took place we know nothing in detail, but an explanation
naturally suggests itself from the state of Babylonia. During this same
period Babylonia had sunk to such a depth of decrepitude that her own
strength was no longer adequate to secure her against hordes of invaders,
and she could continue to exist only under the protection of the Kosssean
kings and their armies. These disorders, which inevitably attend such a state
of things, served, as they invariably do in the East, to promote the formation
of new states under energetic and enterprising leaders, and to these circum-
stances the kingdom of Asshur probably owed its rise.
From the reign of Shalmaneser I (circa 1300) onwards the kings of
Assyria bear the title of " Shar Kishshati " and even place it before that of
" King of Asshur." " Shar Kishshati " means " King of the World," and the
title is thus formed in the same fashion as the Babylonian " King of the
Four Quarters of the World." And the Assyrian title, like the Babylonian,
was not merely general in scope, but was bound up with the possession of a
particular district and particular cities.
It is doubtful whether Assyria subdued the kingdom of the Kishshati
from the outset, or gained possession of it at a later period. According to
the scanty records at present open to us, the latter hypothesis seems the
more probable. The first Assyrian king to bear the title of " Shar Kish-
shati" is Shalmaneser I (about 1300), and he gives it to his father, Adad-
nirari I (or Ramman-nirari), although the latter does not assume it in his
own inscription. Shalmaneser attaches so much weight to this title that on
a couple of bricks, which date from his reign, he actually styles himself
" King of Kishshati " alone, and omits the royal title of Assyria ; and we
therefore may conclude that the union of northern Mesopotamia and Assyria
was the work of Adad-nirari and of Shalmaneser.
This would be at least one fixed point in the earliest history of Assyria
from which to trace the development of the empire. Before Shalmaneser
we have to do only with the little kingdom of Asshur, which was chiefly
engaged in struggles with Babylonia and its eastern neighbours, and after
his time with the united dominions of Assyria and northern Mesopotamia,
the leading power of Mesopotamian civilisation against the West and the
attacks of barbarians on every side. The Synchronistic History is our
principal guide to Assyrian history, as it was to the history of Babylonia
before it came into touch with Assyria. We have but few inscriptions of
the kings of this early stage of Assyria's existence, and only by the aid
[' It is so uncertain that Karaindash, etc., were actually Kossaans that the word Karaite or
Kassnite ia kept by some scholars, as Hilprecht,/Ooodspeed,c McCurdy,* and Rogers.*]
374 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 1450-1325 B.C.]
of the above-mentioned document can we more or less connectedly trace
the course of history. Before the reign of Asshur-bel-nish-eshu, at
which the chronicle now begins, we can be sure of nothing but a great
blank.
With Asshur-bel-nish-eshu, who reigned in the first half of the fifteenth
century, begins a line of kings with a certain degree of continuity. Of
himself we only know what is told in the Sychronistic History, namely, that
he concluded an alliance with Karaindash of Babylon by which they guar-
anteed one another in possession of their dominions. He was presently —
though perhaps not immediately — succeeded by Puzur-Asshur [probably
about 1420 B.C.] of whom we are told the same thing. He entered into
friendly alliance with Burna-buriash.
Of his supposed successor, Asshur-nadin-akhe, we know, from the letters of
his son Asshur-uballit to Amenhotep IV, that he, like his Babylonian con-
temporary, held communication with the kings of Egypt. In an inscription
of a later king mention is made of a building of his, the foundation of a
palace at Asshur. For the rest, it is by no means impossible that he may
have reigned before Puzur-Asshur, and that the latter, as well as Asshur-
uballit, was his son.
We possess a letter written by Asshur-uballit to Amenhotep IV of
Egypt. It gives an account of presents made to the king of Egypt — a
war chariot yoked to two white horses, and a seal cylinder — makes excuse
for the tardy return of Egyptian ambassadors on the plea that they had
been stopped by the (nomadic) Sutu, and contains the usual importunate
requests for richer presents in return. In Babylonia, Asshur-uballit suc-
ceeded in making a way for Assyrian interference, and thus came a step nearer
to the goal all kings of Assyria longed to reach, the suzerainty of Babylon.
Apart from the attempt of Asshur-narara and Nabu-daian, which presum-
ably came to nothing, the little kingdom of Assyria had been on friendly
terms with Babylonia, and had made alliance which probably contributed
more to her own security than that of the other party. Internal troubles
were the pretext which first rendered feasible his successful interference in
Babylonian affairs.
The assassination of the Babylonian king by the malcontent Kossaeans,
and the elevation of Nazibugash to the throne, gave Asshur-uballit an admira-
ble pretext for restoring " order " in Babylonia and placing Kurigalzu, his
other grandson, on the throne. Adad-nirari mentions another expedition of
his against the Shubari. His successor, Bel-nirari I [about 1370 B.C.],
boasts in his inscription that he conquered the Kasshu (Kossseans) and
enlarged the borders of the land. This probably refers to a distinct cam-
paign against the Kasshu, and not to the war with Kurigalzu II, in which
he was likewise victorious. The latter enterprise also resulted in territorial
expansion, which does not necessarily seem to have been made permanent.
Pudi-ilu (about 1350), the son and successor of Bel-nirari, waged war,
we are told by his son, Adad-nirari, against the otherwise unknown Turuki
and Nigimkhi, who probably dwelt somewhere in the direction of Armenia,
and extended the Assyrian frontier to the north (Gutium). Adad-nirari I
(about 1325) has left an inscription which has been discovered at Kalah
Shergat (Asshur). According to it, he, like his predecessors, waged most
of his wars on the northeastern frontier of his kingdom, and endeavoured,
by building cities, to revive the prosperity of the region occupied by the
Shubari, Lulumi, Guti, and Kasshu of the northeast, which had been laid
waste by previous wars. His inscription relates mainly to the buildings
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 375
[co. 1326-1278 B.C.]
he erected in connection with the temple of Asshur. It is the first from
Assyria with a definite date. It was indited in the limmu (i.e. the year of
office) of Shulman-kharradu.
His son, Shalmaneser I (about 1300), was one of the mightiest Assyrian
kings, and probably the first who raised Asshur to a position equal, if not
superior, to that of Babylonia. We do not know much about him from
inscriptions left by himself, and are therefore obliged to depend on occasional
statements of succeeding kings. He ruled over Mesopotamia westward to
the Balikh at least, if not to the Euphrates, and assured to Assyria the
possession of the northern tract between the Euphrates and Tigris, which
was afterward the provinces of Gumathene and Sophene. He founded colo-
nies there, and planted them with Assyrian settlers to form a bulwark to
Mesopotamia against the tribes of the North. Afterwards, when the power
of Assyria was impaired, these colonies were in great straits, but they held
their own, and were then reinforced by Asshurnazirpal, to whom they served
as a welcome basis for the new Assyrian province of Tuskhan which he
established there.
With the extension of the kingdom and the inclusion of northern Meso-
potamia, the need of another capital than Asshur, which lay too far to the
south, made itself felt. The city Shalmaneser chose for this purpose was
Calah, which remained the capital down to the time of Sargon, except during
the period of decline which followed upon the reign of Tiglathpileser I. His
object in this change of residence was clearly to give expression to the
altered state of tilings which had come about in Assyria and Mesopotamia.
Assyria was not to be the privileged kingdom, but the two political organi-
sations, Asshur and the Kingdom of the Kishshati, were to be equal mem-
bers of the new empire, each retaining its own centre in Asshur and Kharran
respectively, while the king founded his own capital for himself, to avoid
giving the preference to either.
Shalmaneser's son, Tukulti-Ninib I (about 1275) [but probably some-
what earlier] was no less fortunate in his enterprises than his father. He
was the first to achieve the object of every king in Assyria — dominion
over Babylon. Adad-nirari III, in his list of his ancestors, styles him
"King of Sumer and Accad," from which we may certainly conclude that
he held the same sort of position toward the whole of Babylonia, and
the kingdom of Babylon more particularly, as was afterward attained by
Shalmaneser II — that is to say, lie must have ruled over the several prov-
inces of all Babylonia and exercised a kind of suzerainty over Babylon.
The rapid rise of Assyria seems to have been followed by equally rapid
decline. For a hundred years we have hardly any information concerning
it, and do not even know the names of the kings who reigned during that
period. The lack of inscriptions, or, at any rate, of vaunting records in the
reigns of later kings, seems in itself to indicate a time of humiliation, while
the conditions which we find prevailing when our sources of information
become more copious, show that soon after the reign of Tukulti-Ninib, and
therefore probably before the end of the thirteenth century B.C., the power
of Assyria must have been seriously curtailed and exposed to grievous
shocks. Whence they arose we shall presently see. 6
There is scarcely a year in which additional information concerning
this obscure period does not come to light. A recently deciphered fragment
of the Babylonian Chronicle mentions an Assyrian king, Tukulti-Asshur-Bel,
contemporaneous with Tukulti-Ninib, but of the relation of the two kings
nothing is stated. Professor Winckler in Altorientalische Forschungen,
376 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 1275-1235 B.C.]
suggests that the former was the latter's son, and co-regent while he was
engaged in ruling and reducing Babylon. Professor Rogers sums up the
end of Tukulti-Ninib's life : " For seven years was this rule over Babylonia
maintained. The Babylonians rebelled, drove out the Assyrian conquerors,
and set up once more a Babylonian, Adad-shum-usur (about 1268-1239
B.C.), over them. When Tukulti-Ninib returned to Assyria he found even
his own people in rebellion under the leadership of his son. In the civil
war that followed he lost his life, and the most brilliant reign in Assyrian
history up to that time was closed."
This rebellious son was not the above mentioned Tulkulti-Asshur-Bel,
but Asshurnazirpal I. His reign continues the period of decline, and in it it
is believed that Adad-shum-usur actually attacked Assyria. Next come two
kings, Asshur-narara and Nabu-daian, whose reigns seem to have been con-
temporaneous (about 1250 B.C.). A fragment of a clay tablet was found
containing a letter from Adad-shum-usur to these two kings, in which he
remonstrates on their folly in taking up arms against him, which shows that
Babylon's power was still waxing.«
We do not know how it came to pass that Assyria lost the ascendancy
she had gained over Babylonia under Tukulti-Ninib, but it is certain that
some fifty years later Bel-kudur-usur found himself relegated to Assyria
proper, and was obliged to fight for the possession of his capital. [Accord-
ing to Professor Rogers, Meli-Shipak (about 1238) and Marduk-apal-iddin
(about 1223-1211) were the Babylonian kings in this war. He places
Adad-shum-iddin's death at 1269, and Adad-shum-usur's at 1238 B.C.,
basing these dates on some recent illuminative suggestions of Professor
Hommel.] The Synchronistic History, which is incomplete at this point,
states that Ninib-apal-esharra (who was probably the son of Bel-kudur-
usur) was forced to retreat. The Babylonians appear to have pursued
and besieged him in his own capital of Asshur, and there a battle was
fought, in which, according to the apparent purport of the Synchronistic
History, the Assyrians were beaten. But the victory, if victory it were,
cannot have been decisive, for after the battle the Babylonians withdrew
without making any further attempt to invade the remoter parts of the
country. The defeat of the Assyrians must, therefore, have been more like
a successful defence of their city. Slight as this clew is, it makes it evident
that for a while Assyria had to fight for her life against Babylon, and
that she held her own with difficulty. The development of this state
of things must be sought in the great hiatus made by the reign of Bel-
kudur-usur. The titles of the Babylonian kings of the period also go to
prove that at this time Babylonia had actually repossessed herself of
northern Mesopotamia.
Since we find Tiglathpileser in possession of much the same dominions as
Tukulti-Ninib (though Sumer and Accad did not belong to him), the course
of events during all the twelfth century, from Ninib-apal-esharra to Asshur-
rish-ishi, is self-evident. The business in hand was the reconquest of what
had been lost, and at it the succeeding rulers steadily and successfully
laboured.
Of Ninib-apal-esharra, the Synchronistic History says nothing except
that he successfully withstood the Babylonian attack, nor does Tiglathpileser
mention any other deeds of his. The latter, however, expressly gives him
the character of a capable commander, "who led the troops of Asshur
aright," presumably with reference to his retreat after the death of Bel-
kudur-usur and the repulse of the Babylonian king.
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA
377
[ca. 1200-1116 B.C.]
His son and successor, Asshur-dan (about 1200 B.C.), won some victories
over Babylon and reconquered some parts beyond the Zab from Samana-
shum-iddin (king of Babylonia). Tiglathpileser lays stress upon the fact
that he lived to a great age (to about 1150 B.C.). Of his son, Mutakkil-
Nu.sku, no particulars are known. He probably carried on the work of his
predecessors, for Assyria gradually regained all she had lost.
Then Asshur-rish-ishi (about 1140 B.C.), the father of Tiglathpileser I,
reports that he had reconquered the Lulumi and Kuti, whom Adad-nirari
had formerly subjugated, and who had either fallen under the sway of Baby-
lon or made themselves independent ; and that he had repulsed the nomads,
whom Adad-nirari had likewise driven back, and who had naturally taken
advantage of Assyria's weakness to press forward again. His war with
Nebuchadrezzar I, king of Babylon, seems to have been waged mainly for the
possession of Mesopotamia, which the defeat of the nomads was also intended
to secure. It is most probable that he gained his end, the evacuation of the
kingdom of Kishshati, of which Nebuchadrezzar styles himself king in one
of his inscriptions. &
THE FIRST GREAT ASSYRIAN CONQUEROR
Asshur-rish-ishi's son, Tiglathpileser I (Tu-
kulti-apal-esharra, meaning " My help is the son
of Esharra," i.e. the god Ninib), is the first of the
great Assyrian conquerors. Directly after his
accession to the throne he marched against the
Mushke (Mushkaya) to conquer the districts pre-
viously taken by them. The Mushke (the Mes-
hech of the Old Testament, and the Moschi of
the Greeks) were defeated, as well as the people
of Kummukh and the mountainous races of the
Kharia and Qurkhi country stretching from the
north of the Tigris to the Upper Zab. In
the next campaign the same district was trav-
ersed, but the king then crossed the Lower Zab,
and thence proceeded northward into the moun-
tains. The whole mountainous district was then
incorporated with the Assyrian kingdom, and
Tiglathpileser was then able to proceed to the
subjugation of the lands of western Armenia and
Pontis, never before entered by the Assyrian rulers.
He crossed sixteen mountains, reached (what
he calls the land of the Nairi) the upper Eu-
phrates, which he crossed, and defeated in a
great battle twenty-five kings [twenty-three ac-
cording to others], who encountered him with
their troops and war chariots. The enemies were
pursued as far as the banks of the Black Sea,
when all the princes swore fealty and bound
themselves to pay tribute. On the return march
the town Milidia, i.e. Melitene on the Euphrates,
was taken and forced to pay tribute.
The next, the fourth campaign of the king was directed against the
Aramaeans, of the North Mesopotamian steppe ; he penetrated as far as the
An ASSYRIAN KINO
378 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 1116-1050 B.C.]
Euphrates, and conquered several places in the vicinity of Carchemish.
Then followed an expedition to the east against [the Musri and] the then
unknown race of the Qumani. In later years Tiglathpileser undertook
campaigns in the west. An inscription at the source of the Supnat, the
first easterly tributary of the Tigris, tells us that he traversed the country
of Nairi (Armenia) three times, and that he subjugated all the country
"from the great sea of the west country to the sea of Nairi." In particu-
lar we learn that he made a voyage in ships from Arvad (Aradus) on the
Mediterranean Sea, that he hunted in Lebanon (lie was a passionate hunter),
and that the kings of Egypt sent him some rare sea fishes as a present.
It is very probable that one of the mutilated inscriptions which the
Assyrian kings had put up on the Dog River (the Nahr-el-Kelb, north
of Beirut), quite close to the victory monuments of Ramses II, related to
Tiglathpileser. He also made war against Marduk-nadin-akhe of Babylon,
but with no success ; at least we learn that the Babylonian king, in the
year 1110 B.C., carried off images of gods from an Assyrian city. [Accord-
ing to Professor Rogers, Tiglathpileser marched to Babylon and was there
acknowledged King of the Four Quarters of the World.]
However, Tiglathpileser in a second campaign was completely victorious
in a battle of the Lower Zab, and took all the capitals of the northern half
of Accad: Dur-Kurigalzu, the double town Sippar, Babylon, and Upi.
The steppe district on the western bank of the Euphrates (the land of the
Shuhi or Sukhi) was also subjugated by him. Thus did Tiglathpileser
create a great kingdom, which included the whole district of the Euphrates
and Tigris, as far as Babylon, as well as the mountainous country of western
Armenia and eastern Asia Minor, as far as Pontis ; and his supremacy was
also recognised by northern Syria.
Of the organisation of the kingdom, we only know that the contiguous
districts, such as the valley of the Khabur, eastern Kummukh, and Qurkhe
were incorporated with the state, and governed by Assyrian ministers,
whilst the more distant countries retained their native rulers, and were
only bound to the payment of tribute. The kingdom has no enduring
position. We hear that Asshur-bel-kala (about 1090 B.C.), the son of
Tiglathpileser, lived in the greatest peace with Marduk-shapik-zer-mati, the
Babylonian king. When, after the latter's fall, Adad-apal-iddin, the son of
Esagila-shaduni, was raised to the throne, Asshur-bel-kala married his
daughter and brought her home to Assyria, with many presents. [In this
reign, according to Rogers, the seat of empire was probably established at
Nineveh.]
Babylonia had evidently regained her complete independence, though
the Assyrian chronicles fail to relate the means whereby it was achieved.
Asshur-bel-kala was succeeded by his brother Shamshi-Adad (about
1080 B.C.), of whom we know nothing further ; and then follows a great gap
in the line of kings. [Here may be inserted the names of Asshurnazirpal II
about 1050 B.C., Erba-Adad, and Asshur-nadin-akhe.]
Of King Asshur-erbi it is only mentioned that under him the districts
conquered by Tiglathpileser, namely, the country Pitru on the Sagur near
Carchemish, and the city of Mutkinu, east of the Euphrates, were taken by
the Aramaean king. This was evidently the king of the country of Bit-
Adini, whose chief dominion lay east of the Euphrates, the capital being
Tel-Barsip, which is probably Birejik, opposite the Zeugma of the Greeks.
At the beginning of the ninth century we again have more accurate informa-
tion about Assyria, and so find that, beyond a part of the mountainous dis-
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 379
[ca. 1050-884 B.C.]
trict east and southeast of Nineveh, the kings now have only the country
on the upper Tigris (around Amida), Kummukh, and a great part of the
cultivated land of Mesopotamia.
The district on the Euphrates, opposite Carchemish, is independent and
split up into several princedoms (Bit-Adini, Nila, Bit-Bachiani, and farther
north, Tel-Abnai), the exact boundaries of which it has hitherto been im-
possible to determine. The country on the Balikh seems to have remained
Assyrian ; it is very remarkable that the city of Kharran is not mentioned
in any of the later campaigns. The district farther east, Nisibis and the
neighbouring Gozan, the fruitful valleys of the Khabur and its tributaries,
even the city of Suru in the land of Bit-Khalupe on the Euphrates (Sura,
east of Thapsachos), were governed by Assyrian ministers. The govern-
ment of Assyrian ministers in the lower valley of the Khabur is of special
interest to us.
The whole district of this river, as well as the land of Sangara farther
east, is full of heaps and ruins, which mark the localities of old and later
times. The most important are the ruins at the place now called Arban on
the Khabur. Here are the remains of an ancient palace, built in the Assyr-
ian style, with four winged oxen, with men's heads, an open-mouthed lion,
the portrait in relief of a warrior, etc. The oxen bear the inscription
" Palace of the Mushesh-Ninib." The possibility of getting at a satisfactory
date for this palace is unfortunately not yet apparent. That scarabs of
Tehutimes III and Amenhotep III have been found in Arban and Calah, is
no sufficient clew. As King Asshurnazirpal III of Assyria went down the
Khabur in the year 884 B.C., Shulman-khaman-ilani of Sadikkan and Ilu-
Adad of Shuma brought him heavy tribute. Doubtless one of these two
places is the Arban of to-day, and their governors were semi-independent
Assyrian ministers, known as the Mushesh-Ninib, for the names, writing,
and style of art show us that we have not here to do with a native govern-
ment. The population of the valley of the Khabur was doubtless Aramaean,
like that of Kharran and Nisibis.
The eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. confirmed the complete freedom
of the local government of the countries of Western Asia. Whilst the kingdom
of the Pharaohs was decaying from age, a new nation was rising in Syria and
evolving an active intelligent life of its own.
The Phoenician merchants circulated the products of the civilisation of
Syria along all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and the dwellers on the
jEgean Sea having already entered the circle of cultured races, competing
with the PhcBnicians in trade and the traverse of the sea, took possession of
the coasts one after another and thereby developed a complete political and
intellectual life. The fate of Western Asia was determined by the evolution
of Syria's culture not taking a wide-reaching, powerful, political form, but
rather hindering it. Since the days of the Kheta kingdom's glory, there
has been no great power in Syria. So when a conquering, military state
was now formed on the Tigris, under a fearless, warlike prince, it met
with no sustained resistance.
The success of Assyria was due to her military organisation. Little as
we know of its particulars, there can be no doubt that the whole race regarded
war and conquest as the real aims of existence, and the more successful they
were, the more they ignored all other sides of life ; whereas the little states
of Syria made tillage, trade, and industry the chief occupations of their life,
albeit every inhabitant was presumably bound, like the Israelites, to take up
arms in case of need, in the defence of his country. The sole great mili-
380 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 1090-886 B.C.]
tary power was Egypt, but her warrior caste was composed of foreign mer-
cenaries who exploited the country, although from a military point of view
they evidently did not benefit it more than the generality of their class in
similar cases.
The outcome of events was thus a foregone conclusion. The Assyrian
campaigns of two centuries ended in the political and national fall of the
races of Syria. The progress of events then led further to the annihilation
of nationality in the whole of Western Asia. The kingdom of Tiglath-
pileser I fell, soon after his death, and there now ensues a little later a gap
of more than a century in our information about Assyria. The very scanty
notices commence about 950 B.C. Asshur-dan II, mentioned as "the maker
of a canal," reigned at that time. [A recently discovered inscription of
Adad-nirari II speaks of his grandfather Tiglathpileser. Therefore, a new
Tiglathpileser, the second of his name, is now reckoned in the list of kings,
and the approximate dates 950—930 B.C. assigned to his reign. Nothing is
known of him except that he is called " King of Kishshati and King of
Asshur." Asshur-dan II's reign is now put down as beginning 930 B.C.,
and Adad-nirari IPs at 911.] Asshur-dan's successor, Adad-nirari II,
mentioned with the building at the "Gate of the Tigris" (890 B.C.),
conquers King Shamash-mudammik of Babylon in a battle on Mount
Yalman, and made war against his successor, Nabu-shum-ishkun [who
was also defeated and yielded certain cities]. In the peace made by an
alliance, the boundary was fixed near the city of Tel-Bari, south of the
Lower Zab.
The next king, Tukulti-Ninib II (890-885 B.C.), fought in the north-
west mountains, and at the source of Supnat, the first tributary of the
Tigris, he had his statue (stele) erected near that of Tiglathpileser. In
spite of repeated attacks, the mountainous districts on the east as far as the
lake of Van, the chief part of the land of Qurkhi, retained essentially their
independence. The warlike efforts of these rulers had been hitherto directed
against the races of the mountains of Kasjar (Masius), the south of the
Tigris, and close to Aramaean Mesopotamia, which, in spite of numerous
campaigns, had never been subjugated. If Nisibis, Gozan, and the valley of
the Khabur, and apparently also Kharran, belonged to the Assyrians under
Asshurnazirpal, they either remained independent after the twelfth century,
or were subjugated by the kings of this period. In the east, the moun-
tainous races of Khubushkia and Kirruri (on the Upper Zab, and as far
as the lake of Urumiyeh) are tributary, and on the Lower Zab, we find
under Asshurnazirpal, an Assyrian governor of Dagara, in the land of the
Euphrates, whose fortified citadels were mostly situated on the banks of
the river, or like Anat, on an island, paid tribute. Tukulti-Ninib's son,
Asshurnazirpal III (885 to 860), entered on fresh conquests directly after
his accession to the throne."
THE REIGN AND CRUELTY OF ASSHURNAZIRPAL
Tiglathpileser's work of conquest was to be begun over again ; Asshur-
nazirpal felt the full force of the mission, and he accomplished it with a
cruelty worthy of the hero he took for pattern, and his successors applied
themselves, as did he, to avenge, arms in hand, Asshur's temporary humili-
ation.
Scarcely was Asshurnazirpal seated on the throne, when he turned atten-
tion to his armies, — his war chariots and armed men were numerous and
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA
381
[885 B.C.]
well equipped ; they were ready to take the march. It was the land
of Numme which received the first blow. Accustomed to prolonged
and uninterrupted peace, the in-
habitants had never even thought
of measures for defence, and they
fled to the mountains at the ap-
proach of the Assyrians, who made
bloodless captures of the towns of
Libe, Surra, Abuku, Arura, and
Arubi, situated at the base of
Mounts Rime, Aruni, and Etini.
" These majestic peaks," relates
Asshurnazirpal, " rise up like dag-
gers' blades, and only the birds of
the sky in their flight can reach
their summits. The natives en-
trenched themselves among them
as though in eagles' nests. None
of the kings, my fathers, had ever
penetrated so far. In three days
I reached those heights ; I brought
terror in the midst of their hiding
places, I shook their nests ; two
hundred defenders perished by the
sword, and I seized their flock
and a rich booty. Their corpses
strewed the mountains like leaves
from the trees, and those who es-
caped had to take refuge in caves."
These proceedings terrified the
peaceful inhabitants of the Kirruri
district, who hastened from Sim-
irra, Ulmania, Adanit, Khargai,
and Kharasi, to throw themselves
at the conqueror's feet and offered
all that he was wont to seize —
horses, oxen, sheep, and brazen
vessels. They were given an
Assyrian governor. Such was
the fright throughout the whole
of Nairi that while he still lingered in Kirruri, Asshurnazirpal received
ambassadors from the people of Gozan and Khubushkia who came from far
to the east, bringing presents asking for the chains of slavery.
From Kirruri the Assyrian king went a little to the east into the district
of Qurkhi, pillaging in turn at least a dozen towns and finally arrived at the
borders of Urartu. The only serious resistance he encountered was under
the walls of Nishtum, which paid dear for its courage. These beginnings
were a forecast of the future, and Asshurnazirpal did not even wait for the
following year to recommence. While still wearing the dignity of "limmu,"
on the 24th day of the month Abu (July-August), he set out to lay waste
the country now called the Bohtan district, between the Tigris and the
western spurs of the Judi Mountains. Here were the districts of Nippur
and Pazati, comprising more than twenty important towns, among which
ASSHURNAZIRPAL
(Bued on Sculpture* In the British Matcnm)
382 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[885-880 B.C.]
Atkun and Pilazi were burned. Asshurnazirpal then crossed the Tigris and
invaded Kummukh to claim the annual tribute it had forgotten to furnish.
[It is possible that he went for the purpose of quelling a rebellion.]
At the moment he was thinking of going on to the Moschi, more to the
northwest, a messenger brought him a letter which contained the following
news : " The city of Suru (Surieh of the present day), which is subject to
Bit-Khalupe, is in revolt ; the inhabitants have put Khamitai, their governor,
to death, and have proclaimed Akhi-yababa, son of Lamaman, whom they
have brought from Bit-Adini, as their king." Furious at this information,
Asshurnazirpal invoked Asshur and Adad, counted his chariots and soldiers,
and flew to the seat of trouble by descending the course of the Khabur.
His progress was hampered by the arrival of many persons, their hands filled
with presents and their mouths with protestations of fidelity. There were
Shulman-khaman-ilani of Sadikkan, Ilu-Adad of Shuma, and a hundred others.
The city of Suru took fright, and the rebels came out to meet him, bring-
ing the keys of the citadel. They kissed his feet, but Asshurnazirpal was
inflexible. " I killed one out of every two of them," he says, and one-half
of the remainder was reduced to slavery. Akhi-yababa, a prisoner, witnessed
the pillage of his palace, he saw his wives, sons, and daughters in chains, and
his tutelary gods, his chariot, his armour, and his treasure carried off. He
saw all his ministers flayed alive as well as the leaders of the rebellion. A
pyramid erected at the city gate was covered with their skins ; some were
walled up in the masonry, others were crucified and exposed on stakes along
the side of the pyramid. One would hesitate to believe all this and would
willingly take the Assyrian monarchs for boasters of their cruelty, if the bas-
reliefs with which they decorated their palace walls, and which to-day
ornament our museums, did not speak to our eyes or their accompanying
inscriptions speak to our intelligence. We must tax our wits to imagine
more refinement of torture or of methods of execution.
Before Asshurnazirpal returned to Nineveh, he made a military tour of the
regions about the junction on the Khabur and Euphrates, which formed the
country of Laqi. All the petty dynasties of this land brought their tribute.
Then he advanced as far as Khindanu, on the Euphrates, the frontier of the
Shuhi country. On returning to his capital the king was followed by an
endless file of slaves, horses, oxen, sheep, chariots laden with stuffs of wool
and linen, ingots of gold, bronze and iron, copper and leaden vessels, and
wooden framework ; the booty, he says, was as numberless as the stars of the
sky. The soldiers had laid hold of every manner of object, and in the divi-
sion a use was found for everything.
At Nineveh the king occupied himself with embellishing his palace while
he waited for the spring. In one of the inner courts he erected a statue to
himself of colossal size, and the history of his recent conquests was engraved
on the palace gates. He was daily obliged to receive the homage of ambas-
sadors who arrived from all parts to acknowledge his suzerainty, offer pres-
ents, and claim the sad honour of serving such a master, for they had learned
by experience that it was too late for a city to offer its submission when the
king was at its gates.
It happened that Asshurnazirpal was en pleine fete surrounded by his
court when news came of a rebellion in the region situated around the
sources of the Tigris. The leader of this insurrection was an Assyrian,
Khula by name, whom in former days Shalmaneser had appointed governor
of Darudamusa and Khalzilukha. The king set out at once, and, arriving at
the sources of the Tigris, he sought out the steles which his predecessors,
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 383
[880-876 B.C.]
Tiglathpileser and Tukulti-Ninib, had erected, and by their side set up one
for himself. On the way he stopped to levy tribute on the country of
Izalla and took by assault the cities of Kinabu, Mariru, and Tela. After a
bloody contest under the walls of the last place he put out the eyes and cut
off the noses and ears of the prisoners whose lives he spared. Khula was
flayed alive.
There stood in this region, within the land of Nirbu, a city which bore
the name of Asshur and had probably been built by Tiglathpileser in order
to control the surrounding country. Since this town had also taken part in
the rebellion, Asshurnazirpal caused it to be razed to its foundations as well
as the city of Tushka, upon whose ruins he built a pyramid surmounted by
his statue and bearing an inscription which related the conquest of the land
of Nairi. Here he received tribute of the kings of Nairi. The districts of
Urunii and Bituni also brought their gifts. But scarcely had Asshurnazirpal
turned his back when all the tribes of Nairi revolted, and he had to return
and prosecute a regular man-hunt among the mountains.
The year had been very full, and it was easy to foresee that the disasters
following the reign of Tiglathpileser would soon be repaired. In three cam-
paigns Asshurnazirpal had carried the torch over a portion of the land of
Nairi, to the south and east of Lake Van, to the sources of the Tigris, through
the Khabur Valley, and down the Euphrates. But like the effect of a tem-
pest which passes and devours everything, the Assyrian domination founded
only in fear was fatally ephemeral and became shaky just as soon as the chas-
tising arm was observed to withdraw.
Feeling secure in the direction of Nairi, which he had treated so harshly,
Asshurnazirpal turned his attention to the fertile slopes along the left bank
of the Tigris. He risked encountering the Babylonians, but these latter had
no longer any fear for him, and the weakened, scattered Kassite (or Kos-
saean) tribes could scarcely be called formidable. Babitu, Dagara, Bara,
Kakzi, and twenty other places underwent the fate reserved for cities taken
by assault ; one hundred and fifty towns were pillaged and burnt, and the
whole land of Nishir was devastated. The rainy season suspended hostili-
ties, and Asshurnazirpal returned to winter quarters at Nineveh, but as soon
as the weather permitted on the first of Sivan (May) he returned to Zamua.
The capital of Zamua was Zamri, and there King Amikha resided, in no con-
dition to resist. He fled to the mountains where Asshurnazirpal dared not
pursue him, and contented himself with laying hands on the riches of the
palace. All the surrounding districts hastened to offer their submission
with the exception of the city of Mizu, which was taken by assault.
The following year was consumed in military expeditions to the sources
of the Tigris, in the lands of Kummukh, Qurkhi, and Kashiari, where certain
cities like Mattiate and Irisia had neglected to pay tribute or manifested
symptoms of rebellion. Asshurnazirpal experienced no serious or well-
organised resistance except beneath the walls of Bit-Ura in the land of
Dirra. " The city," he says, " crowns a height, is surrounded by a strong
double enceinte and lifts itself like a great thumb above the mountain.
With the help of Asshur — my lord — I attacked it with my valorous sol-
diers, and besieged it for two days from the side of the rising sun. Arrows
fell upon it like the hail of the god Adad. Finally, my warriors, whose zeal
I had encouraged, fell upon the city like vultures. I took the citadel, I put
eight hundred men to the sword, and I cut off their heads. I made a
mound with their corpses before the city gate ; the prisoners were beheaded
and I put seven hundred of them to the cross. The city was pillaged and
384 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA.
[876 B.C.]
destroyed; I transformed it into a heap of ruins." Passing thence into the
land of Qurkhi, Asshurnazirpal committed the same atrocities : two hundred
captives had their heads cut off, and two thousand others were reduced to
slavery. One of the kinglets of the land who had succeeded in winning the
king's good graces from the time of the first war, Ammibaal, by name, son
of Zamani, had become odious to his people, because of his friendship for the
tyrant, and he was put to death by his own officers. The king of Assyria
hastened to avenge his faithful vassal. When the culprits saw the storm
advancing, they tried to ward it off by offering all they possessed to the
invader, and for once he remained satisfied.
He had under his authority all the regions between the source of the
Supnat and the borders of the land of Shabitani on one side ; between the
land of Kirruri and that of Kilzani on the other, from the banks of the Zab
to the city of Tel-Bari which is above Zaban from Tel-Sa-abtan to Tel-Sa-
zabtan ; besides this he annexed to his empire the cities of Kimiru and
BAS-RELIEFS SHOWING ASSYRIANS TORTURING PRISONERS
(After Layard)
Kuratu, the land of Birut and of Kardunyash, and he imposed tribute upon
the whole of Nairi.
What was to be done with so much wealth constantly accumulating in
the storehouses of Nineveh, and for whom was this gold, these jewels, this
bronze, these rich stuffs ? To what use could he put these thousands of
slaves who ran the risk of becoming so many idle mouths to feed ? Asshur-
nazirpal had the idea of building a palace which would surpass the wildest
dreams of his predecessors, and he fixed its location in the city of Calah,
which was particularly the city of his dynasty.
British archaeologists, who have made a special study of the ruins of
Calah, astonished at the treasures they found buried under the mound
Nimrud, have attempted to reconstruct from their own imaginations and the
recovered documents the general aspect of the city in the days of Asshur-
nazirpal, who has left his name and inscriptions in every corner of it. " In a
strong and healthy position," says George Rawlinson, "on a low spur of
the Jebel Maklub, protected on either side by a deep river, the new
capital grew to greatness. Palace after palace rose on its lofty platforms,
rich with carved woodwork, gilding, painting, sculpture, and enamel, each
aiming to outshine its predecessors ; while stone lions, sphinxes, obelisks,
shrines, and temple towers embellished the scene, breaking its monotonous
sameness by variety. The lofty ziggurat (pyramid) attached to the temple
of Ninib, dominating over the whole, gave unity to the vast mass of palatial
and sacred edifices. The Tigris, skirting the entire western base of the
mound, glossed in its waves, and, doubling the apparent height, rendered less
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 386
[876 B.C.]
<>l)siTvuble the chief weakness of the architecture. When the setting sun
lighted up the whole with the gorgeous lines seen only under an eastern sky,
( 'ahili must have seemed to the traveller who beheld it for the first time like
a vision of fairyland."
From the pyramid of the temple of Ninib the Assyrian priests ob-
served the motions of the heavens, calculated the return of eclipses, and
questioned the future. In the temple searched by Layard traces were
everywhere found of Asshurnazirpal and what he himself calls " the glory of
his name." His portrait has been found repeated a dozen times on the bas-
reliefs ; he has all the features of a corrupt and cruel monarch. His low,
retreating forehead lacks nobility ; the eyes are unusually large ; the cheek-
bones stand out prominently ; the nostrils of the round, aquiline nose are too
large ; the clipped moustache, brushed and curled at the ends, reveals thick,
sensual lips, while the chin and face are covered with that heavy false beard
which falls upon the breast in symmetrical twists, and was worn by all the
kings. The thick, short neck, the broad shoulders and thick -set body, gave
the king a robust, vigorous aspect. His statue in the British Museum repre-
sents him standing. In one hand he holds a scythe, in the other a sceptre.
On his breast is written, " Asshurnazirpal, great king, powerful king, king of
legions, king of Assyria, son of Tukulti-Ninib ("?), great king, powerful king,
king of legions, king of Assyria, son of Adad-nirari, great king, powerful
king, king of Assyria. He possesses lands from the shores of the Tigris as
far as Labana [Lebanon] ; he has subjected to his power the great sea, and
all the lands from the rising to the setting of the sun."
Several years after this statue was erected Asshurnazirpal would not have
fixed the Lebanon range as the western limit of his empire, for the fortunes
of war still smiled upon him. The last portion of his reign is filled with
two great expeditions in which he covered himself with glory. The definite
submission of the middle and lower Euphrates region, including the land of
Kardunyash, and the conquest of a part of Syria and Phoenicia. A revolt
in the lands of Laqi and Shuhi, on the Middle Euphrates, was an excellent
pretext for reconvnencing the war interrupted by the work of embellish-
ing Calah. [He marched upon Suru, levying tribute at every step.] For
a long time this little land of Shuhi had been warring with the Assyrians,
and though unceasingly beaten and ransomed, it nevertheless managed to
hold up its head, and had been able hitherto to maintain its independence.
Its sovereigns appear to have had continual friendly relations with their
neighbours the kings of Babylon, at least on the occasions when it was
necessary to resist the men of the North.
This time the Shuhites again appealed to the Chaldeans, whom the in-
scription, through tradition, doubtless, still calls the Kassites or Kossaeans.
[Suru was taken, and among the prisoners were the brother and the general
of Nabu-apal-iddin, king of Babylon.]
Then terror seized the soul of the weak Nabu-apal-iddin, king of Baby-
lon, and all Chaldea trembled. Unfortunate wars and intestine quarrels had
put Babylon out of condition to fight against the all-pervading Assyrian
superiority. Nevertheless Asshurnazirpal does not say that he entered
Babylonia, which he even seems to have prudently respected. He con-
tents himself with telling us that he erected his statue in the city of Suru,
and spread terror throughout Chaldea and all the lands watered by the
Euphrates.
The following year he was compelled to suppress a revolt of the moun-
taineers inhabiting the southern slopes of Mount Masius in the very heart of
H. W. VOL. I. 20
380 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[876 B.C.]
Mesopotamia. This was the state of Bit-Adini, whose principal cities were
Kaprabi and Tel-Aban. Asshurnazirpal scattered an army of eight thou-
sand horsemen, and brought back to Calah two thousand four hundred slaves
to work at the embellishment of his capital.
In spite of the peace which ruled in the Tigris and Euphrates basins,
whose resources were, moreover, completely exhausted, Asshurnazirpal now
resolved to strike a great blow on their western side, which would be a field
for rapine in which no Assyrian had ever yet set foot. The occasion seemed
favourable, for on the west of the Euphrates the Hittites were in no condi-
tion to wage war ; they had not yet recovered from the terrible blows dealt
them by Tiglathpileser, and their resistance in any case would not be very
great.
Asshurnazirpal went right ahead [starting on the 8th day of Airu
(April), 876. — ROGERS], traversing the states of Bit-Bahian, Amila, and
Bit-Adini as far as the Euphrates, which he crossed on floats in sight of Car-
chemish. Into the city he made a bloodless entry, receiving the homage
and tribute of King Sangara. A Hittite prince, Lubarna, who ruled in
the valley of the river Apre (modern Afrin) [in a state called Patin]
and possessed places of considerable importance such as Hazaz and Kunu-
lua (the capital). Lubarna made preparations to oppose the march of
the invader, but on seeing him approach fell on his knees and stripped him-
self of all he possessed for offerings. He was soon master of both slopes of
the Lebanon, and he could see the great Phoenician Sea (Mediterranean).
There, in astonishment, and grateful to the gods for all their blessings, he
offered them a sacrifice of thanks on a wave-washed rock. " I received," he
says, " the tribute of the kings of the land of the sea, the people of Tyre,
Sidon, Byblus, Makhallat, Maiz, Kaiz,1 Akharri, and of Arvad, which is situ-
ated full on the sea ; they brought me silver, gold, tin, iron, iron utensils,
garments of wool and linen, ' pagut,' large and small, of sandal and ebony
wood, skins of marine animals, and they kissed my feet."
Asshurnazirpal, protected by Ninib and Nergal, the gods of strength, em-
barked on a vessel which he captured in the harbour of Arvad and took a
sea trip, during which he killed a dolphin. Several days later he hunted
among the steep gorges of Lebanon, killed buffaloes and boars, capturing a
number of them alive, whieh he sent to Assyria. He boasts of having killed
one hundred and twenty lions himself, and claims that these animals suc-
cumbed to fright before his almightiness. He further enumerates troops of
wild animals which he drove back to their lairs, — antelopes, deer, ibexes,
gazelles, tigers, foxes, leopards ; he also killed some eagles and vultures.
Among these mountains this true son of Nimrod quite forgot himself until
the king of Egypt, whom the fame of his deeds had reached, sent a congrat-
ulatory embassy asking for his friendship. When later the kings of Egypt
and Assyria met on the shore of the Mediterranean, it was by no means for
mutual congratulation and the exchange of presents.
After this, Asshurnazirpal turned northward into the Amanus Mountains,
where he cut down cedar, pine, and cypress trees for his great buildings in
Calah. No one will ever know how much effort, nor the lives of how many
slaves it cost, to transport those gigantic logs cut in the Amanus forests
over the mountainous and trackless country to the banks of the Tigris.
Asshurnazirpal never revisited the shores of the Mediterranean, and like
Moses he but caught a glimpse of the promised land which his successors
1 [According to the best authority Makhallat, Maiz, and Kaiz formed Tripolis.]
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 387
[870-854 n.r.]
were destined to conquer, and whose inexhaustible riches they so long
exploited. What we know of the remainder of his reign is the story <•!'
unimportant expeditions, principally for the collection of tribute in the north
of Mesopotamia and around the sources of the Tigris. The district of Klii-
pani and its capital, Khuzirina, as well as the states of Assa, Qurkhi, and
Adini, underwent new trials ; the city of Amida, the modern Diarbekir,
witnessed a pyramid of human skulls rising febore its walls, and three thou-
sand slaves — those whose eyes were not put out or who were not crucified —
were sent to Nineveh, where they were employed in digging a great irriga-
tion canal to make use of the waters of the Upper Zab, the borders of which
were planted with trees torn from the forests of Syria.
The last eight years of his life seem to have been more peaceful than
their predecessors, although we can scarcely suppose that he passed them in
profound peace, which would be as hard to reconcile with his turbulent
and sanguinary nature as with the terrible condition of the lands he had con-
quered, all of which were trying to regain their freedom. At all events, he
left his successors an immense empire, an unbroken frontier, and an Assyr-
ian domination recognised from the Zagros to the Amanus Mountains, and
from the sources of the Euphrates to the gates of Babylon."*
SHALMANESER II AND HIS SUCCESSORS
Aside from the ruthlessness of his conquests, Asshumazirpal was chiefly
remarkable for rebuilding the city of Calah, constructing a canal, erecting
himself a wonderful palace, whose ruins have been found at Nimrud, and the
building or rebuilding of a great aqueduct. He, who had butchered and
battled so liberally, died in 860 B.C. in peace.
His son, Shalmaneser II (Shulman-asharid) (860-824 B.C.) commenced
warlike operations at once. After a campaign eastward (860) he entered
upon a systematic conquest of the western countries. After several cam-
paigns (859-856) Akhuni's district of Bit-Adini, on both sides of the
Euphrates, was completely subjugated, incorporated with the kingdom, and
peopled with Assyrian colonists, and Tel-Barship on the Euphrates was
changed into an Assyrian residence city under the name of Kar-Shulman-
asharid (City of Shalmaneser). Finally he succeeded in capturing the
prince who had fled across the Euphrates into the mountains. Next fol-
lowed the campaigns on the west of the Euphrates. In the year 859 he
twice defeated a coalition of North Syrian princes, the rulers of Carchemish,
Patin, Sama'al, etc., joined by the kings of Que, and Khilukha; then he
subjugated the Amanus district and the district on the lower Orontes (the
country of Patin). In the following year, the annual tribute of all the
North Syrian states was definitely settled.
In the year 854 B.C. Shalmaneser advanced farther south. Khalman
made submission, but a strong coalition was formed against him in the dis-
trict of Hamath by Hadad-ezer, or Ben-Hadad II, of Damascus, Irkhulina of
Hamath, and Ahab of Israel. The adjacent smaller states of the princes,
Matinu-Baal of Arvad (Aradus), Baasha of Ammon, etc., followed suit.
The Syrian states evidently recognised the full extent of the danger
threatening them ; Ahab of Israel probably made peace with Damascus so
as to be able to withstand the Assyrians. Only the Phoenician cities were
obdurate ; whilst the Arabian prince, Gindibu, sent a thousand camel riders,
and even the Egyptian king sent one thousand men. A battle took place at
Qarqar in the vicinity of the Orontes. Shalmaneser boasts of a complete
388 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[8M-829 B.C.]
victory. [His inscription says : " Fourteen thousand of their warriors I
slew with arms ; like Adad I rained a deluge upon them, I strewed hither
and yon their bodies, I filled the face of the ruins with their widespread
soldiers ; chariots, saddle-horses, and yoke-horses I took from them."]
But he attained no further successes, and his power was limited to north-
ern Syria. In the years 850, 849, and 846, Shalmaneser renewed his attacks
upon central Syria, the last time with one hundred and twenty thousand
men, but without great success. Their tribute money was not much safe-
guard to the North Syrian princes, the places in the district of Carchemish
and in the Amanus Mountains were again and again plundered and burned,
and the inhabitants massacred. Only the king of Patin, who was farthest
away, and therefore the most powerful of the vassals, seems to have been
better treated.
The fifth campaign, in 842, was more successful, but in the meanwhile
the revolutions in Damascus- and Samaria overthrew the old dynasties, and
Hazael and Jehu ascended the throne. In a battle at the foot of Mount
Lebanon, Hazael was conquered and shut up in his capital ; but Damascus
was not taken. Shalmaneser laid waste the Hauran, then repaired to the
coast, where Tyre and Sidon, and also Jehu of Israel, paid him tribute.
The tribute payment of the latter (gold, lead, vessels, etc.) is depicted on
Shalmaneser's black obelisk. In the year 839 the campaign was repeated
without any far-reaching success ; and Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus paid tribute.
When the people of Patin slew their king, the Assyrian general, Asshur-
daian (or Dan-Asshur), took fearful revenge for the death of the faithful
vassal. But Shalmaneser extended his dominion in this district northward
only. In the years 838 and 837, twenty-four kings of Tabal (in Cappa-
docia), as well as the king of Milid (Melitene), were compelled to pay
tribute; and in 835 and 834, King Kati of Que; i.e. East Cilicia west of
Mount Amanus, was vanquished, and the town Tarzi (i.e. in all probability
Tarsus), was taken and given to his brother Kirri.
Shalmaneser II had the same success in the east and north of his
kingdom. After the mountainous district on the Tigris had been conquered,
the Assyrians came into direct contact with the powerful race of the Alaro-
dians, whose territory extended on both sides of the Lake of Van, from the
source of the Euphrates to the land of Garzan, or Gozan, on Lake Urumiyeh.
After making a fearful visitation to Khubushkia and its vicinity, Shalmaneser
had already attacked their king, Arame, on the east in 860. In 857 he
invaded his district on the west, after crossing the Arsanias- In 845 he
penetrated as far as the source of the Euphrates, and in 833 Asshur-daian,
his commander-in-chief, repeated the same campaign. It seems that Arame
and his successor, Siduri (or Sarduris), in the year 833, made, on the whole,
a valiant defence.
Much greater success attended the campaigns against the south-easterly
mountainous races of Urartu on the " sea of the land of the Nairi," i.e. the
lake of Urumiyeh, and the districts of Manna, Parsua, Amada1 (Media),
etc., at the south and east of the same as well as that against the land of
Namri south-east of the Zab. In the years 844, 836, 830, and 829 the
campaigns in these districts were conducted sometimes by the king himself,
3,nd sometimes by his commander-in-chief.
The famous representations on Shalmaneser's black obelisk show how
King Sua of Gozan and the Lord of Musri (i.e. the eastern mountainous
1 [Also written " Mada " in a later inscription of Adad-nirari III. This is the true land of
Media, which the Greeks confused with that of Manda.j
THE OBELISK OF SHALMANESER II
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA :;sO
[820-783 B.C.]
district) sent him a collection of wonderful animals, double-humped camels,
apes, a rhinoceros, an elephant, and a yak, besides gold, silver, bronze vessels,
and horses.
Between the great campaigns there were a few smaller struggles ; in 855
in the Masius Mountains, in 853 against the kings of Tel-Abnai, and in 847
against the town of Ishtarat and the country of Yati, districts south of the
source of the Tigris; in 848 against the unknown land of Paqarakhubuni,
west of the Euphrates, and finally in 831 against the Qurkhi. The black
obelisk records that the desert district of Sukhi, on the other side of the
Euphrates, subjected by Asshurnazirpal, remained dependent, and Marduk-
bel-usur of Sukhi brings to the king as tribute silver and gold, elephants'
teeth, garments, and also stags and lions. In the years 852 and 851
Shalmaneser advanced to Babylon. The king of Babylon, Nabu-apal-
iddin, had just died, and his brother Marduk-bel-usate had taken up arms
against Marduk-nadin-shum, the son of Nabu-apal-iddin. Shalmaneser went
to the assistance of the rightful king, defeated the rebels in two expeditions,
and presented rich gifts in the sacred cities of Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha
to the chief gods enthroned there. Then repairing farther southward into
the land of Chaldea proper, he vanquished the kings of Bit-Adini and of Bit-
akkuri, and exacted tribute from Mussallim-Marduk and Yakin, who was
ruler of the sea country, which was subsequently called Bit- Yakin after him.
We see that the unity of the kingdoms of Sumer and Accad was now no
more ; but that south of Kardunyash, the district of Babylon, there arose a
line of smaller states. Perhaps the South was always separated from
Kardunyash after the Kossaean conquest.
In the last years of Shalmaneser's reign his son Asshur-danin-apli rebelled
against him with a great portion of the kingdom, including Asshur, Arbela,
the town of Imgur-Bel, founded by Asshurnazirpal, Amido, and Tel-Abnai,
on the upper Tigris, Zaban on the Zab, etc. But another son, Shamshi-
Adad IV, quelled the insurrection [and it took him four years of hard
fighting to dissipate the opposition] and succeeded his father on the throne.
The first campaigns of the new ruler were directed against the Nairi countries,
the mountains on the north and east of the Tigris, and his general, Mushaqqil-
Asshur, penetrated as far as the " Sea of the Sunset," which means as far as
the Black Sea. Then the king attacked Babylonia ; a line of frontier places
was taken, and [in the battle of Dur-Papsukal, in northern Babylonia] King
Marduk-balatsu-iqbi, who had been supported by the rulers of Cnaldea,
Elam, Namri, and the Aramaean races of eastern Babylonia, was slain.
This expedition was repeated in the years 813 and 812 ; and other wars
the king mentioned, in shorter notices, cannot be more accurately localised.
He made no attempt of any encroachment of Syria's rights.
The successes of [his son] Adad-nirari III (811-788 B.C.) are of greater
importance. In the North and South all the races hitherto subjugated, in-
cluding the Medes, the people of Parsua, etc., were kept in subjection. Fre-
quent mention is made of expeditions against Manna, Khubushkia, Namri,
and Aa. The king says that his kingdom was extended as far as the coasts
of the "great Sea of the Sunrise," i.e. the Caspian Sea. In 803 mention was
made of an expedition "to the sea coasts" (i.e. Babylonia, not Syria). As
in Shalmaneser's time, all the kings of the land of Kaldi (Chaldea) paid
tribute ; in the chief cities of Babylonia the king offers sacrifice, gains rich
booty, and fixes boundaries. Many expeditions were moreover made against
the Aramaean race of Itu'a which dwelt in Babylonia, and these were repeated
in subsequent reigns. "On the west of the Euphrates," says Adad-nirari,
390 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[806-774 B.C.]
"I subjugated the land of Khatti, the whole land of Akharri, Phoenicia, Tyre,
Sidon, the kingdom of Israel (Bit-Khurari), Edom and Philistia as far as
the coasts of the West Sea, and imposed taxes and tribute upon them." He
makes special mention of an expedition against Mari, king of Damascus, who
was besieged in his capital and forced to capitulate, and pay 2300 talents of
silver, 20 talents of gold, 300 talents of bronze, 5000 talents of iron, so that the
loot of the Assyrian king was very considerable. These events cannot be
accurately fixed, chronologically. The chronological lists mention campaigns
in 806, 805, and 797, against Arpad, Khazaz, and Mansuate in northern Syria.
The war against Damascus was included in one of them, for it led to the pay-
ment of tribute by the Phoenician cities and the southern states (Israel, Edom,
and Philistia). [There exists an inscription of this reign referring to Sammu-
ramat as "Lady of the Palace and its Mistress." There is some reason for
conjecturing that this might have been the woman round whose name and
undoubted prestige in so glorious a reign, clustered the legends of Semira-
mis. No previous Assyrian king ruled over so great a territory, or collected
so much tribute as Adad-nirari III, or, as it is sometimes written, Ramman-
nirari III. After him came a period of decline in which there are no royal
inscriptions, and of which our knowledge comes from brief notes in the
Eponvm lists. ^
The next king Shalmaneser III (782-773) also went to Syria and made
war against Damascus, 773, the land of Khatarikka, 772, and the land of
Lebanon.
His successor Asshur-dan III (772-754) also made war against Lebanon
in the years 767 and 755, and against Arpad in the year 754. The subju-
gation of Hamath probably occurred in one of these expeditions. Battles
are mentioned against Babylonia (in the district of the Aramaean race, Itu'a
and the city of Gannanat) in 777, 771, 769, and 767, in which the city of
Kalneh was presumably taken. But Shalmaneser III was chiefly concerned
in the subjugation of the land of Urartu, the Alarodians. He is mentioned
not less than six times as taking the field against them (781-778, 776, 774);
but his efforts met with no, or at least no enduring, success.
In all probability the formation of a great Armenian kingdom with the
city of Van (Thuspa of the Greeks) as the central point dates from this
period. Its founder was Sarduris, the son of Litipris, who was probably
identical with the king Sarduris who was conquered in 833 by Shalmaneser.
In two inscriptions written in Assyrian, he calls himself "King of the land
of Nairi." His successors (Ispuinish, Minuas, Argistis I, Sarduris II) then
utilised the Assyrian writing for inscribing the language of their country.
For in the same record they call their kingdom Biaina, whilst it is called
Urartu by the Assyrians. The inscriptions of the rulers are rather numer-
ous and written quite in the Assyrian style. They record the buildings of
the kings in Van itself, where a citadel was built by Argistis, sacrifices and
gifts to Khaldi and the numerous other deities of the Armenian Pantheon,
campaigns and conquests.
When still co-regent with Ispuinish, his father, Minuas erected monu-
ments in the two high passes south of Lake Urumiyeh which record his con-
quests, and other inscriptions also relate his successes against the land of
Manna and its vicinity. These battles presumably occurred in the latter
time of Adad-nirari III, and are the continuation of his campaigns in the
eastern mountains. Minuas also fought against the land of Alzi, against
the king of the city of Milid (Melitene), and against the Kheta. An inscrip-
tion on a wall of rock on the Arsanias below an old castle (near Palu) records
THE RISE OF ASSYEIA 391
[774-745 B.C.]
among others his successes in this direction. In the north he penetrated to
and beyond the Araxes; one of his inscriptions is to be found mi tin- right
bank of the river opposite Armavir, and two others, written by his son
Argistis, north of Eriwan. The latter seems to have been the most powerful
ruler of Urartu. A long inscription on the rock of the citadel of Van
records his successes in the land of Manna, which he seems to have subju-
gated, and also in the west, against Melitene, the land of Khatti (Kheta), etc.
Repeated victories over the Assyrians are mentioned, which were evi-
dently won against Shalmaneser III and Asshurdan III, or their generals.
Sarduris II, the son of Argistis, was also very successful in both districts.
For it appears from his inscriptions, confirmed by later events, that Meli-
tene, Kummukh, Gurgum, and other princedoms on the Amanus, became
feudal states of the kingdom of Urartu, which included the whole Armenian
plateau from the sources of the Euphrates and Araxes across Lake Urumi-
yeh. How Sarduris II succumbed to the Assyrian will be shown later.
The reign of Asshur-dan III seems to have been much more peaceful than
the preceding ones, for the short chronicle of this period repeatedly records
that the king remained " in the land," and therefore undertook no campaign.
The successes of Argistis were of great importance. Insurrections also
broke out in the interior in the years 763 to 758, first in the city of Asshur,
then in Arrapachitis (Arpakha), a city situated in the vicinity of the Upper
Zab, east of Nineveh, and finally in Guzanu, in the Khabur country. After
its subjugation, Asshur-dan, as already related, repaired twice more to Syria
(755 and 754), but it was not possible with the increasing extension of the
Armenian power in this direction to retain supremacy over the smaller
states of Syria.
The next reign, that of Asshur-nirari II (754-745) was still less event-
ful. He took the field only in the years 749 and 748 against the mountain-
ous country of Namri, in the southeast [and in 754 against Arpad].
Otherwise, he remained "in the land." In the last year of his reign the
chronicle mentions an insurrection in Calah. The fact doubtless was that
in the spring of the following year (746) the throne was ascended by a
usurper who called himself after the first of the great Assyrian conquerors,
Tiglathpileser.
The overthrown dynasty, which went back to Ishme-dagan and Shamshi-
Adad and the ancient Bel-kap-kapu, had held the throne in uninterrupted
succession for more than a thousand years.6
TIGLATHPILESER III (745-727 B.C.)
The eminent Dutch historian Tiele calls the new monarch Tiglathpileser II,
but a recently discovered inscription of Adad-nirari II speaks of his grand-
father, Tiglathpileser, and so the latter, of whom nothing is known beyond
his name, is now denoted the second ruler of his name. Therefore the subject
of the present chapter is here called Tiglathpileser III.
Tiglathpileser III mounted the throne of Assyria on the 13th Airu (about
April) of the year 745 B.C., and resided, says Tiele, during the greater part of
his reign at Calah and Nineveh, where he built palaces. He was without
any doubt an Assyrian, and not a Chaldean, as has been supposed. Whether
he was the rightful heir, or whether he was even of royal blood, remains
undecided; His real name was Pulu (Pul, Poros), and there is reason to
suppose that he was either a military commander or a younger son of the
king, who took advantage of the confusion during the last years of the reign
392 THE HISTOEY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[747-740 B.C.]
of Asskurnirari II to put the crown on his own head. He assumed the name
of the great conqueror, Tiglathpileser.
He may have employed the first months of his reign in restoring quiet in
the country and establishing himself securely on the throne. It is only in
September of the year 745 (month Tasrit) that he marches into the field
and turns his arms against Babylonia. Nabonassar (Nabu-nasir) had ruled
at Babylon since 747, but nothing else is known of him, though he seems to
have been the founder of a new method of reckoning time. Tiglathpileser's
first campaign was not, however, directed against him, at least not imme-
diately ; his first object was to destroy the Aramaeans' and Chaldeans' ever-
increasing power in that country. After he had won possession of the city
of Sippar, which lay between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and perhaps even
of Nippur also, and had conquered Dur-Kurigalzu, together with some other
less important strongholds of Kardunyash, as far as the Ukni, he subdued
the nomadic Aramaeans east of the Tigris, reorganised the government of
the conquered territory, dividing it into four provinces, over which Assyrian
governors were placed, founded two cities [Kar-Asshur was one and probably
Dur-Tukulti-apal-esharra the other] as administrative centres to preserve
the allegiance of the new territory, and peopled the new settlements with the
prisoners of war. The priesthood of Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha brought
gifts from the temples of their gods into the king's headquarters, and thus
averted the danger which threatened their towns also. For the time
Tiglathpileser contented himself with the ouccesses gained. It was not
at present his intention to subdue all Babylonia, or perhaps he was not
yet strong enough to do so. Apparently all he desired was to secure the
southern frontiers of Assyria against the invasions of the Aramaeans and
Chaldeans, who were becoming more and more audacious, before he ventured
farther afield.
The security of the eastern border was of scarcely less importance. In
the year 744 he marched against the ever turbulent Namri which lay in this
direction ; here, too, he compelled all to bow to his victorious arms, even
penetrated the western portion of the future Media, and exacted tribute
from all the Median princes as far as the eastern mountains of Biknu. He
did not proceed in person to further conquests, but entrusted the punishment
of those Medians who dwelt farther east to his general, Asshur-daninani,
who returned victorious, bringing with him rich booty, especially in horses.
However, this country was not incorporated in the empire.
His hand was now free for the re-establishment of the weakened power
of Assyria in the west. But one of his most powerful enemies who had, per-
haps, already stirred up Namri to resistance, namely Sarduris II of Urartu,
or Chaldia, sought to prevent this. When Tiglathpileser had reached
Arpad in Syria, he found his flank, and when he would have marched still
farther, his rear, threatened by a considerable army at whose head was
Sarduris, and which besides the latter's troops consisted of those of the
northern Hittite states of Melid, Gurgum, Kummukh, and Agusi. The
defeat of the allies was complete. Sarduris had to abandon his camp and
seek refuge in flight. About seventy-three thousand prisoners fell into the
Assyrians' hands.
The three following years were not fortunate. When Tiglathpileser
marched against Kummukh he does not appear to have left an adequate gar-
rison behind him in Arpad, for in the year 742 the town, and with it the
key of the west country, was in the power of his enemies, and he found him-
self obliged to besiege it for three years. Not till the year 740 did he take
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA 393
[740-732 B.C.]
it, and thither came Kushtashpi of Kummukh, Rezin of Damascus, Hiram of
Tyre, Uriakki of Que, Pisiris of Carchemish, and Tarkhulara of Gurgum, to
offer him rich presents. One of the Hittite princes, Tutarnrnu of Unqi, a
district between the Orontes and the Afrin, refused his submission. His
capital, Kinalia, was taken for the second time and the whole country placed
under an Assyrian governor. In the year 739 Tiglathpileser continued his
conquest north-east of Arpad, devastated Kilkhi, a district belonging to
Nairi, and conquered Ulluba, where he founded an Assyrian capital under
the name of Asshuriqisha. But it was long before the land of the Khatti
(Syria) was pacified. Between 740 and 738 no less than nineteen districts
belonging to the Syrian kingdom of Hamath, and some other adjacent dis-
tricts, broke away from Assyria, and from some mutilated parts of the
inscriptions it is believed we may conclude that they asked for help from
Azariah [Uzziah], the warlike king of Judah. At all events, the latter at
that time ventured to defy the power of Assyria, and Tiglathpileser con-
nected this hostile attitude with the rising of the people of Hamath. About
738 Azariah was defeated and the country of Hamath added to Assyria.
Then the king had recourse to his favourite means for the suppression of the
sentiment of nationality — namely, the transplantation of prisoners of war
in the most extensive fashion. Whilst all princes of any consideration and
even an Arabian queen now offered the conqueror their submission and
presents, he received the joyful tidings of important successes won by his
generals on the other frontiers of the empire. The eastern Aramaeans had
shaken off the Assyrian yoke and advanced to the Zab, but were driven
back, though with some difficulty. At the same time the governor of Lul-
lume was harassing the Babylonians, whilst the governor of Nairi held in
check the populations on the northern frontier. Booty and prisoners were
sent to the king in the land of the Khatti.
The three following years (737-735) he was occupied with expeditions
in the east and north-east. Some districts of Media were then under the
Babylonian rule, and now passed to that of the Assyrians. But the most
important event of this year was the march to Turushpa, the capital of
Urartu [Chaldia], the residence of Sarduris, on the Lake of Van. No
Assyrian conqueror had penetrated so far as this, nor did Tiglathpileser
succeed in taking the town in which Sarduris had fortified himself after his
first defeat ; but the power of this dangerous rival was broken for a long time.
Tiglathpileser now determined to bring the west under his yoke, and did
not rest until he had brought all the Hittite and Semitic countries to the
coast of the Mediterranean and the frontiers of Egypt, except some Arabian
districts, under his sway. This took him three years, from 734—732. The
immediate inducement to this expedition was probably that Ahaz of Judah,
threatened by Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel, called in the aid of
Assyria. Moreover, the last two had probably paid no tribute, and, generally
speaking, Assyria needed little persuasion to fish in troubled waters. The
first attack was directed against Rezin. Beaten in the open field, he was
compelled to retreat to his capital. Here Tiglathpileser shut him in " like a
bird in its cage " ; he conquered all the towns round about, including the
important city of Sam'ala, and marched on, after having destroyed, according
to his wont, all crops around Damascus, and thus increased the difficulty of
transporting the means of existence. He marched into Israel (Bit-Khumri),
wasting whole districts, some of which he added to his empire, — for the
present, however, leaving the capital undisturbed. The immediate goal was
now the Philistine Gaza, whose king, Hanno (Khanunu), probably trusting
394 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[732-731 B.C.]
in Damascus and Israel, had at first renounced his allegiance, but now on the
approach of the Assyrian army fled to Egypt. The town was taken, and a
rich booty fell into the hands of the victors. Askalon, whose prince Mitinti
had made an attempt at rebellion, was punished — though probably not till
later — and Rukipti, Mitinti's son, raised to the throne. Shamshi, "the
queen of Arabia in the land of Sheba," also offered resistance, but was like-
wise utterly defeated and with difficulty escaped with bare life. Her
country, which is certainly not to be confounded with the Sheba of the
South, became an Assyrian province. Other Arab tribes submitted volun-
tarily, and amongst them the well-known Tema; and Tiglathpileser appointed
the powerful tribe of the Idibi'il, as being nearest to Egypt, to be wardens of
the marches at the gates of that still mighty empire. Now came the turn of
Samaria, the only city of Israel which the conqueror had not yet reduced.
He appears, indeed, to have visited it, but not to have besieged and taken
it, yet he raised Hoshea, who had meantime slain Pekah, to the throne,
or confirmed him in its possession. It was longer before Damascus fell.
It continued to hold out for two years more. That it was then taken is
probable.
Of all the kingdoms of the West there now remained only Tyre and Tabal,
which latter lay much farther north. The king did not go in person against
either of these towns, but he sent Rabshakeh, who subdued them and changed
the government in Tabal, while on Tyre he imposed a tax of not less than
one hundred and fifty talents [about £60,000, or $300,000]. Whether this
took place now or later, cannot be said with certainty.
Victorious over all rebellious subjects in his colossal empire, and dreaded
by all his neighbours, Tiglathpileser now felt himself strong enough to make
a direct attack on the Aramaeans and Chaldeans of Babylonia, and to conquer
the holy city itself. In the year 731 he ventured and accomplished this act
of daring. In Babylonia itself no one seems to have resisted him, and the
population seem rather to have received him as a deliverer. He entered
Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, Borsippa, Kutha, Kish, Dilbat, and Erech, each in
their turn, and received the protection of the great gods, by offering them
sacrifices. Then he fell on the Aramaic-Chaldean tribe of Pekud (Pekod),
subdued it as far as the frontiers of Elam, continued his victorious march
through the Chaldean states of Bit-Silani and Bit-Sha'alli, which soon
succumbed to his arms. Nabu-ushabshi, the king of the former state, was
impaled before the gate of his capital, Sarrabani, and the town levelled with
the ground ; Zakiru of Sha'alli was sent to Assyria in chains, and the capital,
which still offered resistance, was starved into surrender. Bit-Amukkani,
whose king, Ukinzer (Chinziros), who appears to have been at that time the
leading chief of the Chaldeans, and consequently regarded as king of
Babylon, was not so easily overcome. It is true that the whole country
was ravaged and the king shut up in his capital of Sapia ; that a sortie of the
garrison miscarried ; that in fear of the overwhelming strength of Assyria,
Balasu of Bit-Dakkuri, Nadin of Larak (Bit-Shala), and even Marduk-
bal-iddin [Merodoch-baladan] of Bit-Yakin on the seacoast, the man who
was later to become so terrible an enemy to Assyria, came here to offer
their costly gifts and their submission ; but Sapia was not taken and Ukinzer
not conquered, so that nominally he shared the rule over Babylon for yet
another year. Still, from this time forward it was not without reason that
Tiglathpileser styled himself king or overlord of Babylon, king of Sumer and
Accad ; he might boast that he ruled from the Persian Gulf to the far East,
over the coasts of the Mediterranean as far as Egypt, and that he had
T1IF. IMSK OF ASSYRIA 808
[731-726 B.C.]
extended his kingdom farther than any of his predecessors. He reigned for
three years more, for the most part in peace, as far as we know. Of his
last two years it is reported that he clasped the hands of Bel ; that is, that
he received the highest religious consecration as king of Babylon. In the
year 727 Shalmaneser IV succeeded him on the throne. The hitter only
ruled for live years, and of his short reign little is known.
SIIAI.\IAM:M:I: iv
In the list of the Babylonian kings for these five years, there stands, not
his name, but that of Ulule, who was neither, as has been believed hitherto,
an independent prince nor a viceroy appointed by Shalmaneser, but none
other than Shalmaneser himself, who also probably resided at Babylon.
Perhaps his expedition against Phoenicia and Israel falls as early as the
i^y^ i^y^-jc.^^^ ^^w ^^ra ->^B(
ASSYRIAN KIM; IN HIS WAR CHARIOT
year of his accession. The occasion of the war against Tyre, whose king,
Elulaeus, at that time stood at the head of the Phoenician towns, is said
to have been an expedition undertaken by the latter against the Khittim of
Cyprus. It is more probable that the Tyrian king, like Hoshea of Israel,
had taken advantage of Tiglathpileser's death to renounce his allegiance to
Assyria. Shalmaueser again subdued Hoshea and raised tribute from him.
At the same time he sent into Phoenicia a part of his army, which devastated
the whole country, and once more made it tributary. After this the whole
empire seems to have quieted down, for the following year (726) was a year
of peace. But the calm was not of long duration. Scarcely had the Assyr-
ian troops marched away, when Hoshea turned to the Egyptian king, in the
hope that with his aid he might free himself from the yoke of Assyria, and
from thenceforward once more refused the tribute.
We have here probably a great conspiracy, in which Elulaeus was also
concerned, for Shalmaneser now marched against both kings. He took
Hoshea prisoner, evidently after a struggle, wasted the whole land of Israel,
but at Samaria, whose population may very likely have incited the king to
revolt, he encountered an obstinate resistance. Meantime the whole Phoe-
nician mainland, either from fear or under pressure from the superior force
of Assyria, hastened to desert from Elul.neus and to submit to Shalmaneser.
The Tyrian king found himself under the necessity of retreating to his
fortress on the island of Tyre, where he was at once besieged. It was only
under Shalmaneser's successor that Samaria was taken after a three years'
396
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
siege, and Tyre after one of five years. We cannot but experience a feeling
of respect for these two cities, which ventured unaided — for the help from
Egypt failed, as usual, to appear — to defy the gigantic power of Assyria.
[It is by no means undisputed that Shalmaneser marched against both
Elulaeus and Hoshea, as Professor Tiele states. Some of the historians
believe that no action was taken against the king of Tyre, and that since
there are no allusions to the five years' siege in any of the inscriptions,
Josephus, the sole authority, made a mistake in attributing to Shalmaneser
an attack on Tyre that was really made by Sennacherib.]
The scanty records of Shalmaneser's reign bear witness to material pros-
perity. That he was, as has been thought, a feeble ruler, under whose
administration the empire declined, is entirely unproved. His early death
prevented him from acquiring the same glory as his predecessor, and if,
immediately after his decease, the vassals of the empire raised the standards
of rebellion in every direction, this speaks rather for than against the influ-
ence of his personality.*
CHAPTER IV. FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN
GREATNESS (722-626 B.C.)
AFTER the death of Shalmaneser IV, the throne of Assyria was taken by
a man of doubtful antecedents, who became the founder of a very powerful
dynasty. This king, like some previous usurpers, adopted a name famous
in Assyrian history. He became known to the world as Sargon II, and
Rogers says he was not of royal blood ; Tiele, however, from whom we shall
quote, thinks differently."
In the year 722 B.C. Sargon became king in Asshur. He was an As-
syrian of royal blood, who seems, however, to have belonged to another
branch than that of the dynasty which had ruled before Tiglathpileser III,
nor does he appear to have been closely related to the latter and his succes-
sor. He boasts that he restored to the ancient seat of government, the city
of Asshur, her long usurped rights, and to Kharran, the object of his especial
favour, her former liberties, which had also long been curtailed. Evidently,
therefore, he appeared to a certain extent in the character of an innovator,
or rather as the restorer of the ancient order.
Samaria fell shortly after his accession, and a part of its inhabitants were
led away into banishment, to be replaced later on by others. Whether or
no Sargon was present in person is not clear, but it is certain that he could
not long devote his attention to the western portion of the empire. Scarcely
was Shalmaneser IV dead before the Chaldeans revenged themselves for the
humiliation they had suffered at the hands of Tiglathpileser. Marduk-bal-
iddin [Merodach-baladan] of Bit-Yakin, at that time the most powerful
amongst them, since through his timely submission to the Assyrians his
country had been preserved from the miseries of war, had made himself mas-
ter of the city of Babylon, and now ruled as king over the whole Babylonian
country. Sargon marched south, perhaps in the hope of recovering what was
lost. But in this he was unsuccessful. He did not venture to attack Babylon
itself, but turned his arms against an Aramaean tribe, the Tu'mun, who had
surrendered their chief to the Chaldean king. The tribe was subjugated and
carried to Syria. Sargon now pressed on as far as the town of Dur-ilu in
whose suburb he sustained with Babylon's ally, the Elamite king Khum-
banigash, a hotly contested fight, from which he asserts that he came off
victor. This campaign, however, yielded no further advantages. Elam re-
tained its independence and Merodach-baladan possession of Babylon. An
897
398 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[722-716 B.C.]
indirect result was that the South had learned to know Sargon as a military
commander, and, for the future, good care was taken not to molest him.
The danger threatened from another quarter. Syria was up in arms.
At the head of the rising was Hamath, where a man of mean origin, Ya-
ubidi or Il-ubidi, had seized the government. Arpad, Simirra, Damascus, and
Samaria followed his example. He found a support in Hanno (Khanunu)
of Giiza, who had resumed his throne, and even in Shabak,1 the Ethiopian
king of Egypt, whom Hoshea's unhappy fate does not seem to have fright-
ened from endeavouring to measure his strength with the imperial might of
Assyria. Even before the allies could unite their forces, Sargon, who prob-
ably received early intelligence of what was going on in the countries of the
Mediterranean coast, encamped before Qarqar, where Ya-ubidi had fixed his
headquarters, stormed and burnt the city, had the ringleader flayed alive and
his principal adherents put to death, increased his host with three hundred
warriors who fought in chariots, and six hundred horsemen from amongst the
conquered, and then marched south against the allied armies of Hanno and
Shabak. At Raphia on the Egyptian frontier was fought the decisive battle,
which turned out a brilliant victory for the Assyrians. Hanno was taken
and carried off to Assyria with nine thousand of his subjects, and Shabak
owed his safety only to his precipitate flight in which he was accompanied
only by his chief herdsman. Hezekiah seems to have thought it wise not to
defy the victor ; perhaps he even sent Sargon a present. Tyre also must
have been pacified in this year (720).
Meantime the other enemies of the empire were not yet cowed. The
whole north, north-east and north-west, longed impatiently to shake off the
Assyrian yoke. In this they were supported by Mitatti of Zikirtu, Rusas of
Urartu and Mita of Muskhe, who had secretly formed a league over which
Sargon was to triumph only after a long and fierce struggle. In the year
719 Mitatti contrived to persuade some towns of the loyal Iranzu of Man to
revolt, whilst Rusas brought several other towns under his sway. Sargon
proceeded against them with so much energy that the instigators themselves
held cautiously aloof, while they beheld their country laid waste and most
of its inhabitants carried into the west, especially to Damascus. In the year
718 unrest revealed itself in Tabal, where Kiakki, prince of Sinukhtu, refused
to pay his tribute. But he, too, was soon led away captive to Assyria, to-
gether with seven thousand of his subjects, and Matti of Atun, a faithful
vassal, was invested with Kiakki's province. In the year 717 Sargon had to
suppress a dangerous rising. Pisiris, the Hittite prince of Carchemish,
which was one of the keys of the West, attempted, with the support of Mita
of Muskhe, to make himself independent. But his city was taken, the
majority of his subjects carried off, and an enormous booty stored in
Asshurnazirpal's palace at Calah, which Sargon had restored for himself.
These disturbances were nothing compared with the war which now, in
the year 716, broke out against Sargon and lasted several years. Rusas of
Urartu had persuaded the chief men of the Assyrian provinces of Karalla
and Man to secede, in which he was supported by Zikirtu and by the moun-
tain region of Umildish, which was governed by a certain Bagdatti. It
appears that the rebellion had spread all over the eastern frontier, and the
princes of western Media also took arms. Sargon boldly attacked his ene-
mies. He began with the country of Man, which lay nearest, soon got
Bagdatti into his power, and had him flayed. The chief men of Man raised
[T The word is Sib'e, who is possibly Sewe or So, but many scholars differ as to his identity.
See Winckler,d Goodspeed,« and Budge./]
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN <; KKATNKSS 399
1710-710 B.C.]
Ullusunu, the brother of Aza, whom Bagdatti had murdered, to the throne
and compelled him to join KMSUS'.-. party, to which the princes of the Nairi
states, Karalla and Allabra, whose names, Asshurli and Itti, denote them as
Assyrian deserters, also went over. But scarcely had Sargon set out against
them before Ullusunu and his nobles found themselves obliged to offer their
submission. Sargon confirmed the former in his kingdom, and compelled his
two allies with other petty chiefs to return to their allegiance. The terri-
tory of the city of Kisheshim was ruled by a governor, Bel-shar-usur,
probably a Babylonian. Sargon gave it the name of Kar-Nergal and made
it into an Assyrian province. A like fate befell the west Median town
of Kharkhar, which had expelled its sovereign, Kibaba, and solicited sup-
port from Dalta of Ellipi; henceforth it was called Kar-Sharrukin [City
of Sargon]. On this the governors of other Median towns made their
submission.
But after these isolated successes it was still long before the eastern
states were quieted. In the following year (715) Rusas wrested twenty-two
towns from Ullusunu, and a certain Daiukku, who is called viceregent of
Man, was involved in the affair. Khubushkia, a state of Nairi, and the
neighbouring districts, became refractory, and the territory of Kar-Sharru-
kin, incorporated only the year before, again seceded. At the same time in
the west Mita of Muskhe made an invasion into the Assyrian district of
Que [in eastern Cilicia] with considerable success. Nevertheless, Sargon
succeeded in maintaining the upper hand at all points. He reconquered
Kar-Sharrukin, fortified it more strongly than before, and received the
homage of the governors of twenty -two Median cities. His general in the
west was not content with reconquering the towns taken by Mita, but even
pressed southward as far as the Arabian Desert, and transferred the tribes
subdued there to Samaria.
Secure of the west, Sargon now felt in a condition to strike at the real
authors of all the trouble in the east. After Man and some Median districts
had paid their tributes, the next thing was to proceed against Mitatti of
Zikirtu. So complete was the overthrow of this prince that, after the burn-
ing of his capital, Parda, and the desolation of his country, he with his
whole people sought another home. It was a harder task to subdue
Rusas, the soul of the confederacy. But this, too, was accomplished
by the warlike king. Rusas was defeated among his high hills. His
whole royal house, amounting to some 250 persons, fell with his horsemen
into the victor's hands, and he himself only escaped with much difficulty
and hid in the mountains. Rusas still built hopes on one of his allies ; if he
would make a stand all was not yet lost. This was Urzana of Muzazir, a
former vassal of Asshur, who had, however, joined Rusas as the chief of a
kindred tribe. In his mountain country, protected by its natural strength
and almost impenetrable, he believed himself entirely safe. But the daunt-
less spirit of the ancient Assyrian warriors was not extinct in Sargon. He
piously commended himself to the protection of the gods, assembled a care-
fully selected body of troops, and ventured with them on the almost impossible
enterprise. When Urzana understood that the valiant hero was actually
approaching with his veterans, he fled, according to the praiseworthy custom
of Asiatic despots, with all speed into the higher mountains, leaving his
capital and his own family to the mercy of the enemy. Muzazir's fate was
now soon decided ; with a large number of prisoners, and an extraordinarily
rich booty, including the two great gods of the country, Sargon returned to
his own country. This was the death-blow for Rusas. The whole structure
400 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[71&-711 B.C.]
so laboriously prepared lay in ruins, and filled with despair he fell upon his
sword.
When Sargon had thus secured his empire against the danger threatening
from the half-savage barbarians of the north, he re-established order in the
northwest and west. Next he turned, not against the chief author of the
trouble, Mita of Muskhe himself, but against Tabal, which lay not far and
somewhat to the south of Muskhe. Ambaris of Tabal, to whom previously,
while his father Khulle was still alive, Sargon had amongst other tokens of
favour given one of his daughters to wife, and whose kingdom he had increased
by the grant of Cilicia, had been ungrateful enough to join with Rusas and
Mita. In the year 713 Sargon punished him as he had deserved, and made
his country into an Assyrian province. The same thing happened to Kham-
man and Melid in the following year. Sargon peopled the country with for-
eign prisoners of war, and endeavoured by the erection of ten fortresses to
secure it against Urartu and Muskhe. Continuing its southward march, the
Assyrian army remained for a time in the region of the Amanus, and then,
in the year 711, attacked Gurgum in the neighbourhood of Kummukh, which
became an Assyrian province.
It is very doubtful whether Sargon took a personal share in these expedi-
tions. It was during just these years that he was occupied with the con-
struction of his new residence of Dur-Sharrukin. It is certain that the
devastation of Ashdod, which concluded the campaign of 711, was ef-
fected not under the king's superintendence, but under that of the king,
Akhimiti, whom Sargon had installed there, but who had been expelled, and
Yaman, a man of mean origin, raised to the throne by the people. On the
approach of the Assyrian army this hero fled to Egypt, but the king of
Melukhkha (Egypt), fearing the vengeance of Assyria, sent him back loaded
with iron bands. The population of Ashdod was also carried away and re-
placed by other tribes. Fortified by these triumphs, Sargon could now
collect his forces in order to undertake a war which should set the crown
to all his achievements. This was the conquest of Babylon, which had been
for the last twelve years in the possession of the Chaldean king, Merodach-
baladan.
Two years were required for this undertaking, in which Sargon proceeded
with great caution. Merodach-baladan was ready for the attack. He had
not neglected to make the necessary dispositions and to strengthen his for-
tresses. In one of them, Dur-Atkhara, which was probably the nearest to
Assyria, and whose defensive works he had caused to be raised, he had con-
centrated the whole military power of the Aramaean tribe of Gambuli, and
had sent to their assistance a portion of his own choicest troops, six hundred
horsemen and four thousand foot. Sargon directed himself against this for-
tress, and whilst he was besieging it, it is probable that another division of
his army won several successes in the east, where it had to keep the Elamite
king, Shutur-nakhundi, occupied, and prevent him from joining hands with
his ally. Dur-Atkhara fell ; more than eighteen thousand prisoners and a
great booty became the spoil of the conqueror, and the rest of the defenders
hastily took to flight. The Assyrian king made the town his headquarters ;
he subsequently gave it the name of Dur-Nabu, and placed it under an Assyr-
ian governor. The Khamarani tribe which dwelt on the banks of the Euphra-
tes, in their terror at the approach of his army, had already taken refuge in
the town of Sippar. At the news of the surrender of Dur-Atkhara, and the
defeat of the Gambuli, the Aramaean tribes of Rubu, Khindaru, Yatburu, and
Puqudu, who dwelt east of the Tigris, and relied on the protection of Baby-
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 401
[711-709 B.C.]
Ion and Elam, withdrew behind the river Ukni. The Assyrians threw a
bridge across the Umlias, a river to the north of Elam, and took several
strongholds there, whereupon some chiefs of the Aramaeans did homage to the
king at Dur-Atkhara. They were assigned to the new government of
< iiimbuli. The remainder were attacked and defeated in the territory of the
Ukni, so that of them also many submitted, and were made subject to Gam-
buli. Now the army of Assyria operating east of the Tigris attacked Elam
from Yatburu, subdued all the surrounding country, the seven principalities
of Yatburu, with which two fortresses conquered from Elam were incorpo-
rated, and a part of the Elamite territory itself. It compelled the forces of
the land of Rash, which belonged to Elam, to retire to a fortress, and the
Elamite king to seek refuge in the high mountains of his country. Secured
against any surprise from this quarter, Sargon himself with the main body
now crossed the Euphrates into the Chaldaic-Babylonian state of Bit-Dak-
kuri, whose capital, Dur-Ladinna, henceforth became his headquarters.
There was now no room for Merodach-baladan in Babylon. Threatened
on three sides, and in danger of being cut off by Sargon from his own prin-
cipality, he and his troops left the city during the night and directed their
steps to the Elamite part of Yatburu, whence they might advance against the
enemy in co-operation with Shutur-nakhundi. But, although he offered the
latter the most costly presents, the Elamite had not yet forgotten the lesson
he had received. He declined to expose himself to new defeats, and so, per-
haps, lose both land and people. Merodach-baladan left Yatburu, having
gained nothing, and collected his army in a stronghold of his own country,
called Iqbi-Bel.
Meantime, at Dur-Ladinna, in Bit-Dakkuri, not only did Sargon receive
the submission of the inhabitants and the neighbouring Bit-Amukkani, but
the authorities of Babylon also came in solemn embassy, bringing an invita-
tion to enter the holy city, with which he immediately complied. At the
great festival of the lord of the gods in the month of Shabat (January) he
was permitted " to clasp the hands " of that great Bel-Marduk and Nabu,
the king of the universe.
But still the south of Babylonia was not yet subjugated, for there Mero-
dach-baladan was still in arms. He collected all his forces in the immediate
neighbourhood of his capital, and at the same time, for fear of treachery, led
thither the population of the ancient cities of Ur, Larsa, Kishik, etc. Strong
defences were set up and special canals dug, behind which he entrenched him-
self with his allies. But the great king did not shrink before all these obsta-
cles. Scarcely was the campaign of the year 709 begun, before he marched
south, distributed his troops along the enemy's whole line of defence, and
inflicted on the latter so terrible a defeat that the trenches appeared as though
full of blood, and the Suti, who had marched from Bit-Yakin to the rescue,
did not venture an attack, but hurriedly retreated. Then Sargon fell on the
auxiliaries and slaughtered them like sheep. Terror now seized on the
Chaldeans' main army ; Merodach-baladan left his camp with all speed and
retreated to his city. But it, too, was soon taken after a short siege,
and with this the power of Merodach-baladan was broken. It is uncertain
whether he himself fell into his enemy's hands or saved himself by flight ;
but probably the latter was the case, for immediately after Sargon's death
he is again in a position to take action, at least if the Merodach-baladan,
who then revolted against Sennacherib, is the same who was conquered by
Sargon and his son. But for the time Babylonia was freed from the Ara-
maic-Chaldean domination, and breathed again. Sargon restored the ancient
H. W. — VOL. I. 2D
402 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[709-708 B.C.]
rights of the natives which the oppressors had curtailed in favour of the for-
eigners. To the towns of southern Babylonia he gave back their stolen gods ;
he everywhere showed himself extremely liberal to the temples and the
ancient religion of the country. In all directions he appeared as deliverer,
avenger of the insulted gods, restorer of the ancestral religion, protector of
the priests and of all the natives of the country. His triumph did not sig-
nalise the commencement of foreign rule, but, on the contrary, it was he who
put an end to it.
Sargon's rejoicings over his victory were still further increased by the
embassies and reports which he received one after the other. Uperi, the
king of the island of Dilmun, in the Persian Sea, did homage to him while he
was still at Bit-Yakin, and gave costly presents. When he had marched from
southern Babylonia to consolidate his dominion in the conquered countries,
still more welcome tidings reached him at Irma'i. Even his great enemy in
the northwest, Mita of Muskhe, who had stood with Rusas at the head of the
confederacy against Asshur, but who had been overcome byj the governor
of Que, now sent ambassadors to Sargon with presents and protestations of
homage and devotion. When, finally, the king had again returned to Baby-
lon, there came envoys from seven districts of Cyprus, " whose names had
never been known to the kings, his fathers, since the rule of the god Sin,"
and who offered him valuable gifts and kissed his feet. Thus the empire of
the mighty conqueror stretched from the island of Dilmun, in the Persian
Gulf, to the Isle of Cyprus, in the Mediterranean.
Sargon returned to Calah in the beginning of 708, his fourteenth year as
king of Assyria, and third as king of Babylon, after spending some time in the
latter city. Whilst he was at Calah, resting on his laurels — he did not again,
himself, take the field — and from thence prosecuting the construction of his
new residence of Dur-Sharrukin, not far from Nineveh, his armies had still
to conduct two wars, one in the year 708, the other, perhaps, in the same, but
probably in the following year. Urartu had to a certain extent recovered
from the blows it had suffered in the defeats and death of its king, Rusas;
and the new king, Argistis, began to grow restless, and persuaded Prince
Mutallu of Kummukh to a revolt against the Assyrian domination. Sargon
sent a high| official with a powerful army and full royal authority, who put
Mutallu to flight, taking the capital of the province, and so restoring the
Assyrian dominion. The rich booty was sent to Calah to the king, and the
latter placed a very strong garrison at the disposal of the new viceroy, to
prevent any further attempts at risings, and at the same time to constitute a
defence against Argistis. But it was once more apparent that the Assyrian
Empire, as a purely miltary power, rested on a tottering foundation, and
could only be sustained by continued wars and victories.
The other war was that for the succession in Ellipi to the north of Elam.
There, after the death of Dalta, who after some resistance had become a loyal
vassal of Assyria, a dispute over the inheritance broke out between his two
sons, Nibe and Ishpabara. The first applied for help to Shutur-nankhundi
of Elam ; the second to Sargon. The latter sent seven of his commanders,
who succeeded in defeating Nibe, taking his capital, Marubishti, and there
installing Ishpabara as king.
Sargon, who, even in the early years of his reign, in the midst of his most
terrible wars, had not neglected the reconstruction of palaces and temples at
Nineveh and Calah, now devoted himself entirely to the realisation of a long
cherished plan, whose execution he had begun long ago. A new suburb of
Nineveh, called by his name, was to come into existence as a permanent
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 403
(708-706 B.C.]
memorial of his fame and piety, and at the same time serve as a summer
residence. This was Dur-Sharrukin with its temples to various gods, with
its palaces and gardens, whose walls and gates, like those of a sacred city,
looked to the four quarters of the heavens and were named after the high
gods, and whose inhabitants, selected from the prisoners of war of all the
nations whom the king had conquered and placed under Assyrian magis-
trates, afforded a living testimony to his mighty deeds. On the 22nd Tasrit
(September) 707, the gods were solemnly introduced into their temples, and
on the 6th Airu (Aprif) of the following year, the king took possession of
the new residence. He was not permitted to enjoy it long. In the year
705 he fell by an assassin's hand. [This is doubted by some authorities,
who believe that he died a natural death.]
Sargon was, without doubt, one of the greatest princes who sat on the
throne of Assyria and Babylon. He was no mere conqueror, who thought
merely of increasing the size of his empire, but also a true king who occu-
pied himself for its welfare. What chiefly strikes us in him is the compara-
tive moderation by which he was distinguished from his predecessors and in
particular from his son and successor. The horrors and devastations of war
were the inevitable accompaniment of the forcible subjugation of the whole
of western Asia, and some obstinate rebels were punished according to the
barbarous custom of his age and race. But in general he contented himself
with expelling the conquered prince or making him prisoner. He also re-
mained faithful to the policy first pursued by Tiglathpileser III, namely that
of furthering the unity of the empire by transplanting whole populations to
other districts. But in his records it is only now and then that we encoun-
ter the refined cruelties perpetrated by the other Assyrian kings, and he
never dwells on them with so much complacency as they display.6
SENNACHERIB
Sargon II was succeeded by his son Sin-akhe-erba, the Sennacherib
of the Bible, who reigned long and gloriously. The period now in question
has a double interest. It is a time when Assyria is at the height of its
power ; and the interest that attaches to any strong empire is enhanced by
the fact that the Assyrians of this period came in contact with the people of
Israel. Sennacherib, in particular, bears a name familiar to all succeeding
generations because of the repeated mention of this ruler in the Hebrew
scriptures. Until the records of the Assyrian monuments were brought to
light, nothing was known of him, except what referred to his disastrous
campaign against Jerusalem, together with the brief reference to his murder
by his son. Now, however, an abundance of material is at hand telling of
the deeds of Sennacherib. The most important of these records are con-
tained on large cylinders of the type which many Assyrian kings employed.
These cylinders tell of various campaigns of the great conqueror, including
several attacks upon Israel. Two or three brief excerpts from the chroni-
cles of Sennacherib will serve to give an idea of the phraseology in which
these royal documents are couched. The first two excerpts here selected
were translated by George Smith from a cylinder now in the British
Museum.
Column I of this cylinder begins as follows :
" Sennacherib the great king, the powerful king, king of Assyria, king
of the four regions, the appointed ruler, worshipper of the great gods,
guardian of right, lover of justice, maker of peace, going the right way,
404
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[705-681 B.C.]
preserver of good. The powerful prince, the warlike hero, leader among
kings, giant devouring the enemy, breaker of bonds. Asshur, the great
mountain, an empire unequalled, has committed to me, and over all who
dwell in palaces has exalted my servants. From the upper sea of the setting
sun to the lower sea of the rising sun all the dark races he has subdued to
my feet, and stubborn kings avoided war, their countries abandoned, and,
like Sudinni birds, . . . fled to desert places."1
Column II contains a record of the campaign against the Hittites :
" In my third expedition to the land of the Hittites I went. Elulseus
king of Sidon, fear of the might of my dominion overwhelmed him, and to
a distance in the midst of the sea he fled, and his
country I took. Great Sidon, Lesser Sidon, Bit-
Sitte, Sarepta Machalliba, Ushu Alhzibu, and
Akko his strong cities, fortresses, walled and en-
closed, his castles ; the might of the soldiers of
Asshur my lord overwhelmed them, and they
submitted to my feet. Tubahal in the throne of
the kingdom over them I seated, and taxes and
tribute to my dominion yearly, unceasing, I fixed
upon him. Of Menahem of Samsimuruna, Tuba-
hal of Sidon, Abdilihiti of Arvad, Urumilki of
Gubal (Byblos), Mitinti of Ashdod, Buduilu of
Beth-Ammon, Kammusunadab of Moab, Mali-
krammu of Edom, kings of the Hittites, all of
them of the coast, the whole, their presents and
furniture, to my presence they carried, and
kissed my feet, and Zidqa, king of Askalon, who
did not submit to my yoke ; the gods of the
house of his father, himself, his wife, his sons,
his daughters, and his brothers, the seed of the
house of his father I removed, and to Assyria I
sent him. Sharruludari, son of Rukipti their
former king, over the people of Askalon I
appointed, and the gifts of taxes due to my
dominion I fixed on him, and he performed my
pleasure."
Full of interest is the record of an invasion
of Palestine. Sennacherib, it will be recalled,
was the Assyrian that came down like a wolf
on the fold, as recorded in Byron's stirring lines. The Hebrew account is
from 2 Kings xix. 35 :
" And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out,
and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five
thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all
dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and
returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worship-
ping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his
sons smote him with the sword ; and they escaped into the land of Armenia.
And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead."*
[* Rogers,? whose more recent translation differs in some respects, reads this last line, " like
a falcon which dwells in the clefts they fled alone to inaccessible places." In Column II he
reads the names Alhzibu, Akko, Tubahal, and Hittites as respectively Ekdippa, Arko, Ethobal,
and West Lands. ]
SENNACHERIB ON ais THRONE
(Layard)
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 405
[705-681 B.C.]
It is hardly necessary to state that no such record as this is to be found
on the cylinder before us. The oriental scribe, whether of Egypt, Assyria,
or Persia, rarely made the mistake of putting details of unfortunate expedi-
tions on record. Doubtless Sennacherib once invaded western Asia unsuc-
cessfully, and quite likely a plague may have decimated his hosts, but that
particular invasion is not likely to furnish a favourable theme for the court
chronicler.
An invasion of Palestine is, indeed, recorded on the present cylinder, but
it is an invasion with very different results. Listen to the official account
of the conquest of Jerusalem furnished by this cylinder of Sennacherib, as
translated by Dr. Budge. The scribe reports the king as speaking in the
first person :
" I drew nigh to Ekron and I slew the governors and princes who had
transgressed, and I hung upon poles round about the city their dead bodies ;
the people of the city who had done wickedly and had committed offences I
counted as spoil, but those who had not done these things I pardoned.
I brought their king, Padi, forth from Jerusalem and I stablished him upon
the throne of dominion over them, and I laid tribute upon him.
" I then besieged Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke,
and I captured forty-six of his strong cities and fortresses and innumerable
small cities which were round about them, with the battering of rams and
the assault of engines, and the attack of foot-soldiers, and by mines and
breaches (made in the walls). I brought out therefrom 200,150 people, both
small and great, male and female, and horses, and mules, and asses, and camels,
and oxen, and innumerable sheep I counted as spoil. (Hezekiah) himself, like
a caged bird, I shut up within Jerusalem his royal city. I threw up mounds
against him, and I took vengeance upon any man who came forth from his city.
His cities which I had captured I took from him and gave to Mitinti, king of
Ashdod, and Padi, king of Ekron, and Silli-bel, king of Gaza, and I reduced
his land. I added to their former yearly tribute, and increased the gifts
which they paid unto me. The fear of the majesty of my sovereignty over-
whelmed Hezekiah, and the Urbi and his trusty warriors, whom he had
brought into his royal city of Jerusalem to protect it, deserted. And he
despatched after me his messenger to my royal city Nineveh to pay tribute
and to make submission with thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of
silver, precious stones, eye paint . . . ivory couches and thrones, hides and
tusks, precious woods, and divers objects, a heavy treasure, together with his
daughters, and the women of his palace, and male and female musicians."
It must not be supposed, however, that either this record of a successful
invasion or the Hebrew account of that other disastrous one is altogether
false, however much the facts may have been exaggerated, or however
poetical the guise in which they are presented. It is merely to be under-
stood that the two records refer to different campaigns or to different por-
tions of the same campaign, as explained later by Professor Tiele. It is
supposed by some modern interpreters that the destruction of Sennacherib's
hosts actually occurred through the plague. The king himself, however,
escaped to return to Nineveh and there to continue his rule for many years.
He was finally killed by his own sons, as is recorded on a contemporary
Babylonian document. What would not the Hebrew scholar give, could he
find contemporary documents of these events from the Hebrew standpoint,
instead of being obliged to depend on records handed down, perhaps, by
tradition for many generations, or at best, copied from one hand to another
for centuries ?
406 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[705 B.C.]
The value of contemporary documents as records of fact may, indeed, be
overestimated, for it is possible to pervert, exaggerate, or understate the
facts even in the day of their occurrence ; but in any event the contem-
porary document has obvious advantage over documents of subsequent
generations, which can be nothing more than copies, variously distorted, of
earlier records. As for such mere matters of fact as the dates of ancient
kings, and the particular details of campaigns and conquests, the historic
importance of the contemporary record cannot be questioned ; hence the
enormous value of these tablets of Assyria and Babylon. But, questions of
historical value aside, a peculiar charm attaches to whatever is old, and it is
nothing less than fascinating to look at such a document as this cylinder, and
feel that the very lines you scan were once read by Sennacherib himself
before he met his untimely end " on the 20th day of the month Tebet " some
twenty-five centuries ago.*
It was in the year 705 B.C. that Sennacherib, who was not, perhaps,
entirely guiltless of Sargon's death, mounted the throne and became the
supreme king both in Babylon and Assyria. To Merodach-baladan, who
may have been either the recognised king of the Sea Lands, or the son or
namesake of the latter, the occasion now seemed favourable for recovering
the throne lost to Sargon. Sennacherib and his army marched up in all
haste, and though it appears that Merodach-baladan had all the Aramaean
and Chaldean tribes on his side, and was moreover supported by Elamite
auxiliaries, he suffered a defeat and so lost his kingdom. According to the
Assyrian narrator, this defeat was so complete that the Chaldean was forced
to take flight in the greatest haste, leaving behind him his whole baggage-
train, as well as his family and court. He had reigned nine months. The
land was heavily scourged, great and small towns were taken and laid waste,
and the inhabitants dragged into exile. The same fate was meted out to all
Arabians, Aramseans, and Chaldeans who were living in the Babylonian
towns.
When the campaign in Chaldea was at an end, the troops were sent
against the Aramaean tribes, which dwelt on the banks of the Tigris and
Euphrates. Here, too, there was devastation and plundering. A consider-
able booty, as was to be expected from these nomads, consisting chiefly of
cattle, but also including camels, fell into the hands of the conquerors, and
no less than two hundred thousand men and women were carried off to As-
syria as slaves. It fared still worse with one small, heroic tribe, the Hirimmi,
who offered an obstinate resistance to the Assyrians. When, finally, the
latter succeeded in overcoming them, of all the rebels they left no prisoner
of war alive, and hanged the corpses on poles upon the wall surrounding the
town. Sennacherib annexed the whole territory to his realm, while he laid
on it a very moderate tax for the benefit of the Assyrian god.
We may assume it as probably certain that the king did not personally
take part in the campaign, but occupied himself the while with the adjust-
ment of Babylonian state affairs. His policy may be distinctly followed.
It was only toward the Chaldeans and their allies that he appeared in the
character of an enemy. They alone were punished or carried off. The
actual citizens of Babylon, Erech, Nippur, Kish, and Kharsag-kalama he left
unmolested, and to propitiate them still further, he even gave them a king
belonging to the ruling Babylonian house — namely, the young Bel-ibni,
whose father held an important office, and who had himself been brought up
from childhood at the Assyrian court. Of him Sennacherib might hope that
he would be faithful to Assyria and at the same time not unfriendly to the
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 407
[705-702 B.C.]
Babylonians, and therefore he now bestowed on him the title of " King of
Sumer and Accad."
The establishment of order in Babylon was turned to account by Sennach-
erib for the purpose of averting the danger with which his eastern frontier
was threatened by the nomads who wandered there, and by the mountain
people, and also for extending his empire in every direction. He now
attacked the Kasshu and Yasubigallu, by which names we doubtless have to
understand those barbarous Kossaeans, and their allies, whose successors,
centuries later, according to Diodorus, still made the Mesopotamian frontier
insecure, and who were related to those Kassites who had so long reigned
over Babylon. Their surest protection was the inaccessible nature of the
country. Steep mountain paths and thick forests made it difficult for an
Assyrian army to advance, while for vehicles it was impossible.
The king himself led the march, and thus showed himself a worthy suc-
cessor of the undaunted heroes who in earlier centuries had founded the
Assyrian power. His chariot had frequently to be carried behind him, and
then he mounted on horseback or performed the journey on foot at the head
of his troops. Sennacherib succeeded in taking their three strongholds.
The smaller places he laid in ashes and the nomads' tents were burnt. But
for greater security he desired to bring the wild tribes under Assyrian rule,
and to force them to settle in fixed abodes. He selected Bit-Kilamzakh as a
centre, fortified it far more effectually than before, making it a formidable
fortress to keep the inhabitants of the country in check, and peopled it with
captives whom he had carried off in former warlike expeditions. He caused
a tablet inscribed with the history of this campaign to be set up in the
capital, in order that the terror of the Assyrian arms might be kept perpetu-
ally alive. As soon as he had subdued the Kasshu he marched against
Ellipi. Sennacherib fell on the country like a tempest. The two royal
seats Marubishti and Accudu, with all the smaller towns, were taken by him
and given up to be plundered and burnt, whilst all crops were destroyed
and even the cornfields delivered over to the fire. It was with a certain
satisfaction that Sennacherib boasted of having transformed Ellipi into a
desert, and led away the whole population with its goods and chattels.
When these successes became known, a number of Median princes, dwelling
at a more remote distance, hastened to offer their submission.
Meantime the king's attention was directed to events in the west. The ele-
vation of the young and high-spirited Tirhaqa to the throne of Egypt, probably
as husband of King Shabak's widow, and guardian of his son who was a minor,
had aroused in some princes of the strips of land along the Mediterranean
coast the hope that by an alliance with him they might shake off the Assyrian
yoke. To these belonged Elulaeus (Luli) king of Tyre and Sidon, Zedekiah,
(Zidga) king of Askalon, and above all Hezekiah, the king of Judah. The
latter took on himself the leadership, at least in the south-west.
Sennacherib's third campaign was directed against this coalition, and is
probably to be assigned to the year 702 B.C. With its usual promptitude, the
Assyrian army marched on Phoenicia, and thus attacked one of the allies
before the rest had a chance to unite their forces. Elulteus fled in haste to
Cyprus, where Citium still belonged to him ; and all his towns on the con-
tinent, within a short space of time, fell into the hands of the Assyrian. All
the princes of the other petty Phoenician states came that they might offer
their submission.
Sennacherib immediately starts along the seacoast for Askalon, southern-
most of the revolted states, and soon overpowers it. Zedekiah, the king,
410 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[701-696 B.C.]
be compelled to do so. A strong body of troops under the leadership of the
Rabshakeh, or generalissimo, marched against the strong fortress and closely
beset it on all sides. But it is the Rabshakeh who chiefly figures in the
foreground of the affair. The Hebrews tell of his efforts to induce the
people and the garrison of Jerusalem to desert their king. He sought to
attain this end by means of scornful speeches oil the helplessness of Judah.
Hezekiah, perhaps again spurred on by Isaiah, who still continues to
trust in a miraculous deliverance, does not give way at once, but defends the
city against a superior foe for some time, though it was the only town that
remained to him and was as isolated and forsaken " as a cottage in a vine-
yard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." But at last, when famine in
the town has reached its highest pitch and signs of impatience and discontent
manifest themselves among the garrison, he makes up his mind to submission,
and sends a messenger to Lachish to inquire the terms of surrender. They
are very hard. But there is no longer any choice, and he tenders the Assyrian
conquerors the amount required at the hand of the envoy, who subsequently
accompanied it to Nineveh. Whether the siege was thereupon immediately
raised, or whether it was thought well to keep the town still under observa-
tion until the contest with Egypt was decided, we cannot say positively.
But, as a great misfortune, either pestilence or some other natural phe-
nomenon, actually did soon after smite the Assyrian army, and the whole
of the conqueror's force, reduced to a miserable handful, quitted Judah and
the West, the true believers among the Egyptians and Israelites saw in it a
miraculous deliverance which the gods had sent them, and the latter at the
same time regarded it as a fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah, which at
first did not seem to be coming true.
Of course the event had not in reality the importance which the grateful
Egyptians and Israelites attributed to it. Although it secured them relief,
and Sennacherib's army was so weakened that he thought it advisable to
beat a hasty retreat, yet his supremacy over Phoenicia and Canaan remained
for a long time unshaken, and in the following year he was again in the field
with a powerful army. Subsequently he appears again to have marched
westward and to have made a particular fight against Arabia and Edom.
But it does not appear that in this campaign he also made war against
Phoenicia, Philistia, and Judah, as he certainly would not have failed to do
had traces of insubordination showed themselves. The chastisement had
been too severe, and the country was too greatly exhausted.
In the year 700 B.C. Sennacherib's presence was again required in Baby-
lonia. It was the third and last year of Bel-ibni's rule at Babylon. Sen-
nacherib had him brought to Assyria, together with his whole family. He
had proved unequal to the task which Sennacherib had assigned him.
After the victories, which intimidated even Elam, Sennacherib went to
Babylon, and there in place of Bel-ibni, set up his own eldest son Asshur-
nadin-shum on the throne as king of Sumer and Accad. His six years' reign
began in the year 700 B.C., and now Sennacherib thought himself safe from
the machinations of Chaldean pretenders.
For some years he had really had his hands free in the south. He
employed the time in bringing into subjection some of the north-western
neighbours of his empire. This campaign, which the Assyrians reckon as
the fifth, and which must have taken place somewhere between 699 and 696,
ended with a war in Cilicia. According to Berosus it was occasioned by a
Greek invasion, and the Assyrian army obtained the victory only after suf-
fering great loss. Abydenus even speaks of a sea-fight on the Cilician coast,
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 411
[700-696 B.C.]
in which the Greek fleet was worsted. Both historians agree in this, that
Sennacherib immortalised his famous deeds by the erection of his statue or
the setting up of bronze pillars with inscriptions, and that he built the town
of Tarsus, which he called Tharsin, so that the Cydnus flowed through it
as the Arazanes (Aralshtu) through Babylon. Strange as it may seem, the
Assyrians themselves make no mention of the foundation of this important
town, but Berosus is too credible a witness for his statement to be rejected.
Even before 694 Sunuicherib had busied himself in the preparations of
a great plan. Merodach-baladan had sought and found in Nagitu, on the
coast of Elam, a refuge and place of security where he believed his deadly
enemy could not reach him. After the latter's expedition against Bit-Yakin
in the year 700, the remainder of the population of that territory had found
it expedient to take ships with their gods, as their master had done, and
cross to the region where the latter had taken up his abode. Sennach-
erib apparently feared that this new state would prove a source of danger
to the province entrusted to his son ; all the more since Merodach-baladan
had now become a vassal of Elam, Asshur's ancient and hereditary enemy.
The difficulty was great, particularly as Nagitu was not accessible from
the land side, without passing through Elamite territory. He had among
his captives shipbuilders from Khatti, and he set them to work at Nineveh
on the Tigris and Tel-Barsip on the Euphrates. The ships were towed
down the Euphrates and the Tigris [or they may have been transported
overland by camels]. They were manned by Tyrian, Sidonian, and Ionic
seamen, who were also prisoners of war. He, himself, had meantime
marched to the Persian Gulf with his army, and had fixed his camp close
to the ships. From the description of the voyage it is evident what a
deep impression this very unusual expedition made on the Assyrians. Even
before they set sail they made an unexpected acquaintance with the sea,
which they believed four hours' distance away ; they may perhaps have
been aware that, even so far up as Bab-Salimeti, the river was subject to the
ebb and flow ; but a spring flood, which suddenly laid the camp under water,
and even made its way into the royal tent, took them by surprise. They
had to seek refuge on the ships and remain on them five days and nights,
"as in a great bird-cage," says Sennacherib. Whether this experience of
life on shipboard was enough for the bold monarch, or whether he had no
intention of taking part in the maritime expedition, it is certain that he did
not leave the shore. The transports were taken to the mouth of the
Euphrates ; costly sacrifices to Ea, the sea god, among which were a golden
ship and a golden fish, were thrown into the rivers to obtain his protection
for the fleet, and then it set sail. It is not told how long the voyage lasted,
but merely that the country whither they went lay at the mouth of the
Eulaeus (Ulai), the chief river of Elam. There the great battle was fought,
and of course the Assyrians came off the victors. They took possession of
various Elamite towns, and carried off the Chaldeans and all the goods from
Bit-Yakin, together with a number of Aramaeans and captured ships, to
Bab-Salimeti, where the king awaited them. Of Merodach-baladan not a
word is said. Therefore he did not fall into the hands of the Assyrians, and
was not robbed of his sovereignty by the defeat. Thus far, at least, the
victory was of no lasting significance for the Assyrians. It appears simply
to have destroyed the prosperity of the Chaldean colony for some time, and
to have deterred the indefatigable adversary from direct attacks. But this
extraordinary and costly expedition shows how greatly he was dreaded and
with what implacable hatred his house was pursued by that of Sargon.
412 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[696-692 B.C.]
While the Assyrian king was engaged in the seacoast war, Khallus, the
king of Elam, instigated by the Babylonians who had left the town in good
time with Merodach-baladan and had sought refuge with him, invaded
Accad with his army, penetrated as far as Sippar, where he instituted a mas-
sacre, and brought Asshur-nadin-shum prisoner to Elam. On the Babylonian
throne he set up a Babylonian, Suzub, son of Gakhul. It is a characteristic
trait that the Assyrian account is silent as to the unhappy fate which over-
took Sennacherib's oldest son. Suzub, on his accession to the throne, took
the name of Negal-ushezib. He is the Regebelos of the Ptolemaic Canon, and
must be carefully distinguished from the Chaldean Suzub who did not reign
over Babylon till a later date (692) and under another name.
But the new king was lord over only part of the country. The whole
South was still in the hands of the Assyrians and had to be conquered by
him.
About June, 694 or 693, he succeeded in getting possession of Nippur,
but his farther advance was checked by the tidings that the Assyrians had
meantime marched as far as Erech. Sennacherib immediately despatched
a large force against the king of Elam, whom he rightly regarded as the chief
author of all the trouble. Erech fell and was sacked, and, laden with rich
booty, including even the chief gods of the sacred city, the Assyrians
marched forward. At Nippur, Nergal-ushezib awaited them, and in the
battle which followed he remained victor. But his rule was of short dura-
tion. As to the end of his reign the Babylonian and Assyrian records are
agreed. The former asserts that, after the Assyrians had carried away the
gods and inhabitants of Erech, Nergal-ushezib was taken prisoner in the
battle at Nippur and conducted to Assyria. According to the second, he
was thrown from his horse in the battle, taken prisoner and brought in
chains before Sennacherib, who then shut him up in prison at the gate of
Nineveh. The two accounts seem to make the story complete.
After the misfortune that had overtaken their king, the Babylonians
bestowed the crown on Suzub the Chaldean, who had also fled to Elam. He
reigned independently for four years, under the name of Mushezib-Marduk.
The Assyrians consequently content themselves with mentioning several
advantages won by them over the Elamites, and also relating that they took
Suzub prisoner on their march from Erech to Asshur. They themselves
practically acknowledged that Babylon did not fall into their hands, when
they inform us that, after Suzub's capture, the Babylonians closed their city
gates against the Assyrians and offered an obstinate resistance.
So far as we may judge, the whole of this campaign of Sennacherib's was
a political blunder, which does not speak well for his sagacity. There was
in fact nothing to be feared from Merodach-bala'dan ; the real peril, which
threatened from Elam, escaped the Assyrian king. The maritime expedi-
tion undertaken at so much labour and expense, was more adventurous than
glorious, and failed in its main object : the arch enemy, at whom it was
aimed, retained his liberty and his kingdom. And meantime Babylon was
left without protection, and Sennacherib's own son was bereft of throne and
freedom. He had not even provided himself with sufficient forces to avenge
the descent of the Elamites and reconquer the lost territory. The sole fruit
of the campaign (exclusive of booty and prisoners) was the carrying away
of a Babylonian king, whose place was at once taken by another prince, not
less hostile. A poor compensation for the loss of the capital, the whole
territory belonging to it and of his own son ! Under Sennacherib's gov-
ernment it was continually apparent that only under compulsion had the
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 413
[692 B.C.]
Babylonians submitted to the yoke of the Assyrians, and that they preferred
to unite with Elam rather than again obey a Sargonid.
In Elam, meantime, a rising took place against Khallus, possibly because
he had been unsuccessful in his war against Assyria. [He was killed in
the uprising.] Kudur-nankhundi became king in his stead. Sennacherib
thought this a favourable opportunity to attack his old enemies, the Elamites.
It was in 692, probably, that he took advantage of Elam's disordered con-
dition to inflict a heavy punishment on that country. From Rasa to Bit-
Burnaki he ravaged and plundered to his heart's content. He introduced
Assyrian garrisons and placed the territory under the care of a governor.
Besides this, he took thirty-five fortified towns. Such was the devastation
" that the smoke of the flames covered the face of the wide heaven like a
heavy storm," and so great was the terror he spread that Kudur-nankhundi
left his residence at Madaktu in all haste, and fled to a town called Khaidala,
which lay far up in the mountains. But nature saved him from the hands
of the Assyrians. Sennacherib did indeed give orders to march to Madaktu,
but he could not carry his intention into effect. It was winter, and in
(Tebet) December an earthquake, coupled with storms of rain and snow,
eompelled him to retreat. The mountain streams were so swollen that no
army could now cross them with safety. Only three months afterwards
Kudur-nankhundi died "suddenly, before his time," and his own brother
Ummaii-minanu mounted the throne. Scarcely had Umman-minanu assumed
the sceptre of Elam than he allowed himself to be beguiled into an alliance
with Babylon against Asshur. At Babylon now reigned Suzub II, the
Chaldean, Mushezib-Marduk. After his flight from Sennacherib, in the year
700 or 699, he had returned to Babylon, where, after the misfortunes that
overtook his namesake, he was made king, no doubt to the great chagrin of
the Assyrians. When he sent gold and silver from the treasury of E-sagila,
the great temple of Marduk and Zarpanit, to the Elamite king, he found the
latter prepared to collect an army at once and march with it to Babylon for
a joint attack upon Asshur. Sennacherib was astounded that the lesson he
had imparted to Elam in the previous year had borne no better fruit. But
the Chaldeans and Elamites had good ground to hope for success. The
Assyrian's latest victories had not been rich in lasting results. He had not
succeeded in conquering Babylon. He had been obliged to retreat hastily
from Elam. He had not been able to defend Chaldea. Moreover, the kings
of Babylon and Elam could now count on a number of allies. The number
of the enemy impressed the Assyrians, who likened them to a swarm of
locusts. " Like a violent gale which drives the rain-clouds across the firma-
ment, so rose the cloud of dust at their approach." But calling on the gods,
his heavenly protectors, Sennacherib ventures an attack.
It was a fierce battle ; both sides fought with the greatest fury. Sen-
nacherib, himself, was distinguished by his personal courage. With helm and
mail, spear and bow, Asshur's sacred bow, which none but the kings of
Assyria carried, he stands in his war chariot like an angry lion, and like a
heavy storm from Adad, the god of tempests, he rushes on the enemy,
covering the plain with corpses as with grass. His horses wallow in blood ;
blood and fragments of the slain cleave to the pole of his war chariot. A
choice troop of Elamite nobles, equipped with golden daggers and bracelets,
are slaughtered like sheep, and the Elamite commander and grand vizier,
Khumbanundash, a man of great ability, also falls. Others are taken
prisoners. Yet the kings of Elam and Babylon and the Chaldean chiefs
got away, according to the Assyrian writer, who delights in depicting their
414 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[692-689 B.C.]
sufferings in a very imaginative fashion, with a loss of tents and baggage and
of one hundred and fifty thousand dead left on the battle-field. They were
pursued for a distance of some miles, but their capture was not effected.
There is something loathsome in the lively colours in which the scene is
painted; the pitiless slaughter and horrible mutilation of the slain are
described with bloodthirsty complacency. The writer of the Assyrian tablet
knew well that his savage, revengeful master based his renown on such
inhuman acts. And yet it was no victory for the Assyrians. They may
have remained in possession of the field, but the murderous battle was so
undecisive that the Elamites and Babylonians could claim the victory as
well. The losses on both sides must have been so great that neither of the
two parties ventured to continue the war. Both sides assumed the attitude
of waiting for a more favourable opportunity. The prevalent idea that after
the battle of Khalule Sennacherib immediately conquered Babylon is decidedly
false and is contradicted by the true reading of both Assyrian and Babylonian
records.
Not till the year 690 or 689 did Sennacherib find a favourable opportunity
to risk another attack on Babylon. From Elam there was now nothing more
to fear. The power of Umman-minanu was much weakened and he was
soon to lose it altogether. The Assyrian king marched on Babylon with
the impetuousity which distinguished all his warlike expeditions, and was
at times disadvantageous to him ; and on this occasion his effort was crowned
with the desired success. Now he directed his arms against Mushezib-Mar-
duk's town, not as his predecessors, including his own father, had done, as a
rescuer bringing deliverance from a usurper and therefore striking at the
latter and his dependents, and sparing the inhabitants : upon the town which
had so long withstood him, so repeatedly and obstinately lifted its head
against him, a fearful vengeance was to be taken. It was literally wiped
out ; nothing was spared ; corpses lay piled up in the streets ; all its treasures
were pillaged and divided amongst the soldiers ; the temples were desecrated,
and the gods torn from their sanctuaries. Then the whole town was deliv-
ered up to the flames ; the walls and ramparts, the temples and the ziggurat,
(probably the two towers of Babylon and Borsippa), were thrown down and
hurled into the Arakhtu or other canals, and the water from the river and
the canals was turned on the ruins that they might be flooded. The very
place where the sacred town had stood became unrecognisable and was
changed into a marsh. Mushezib-Marduk escaped and sought refuge in
Elam, but Umman-minanu, fearing Assyrian vengeance, surrendered his
ally, and the latter and his family were brought prisoners to Nineveh.
Such a deed may well have spread fear and horror even in Assyria itself.
Sennacherib had done what none had even ventured before. Towards the town
which many an Assyrian king had treated with respect and which had never
been sacked, he had behaved with a relentlessness which hitherto had only
been exhibited to foreign rebels. He was now master of Babylon. For the
remaining eight years of his life, he was called King of Babylon, even accord-
ing to the Babylonian list of kings, although the Ptolemaic canon mentions
this period as an interim. King Ummanaldash [Khumba-Khaldashu] who
(the 7th of Adar 690 or 689 ?) succeeded Umman-minanu on the throne
of Elam, and who reigned eight years, left the Assyrian king in peaceful
possession. There are sufficient grounds for the assumption that this su-
premacy over Babylon of a tyrant embittered by earlier reverses was a reign
of terror.
For the last years of Sennacherib's reign authentic accounts are almost
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 415
[G96-C81 B.C.]
entirely wanting. An expedition to Arabia, against a certain king Hazael
(Khazailu), in which the capital of Edom is stormed and the deity of the place
falls into his hands, certainly belongs to this period of his reign.
Like most of the Assyrian princes, Sennacherib, in spite of his unsettled
existence, was a great builder. But he bestowed the most care on the re-
establishment and embellishment of his beloved Nineveh. In the earlier part of
his reign he had also strengthened this town with an outer wall and an inner
rampart (duru and shalkhu), and in the year 695 he had built a great palace
by the north-west wall, after pulling down a small palace which stood there.
The latter had fallen into decay, partly as a result of the overflowings of the
canal on which it stood, partly from the heat of the sun. The canal was
now diverted, and on its margin was built a new and loftier palace, in which
ivory and costly woods were not spared. There the king had a park laid
out and irrigated by the waters of the Khushur (Khosr) which were made
to flow through it, and it was planted with trees from the Amanus Moun-
tains. At the same time the town was extended and embellished.
Scarcely was this structure completed when Sennacherib caused another
palace, which lay farther south of the same wall, to be pulled down. It had
served former kings as armoury, magazine, and stables, and had now become
not only too small but also decayed. Some fields were added to it and earth
brought to raise them, and upon this now rose a palace, not of tiles, but of
hewn stone after the fashion of the land of Khatti (Aram). For this also
cedars from Amanus and great lion and animal colossi, which had been hewn
out of stone in the town of Baladai and then cased in bronze, were employed,
and cunning architects disposed them with great care and magnificence.
The purpose of the building remained the same ; horses and every sort of
cattle found stabling, stuffs and weapons were laid up there, but it had now
also to serve as a barrack for the national troops. The king's name is
displayed on every wall.
Immediately after the completion of this building on the 20th day of Adar,
691, that is, in the same year in which the battle of Khalule took place, Sen-
nacherib began another and not less important work, which was only com-
pleted and inaugurated after the sack of Babylon. This was an undertaking
intended to provide the city of Nineveh with good drinking water. A num-
ber of canals had to be dug, which served at the same time to fertilise some
uncultivated strips of land. In the capital which was thus, as it were, born
again, the old warrior now probably rested on his laurels for a few years
longer.
In the latter period of his life, Sennacherib appears to have handed over a
part of his royal functions to his son Esarhaddon (Asshur-akhe-iddin), if he
did not actually make him co-ruler. The latter was not his eldest son, for his
name, " Asshur grants brothers, or, a brother," shows the contrary, but he was
perhaps, the second, and therefore direct heir to the throne after the death, or
at least in the absence of, the king's eldest son, Asshur-nadin-shum, who had
been carried off by the Elamites. Esarhaddon was certainly destined to the
succession by his father, and was the latter's favourite. Sennacherib issued
a decree by which the whole of his booty brought from the Babylonio-Chal-
dean district of Bit-Amukkani was assigned to him, and his name was at the
same time changed to Asshur-etilli-ukinnibal (Asshur, the lord has lent a
son) — a name which was more appropriate for one who now took the place of
eldest son, but which Esarhaddon himself does not appear to have adopted.
His brothers, whether younger or older, were not pleased at this. Two
of them at least, Sharezer, whose full name was probably Nergal-shar-usur
416 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[681 B.C.]
(or the Nergilus of Berosus), and Adarmalik, disputed the succession, taking
advantage of the circumstance that Esarhaddon, at the head of the army,
was absent in the north-west, most probably in a war with Armenia. Whilst
Sennacherib was praying in a temple, they fell on him and slew him, and
Nergal-shar-usur took possession of the throne, [but was at once superseded.
Some histories deny his accession]. Thus died Sennacherib, on the 20th
Tebet (about December) 681, by the hands of his own sons.
From the official sources, which are the only ones we possess, it is difficult
to obtain an idea of the character of the Assyrian sovereign, but the records
of Sennacherib's reign certainly make a far more unfavourable impression
than those which Sargon left behind. Both were conquerors, but the one
shows more respect for law and justice. Stern, at times to harshness, against
uncompromising adversaries, Sargon yet gives place to mildness where mercy
can be made to harmonise with the interests of the empire. Sennacherib,
on the other hand, takes an obvious delight in scenes of blood and desola-
tion, in inflicting punishments which only awaken disgust at their brutish
cruelty. The destruction of Babylon, the burning and blotting out of a
town venerable from its age and importance, and so sacred to the pious
Assyrians, was indeed a blind vengeance which fixes an indelible blot on the
name of the author of the crime. Not less courageous and warlike than his
predecessors, he was rash and presumptuous rather than bold, and his plans
were rather venturesome than well calculated. Impetuous in attack, he
neglected the needful precautions, and attained the immediate goal, often
only to lose more than he gained. Whether he was concerned in his father's
murder cannot be determined ; that he was, as his name indicates, a younger
son, is no certain evidence of this, but it is a suspicious circumstance that
he nowhere mentions his celebrated father's name. If he was guilty, Nemesis
overtook him. As a king he was far inferior to Sargon. Nineveh alone had
much to thank him for. Babylon, on the contrary, which had called in Sargon
as her deliverer, sought to secure her independence of him, and preferred to
his yoke the dearly bought protection of Elam. After he died, having reigned
something like twenty-four years, it was a long time before the empire was
as powerful and flourishing as at the commencement of his rule. In think-
ing of Sargon and Sennacherib we are involuntarily reminded of Cyrus and
Cambyses, who differed from one another in the same way. 6
ESARHADDON AND ASSHUKBANAPAL
Sennacherib, as we have seen, was murdered by his sons. It appears
that this event did not occur at once after the return from the disastrous
campaign against the Israelites, as might be inferred from the Hebrew
record, but a good many years later. Esarhaddon, who succeeded his father,
was obliged to win back the kingdom from the regicides before he could
securely occupy the throne of Assyria. He seems to have had no great
difficulty in this, however, and for many years he continued in undisputed
sway, not merely sustaining but extending the influence that his father had
wielded. The_ greatest glory of his reign was his successful invasion of
Egypk Opinions have differed considerably as to the character of Esar-
haddon. Professor Tiele's verdict, which we give in extenao later, is some-
what less favourable than that of various other authorities. The opinion
of Professor Maspero is perhaps worth quoting in some detail. He says :
" Esarhaddon is one of the finest and most attractive characters of Assyr-
ian history. He was as active and resolute as Asshurnazirpal or Tiglath-
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 417
[681-66(1 B.C.]
pileser, without being hard on his subjects or cruel to those he conquered, as
they were. He delighted in being merciful as much as his predecessors had
rejoiced in being merciless, and the accounts of his wars no longer make
constant mention of captives being burnt alive, kings impaled on the gates
of their cities, or whole populations being burnt out by fire. He took pleas-
ure in restoring the ruins with which his father and grandfather had covered
the land, and in the first year of his reign he gave orders for the rebuilding
of Babylon, which was commenced on a grand scale.
" All the Chaldean prisoners were set free, and those who liked to work
under the architects could do so for payment in oil, wine, honey, and other
commodities of life ; and when laying the foundation stones of different
edifices, he himself wore the special dress of the masons. The temple of
Bit-Zaggaton, the seat of Marduk, the protector of the town, issued from
the ruins and the walls, and royal castles were raised beyond their former
height. Beyond Babylon Esarhaddon consecrated thirty-six temples at
Asshur and Agade ; and they were lined with shining sheets of gold and
silver.
" The palace which he built at Nineveh on the site of an old building
surpassed all that had hitherto been seen. The quarries of alabaster in the
mountains of Gordyene and the forests of Phoenicia furnished material for
the halls; thirty-two Hittite kings on the Mediterranean coast sent great
beams of pines, cedars, and cypresses. The roof was made of carved cedar
wood, supported by columns of cypress encircled with gold and silver ; stone
lions and bulls stood at the doorways ; the panels of the doors were made of
ebony and cypress, encrusted with iron, silver, and ivory. The palace of
Babylon was entirely destroyed, and the one commenced at Calah with
Egyptian booty was never finished. The conquerors had been much im-
pressed by the long avenues of sphinxes at the entrance of the Mem-
phite temples, and in imitation of the idea Esarhaddon had sphinxes,
lions, and bulls at the entrances of his buildings. The construction lasted
three years (671-669), and it was only just far enough completed for the
decoration to be started, when he fell seriously ill in 669." Two years later
he died.
It will probably be felt by most readers of the records left by Esarhaddon
himself — which are, of course, our sole authority in the matter, save for a
few chance biblical references — that Professor Maspero's verdict as just
quoted is over-enthusiastic. Nevertheless, it can hardly be doubted that
Esarhaddon was in many ways a much more admirable character than his
father. The following excerpt from one of Esarhaddon's inscriptions, con-
tained on a hexagonal prism of baked clay found near Nineveh, and now in
the British Museum, will suggest something as to the precise interpretation
one should place upon the words " attractive " and " merciful " as applied to
an Assyrian conqueror :
" Esarhaddon, king of Sumer and Accad, (son of Sennacherib, king of)
Assyria, (son of Sargon) king of Assyria, (who in the name of Asshur,
Bel,) the Moon, the Sun, Nabu Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of
Arbela, the great gods his lords from the rising of the sun to the setting of
the sun marched victorious without a rival.
" Conqueror of the city of Sidon, which is on the sea, sweeper away of
all its villages; its citadel and residence I rooted up, and into the sea I flung
them. Its place of justice I destroyed. Abd-milkot its king who away from
my arms into the middle of the sea had fled ; like a fish from out of the sea I
caught him, and cut off his head. His treasure, his goods, gold and silver
ii. w. — VOL. i. 2m
418 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[681-668 B.C.]
and precious stones, skins of elephants, teeth of elephants, dan wood, ku
wood, cloths, dyed purple and yellow, of every description, and the regalia
of his palace I carried off as my spoil. Men and women without number,
oxen and sheep and mules, I swept them all off to Assyria. I assembled
the kings of Syria and the seacoast, all of them. (The city of Sidon) I
built anew, and I called it 'The City of Esarhaddon.' Men, captured by
my arms, natives of the lands and seas of the East, within it I placed to
dwell, and I set my own officers in authority over them.
"And Sanduarri king of Kundu and Sizu, an enemy and heretic, not
honouring my majesty, who had abandoned the worship of the gods trusted
to his rocky stronghold and Abd-milkot king of Sidon took for his ally.
The names of the great gods side by side he wrote and to their power he
trusted ; but I trusted to Asshur, my lord. Like a bird from out of the
mountains I took him, and I cut off his head. I wrought the judgment of
Asshur my lord on the men who were criminals. The heads of Sanduarri
and Abd-milkot by the side of those of their chiefs I hung up : and with
captives young and old, male and female, to the gate of Nineveh I marched.
" Trampler on the heads of the men of Khilakki and Duhuka, who dwell
in the mountains, which front the land of Tabal, who trusted to their
mountains and from days of old never submitted to my yoke : twenty-one
of their strong cities and smaller towns in their neighbourhood I attacked,
captured, and carried off the spoil ; I ruined, destroyed, and burnt them
with fire. The rest of the men, who crimes and murders had not committed,
I only placed the yoke of my empire heavily upon them."
It is notable that the successor of Esarhaddon, his son Asshurbanapal,
seems to have placed the same favourable opinion upon the character of his
father, as compared with his grandfather Sennacherib, that moderns are
disposed to adjudge. This is suggested by the fact that Asshurbanapal in
various inscriptions refers to " Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, the father, my
begetter," and never to his grandfather, whom he probably would have
mentioned, following custom, had he held him in any particular regard.
Asshurbanapal himself was, at least in his earlier years, a warrior of no mean
quality ; but he was, it would appear, primarily a lover of the arts of peace.
There is a marked difference in the tone of his inscriptions, as compared with
those of his predecessors, even when describing his conquests. Many times
they suggest one who loves the pleasures of life rather than one who gloats
over the infliction of death. The following are the words in which he
describes the expedition against Egypt and Ethiopia, and against Tyre, as
recorded on a cylinder now preserved in the British Museum :
" In my second expedition to Egypt and Ethiopia I directed the march.
Tandamani [Tanut-Amen] of the progress of my expedition heard, and that
I had crossed over the borders of Egypt. Memphis he abandoned, and to
save his life he fled into Thebes. The kings, prefects, and governors, whom
in Egypt I had set up, to my presence came, and kissed my feet. After
Tandamani the road I took, I went to Thebes the strong city. The approach
of my powerful army he saw, and Thebes he abandoned, and fled to Kipkip.
That city (Thebes) the whole of it, in the service of Asshur and Ishtar,
my hands took ; silver, gold, precious stones, the furniture of his palace, all
there was, garments of wool and linen, great horses, people male and female,
two lofty obelisks covered with beautiful carving, two thousand five hundred
talents (over ninety tons) their weight, standing before the gate of a temple,
from their places I removed and brought to Assyria. The spoil great and
unnumbered, I carried off from the midst of Thebes. Over Egypt and
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 419
[681-668 B.C.]
Ethiopia, my soldiers I caused to march, and I acquired glory. With a full
hand peacefully I returned to Nineveh, the city of my dominion.
" In my third expedition against Baal, king of Tyre, dwelling in the
midst of the sea, I went ; who my royal will disregarded, and did not hear
the words of my lips. Towers round him I raised, on sea and land his roads
I took, their spirits I humbled and caused to melt away, to my yoke I made
them submissive. The daughter proceeding from his body and the daughters
of his brothers, for concubines he brought to my presence. Yahimelek his
son, the glory of the country, of unsurpassed renown, at once he sent forward
to make obeisance to me. His daughter and the daughters of his brothers
with their great dowries I received. Favour I granted him, and the son
proceeding from his body, I restored and gave him. Yakinlu, king of Arvad,
dwelling in the midst of the sea, who to the kings my fathers was not
submissive, submitted to my yoke. His daughter with many gifts, for a
concubine to Nineveh he brought, and kissed my feet. Mukallu, king of
Tabal, who against the kings my fathers made attacks, the daughter pro-
ceeding from his body, and her great dowry, for a concubine to Nineveh he
brought, and kissed my feet. Over Mukallu great horses an annual tribute
I fixed upon him. Sandasharme of Cilicia, who to the kings my fathers did
not submit, and did not perform their pleasure, the daughter proceeding from
his body, with many gifts, for a concubine to Nineveh he brought, and kissed
my feet."
.« W I '.-
• W , ' .
ASSYRIANS CBOSSINO RIVER uv MEANS ui AIR BAOS
Of Asshurbanapal as patron of art and literature we shall have occasion
to speak more fully in a later chapter, in referring to the contents of his
famous, library. Not less noteworthy than this library was the gallery of
art constituting the walls of the great king's dining room. We turn now
to the more detailed consideration of the life-histories of Esarhaddon and
Asshurbanapal, as interpreted by a modern authority. <»
ESABHADDON'S REIGN (681-668 B.C.)
Sennacherib's murderers did not stand alone, but had a considerable
following. Asshur-akhe-iddin (Asshur is brother), Esarhaddon, as the
Hebrews call him, who had been already destined to the throne by his
father, had therefore to conquer the crown assigned him at the point of the
sword. Although it was (Tebet) December — Sennacherib, as we have seen,
had fallen on the 20th of this month — and consequently the time favourable
for warlike operations had gone by, yet he perceived that this was a case for
420 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[681 B.C.]
prompt action. He lay with his army in the north-west, but without waiting
a single day, without stopping to collect men, horses, chariots, or material,
without even supplying himself with provisions, and in spite of snow and tem-
pest, which might be feared at that season, he hurried straight to Nineveh ;
"like a bird of prey with outstretched wings." At Khanigalbat, a neigh-
bourhood the position of which is unknown to us, but which must be
sought in or near North Aramsea [probably near Melid], the army of the
rebels intercepted him. But these were soon defeated and scattered. A
great part very probably went over to Esarhaddon. The two chiefs of the
rebellion, his brothers, sought safety in flight and were received in Urartu.
That one of them, as Abydenus would have us believe, fell in the battle,
is not very probable. Still it is certain that they never again attempted
to get possession of the government. On the 2nd of Adar (February)
the rising was extinguished, and five weeks later, on the 8th of Nisan, that
is, the beginning of the year 681 B.C. [Professor Rogers gives the month
of Siran, 680, for this date], Esarhaddon mounted the throne of his
father.
When his brothers' rebellion was suppressed, Esarhaddon was indeed in
safe possession of the Assyrian throne, but by no means in undisputed enjoy-
ment of the sovereignty over the whole of his father's empire. He was
continually obliged to engage in wars and to quell risings.
The son of that arch-enemy of the Assyrians, Merodach-baladan, who is
generally called Nabu-ziru-kinish-lishir (Nabu, guide the true scion!), had
naturally taken advantage of the confusion resulting from the murder of Sen-
nacherib and the war of the succession, to repudiate his allegiance, and may
perhaps have already thought of reconquering Babylon. From Esarhaddon's
accession he had ceased to send the presents required from a vassal, and had
also omitted to appoint an envoy to offer his homage to the new king, and
thus to recognise his overlordship. He had evidently overestimated the
difficulties with which the king had to contend, and had not anticipated that
the latter would so soon repress the rebellion and be in a position to proceed
against him with decisive energy. It is uncertain whether he himself risked
the attack ; it appears, however, that he had already penetrated as far as Ur.
Esarhaddon, who was at Nineveh when he received the news of his defection,
could certainly not now be spared there. But he ordered the governors of
the province bordering on the maritime country to go out against the
rebellious Chaldean at the head of an army which was despatched to them,
and this proved sufficient. According to the Assyrian accounts Nabu-ziru-
kinish-lishir did not await the attack, but fled to Elam. But this realm was
no longer what it once had been. Ummanaldash II, who now reigned there,
was not inclined to endanger the peace of his kingdom and involve himself
in a war with Assyria for a stranger's sake ; the fugitive was seized and put
to death. Na'id-Marduk, who accompanied him on his expedition to Elam,
feared a like fate. He chose the wiser course ; he hastened to Assyria, made
his submission, and in reward was invested with the sovereignty of his
brother's kingdom, that is, of the whole seacoast. Henceforth he faithfully
paid the annual tribute.
It was not so easy to put down another movement at another end of the em-
pire. Very soon after Esarhaddon's accession, perhaps even before, certain
kings of the west country planned an attempt to free themselves from the
Assyrian yoke. These were the kings of Sidon and of two other cities whose
position is uncertain, but is certainly to be sought east of Sidon, namely
Kundu and Sizu. Over the two last ruled Sanduarri, whose name proclaims
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 421
[G77-fi76 B.C.]
him as one of the Hittites or related to them, and over Sidon, Abd-milkot.
They had to bind themselves by an oath to recover their independence with
their united forces, and fought with great persistence. This is shown by the
fact that they were not subdued till the fourth year of Esarhaddon, and also
of the fearful vengeance of the Assyrians, so little in accordance with this
king's customary procedure. In the year 677 Sidon succumbed to the
besieging force. The city was plundered, wasted, and depopulated. Town
and citadel were " thrown into the sea " and the place where they had stood
made unrecognisable. The population was brought to Assyria, with all its
goods and cattle and all the treasures of that rich commercial city. But
Esarhaddon did not, like his father, take pleasure in mere destruction. A
new town rose in the place where the former had stood. He called it by
his own name [Kar-Asshur-akhe-iddin], and allowed conquered mountain
peoples and inhabitants of the coast of the Persian Gulf to settle there — the
old means, devised by Tiglathpileser, for absorbing sentiments of nation-
ality and independence into the unity of the great empire. Abd-milkot
had meantime fled, probably to Cyprus ; for Esarhaddon says that he " took
him out of the sea like a fish." He was overtaken, made prisoner, and put
to death, and in the month Tasrit of the following year, 676, his severed
head reached Assyria. It was some time before Sanduarri was conquered
in his mountain country, but in the month Adar of the same year he suffered
a like fate to that which had overtaken his ally. Then the barbarous
triumph took place in Nineveh. All the captured subjects of the defeated
kings, with the great and distinguished men at their head, were led
through the broad streets of the capital, and two of the noblest carried the
severed heads of the rulers round their necks. Revolt against the supreme
king, which meant sin against Asshur, the god of the gods, when conducted
with much obstinacy as was displayed by these two men, could not be
severely enough punished.
If Esarhaddon intended by these severities to spread terror among the
kings of the west country, he attained his object. Although according to
the wont of the Assyrian annalists, the scribe places the narrative of the war
in the king's own mouth, he took no personal part in it, but remained quietly
at Nineveh. Thither now came the ambassadors of some twelve kings,
whom the Assyrians called simply Khatti-kings and kings of the seacoast,
and with them those of ten kings who ruled in Cyprus, to offer him their
homage and presents.
When the ten Cypriote rulers, whose names have for the most part a
Greek sound, joined in the homage of the Assyrian, Phranician, and Canaan-
ite kings, it is obvious that Esarhaddon's army, when it pursued the flying
king to Cyprus, had there re-established the Assyrian rule which had not
been exercised since the time of Sargon.
All these princes had to bring him costly material for the building of
his great palace at Nineveh. There is an inclination to credit Esarhaddon
with a special preference for Babylon, and to assume that he had made that
town his headquarters, at least towards the end of his life. Our knowledge
of the building he erected is, however, not favourable to this view. He cer-
tainly governed directly and not merely by vassal-kings that part of his
realm of which Babylon was the capital, and there are good grounds for the
assumption that he actually cherished the intention of establishing himself
at Babylon ; but it is none the less certain that for him, as for his fathers,
until the nomination of Asshurbanapal as vassal-king of Assyria, the centre
of the dominion was Assyria, and the Assyrian capital was his chief home.
422 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[676-673 B.C.]
Althcmgh Esarhaddon now imitated his father in his care for the decora-
tion of the Assyrian capital, he did not limit himself to this so exclusively
as his predecessors. On the contrary he boasts of having built the temples
of the town of Asshur and Accad, and of having adorned them with silver
and gold. That he did not neglect Accad or Babylonia is shown by the
work, which surpassed all other undertakings, completed in his reign and
for which he gave orders in his early years, — the reconstruction of the
ruined capital itself.
In Elam it was with disapproving eyes that men regarded this renovation
of Babylon by an Assyrian king and with it the re-establishment of the
Assyrian rule in that territory. The king of Elam, Ummanaldash II, there-
fore decided to attack Esarhaddon in this part of the country. In 675, the
sixth year of Esarhaddon's reign, he invaded Babylon with an army, we
know not on what pretext, and penetrated as far as Sippar. The misfor-
tune was not, however, a lasting one. In that very year Ummanaldash died
in his palace. Perhaps there is some connection between these Elamite
disturbances and Esarhaddon's campaign against the (to us) unknown
country of Ruriza which he conquered in Tebet of the year 673. This may
be said with certainty of the measures which he took against the Gambuli.
That warlike Aramaic-Chaldean race, which had once constituted the
vanguard of Merodach-baladan's army, had then, at least, dwelt in a swampy
tract of country where they lived "like fish in the midst of the rivers."
At this time their king was Belbasha (En-basha?), the son of Bananu, and
in his impracticable country he had been able to preserve his independence.
It was not he and his Gambulians that Esarhaddon now feared, but rather
that he might easily be won over to ally himself with his neighbour Elam.
Belbasha is pressed to choose and Esarhaddon makes ready to convince him
by the unanswerable argument of his arms. But the Aramaean does not
wait for the struggle. Knowing well that he has now no help from Elam
to look to, he decides of his own accord to attest his submission to Assyria
and sends the required presents. Thus Esarhaddon gains his object. The
submission is accepted, the country spared, the capital, Shapi-Bel, extraordi-
narily fortified, the command laid on the prince to furnish it with bowmen
and to defend it as " the door which unlocks Elam." How well Esarhaddon
had judged was to be shown later, when his heir had to punish the son and
successor of Bel-basha for his intrigues with Elam.
These few facts, with the circumstance that, in the same year, 673,
probably while the court was at Babylon, the queen died, are all that we
know concerning the history of the southern realm under the reign of Esar-
haddon.
More is known of the king's warlike expeditions, or at least those of his
army, for it is not likely that he himself took part in them all. Some of
them are of little importance to history, or were directed against tribes
whose locality we can no longer determine. We pass them over in silence
here. Attention may, however, be called to an expedition against Teushpa,
the king of the Kimmirri or Cimmerians, or more accurately against the
Umman-manda, who dwelt at a great distance, and who were afterwards to be
the cause of so much trouble to Asshur and Babylon. The Cimmerians are
also referred to in other records as the enemies of Assyria in Esarhaddon's
day. According to these they joined in a great coalition which was formed
against Asshur ; at its head stood Kashtariti of Kar-Kasshi, a Median
prince, who evidently dwelt on the borders of Elam, and Mamitiarsu, gov-
ernor of the Medes, and to which the Manneans also belonged. At the
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 423
[li7»-672 B.C.]
outset, at least, they were successful, took several towns now unknown to us
(Khartam, Kishassu, and five others), and so great was the fear which they
thus spread through Assyria, that in order to propitiate the gods, the priest
(amelu khaltiy was commanded to perform sacred rites and celebrate festi-
vals in their honour from 3rd Airu to the 15th Abu — that is, during one
hundred days. The issue of the struggle is not given in the Assyrian
records, but it appears that the Babylonian chronicle told of the invasion of
Assyria by the Kimmirri and of their defeat.
Perhaps this gave Esarhaddon an opportunity to revenge himself on the
Medes and to conduct a war against their country with great persistence.
He penetrated farther into it than any of his forefathers — namely, to the
land of Patusharra (Patiskhoria?) which lay deep in Median territory, in the
neighbourhood of the Bikni Mountains, where so much crystal was found.
There ruled Shitir-parna and Eparna, two powerful princes whose names
appear to be Iranian. They were subdued by the Assyrians and carried to
Assyria with a rich booty, consisting chiefly of cattle, horses, and chariots.
This visitation had the result that other princes from farther Media, who
had not hitherto acknowledged the Assyrian supremacy, came of their own
accord and tendered their submission.
At the other extremity of his empire, Esarhaddon maintained his sover-
eignty in the same fashion. The means by which Assyria had made herself,
and remained during many centuries, the mistress of western Asia, was the
Eursuit of a traditional policy whose principles the impulsive Sennacherib
ad forsaken in the most deplorable fashion, but which distinguished Esar-
haddon, as well as his grandfather Sargon. By a judicious blending of
gracious forgiveness on the one hand and severe punishment on the other,
he managed not only to confirm Assyrian sovereignty in the northern regions
of Arabia, but also to extend it. Faithful to the rule by which those who
had submitted of their own accord must be at once taken in favour, and
admitted as allies, he listened to the petition of King Hazael (Khazailu) of
Kedar when the latter came to Nineveh and requested that the images of the
gods which had been carried thither, might be given back. Esarhaddon had
them restored, caused his name and his famous deeds to be inscribed on them,
and gave them back to Hazael. But on this king's death he took care that
the latter's son Ya'lu, whom he raised to be king in his father's stead, should
be still more closely bound to Assyria and pay higher tribute. Under the
same condition he restored to another tribe, together with the gods of which
they had been previously despoiled, a certain princess Tabua who had been
carried away from their midst and had grown up in the royal palace at
Nineveh, and thus reinstated her in her position. It was soon evident that
he had an object in these tokens of favour. He wished by this means to
smooth himself a path to some Arabian tribes beyond, which were still
independent and therefore dangerous to the frontiers, and who roamed about
in the land of Bazu and in the mountains of Khazu. The march thither was
very difficult, 180 kashbu kakkar (double hours) through an arid desert full
of snakes and scorpions, so that it appeared almost advisable to secure a
safe retreat. If the expedition against these remote tribes had failed, we
should have learned nothing of it, at least from Assyrian sources ; but it was
successful. Six Arabian kings and two queens were defeated and probably
put to death, and their treasures, gods, and subjects were then carried to
Assyria ; so many of the latter, at least, that the remainder were unable to
defend themselves.
The glory of Esarhaddon's reign is the conquest of Egypt, for which the
424 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[672-671 B.C.]
Arabian campaign, just described, no doubt served as a preparation. A
decisive contest with Egypt was sooner or later unavoidable, especially since
Tirhaqa had just brought the divided kingdom into a certain unity and was
evidently striving again to raise it to the position of a great power.
In the year 672 Egypt took the first step. As usual, the prize was the
overlordship of the West. Tirhaqa managed to persuade Baal, the king of
Tyre, to break with Assyria, and thus threatened to draw the whole of the
Mediterranean coast into rebellion. Prompt measures were taken, and in
Nisan of 671 a powerful Assyrian army marched westward. The immediate
goal is Tyre. It is surrounded and the water-supply cut off. Without
waiting for the town to fall, Esarhaddon now proceeds south and halts at
Aphek, not far from Samaria, thence within fifteen days, with a certain cau-
tion and perhaps not without encountering resistance, he leads his army to
Rapikhu [Raphia] on the Egyptian stream which forms the boundary be-
tween that country and Canaan. Unfortunately the text breaks off abruptly
where the narrative of the actual struggle with Egypt begins. But we learn
from other sources that the object was attained and Egypt conquered. On
the 3rd, 16th, and 18th Tammuz (June) three battles were fought, in which
the Assyrians remained victorious. Memphis was taken on the 12th of the
month, and although Tirhaqa succeeded in fleeing to his own land of
Ethiopia, his son and his brother's sons were taken prisoners.
Esarhaddon was now actually king over Egypt, and here again shows
himself to be a prudent ruler. He was content with the title of dignity of
"King of the Kings of Egypt" — that is, with the overlordship of the coun-
try. Had he incorporated it into Assyria, he would have weakened rather
than strengthened his empire. His sole aim was to keep it disunited and con-
sequently weak, and by the expulsion of the Ethiopian to put an end to the
latter's dangerous intrigues in the west. Therefore he did not put in his
own generals, courtiers, or governors, but sought to bind the provincial
princes to him by granting them a certain measure of independence. The
sole danger for him lay in a united Egypt under the warlike king on whose
assistance the ever restless kings of Phoenicia, Philistia, and Canaan might
reckon ; and he therefore contented himself with obtaining from the
provincial princes an oath of fidelity to Assyria. Only the supremacy of
Asshur must be distinctly apparent, so the Egyptian name of the northern
capital, Sa'is, was altered to the Assyrian one of Kar-bel-matati (fortress of
the lord of the lands), and that of Neku's son into Nabu-shezib-anni (Nabu
preserved me!). After this Esarhaddon went back to Assyria, and on his
homeward march he gave orders to carve his royal image and the account of
his conquest of Egypt on the rocks by the Dog River (Nahr-el-Kelb) at
Beirut, where, besides inscriptions and images of various Egyptian kings,
some of his forefathers had caused theirs also to be cut.
The conquest of Egypt is the last great undertaking of Esarhaddon's
reign, which was to last only two or three years longer. In the year 670 he
was occupied with Assyrian affairs, all details of which are, however, wanting.
But by the following year it had become manifest that conditions in Egypt
were not permanently settled. It was evident that a new expedition to the
valley of the Nile was imperative. Esarhaddon assembled his forces and
proposed to head his troops himself, to assert upholding the Assyrian domi-
nation in Egypt. Yet first — perhaps because he already had a presentiment
of his approaching end, or because he did not trust the aspect of internal
affairs — he appointed his eldest son, Asshurbanapal, as co-ruler in Assyria ;
if we are not to assume, what is also possible, that this was done before the
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 425
[671-668 B.C.]
campaign of the year 671. The expedition came to nothing. On the 10th
of the month Araklisamnu (Marsheshwan, about October), of the year 668,
in the twelfth year of his reign, the king died, either in Egypt or, as it is
probable, before he reached it.
As the great king of a mighty empire Esarhaddon indeed stands very
high ; for although he was not more soft hearted, or, indeed, where insub-
ordination had to be punished, less harsh than his predecessor, yet he did not
act in obedience to ungoverned passion, but with deliberation, and this fore-
sighted policy allowed him always to choose the golden mean between
needless severity and dangerous indulgence. In a few years he strengthened
the foundations of the Assyrian rule, and considerably extended it ; he
erected magnificent buildings, and made desolated Babylon rise again from
her rubbish-heaps. By raising his son, Asshurbanapal, to the throne during
his own life-time, he made a struggle for the possession of the crown such
as that with which his own reign had begun an impossibility, while by his
wise and firm government he had laid the foundations for his son's long,
and, at least in the beginning, brilliant and glorious reign. Sennacherib
had little in common with his great father ; Esarhaddon was worthy to be
the grandson of Sargon.
ASSHURBANAPAL'S EARLY YEARS (668-652 B.C.)
We have already seen that Esarhaddon made his son Asshurbanapal
vassal-king of Assyria during his own life-time. With festive display
the young prince entered the royal palace which his grandfather Sen-
nacherib had built, where his father Esarhaddon was born, and grown to
manhood and had since held his court, and where he himself, as a friend of
learning and science, now began to collect that extensive library which, after
centuries had passed, was to make his deeds and the traditions of his nation
known to the learning of the West. There in the presence of his father and
his brothers, of the princes, captains, and great men of Assyria, he received
the oath of fealty from the dependent kings and courtiers, calling on the
name of the gods and binding themselves to obedience to his commands, and
the maintenance of the ancient laws and institutions. It was an important
step on the part of the old king. He did not indeed resign the government
of Assyria. He remained king over this part of his kingdom as well as of
the others, and the dignity to which he raised his son was only the petty or
vassal-kingship, a filial government under his own still existing supremacy,
whilst he was himself apart from this primarily king of Babylon, Sumer,
and Accad, as well as king of the kings of the Egyptian countries. But for
this very reason the appointment of the crown-prince as vassal-king of
Assyria, in reality implied the transformation of that country, hitherto
the centre of the empire, and whose capital had been the seat of the central
government, into a kingdom occupying merely a secondary position, whilst
Babylon became the seat of the chief rule and assumed the first place. It
had become manifest that the true centre of the empire had shifted to Baby-
lon, and that the latter now possessed more vital energy than Assyria.
Esarhaddon's death had opened up to the Ethiopian the prospect of a
reconquest of his lost territory. It was to be expected that Tirhaqa would
take advantage of an opportunity so favourable to him, and soon, no doubt
as early as the year 668, there came a messenger to Nineveh with .the
announcement that the king of Gush had marched into Egypt and not only
overrun the whole south of the country, but had even made a triumphant
426 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[668 B.C.]
entry into Memphis, the town which Esarhaddon had included in Assyria.
The governors whom the last Assyrian king had set up had not indeed gone
over to the enemy, but neither had they ventured to resist him. On his
advance they had deserted their chief towns and retired with their armed
forces to the desert. Asshurbanapal recognised the gravity of the event,
for it endangered the peace of the coast districts along the Mediterranean.
He did not himself take the field, but he immediately sent a considerable
force into the west under the leadership of the Tartan and other captains.
The latter proceeded to Egypt by those forced marches for which the Assyr-
ian army was distinguished, and hastened to the assistance of the governors
who were hard pressed by Tirhaqa. At Karbanit, or Karbana, a town which
lay west of the Canopic branch of the Nile, near its mouth, the armies joined
battle. The defeat of the Egyptians was so complete that Tirhaqa thought
it advisable to evacuate Memphis without giving himself time to break up
his camp. This and all the Ethiopians' armed river-boats fell into the hands
of the Assyrians. Tirhaqa withdrew to Thebes and entrenched himself
there.
Asshurbanapal, who had been informed of these successes of his army,
decided to attack the enemy in Thebes. But as the Tartan's army had also
greatly suffered, he ordered the Rabshakeh, who apparently commanded the
garrisons of the West, to collect a new army from the soldiers and auxiliaries
under his command belonging to all governors and vassal-kings west of the
Euphrates. Impressed by the defeat which Tirhaqa had sustained, the
twenty-two kings of the seacoast, the plain, and the island of Cyprus
hastened to obey this command, and not only to furnish soldiers, but also on
demand of the supreme king to supply ships for the purpose of blockading
the coast and prevent possible attempts at risings on the part of the mari-
time states on the banks of the Mediterranean, and perhaps also for sailing
up the Nile. This army pushed on to join that of the Tartan and the troops
of the loyal Egyptian vassals, and the united forces then marched against
Thebes, which was reached a month and ten days later.
Meanwhile Tirhaqa had abandoned the town itself while it was still time,
and had entrenched himself on the other bank of the river in the city of the
tombs. Besides this, he had persuaded three of the principal vassal-kings to
desert from the Assyrian and go over to his side. These were Sharludari,
prince of Pelusium (Si'nu), Pakruru, ruler of Pisept in Egyptian Arabia,
and no less a person than Neku himself, the king whom Esarhaddon had
placed at the head of all. They even seem to have taken the initiative,
because they preferred to have a ruler of kindred race as overlord, rather
than obey a foreigner. So they offered to conclude an alliance with the
Ethiopian, by which his supremacy was recognised, and they undertook the
defence of Lower Egypt. Had their design succeeded, the Assyrian army
would also have had a hostile power in its rear and have seen its retreat cut
off. But fortunately for the Assyrians the conspiracy was discovered.
Their messengers were seized, the letters intercepted, and their cunning
plans thus cunningly frustrated.
But first Asshurbanapal had followed the example of his father and par-
doned Neku. After he had exacted from him an oath of fealty to Asshur,
and laid him under heavier burdens than before, he again put upon him the
royal purple and furnished him with the symbols of his office : golden rings
on hands and feet, a carved sword in a golden sheath, horses, and chariots ;
and so he sent him back to Egypt, that he might rule it as chief of
the other vassals in Asshur's name. He himself was again invested witb
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 427
[HfiS-664 B.C.]
Kar-bel-imitati, — that is, Sals, — and his son, Nabu-shezib-anni, received the
principality of Athribis in Lower Egypt, to which also a significant Assyrian
name, Limir-shakku-Asshur (let the governor of Asshur beware) was given.
The other kings also renewed their alliance with Assyria. But Asshurbanapal
did not omit to strengthen the garrisons, and to give those whom he had par-
doned Assyrian officers intended to keep a watchful eye upon them.
For a time Egypt enjoyed peace under Neku's sway and Assyria's lord-
ship. But after the death of Tirhaqa, Tamut-Amen, too, began to think of
a reconquest of Egypt. He set out with his army, and like the former
Ethiopian king, is hailed with delight in Elephantine and Thebes as a
deliverer ; then after he has fortified the southern capital, he continues his
inarch to Memphis, where he first encounters resistance. But the rebels, as
the king calls them — these were of course the Assyrian garrison with the
troops of Neku who ruled over Memphis and Sals — were so thoroughly
beaten in a desperate sally, that they evacuated Memphis and retired to the
strongholds of the Delta. Some princes headed by that Pa-Kerer (Pakruru)
of Pisept, who had always borne the Assyrian yoke with reluctance, came to
offer their submission, which was graciously accepted. This was the last
time that an Assyrian army undertook a campaign against Egypt.
While Asshurbanapal had restored his supremacy in Egypt for a certain
time, for the present at least, it was unshaken in the northern provinces of
the West. The most important event mentioned by the Assyrian record of
these days (evidently about 664) is the accession of Lydia. Asshurbana-
pal relates that the Lydian king, prompted by a dream which revealed to
him the magnanimity of Asshur, sent his ambassadors to Nineveh to request
the alliance and protection of the great ruler. For the deity had said to
him that by the renown of this name he should overcome his enemies. He
did in fact succeed in doing so. The Cimmerians were beaten by him. It
may be assumed, though it is not stated, that Gyges received other help
from the Assyrians besides the recognition as their ally. However that
may be, he conquered, and, on the successful termination of the war, sent two
Cimmerian rebels with a great present to Nineveh. There they were no
little flattered at this homage, but also no little embarrassed to make them-
selves understood by the new-comers, or to understand them ; for even at a
court where, as the Assyrian writer says, the languages of East and West
were met together, there was no one acquainted with the speech of these
barbarians.
Probably for the same reason as Gyges, Mukallu of Tabal, his eastern
neighbour, and Yakinlu of Arvad, with perhaps also Sandasharme, of Cilicia,
placed themselves under the protecting wing of Assyria. Knowing the tastes
of the great ruler of nations, each of them sent him a daughter for his
harem, with a rich present, and it appears that this was the custom. Some
even, that they might exhibit the more zeal, sent him, besides their own
daughters, those of their brothers and other relatives.
In the east, too, Asshurbanapal manifested the still unbroken superiority
of his arms. There, shortly after or at the same time as the Egyptian cam-
paigns, he had already chastised a mountain people whose raids had greatly
distressed the inhabitants of Yamudbal [E-mutbal], on the borders of Elam,
so that the chiefs of the town of Dur-ilu had made complaints concerning
them. He had sent a force which subdued the tribe, brought the chieftain
Tandai alive to Assyria and carried off a great number of captives. The
king had them taken to Egypt and in their place peopled the wasted country
with prisoners of war from other regions.
428 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[664 B.C.]
Of far greater importance was the campaign against Man. The cause is
not stated, but may well have been that the king of Man, Akhsheri, declared
himself independent, or had shown an evident disposition to attack Assyria.
If this were so, he had been over-hasty in his proceedings. However little
of the warrior there may have been in Asshurbanapal's nature, the Assyrian
army, in the early periods of his reign at least, was yet too fearless and its
commanders too valiant for any man to be able to defy the powerful mon-
archy. Akhsheri attempted a night surprise of the troops sent against him,
before they had even crossed his frontiers ; but in this he was not successful.
The Manneans were defeated in a bloody battle, and for a distance of six
leagues round their dead covered the battle-field. Nothing retarded the
victorious army from entering Man, where it laid waste eight great towns
whose position is unknown to us, as well as a crowd of small places, and so
reached the domain of the capital, Izirtu. It was surrounded, together with
the towns of Urbija and Armijate, and after the inhabitants, driven to the
last extremity, had surrendered, they were led away and their whole territory
conquered and laid waste.
But the object was attained. The frightful misery of the war which had
visited that unhappy country had embittered the population against the man
to whom they ascribed its guilt, namely, their old king, Akhsheri. In any
case, he had shown his incapacity to defend his country. With all his broth-
ers and his father and family, he was put to death, and so great was the
nation's fury that they would not even concede him an honourable tomb, but
threw the corpse on to the streets of his city. His son Ualli, himself already
a middle-aged man, was raised to the throne, and he hastened to acknow-
ledge Assyria's supreme authority. He sent his young son to Nineveh, to
kiss the monarch's feet, and did not neglect to send his daughter also, to
add to Asshurbanapal's crowd of women. His submission was of course
accepted, but his annual tribute was raised by some thirty horses. Other
attempts at rebellion in the north-east were soon suppressed.
But whilst these disturbances in the north-east were suppressed without
much difficulty, in the south-east signs soon appeared which gave warning
of that great storm which in a few years was to be raised there and to
threaten the empire with destruction. The throne of Elam was still occu-
pied by Urtaki, who had always preserved a friendship with Esarhaddon,
and had received from him repeated tokens of good will. Asshurbanapal
had followed up this policy of his father and treated Urtaki as an ally, and
when Elam was suffering from a severe famine after a prolonged drought he
had not even refrained from extending a helping hand. He sent grain into
the afflicted country, and not only permitted those of Urtaki's subjects who
fled to his country to settle there, but also allowed them to return to their
native land, unhindered, when the rains had again appeared and a sufficient
harvest secured. If in this he was prompted by motives of policy it was at
least an intelligent and peaceable one. In a proclamation to the Elamite
tribe of the Rash, and the tribes of the Sea Lands, he could appeal with truth
to these tokens of neighbourliness. But they did not prevent Urtaki from
taking arms against him and invading Babylonia.
It seems that Asshurbanapal could scarcely believe the news which he
received. Instead of hurrying to the spot to avert the danger, as had been
the custom of his warlike father, he sent a messenger to inquire into the
state of affairs and to report to him upon it. The latter returned with the
tidings that the Elamites had poured themselves over Accad like a swarm of
locusts, and had even set up a fortified camp in sight of the city of Babylon.
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 429
[ca. «54 B.C.]
lie now hastily collected an army which drove the invaders from Accad, and
even inflicted a defeat on them on the frontier. It is with a certain unction
that the Assyrian scribe recounts the melancholy fate which soon after
overtook all these enemies of his king. In the year which followed these
events they all died : Bel-basha, as it seems, from a poisonous bite ; Na-
bu-shum-eresh in a flood ; Urtaki and his generals, in their despair, by their
own hands in each other's presence. Whether the narrator learned this on
good authority or had only heard it from rumour, can scarcely be determined;
but that in reality they all died soon after is certain ; for in the subsequent
war with Elam, sons or successors are found in their places.
The crown of Elam fell to Teumman, brother of the two previous kings,
who was " like a devil," says our Assyrian informant. That he was a tyrant
who would shrink from no means of preserving his power, was also the con-
viction of the relatives of Ummanaldash and Urtaki, the last two kings of
Elam. The one had left two sons, Kudurru and Paru, the other three, Um-
manigash, Ummanappa, and Tammaritu. Well aware that their uncle was
determined to remove them from his path, with all that belonged to them, in
order to secure the succession to his own son, they abandoned their country
with a great following, among which were included sixty members of the
royal family and a bodyguard of bowmen, and sought shelter and protection
with Asshurbanapal.
Naturally Teumman could not let this pass unnoticed. He therefore
hastened to despatch two ambassadors to Nineveh, Umbadara, an Elamite,
and a Chaldean, Nabu-dammik, and to demand through them the surrender
of the fugitives. But Asshurbanapal, encouraged by favourable omens,
dreams of his seers, and oracles of the gods ; in other words, incited by his
priesthood to whose guidance he always submitted in pious zeal, steadfastly
refused to comply with Teumman's demand and assembled an army. In the
month of Ulul it was ready to march. He did not himself take the field, for
in fact his army, led by one of his generals, had merely to support the Elam-
ite force of Ummanigash, his brothers and cousins. Ummanigash himself
was generalissimo, if only in name. The Assyrian general was empowered
to set Ummanigash on the throne of Elam in the name of the Assyrian
supreme king, after the conquest of the country.
Teumman was also in the field with an army. But when he learned that
the troops of his rival and of the Assyrians had already marched into the
towns of Dur-ilu, which lay not far from the frontier of his country, and
several times therefore had been the scene of a struggle between the two
powers, he turned back, abandoning the western provinces of his kingdom,
and entrenched himself in his capital, Shushan [Susa], which lay on the
eastern bank of the river Ulai [modern KarunJ. Meanwhile the allied As-
syrians and Elamites entered the royal city of Mataktu, which lay to the
west of that river, and there Ummanigash is crowned king. Teumman, indeed,
makes one more effort ; owing to the damage which the text had under-
gone it is not exactly shown of what kind, but from the context it is plain
that he sent out an army in vain to hinder the advance of his enemies.
The latter, once more encouraged by a dream, cross the river after Teumman's
troops have suffered a defeat at Tul-Liz, and now attack Shushan itself.
There the decisive battle takes place. It ends with the complete defeat of
the Elamites : a great massacre begins, the river is filled with corpses,
and innumerable women wander about the neighbourhood lamenting.
Many distinguished and a large number of lesser prisoners fall into the
hands of the Assyrians. All seek safety in flight. One of Teumman's sons,
430 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[ca. 664 B.C.]
who had advised him against the war and had foretold the issue, rends his
clothes in his despair. The eldest son, Tammaritu, follows his father in his
flight to the forest, and when the king's chariot breaks down there, they are
overtaken and both slain. The king's head is sent as a trophy to Assyria,
where it was set up on the great gate of Nineveh, an eloquent witness to the
nation of the might of Asshur and Ishtar. His son-in-law, Urtaki, himself
begged an Assyrian to cut off his head and send it as good tidings to Asshur-
banapal. Yet others of the great men of the kingdom come of their own
accord and make their submission. The chief magistrates of the province of
Khidali behead their own prince, Ishtarnandi, and one of them himself
brings his master's severed head into the Assyrian camp. Tammaritu, the
third brother of Ummanigash, entrusts the government of this principality
to the Assyrian generals, and Ummanigash himself now makes his entry into
Shushan, and is there crowned as a vassal of Assyria. As pledge of his
loyalty he delivers a grandson of Marduk-bal-iddin, better known by the
Hebrew appellation Merodach-baladan, probably the author of the whole
resistance to the Assyrian king, to the latter's representatives.
But the war was not ended with the punishment of Elam. Dunanu, the
son of Bel-basha, prince of Gambul, was now to be taught what it was to
side with the enemy. The army, on its return from Elam, breaks into his
territory, conquers the capital Shapi-Bel, carries away from it all who have
not fallen by the sword, lays the whole place waste, and flings the ruins into
the waters of the stream which flows around it ; whereupon a motley crew
of human beings are raked together and brought there to re-people the
desolate country.
It was a grim revenge that was taken on all enemies, even when they
were already dead, on their corpses. At the triumphal entry of the army
into Nineveh, Dunanu was compelled to carry the head of his ally, Teumman,
round his neck. When Teumman's ambassadors, who had remained in Nine-
veh, saw this, one of them tore out his beard in his despair, and the other
plunged a dagger into his own heart. Dunanu was placed on the rack in
Arbela and died in tortures. All his brothers, including Samgunu, as well as
Merodach-baladan's grandson and his brothers, were also put to death ; the
chiefs of the Gambuli were even flayed, after they had had their tongues
torn out as blasphemers of the high gods, after which all corpses were cut
in pieces, and were then sent all over the empire, in token of the overlord-
ship of Assyria. With a refinement of cruelty Asshurbanapal even caused
the corpse of his old opponent, the Tigenna Nabu-shum-eresh, which he had
had brought to Assyria from Gambul for the purpose, to be disfigured in
the great gate of Nineveh by the latter's own sons. Even before all this
was brought to a conclusion, Sarduris III of Urartu, perhaps because he was
already threatened by the Iranian enemies, who were soon to put an end
to the Kingdom of Van, and was anxious to obtain the help of his power-
ful neighbour, despatched an ambassador to the latter. Asshurbanapal did
not omit to make use of the occasion to bring Teumman's ambassadors before
the new-comers, in order to inspire the former with a consciousness of his
greatness, and to give the latter a warning example in case their sovereign
also should prove unfaithful.
Thus the greatest danger that had hitherto threatened the empire seemed
permanently averted, and if ever a pitiless revenge was qualified to deprive
the conquered nations of the desire to fight for their independence, this must
certainly have been the case after such a sanguinary judgment. But it was
soou to be manifested that it had availed nothing. Assyria had only
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 431
[ca. 661-618 B.C.]
succeeded in making herself more detested than before, and had only stirred up
princes and peoples alike to resist everything rather than any longer endure
the yoke of the hangman of Asia.
THE BROTHERS' WAR (652-648 B.C.)
About the year 652 a formidable war broke
out against Assyria. It had, perhaps, long
been secretly preparing before Asshurbanapal
had any suspicion of the danger which threat-
ened him. He believed that his conciliatory
policy had secured the permanent attachment
of the Babylonians. He had invested his
brother, Shamash-shum-ukin, with the royal
dignity, raised him to be lord of all Sumer
and Accad, and had placed an army of foot-
soldiers, horses, and chariots at his disposal.
Those of the inhabitants of towns, plains, and
farms who had left the country during the
period of anarchy, or had been carried off, he
had permitted to return. As for the Babylo-
nians who had settled in Assyria, he did not
merely place them on a level with his own im-
mediate subjects, but treated them with espe-
cial distinction, continued the privileges which
Esarhaddon had granted them, and raised
them to important offices, and they even moved
about his royal court unmolested, clad in mag-
nificent garments with golden ornaments. They
still continued to protest their submission to
the Assyrian domination, yet all the time
they were conspiring with Shamash-shum-ukin
against the king.
The first intimation of this conspiracy came
to the king from Kudur, the governor of Erech. This faithful servant had
received from Sin-tabni-usur, the governor of Ur, information to the effect
that envoys from the king of Babylon had been there and that some of the
people had already risen. Sin-tabni-usur had no mind to give ear to the
proposals from Babylon, and had consequently requested reinforcements.
Kudur sent him five hundred men, who, at his request, were afterwards
increased by troops belonging to the governor of Arpakha and Amida.
But it seems that Sin-tabni-usur was unable to maintain himself until these
supports came up, and even before their arrival found himself constrained to
go over to the party of the rebels.
Asshurbanapal was soon to learn with horror that the movement, the
soul of which was his disloyal brother, had spread with great swiftness, and
that Kudur's anxiety was not without foundation. Shamash-shum-ukin
sent messengers in all directions, and they did not work in vain. All
Accad and Chaldea, all the Aramaeans of Babylonia, all the inhabitants of
the Sea Lands joined with him. His chief ally in this district was : Nabu-
bel-shume, grandson of Merodach-baladan, that irreconcilable enemy of
Assyria, who was now king of Chaldea; Mannuki-Babili, prince of Bit-
Dakkuri ; Ea-shum-basha, prince of Bit-Amukkani, and Nadan of Puqudu.
AM ASSYRIAN BOWMAN
432 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[co. 652-648 B.C.]
Ummanigash, king of Elam, who owed his throne to Asshurbanapal, was also
gained over by Shamash-shum-ukin. Asshurbanapal had fancied that he
might venture to impose on the Elamite, who owed him so much, conditions
which the latter could certainly only fulfil with great difficulty. He had
demanded the restoration of the goddess Nana of Erech, which had been in
the possession of Elain for centuries, and whose worship had become so
popular that the kings still sent their gifts to the goddess of Erech. Um-
manigash could not comply with this demand without exciting universal
discontent in his kingdom, and, doubtless, in consequence of this, was all
the more inclined to listen to the proposals of the Babylonian prince. They
were supported by a rich gift, for which the temple treasures of Bel-Marduk
in Babylon, of Nabu in Borsippa, and of Nergal in Kutha had been plundered.
Ummanigash immediately sent auxiliaries to Chaldea. The Guti nomads
on the Assyrio-Babylonian frontier, the kings of the West, with Baal of
Tyre at their head, and the king of Melukhkha, by whom Psamthek is here
doubtless meant; these, too, Shamash-shum-ukin found prepared to join
him in a rising against Assyria. The secession of Gyges, king of Lydia,
who had previously concluded an alliance with the Egyptian king, probably
also belongs to this time, and it is certain that various Egyptian sheikhs also
sided with Babylon. Only the peoples of the north-east and north of the
empire appear to have taken no part in the movement. They were held
in check by the energetic governors of Amida and Arpakha, the last of
whom even prevented the north of Elam from rising against the supreme
king.
There was need of energy and wisdom to exorcise the storm, which was
approaching from so many sides at once. Asshurbanapal, with whom religion
occupied so prominent a place, of course turned first to his gods. But he did
not neglect active measures. Yet it is not clear or probable that he himself
took up arms. When Tammaritu came to him in the year 650, he was at
Nineveh. But in the preceding years he had sent out various armies to attack
the allies at different points. As soon as the news from Babylon reached
him, he issued a proclamation to the Babylonians, in which he denounced
his brother's treachery as ingratitude and exhorted those whom he had so
favoured not to join Shamash-shum-ukin. It is true that these words found
no echo amongst the nobility of Babylon, but they were not perhaps without
influence on the temper of the nation. At any rate, the latter finally turned
against their king. When Ummanigash's troops invaded Chaldea and
Kardunyash, in the year 657, they encountered an Assyrian force. At the
head of the Elamites was the son of Teumman, that Elamite king whom
Asshurbanapal had put to death, and who had been chosen by Ummanigash
as his general, because he had the death of his father to revenge on the
Assyrians. With him came the governors of Billate and Khilmu, Zazaz and
Paru ; Attumetu, the captain of the bowmen, Neshu the Elamite commander,
and a Babylonian division joined them. The account of the battle is too
much damaged for us to form any conclusion about it. But it is evident
that the Assyrians obtained some success, to which the severed head of
Attumetu, which was sent to Asshurbanapal at Nineveh, bore witness.
It was not so easy to coerce the chief author of the war. Shamash-shum-
ukin's first measure was to close all the gates of Babylon, Borsippa, and
Sippar, to place garrisons in all places of any importance, and make him-
self master of all the towns in Babylonia. As a sign that he renounced his
allegiance, he caused all the sacrifices to the highest gods, which Asshurbana-
pal had instituted, to be suspended, and appropriated all the gifts assigned
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 433
[ca. 652-648 B.C.]
to them, a measure which excited the indignation of the supreme king more
than anything else.
This happened in the year 650, for it must have been in the April of that
year that Bel-ibni was appointed governor of the lands on the coast. Chaldea
and the surrounding territories were now also subdued. These had revolted
in the previous year after Shamash-shum-ukin had raised the standard of
rebellion in the year 652. On the 4th Nisan 651, Merodach-baladan's grand-
son, Nabu-bel-shume, had collected an army of Accadians, Chaldeans, and
Kardunyashu (the men of the coast) in which he had included the Assyrians
whom Asshurbanapal had sent him as auxiliaries or garrison. Between the
22nd Tammuz and 22ud Abu of the same year, Sin-tabni-usur, the governor,
had joined them, and between 7th Abu and the 7th Ulul the Elamite aux-
iliaries had also marched up. But in the end the Assyrian army had defeated
them all and compelled the Elamites to retreat. Nabu-bel-shume had fol-
lowed them with his troops to Elam. The Assyrians, on whom he could not
depend, he had previously sent under a reliable commander in the same
direction, very probably under pretence of letting them march against Elam,
and thus had delivered into the hands of Indabigash. Perhaps this defeat
was the cause of Tammaritu's fall. It must have at least followed soon after.
The south of Babylonia was certainly again brought under the Assyrian
dominion towards the end of year 651.
Asshurbanapal could now turn his thoughts to attacking the arch-rebel
in his own territory. It seems that the latter had again entered into rela-
tions with Elam, and either now went there in person or sent messen-
gers. But on the 17th Arakhsamnu (Marsheshwan) 651, Asshurbanapal's
warriors advanced against his brother. In the year 650 they stormed in
fearful fashion through northern Babylonia, instituted a formidable massacre
of Shamash-shum-ukin's subjects in town and country, made themselves
masters of the canals, and finally surrounded Sippar, Babylon, and Bor-
sippa, which the Babylonian king had fortified. The siege must have lasted
a year or two, for it was not till 648 that the capital was taken.
And it would not have fallen then — so obstinately was it defended —
had not the misery within the walls reached the acme. The famine was so
dreadful that the besieged fed on the flesh of their own children, and famine
was followed by plague. The gods themselves fought for the Assyrians, as
the historian remarks. Then despair fell upon the people. In their fury
they laid hold on Shamash-shum-ukin, and threw him, doubtless together
with some of his satellites, into the fire. The town was then, of course,
handed over to the enemy, and thus escaped the fate which Sennacherib had
already inflicted on it. A strict trial was held. Those who had been
concerned in the rebellion, such of them as had escaped the sword, hunger,
and plague, who had saved themselves betimes during the rising and so could
not be burnt with their master, were dragged from the hiding-place where
they had concealed themselves into the light of day, and slain without grace
or mercy, so that not one of them escaped. Those who had incited to rebel-
lion and defamed Asshur had their tongues torn out of their mouths before
they were sent to death. But the heaviest punishment overtook those who
had already been punished as rebels by the king's grandfather, Sennacherib,
and whose severed limbs were now thrown to the dogs and all kinds of beasts
of prey. The corpses of those who had been destroyed by disease, hunger,
and wretchedness, and which filled the streets of Babylon, Sippar, Kutha,
and the surrounding country, were dragged away and piled up in heaps, and
the insulted gods and angry goddesses were appeased by the care which was
H. W. — VOL. I. 2 F
434
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[648 B.C.]
now bestowed upon their sanctuaries and altars. All fugitives were par-
doned and granted life ; they were permitted to settle in Babylon. Nor was
the town plundered in any way. Asshurbanapal contented himself with the
spoil from the palace of his rebellious brother, with his harem, household char-
iots, munitions of war, and the tokens of his royal dignity, and all this he had
carried to Assyria with the captured warriors.
In the south of the country the ferment seems to have lasted longer.
The Accadians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, and inhabitants of the coast, who had
formerly served Shamash-shum-ukin and then submitted to the Assyrian
governor, Bel-ibni, had now of their own accord once more risen against
Asshurbanapal ; but the Assyrian army, now the army of Babylon, marched
into their territory, and soon brought the whole country back to the Assyr-
ian dominion. Governors and princes appointed by the king reintroduced
the Assyrian laws, and saw that the yearly tribute was henceforth paid
regularly.
THE LAST WARS OP ASSHURBANAPAL (648-626 B.C.)
As before related, Merodach-baladan's grand-
son, Nabu-bel-shume, had delivered those troops
which Asshurbanapal had sent him for the defence
of his country against the Elamites and insurgent
Babylonians into Indabigash's hand. Even before
Babylon was taken, the Assyrian king had sent an
envoy to the latter to demand the release of these
men. Indabigash had answered with proposals
for peace. He does not seem to have dared to
risk a struggle with Assyria, nor yet to have been
prepared to comply with Asshurbanapal's request;
the party of the Chaldeans and their friends was
probably too powerful in Elam for this. After
Babylon had fallen, the Assyrian sent a fresh mes-
senger, supported by a numerous army, with a
vigorous ultimatum to Elam. " If thou restorest
not these men," so ran the message, " then will I
come and destroy thy cities, carry away the people
of Shushan, Madaktu, and Khidalu, thrust thee
from thy royal throne, and put another in thy
place. As formerly I destroyed Teumman, so will
I destroy thee." But the envoy had not yet got
so far as Deri, when the war party killed Inda-
bigash from a natural fear lest he should yield,
and had made Ummanaldash, the son of Attu-
metu, king.
Of course the latter refused Asshurbanapal's re-
quest, and the war broke out afresh. Asshurbana-
pal now intended to establish Tammaritu for the
second time in the government of Elam, a policy which again was des-
tined not to be realised. A powerful army, led by this claimant, marched
into the enemy's country, and several border-towns immediately submitted
through fear, and came to offer their men and cattle. The first resistance
was encountered at Bit-Imbi, once a royal city of Elam, " which shut in the
front of Elam like a great bulwark," and had been conquered by Sennache-
rib and razed to the ground. But a later Elamite king had built a new
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FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 435
[M8-G2C B.C.]
Hit-Imbi opposite the old town and surrounded it with a strong wall and
outworks. This town defended itself obstinately, but it was conquered, and
those who would not submit were beheaded and their lips sent to Assyria as
trophies of victory. The captain of the bowmen, Tmbappi, who was a son-
in-law of the Elamite king and had commanded in the city, fell alive into
the enemy's hands, together with the harem, the sons of the former king
Teumman, and the rest of the population, and was led away to Assyria.
This feat of arms appears to have been of great importance, for no sooner
did it reach Ummanaldash's ears than he fled from Madaktu into the moun-
tains. The same course was followed by another prince (Umbahabua?) who
had reigned in Elam for a time, before Ummanaldash, but, in face of a rebel-
lion, had retreated to Bubilu. He too left his dwelling, and hid himself in
the low-lying districts on the seacoast. Elam was now open to the Assyrian
army, which made use of the opportunity to march into Shushan and there
again consecrate Tammaritu king. But the latter perceived that it was only
as a shadow king that he had been set up. When the Assyrian troops who
had accompanied him withdrew to their own country with the greater part
of the population as prisoners and an enormous spoil, he was completely
undeceived and sought to prevent this impoverishment of the land by force.
But he was unsuccessful. In the eyes of the Assyrians this was base ingrati-
tude ; he was deposed and again carried off, and before the return march was
finally entered upon, a regular drive was made over the whole of Elam, dur-
ing which the chief towns were sacked. But no Assyrian garrison remained
behind in the country, and there is no word of its permanent annexation.
Immediately after the withdrawal of the Assyrian army, Ummanaldash II
came out from his hiding-place and once more obtained possession of the
government.
But Asshurbanapal was not satisfisd with this non possum, and this time
he sent Tammaritu himself as ambassador with another demand. The oracle
he had asked from the goddess of Erech had enjoined on him to fetch back
the image of the goddess Nana, which had been carried off to Elam centuries
before. It will be remembered that this oracle had already served as an
excuse to draw Ummanigash into a war. It was now again made use of.
But Ummanaldash, no more than his predecessor, could comply with the
demand without setting throne and life at stake. No other choice remained
for him than to try the fortune of war.
The war proceeded as it had the first time, but was conducted with more
energy and certainly lasted longer. Bit-Imbi was again taken, then the Rashi
country and the city of Khamanu with its territory, a conquest which the
Assyrians thought important enough to be perpetuated in a relief. Although
all this was only frontier territory, Ummanaldash thought it advisable to leave
Madaktu, the western capital of his country, and to retreat to Dur-Undasi,
a town on the farther side of the Ulai, but west of the river Ididi, which
formed a strong natural defence. Thus he abandoned a great part of his
country, but even there he did not feel himself safe and crossed the Ididi that
he might range his troops behind it in order of battle. The Assyrians pur-
sued their triumphal march, took one town after the other, and at last came
to Dur-Undasi. But here the army refused to go farther, and two days went
by before they could make up their minds to cross the apparently dangerous
river. However, in the nick of time, Ishtar of Arbela, the warlike goddess,
whose priesthood doubtless accompanied the army with a portable sanctuary
or ark, sent one of her seers a dream in which she promised her help, and
this restored the army's courage. The crossing was a success, the army of
436 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[648-626 B.C.]
Ummanaldash was beaten, and twelve Elamite provinces east of the Ididi
with fourteen royal cities and a number of smaller places were abandoned to
destruction.
Still there was no intention of taking possession of the country, and when
Ummanaldash with the remnant of his army had gone farther into the moun-
tains, and consequently there was no longer a dangerous enemy on the east
side of the Ididi to hinder the operations on the west side, the Assyrians
marched back into Shushan. There was the goddess for whose sake the
whole expedition had been undertaken. On former occasions, when Shushan
had been taken, the object of the war was to set the Elamite pretender on
the throne, then the restoration could hardly be demanded. But now Asshur
was in arms against Elam itself, and consideration need no longer be
shown. The goddess was brought back to Erech to her sanctuary, E-khili-
anha, '• the house of power in the heavens," and the king caused new and
permanant sanctuaries to be erected for her.
To all appearances and contrary to his practice, he had himself come to
Shushan. At least, it is related that he clasped the hands of the goddess,
that is, performed a religious ceremony in her sanctuary and that he also had
the gratification of entering the palace of Shushan and seating himself on the
throne of the hereditary enemy of Assyria. Elam was one of the oldest and
most famous monarchies of Asia, and Shushan was the sacred city, the seat
of the gods and the place of their oracles. In the treasure chamber of the
royal citadel were heaped up all those valuables which the kings of Elam had
collected " down to the kings of those days," and which had never yet been
touched by a victorious enemy. No little of the treasure had been taken
away by former Elamite kings from Sumer, Accad, and Kardunyash, and
there was also a collection of valuables and jewels with royal insignia, which
former kings of Accad, down to Shamash-shumukin, had presented to Elam
in exchange for her help. All this, with all the glories of the royal palace,
where a rich and splendour-loving court had resided, Asshurbanapal took
with him to his own states. The very tombs of the kings were not spared
by the conqueror : they were destroyed and exposed to the light of day; even
the corpses were carried off, so that the shades had to wander about homeless.
In order to mortify the enemy as much as possible, the Assyrian soldiers were
allowed to desecrate those sacred forests, whose precincts no unhallowed foot
might ever tread, and then to burn them.
Whilst the Elamite war was still raging in the west, the Arabs had
again arisen. Abiyate, whom Asshurbanapal had appointed in the place of
Yauta-ben-Hazael as Assyrian vassal-king of Aribi, entered into negotiations
with Natnu, prince of Nabathea, to whom Yauta had formerly fled, but who
had at that time thought it safer to seek the friendship of Assyria. He now
allowed himself to be persuaded to trouble the borders of the western prov-
inces of Assyria, in conjunction with Abiyate. Lest the forces in this district
should not be strong enough to face the joint attacks of the Arabs, a powerful
army was despatched from Assyria to quell the rising. Arrived on the 25th
Sivan at Khadata, which probably lay at the eastern extremity of this desert,
the army pursued its way unchallenged to Laribda, a well-watered oasis,
where the camp was fixed, and then marched on to Khurarina, not far from
Yarki and Azalli, still in the same desert, where the first encounter took
place. There the Isamme, the Bedouins, who worship the god Atarsamain
and the Nabatheans, sought to stop the further progress of the Assyrian
army, but were defeated. The victors, having provided themselves with
water from Azalli, marched on to Kurasiti. There again stood Bedouins
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS 437
[648-626 B.C.]
who worship Atarsamain, with Yauta-ben-Bir-Dadda and the men of Kedar,
but they too gave way, and not only a rich booty, but Yauta's gods and
women, with his mother, fell into the Assyrians' hands and were carried
with them to Damascus. On the night of the 3rd Abu, after a rest of about
forty days, the Assyrian army marched to the town of Khulkhuliti, south of
Damascus, and in the mountain region of Khukkurina a battle was fought
with the two sons of Te'ri, namely, the leaders of the rebellion, Abiyate and
Aamu. Aamu was taken alive, chained hand and foot, and sent to Nineveh,
where Asshurbanapal had him flayed. The remainder of the troops sought
refuge in the hiding-places in the mountains ; but when the Assyrians set
guard in all the surrounding places and cut off their supplies of water, they
found themselves under the necessity first of killing their camels and then
of surrendering themselves. They, too, were taken to Assyria, and thus the
country was as though "inundated with Arabs and camels." Yauta-ben-
Bir-Dadda still kept the field with his troops ; but when disease and famine
had made terrible havoc among them, they came to the conclusion that
they were no match for the might of the Assyriati gods, rose against their
king, and drove him from them. He was seized by the enemy and sent to
Assyria. There his son was killed before his eyes by Asshurbanapal's own
hand, and he and his cousin bound with a dog-chain to Nerib-mashuakti-atuati,
the eastern gate of Nineveh. The king counted it as a favour that he escaped
with his life.
Even Ummanaldash was also destined to fall into the Assyrians' hands.
His own subjects rose against him, perhaps at the instigation of a certain
Ummanigash, a son of Ametirra, and he sought refuge in the mountains.
The Assyrians made use of these disturbances to march into Elam, fan the
fire of rebellion, and lead Ummanaldash in triumph to their own country.
The ancient monarchy, which had so often threatened Assyria, was now
entirely broken. For a time Elam still prolonged a melancholy existence.
She was not annexed to the Assyrian Empire. But when, within a few
years, the latter's power had disappeared, Elam fell an easy prey to the
Persians, when Prince Sispis, or Teispes, of the race of the Achsemenidae,
placed himself on the throne of Shushan.
Little dreaming that the hour of Asshur's downfall was so soon to strike,
Asshurbanapal revelled in the joy of victory. In memory of all these triumphs,
and in order to show his gratitude for the help of the gods, he built a new
sanctuary for the great goddess of Nineveh, the spouse of Asshur, and when
it was ready and he presented himself in it in order to consecrate it with
ceremonial sacrifices, he had his royal chariot dragged to the gate of the
temple by four captive kings, — Tammaritu, Pa'e, Ummanaldash, and Yauta.
This barbarous triumph was his last, and the last also of the renowned
Assyrian army.6
CHAPTER V. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA
WE have followed the fortunes of Assyria through several dynasties of
clearest historical record. But, curiously enough, as we now proceed the
landmarks disappear, and we enter a realm of myth, as if we were going
backward instead of forward in time. Even while Asshurbanapal lives, the
record becomes vague, and after him there is almost nothing securely known
of its details. Even the names of his successors are somewhat in doubt.
The only sure thing is the broad historical fact that the empire declined in
power until it was completely overthrown by the Scythians and Babylonians
about twenty years after the death of Asshurbanapal — the precise date of
this closing scene being, like all other details of the epoch, more or less in
doubt.
Our surprise at this cataclysmic overthrow is the greater in that we have
just seen the Assyrian Empire at such a height of apparent power under
Asshurbanapal. The palaces, libraries, and art treasures of that king as
now known to us convey an irresistible impression of a powerful monarch.
Yet it is held that the decline in Assyrian affairs had begun even during the
life of Asshurbanapal.*
Professor Rogers has well summed up an impression as to the cause of
this decline. After noting the glories of the reign in matters of literature,
sciences, and art, and giving Asshurbanapal a full meed of praise as regards
his attainment in this direction, Professor Rogers continues :
In war only had he failed. But by the sword the kingdom of Assyria
had been founded, by the sword it had added kingdom unto kingdom until
it had become a world-empire. By the sword it had cleared the way for the
advance of its trader, and opened up to civilisation great territories, some
of which, like Urartu, had even adopted its method of writing. It had held
all the vast empire together by the sword, and not by beneficent and unself-
ish rule. Even unto this very reign barbaric treatment of men who yearned
for liberty had been the rule and not the exception. That which had been
founded by the sword and maintained by the sword would not survive if the
sword lost its keenness or the arm which wielded it lost its strength or readi-
ness. This had happened in the days of Asshurbanapal. He had conquered
but little new territory, made scarcely any advance, as most of the kings
who preceded him had done. He had not only not made distinct advances,
he had actually beaten a retreat, and the empire was smaller. Worse even
than this, he had weakened the borders which remained, and had not erected
fortresses, as had Sargon and Esarhaddon and even Sennacherib, for the
defence of the frontier against aggression. He had gained no new allies, and
had shown no consideration or friendship for any people who might have
been won to join hands with Assyria when the hour of struggle between
438
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA 439
[648-626 B.C.]
the Semites and the Indo-Europeans should come. On the contrary, his
brutality, singularly unsuited to his period and his position of growing weak-
ness, his bloodthirstiness, his destructive raids into the territories of his
neighbours, had increased the hatred of Assyria into a passion. All these
things threatened the end of Assyrian prestige, if not the entire collapse of
the empire.
The culture which Asshurbanapal had nurtured and disseminated was
but a cloak to cover the nakedness of Assyrian savagery. It never became
a part of the life of the people. It contributed not to national patriotism,
but only to national enervation. Luxury had usurped the place of simplicity,
and weakness had conquered strength. The most brilliant colour of all
Assyrian history was only overlaid on the palace and temple walls. The
shadows were growing long and deep, and the night of Assyria was
approaching.*
Whatever our precise estimate of this criticism of Asshurbanapal, it is
clear that the successors of that monarch were unable to sustain the tradi-
tions of their fathers. Assyriologiste have recently restored to us the names
of Bel-zakir-ishkun or Asshur-etil-ili, Sin-shar-ishkun, as the immediate
successors of Asshurbanapal, the last named being the one who is believed to
have been the occupant of the throne when the conquering hosts of Cyaxares
linally razed Nineveh to the ground.
It may fairly be presumed that there exist somewhere among the yet
unrecovered treasures of Mesopotamia, inscriptions giving more or less full
accounts of the destruction of Nineveh. But be that as it may, no such
inscription has yet come to light; at least none such has been deciphered.
There is an abundance of material in the various museums of Europe and
America that has not yet been fully investigated. The reading of inscrip-
tions in the arrow-head script is an extremely difficult task ; indeed, it has
been claimed, perhaps half jestingly, by one of the greatest of living orien-
talists, that only four scholars in the world are competent to read securely
Assyrian or Babylonian texts from the original clay tablet. Doubtless this
is an exaggeration, but it is one full of suggestion as to the difficulties en-
countered by the would-be investigator of Mesopotamian history ; and at
the same time offering an explanation of the fact that so much material
is awaiting its turn, and must long remain unpublished, notwithstanding
the importance and interest of the historical secrets thus entombed.
Possibly, as has been suggested, the story of the destruction of Nineveh may
be among these secrets, but as to the validity of this surmise time must
decide.
Meanwhile the twentieth-century historian is but little better off than
his predecessor of the times before the advent of modern Assyriology in
regard to this particular problem. Whoever would picture to himself the
destruction of Nineveh has no resource but to turn back to such classical
accounts as that of Diodorus, giving whatever degree of credence he may
choose to the details of the story. One qualification, however, may be added.
We at least are tolerably sure, as our predecessors could not be, that the last
ruler of Nineveh did not bear the name which classical tradition ascribed to
him. Just as there was no Ninus, founder of Nineveh, so there was no
Sardanapalus last ruler of that famous city. In regard to this detail, tradi-
tion was at fault here as so often elsewhere. None the less will the name of
Sardanapalus long continue to symbolise the idea of the last ruler of Nine-
veh, whose effeminate reign and tragic end form so interesting a theme for
the classical writer.0
440
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
LAST YEARS AND FALL OP THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE (626-609 B.C.)
In all probability, Asshurbanapal lived
until 626, and during the whole of his
reign he remained firmly established in
possession of the Assyrian throne and
also of the kingdom of Babylon. Elam
had been rendered powerless, Babylon
had been conquered, and the desert
dwellers of the west were too much weak-
ened and impoverished by the severe lesson
taught them, as well as by hunger and
disease, to be dangerous. Media was only
in her youth, and Assyria was still strong
enough to resist the first onrush of this
new, conquering state. Besides her north-
eastern and northern neighbours, the states
of Asia Minor and the inhabitants of the
Mediterranean coast had enough to do to
defend themselves against the barbarians
who were pressing upon them from the
north and east. Egypt was indeed inde-
pendent, but could not seriously think of
conquests in Asia. The condition of the
Assyrian Empire resembled the calm before
the storm.
In his latter years the king doubtless
devoted himself by preference to the works
of peace. He had already erected many
buildings, even during the period of his
great wars. He had continued and com-
pleted the work on the temples of Assyria
and Babylonia, which Esarhaddon had begun. Unfortunately the inscription
which enumerates the principal structures belonging to the first half of his
reign only occasionally mentions the places in which the temples he erected
stood. In the later years of the king's reign the walls of Nineveh demanded
his attention. They were loosened by annual rains and the violent showers
of Adad, and had sunk. Asshurbanapal restored them and made them
stronger than before. When he had seen his great campaigns crowned with
victory, he at last undertook an important work in Nineveh, the town of
Bel and Ishtar. Bit-Riduti, the great palace, which Sennacherib had built
and established as a royal dwelling, had fallen to ruins. This king did
nothing without the gods. It was now again a dream which made known
to him their will that he should repair the damage to the palace. This was
done. The forced labour of Assyrian subjects brought the stone in carts
from the spoil of Elam ; and the captive Arabian kings, decked out with
appropriate marks of distinction, shared in the labour as workmen. When
the palace was completed to the pinnacles and enlarged, it was surrounded
with noble grounds ; and when the victims were slaughtered at the conse-
cration, the king made his entry carried in a gorgeous palanquin and with
festive rejoicings.
Of all the objects assembled in this palace the king set the highest value
on the library which he had founded and which has now for the most part
ASSYRIAN KINO IN SACERDOTAL ROBES
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA 441
[626-609 B.C.]
been unearthed and brought to Europe. Asshurbanapal was, without any
doubt, an admirer and patron of learning and a prince who loved art. He
did not allow the libraries of Babylonia to be plundered, but he had the lit-
erary treasures which were buried there, including whole works on philo-
sophical, mythological, and poetic subjects, copied in Assyrian characters
and added to the historical records of his own predecessors. He even seems
to have studied them diligently himself, and to have encouraged their peru-
sal. The fruit of this study is shown in his own memorials. In fact these
have some literary value, which cannot be said of the dry chronicles of former
kings. He was not, however, the first to found a library. Not only had the
ancient Babylonian kings — it is said even Sargon I of Agade — preceded
him in this respect, but the Assyrian kings had also set him an example.
This was certainly true of Sennacherib, in whose palace at Nineveh, accord-
ing to the calculation made by George Smith, probably twenty thousand
the
fragments are now awaiting the investigator who can find the time and
means to dig them out and make them accessible to western learning. But
it cannot be denied that Asshurbanapal earned the gratitude of scholars
by rendering so many treasures of the Babylonian libraries accessible to his
compatriots, and also by founding libraries in other places ; as, for example,
in Babylon, and that he devoted more attention to these things than any of
his predecessors.
The popular tradition of the downfall of the Assyrian Empire, which took
shape in later years and came from the Persians to the Greeks, represents
Sardanapalus (by whom none other than Asshurbanapal can be meant) as the
type of a luxurious, effeminate, oriental despot, who forgets his kingly duties
in the enjoyments of his harem, abandons his empire to the enemies rising
against him on all sides, and finally, shut up in his capital, delivers himself
in despair to the flames with his wives and all his treasures. We now know
how little this picture agrees with the truth, but from what is historically
credible we can gather how it arose. Asshurbanapal did indeed take pleas-
ure in filling his women's palace with the daughters of all the princes sub-
dued by him, and with those of their nearest relatives ; and these princes
knew well what was pleasing to the supreme king. It is true that this pro-
ceeded as much from love of display as from an inclination to voluptuous-
ness ; it is true that policy also had a share in it, because by this means his
supremacy was confirmed and a pledge given for further submissiveness ; it
is true that the custom was a usual one with oriental monarchs ; but a
king who pursued it to such an extent must have been easily transformed into
a voluptuary in the minds of his people.
There was also some reason for regarding him as weak and effeminate.
The great Assyrian monarchs, at least during the years of their youth and
vigorous manhood, had themselves frequently led their armies to victory.
It was seldom, if ever, that Asshurbanapal joined in the fight. His official
historians do, indeed, ascribe to him the honour of all the victories during his
reign, but they have not succeeded in hiding the fact that his generals fought
the battles. Yet he was by no means a weakling. That he was an eager
hunter is testified by a number of hunting inscriptions, some of them accom-
panied by reliefs. In any case, a prince who could find pleasure in so manly
a pastime was no effeminate voluptuary, little warlike though he may have
shown himself to be.
The king's tragic end in the flames of his own palace, of which the legend
sj icaks, may have been shifted on to him from his brother, Shamash-shum-
ukin, or, still more probably, from the last Ninevite king. That he, the last
442 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[628-609 B.C.]
great king of Assyria, should have been supposed to continue reigning until
the end of the empire, while the insignificant kings who really followed him
were forgotten, is natural enough. In short, Asshurbanapal was not a hero
who strove to reap the laurels of the battle-field through difficulty and priva-
tions on distant campaigns. He preferred to linger in his luxurious palace,
and to alternate the delights of the harem and the pursuit of learning with
the royal lion-hunting. He was very pious, and did nothing without con-
sulting the oracles of his gods or the dreams of his seers. If he thought the
dignity of his empire, and with it the honour of his gods, insulted by an
obstinate rebellion, he would avenge them as his predecessors had done by
punishments of ingenious cruelty, inflicted both on individuals and on whole
countries. The fearful suffering which the war on Asshur's enemies
wrought in its train, the pestilence which filled the streets with corpses, the
famine which drove parents to destroy their own children, filled him with
transports of joy. His ruling idea was the unity and vastness of his empire.
If he left the sword in its sheath, the love of pleasure did not make him
neglect his duties as a ruler. He took care that his armies should always
be ready to take the field, which would not have been possible without good
organisation; and they triumphed over almost all his enemies, maintained
his sway against a powerful coalition, crushed the formidable Elam so
severely that she never recovered from the blows she had received, and, if
not during his reign, at least shortly after it, repelled the advancing Medes.
He regularly transmitted his orders to all the governors in his empire, and
was by them kept carefully informed of anything of importance which hap-
pened in their provinces. No one of his victorious military leaders ever
ventured to turn his arms against him. All, including the governors, recog-
nised him and honoured him as their king. Such he was in the fullest sense
of the word. In his palace at Nineveh, during two-and-forty years, he held
the reigns of government with a strong hand. And this is all the more
creditable to the influence of his personality, since the empire was internally
weakened by his own political mistakes, in particular by the removal of the
centre of government from Babylon, which Esarhaddon had made its • seat,
to Nineveh, and by other causes, so that it went to pieces a few years after
his death.
After him at least two kings ruled over Assyria, who were probably
brothers, for one of them, Bel-zakir-ishkun, was the son of a king of Assyria,
and grandson of a king of Sumer and Accad, and though their names are
missing from the inscriptions, they can have been none other than Asshur-
banapal and Esarhaddon; and the other, Asshur-etil-ili [who is sometimes
known by a lengthened form of his name, Asshur-etil-ili-ukinni] is expressly
called the son and grandson of these rulers. Probably Bel-zakir-ishkun
reigned first, and then the other.1 No historical records have been preserved,
dealing either with the fortunes and achievements of these kings or with the
fall of Assyria. Certain texts have led some to conclude that a third king,
a namesake of Esarhaddon, may have swayed the sceptre at this period, but
this has been shown to be extremely questionable.
Immediately after Asshurbanapal's death, or perhaps even in the last
year of his reign, Babylon broke away from the Assyrian rule, and this time
the separation was permanent. The empire was much weakened by it. The
north and north-west, Urartu and the states of Asia Minor, gradually fell
[J It is now believed that these two kings were one and the same person. See Professor
Hilprecht in Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie, Vol. IV, p. 164 et seq. "The name of this king
(Asshur-etil-ili)," says Professor Bogers, "was originally read Bel-zakir-ishkun."]
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA 443
[<U2-609 B.C.]
into the power of the ever-advancing Medes. The Assyrian lordship over
the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea now existed in name
only, so that King Josiah of Judah was able to effect his reform unhindered,
and to act as master in the territory of the ancient kingdom of Israel, whicli
for years had been an Assyrian province. And in the year 608 Neku II,
king of Egypt, was able to think of extending his empire to the Euphrates,
as in days long past, and to take arms against Assyria with the idea of
wresting from her all her western provinces. The foundation of the new
Babylonian Empire and the invasion of the Egyptians, who could no longer
be repelled by the Assyrians, but were only to give way before the Baby-
lonian arms, are described elsewhere. Here we only mention them as among
the causes which brought about the fall of the Assyrian Empire. That
empire no longer had any real existence, at least as a ruling power. Thrust
back to its old frontiers, the ancient Assyrian state slowly languished and
only awaited the death-blow.
That blow was to come from the Medes in alliance with the Babylonians,
and was partly hastened, partly stayed, by the great migratory streams of the
Cimmerians and Scythians."
Though Professor Tiele's admirable history is recent, much new infor-
mation concerning the last days of the Assyrian rule at Nineveh has come
to light, and historians are now able to place the conquest of the city by
the Manda in the reign of Sin-shar-ishkun. Without overlooking a certain
Sin-shum-lishir, who is mentioned in several places as an Assyrian king, and
must have ruled about this time, but whose personality has not yet been
unwrapped from the historic gloom, it is safe to say that this Sin-shar-ishkun
was Asshur-etil-ili's successor. From contract tablets found at Sippar and
Erech we know that he occupied the Assyrian throne in 612 B.C., and that
his dominion included a part of Babylonia as well. Later records would
show him to be of much stronger character than the man he succeeded. In
610 or 609 he attempted to wrest more of the Babylonian provinces from
Nabopolassar, and the harassed king took the fatal step of appealing to that
people from the north, who for the most part had formed part of the great
Indo-European migration into western Asia. Already these Scythian hordes,
the Manda, had their eye on the rich Mesopotamia!! Valley, and therefore
Nabopolassar's appeal did not fall upon unwilling ears. Sin-shar-ishkun
was indeed driven back, but when that happened the Manda were in the
coveted land. The reader will observe that we have just spoken of the Manda
and not the Medes as the assailants of Nineveh. This is because of the recent
clearing up of a historical error that was our heritage from the Greek his-
torians. They simply confused the Manda, the nomadic tribes that lived
north-east of Assyria towards the Caspian Sea and were the classical Scythians,
with the Mada, or true Medes. As Professor Sayce says : " It was not until
the discovery of the monuments of Nabonidus and Cyrus that the truth at
last came to light and it was found that the history we had so long believed
was founded upon a philological mistake." This matter will be more fully
explained in the account of Persia. «
Like his father, Cyaxares perceived that it would not be possible for
the Medes to extend and maintain their conquests westward so long as
he had to dread the rivalry of the Assyrian Empire, so lately the mistress
of those regions. Consequently he put into practice the lesson which
his father had received from the Assyrians. The as yet untrained hordes
of Medians were evidently no match for the better military organisa-
tion of the Assyrians and the military skill of the Assyrian generals.
444 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[609-401 B.C.]
Cyaxares, therefore, began as became a warlike priuce with the remodelling
of his army, dividing his troops, after the pattern of the Assyrians, into the
various arms — spearmen, bowmen, and horsemen — and fortifying his citadel,
Ecbatana. Then he again ventured to attack Assyria, this time with better
success. The Assyrian army was beaten in Nineveh at last, and was sur-
rounded. But an unexpected event came to the assistance of the hard-
pressed Ninevites — the Scythians invaded Media.
Their invasion compelled Cyaxares to evacuate Assyria, and for a time
Nineveh breathed again. But only for a short time. Cyaxares succeeded
in putting an end to the Scythian domination in his kingdom in the course
of a few years.
About 609 the Median army under the command of Cyaxares appeared
for the second time at the gates of Nineveh. According to Berosus, the
Babylonian king, whose son Nebuchadrezzar had married the Median king's
daughter, also took part in this siege. It is easy to understand how it was
that Herodotus knew nothing of this, for the Persians were his authorities.
But he is certainly right in assigning the chief role to the Medes, of whom
Abydenus says nothing, for from this time forward they kept possession of
Assyria itself ; and he is also right in placing the taking of Nineveh during
the period of Cyaxares' government, and not, like Berosus and the authors
who follow him, in the time of Astyages, since the latter did not ascend the
throne of Media before 584 B.C. It is sufficient that Nineveh fell, and As-
syria passed to the power of the Medes, who at the same time acquired the
dominion over the North and the countries of Asia Minor as far as the
Halys. All other provinces of the fallen empire as far as the Mediterranean
Sea, including probably that part of ancient Assyria whose capital was the
city of Asshur, and also Kharran and Carchemish, fell to Babylonia.
We have no historical account of the details connected with the fall of
Nineveh. The story of the last Assyrian king, Asshur-etil-ili, or, as some
authorities call him, Saracus,1 which represents him in his despair burning
himself with his palace and his treasures, is a popular tale which is not indeed
impossible, but probably arose by confusion with Shamash-shum-ukin's end.
Nineveh was so completely desolated that when Xenophon passed with the
Ten Thousand in the year 401 B.C. he took the ruins for the remains of
Median towns destroyed by the Persians. Subsequently a fortress, Ninus,
seems to have been built there by the Parthians. Calah also once more rose
from its rubbish heaps after lying desolate for a long time. Arbela remained
untouched, and it is therefore probable that it fell unresisting into the
hands of the conquerors. But the Assyrian monarchy was gone forever.
The Assyrian monarchy was gone, but not the empire at whose head the
kings of Asshur had stood. It has been matter of astonishment that so
powerful an empire, to which through a series of centuries the whole of
western Asia had been subdued, could have been so suddenly overturned by
the fall of the capital. But this surprise proceeds from an incorrect concep-
tion of history. Events had long prepared the fall of Nineveh. The keen
eye of Esarhaddon had already perceived that it would be safer to remove
the centre of the empire to Babylon. His son Asshurbanapal, a less acute
statesman than he, but a great king and a strong administrator, had once
more attempted to secure the hegemony for Assyria. In this he had suc-
ceeded, being supported by favourable circumstances and the influence of
his own personality. But when the sceptre fell from his strong hand, little
[i The most recent revelations in Assyrian history incline the authorities to the belief that
Saracus is identical with Sin-shar-ishkun.]
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYKIA
445
[<!OG B.C.]
more was needed to put an end to the Assyrian dominion, and that end was
only a question of time. However, the empire survived for a few years
longer, though not in its full vigour. The hegemony now passed again to
Babylon ; but not unimpaired, for, since Media had conquered Nineveh, the
lion's share of Assyria itself fell to the Median kingdom, together with those
northern and north-western provinces which had been lost long before. But
the Assyrian survived in the new Babylonian Empire, which continued its
policy of conquest, and the Greeks, who not long afterwards called the
Babylonians themselves Assyrians, were in this not so very far from the
truth. But the days of the Semitic dominion were hastening to their end.
Even the new monarchy under Babylon's hegemony could only be propped
up by the force of Nebuchadrezzar's personality. His feeble successors
were in no condition to prevent the spread of the Median power nor the rise
of the Persian monarchy, which had grown to such proportions by the con-
quest of Elam, until the genius of Cyrus founded a dominion which soon
embraced the four ancient empires — the Median, the Elainite, the Assyrio-
Baby Ionian, and the Egyptian — and gave the sceptre of western Asia to the
Aryans.
The sense of relief which fell on the oppressed nations at the downfall of
the scourge of Asia can be gathered from the rejoicing accents of the Jewish
prophets. What an Isaiah, a Micah, had not dared to hope, Nahum and
Zephaniah saw approach and actually happen. Nahum is convinced that the
fate of Thebes will soon overtake Nineveh. Her merchants, multiplied as
the stars of heaven, her crowned, her captains, her whole people, they shall
be scattered like flying grasshoppers, and no man shall gather them. " All
that hear the bruit of thee shall clap their hands over thee : for upon whom
hath not thy wickedness passed continually ? " (Nahum iii. 19.) And Zepha-
niah (ii. 13-15), his contemporary, sees with satisfaction the desolation of
the proud city, who thought herself so safe and boasted herself to be the first
and the only one, but now had become desolate and a place for beasts, in
whose ruins the bittern and the screech-owl lodge. e
CHAPTER VI. RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON
" Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom passed away,
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay,
The shroud his robe of state,
His canopy the stone ;
The Mede is at his gate,
The Persian on his throne."
— BYRON'S " VISION OP BKI.SIIAZZAR."
NOWHERE is there a more striking illustration of national regeneration
than is furnished by the story of the new Babylonian Empire. Freed from
Assyrian thraldom, Babylon, the old, old city, came forward to take the
place of the fallen Nineveh as the world-metropolis.
It has been customary to think and speak of the new Babylonian Empire
as evidencing the rejuvenation of an old people. In one sense this view has
full validity. But it must not be supposed that the new Babylonians who
came to power when Nineveh fell were the bona fide descendants of the rulers
of old Babylonia. New blood had made itself felt in the old race ; indeed,
without its influence it is highly improbable that the rejuvenation could
have been effected. The outsiders who made their influence felt with such
potency to restore and rejuvenate the old empire, are known as the Chaldeans.
The precise origin of this people is in doubt. It is held to be established,
however, that they were Semitic, and hence could claim cousinship with
the Babylonians and Assyrians. They inhabited the Sea Lands to the
south of Mesopotamia at an early date, and have been supposed to come
originally from Arabia. They are heard of from time to time in Babylonian
and Assyrian annals as a half -barbaric and often troublesome people, divided
into various tribes or clans or petty principalities, bearing such unfamiliar
names as Bit-Silani, Bit-Sa'alli, and Bit-Sala.
It is supposed by modern orientalists that the Chaldeans long had
their eyes upon the fertile regions of the North, and even, from time to
time, been presumptuous enough to cross swords with the Babylonians and
Assyrians in the hope of dethroning them. Certain it is that the rulers of
the North had at various times waged war against their less civilised cousins
of the Sea Lands. Yet the evidence does not seem to be very clear as to the
precise share which the Chaldeans took in the new movement inaugurated in
Babylon with the death of the last really powerful Assyrian king, Asshur-
banapal. The name of the new ruler who now came to power in Babylon
was Nabopolassar ; but it cannot be asserted with confidence that he was of
Chaldean origin. It is held, however, that the influences that dominated the
kingdom under his reign were clearly Chaldean; though considering the
vagueness that surrounds the entire subject, it must be admitted that this
assertion is much easier to make than to prove. Still, all that we know
about the degeneration of old nations elsewhere, and the extreme difficulty
of resuscitating a senescent people, except by a mixture of races, tends to
446
RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON 447
[568 B.C.]
confirm the theory that a race relatively new to civilisation was chiefly
instrumental in working the miracle of Babylonian regeneration.
In any event, the people who for something less than a century made
Babylon a great centre of world-influence were known to their contempora-
ries and to succeeding generations as Chaldeans rather than as Babylonians.
Just to what extent the old Babylonian people shared in the new work, can
perhaps never be known ; but the question is relatively unimportant, because
in any event it was a people of the same old Semitic stock that carried on
the historic story.
The most brilliant period of the new Babylonian Empire came soon after
the fall of Nineveh, in the reign of the world-famous king, Nebuchadrezzar,
the monarch who built the marvellous wall about the city and the fabulous
hanging gardens ; the conqueror who overthrew the Phoenicians and carried
the Israelites into captivity.
A peculiar interest attaches to the period of the immediate successors of
Nebuchadrezzar because the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites still con-
tinued, to which the Hebrew writers made such extended references. The
famous account in the Book of Daniel of the feast of Belshazzar, with its
brief but graphic reference to the alleged tragic end of the Babylonian king,
and the overthrow of Babylon itself at the hands of "Darius the Mede,"
have furnished never-to-be-forgotten pictures to all subsequent generations.
The modern archaeologist has rudely shattered some of these treasured
images. Thus the Book of Daniel makes allusion to the overthrow of
Babylon in these words : " Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thou-
sand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles
he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which
his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusa-
lem ; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might
drink therein. ... In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans
slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore
and two years old." (Daniel v. 1, 2, 30, 31.)
But within the past generation inscriptions have come to light proving,
to the amazement of a keenly interested world, that no king named Belshaz-
zar ever reigned in Babylon ; and that the name of the monarch overthrown
by Cyrus the Persian or Elamite — not by " Darius the Mede " — was
Nabonidus. Nabonidus had a son, Belshazzar, but he never ruled. This
Nabonidus was not the son of Nebuchadrezzar or his immediate successor,
three successive rulers after Nebuchadrezzar having reigned before he came
to the throne. It is clear from inscriptions of Nabonidus and of Cyrus his
conqueror that Babylon was overthrown without a struggle. A cylinder
inscription by Cyrus tells the story: the first part of which, translated by
the Rev. C. J. Ball, is as follows : " The continual offering he made to cease
... he (es)tablished in the cities the worship of Merodach, the King of the
Gods, he exalted (?) His name. ... by a yoke unrelaxing he ruined them
all. At their lamentation the Lord of the Gods waxed very wroth . . . the
Gods who dwelt among them forsook Their abode. In wrath because he
brought them into Shu-anna (i.e. Babylon), Merodach ... He turned
towards all the districts whose dwellings were thrown down. And (to) the
people of Shinar and Accad, who were become as dead, He turned (His
regard?): He showed compassion upon all the lands together. He looked
for, He found him, yea, He sought out an upright Prince, after His own heart,
whom He took by his hand, Cyrus, king of the city of Anshan ; He named
bis name ; to the kingdom of the whole world He called him by na(me).
448 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[615-538 B.C.]
The land of Qutu (and) all the Urnman-Manda he humbled to his feet ; the
Blackheaded folk, whom his hands subdued, — in faithfulness and righteous-
ness he looked after them. Merodach, the great Lord, the guardian of His
people, joyfully beheld his good deeds and his upright heart. To His own
city Babylon his march He commanded ; He put them on the road to Tin-tir
(i.e. Babylon); like a comrade and helper He marched at his side. His
great hosts, whose number like the waters of a river could not be known, with
their weapons girded on, advanced beside him. Without skirmish or battle
He made him enter Shu-anna. His own city Babylon He spared from dis-
tress ; Nabonidus the king, who feared him not, He delivered up to him.
The people of Tin-tir in a body, the entire land of Shinar and Accad, the
nobles and grandees, bowed down before Him, kissed His feet, rejoiced at
His accession ; their faces brightened."
The accounts given by Nabonidus himself confirm this record of Cyrus.
It would appear, then, that the Hebrew chroniclers, gifted rather with the
poetical imagination than with the calm historical sense, confused the Baby-
lonian conquest of Cyrus with a later campaign of his successor, Darius.
But no mere substitution of the cold facts of history can ever rob the world
of the beautiful traditional picture of the feast of Belshazzar. Here, as else-
where, myth must be allowed to hold its own as the embodiment of the spirit
of history. Myth and history coincide as to the fact that the old dynasty
in new Babylonia was overthrown. And with that overthrow the sceptre of
world-influence passed from the hands of the Semitic race forever.
CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY
The epoch of the new Babylonian Empire covers a period of time from
about 615 to 538 B.C., approximately three-quarters of a century. We have
already, at the beginning of this book, outlined the position of contemporary
civilisations during the entire sweep of Assyrian and new Babylonian his-
tory ; but it may be well briefly to recapitulate the position of other nations
during the epoch of new Babylonian domination, that a clearer picture of
the time may be before the eyes as we view the details of Babylonian
history.
While reading of the achievements of Nebuchadrezzar and his successors,
then, it will be well to recall that :
Egypt under the XXVIth Dynasty enjoys a brief period of rejuvenescence
as a world-power ; curiously linked in time with the new awakening of her
old-time rival, Babylonia ;
In India, at about this period, Buddha lives and founds the religion that
is to bear his name ;
Greece and Rome are in a relative youth, not yet reckoning time from a
fixed era, and only beginning to make secure records on which future gener-
ations may build. Their civilisation does not compare in importance with
that of Babylon, which is the recognised centre of culture, looking upon
these " new " nations in the west as utter barbarians ;
Phoenicia is far past the zenith of its power ; Samaria has fallen; Jerusa-
lem is to become subject to Babylon itself ;
In Asia Minor, Sardis, the capital of Lydia, is waxing in power.
But the coming nation of the epoch is Persia, which turns the tables on
its fellow, Manda, hitherto the stronger of the half-civilised pair of nations,
and which finally, under Cyrus, captures Babylon itself, and assumes undis-
puted sovereignty over the whole of south-western Asia."
KENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON 449
[626-862 B.C.]
NABOPOLASSAR AND NEBUCHADREZZAR
Nabopolassar (Nabu-apal-usur, i.e. " Nabu protect the heir "), according
to the Ptolemaic canon, reigned from 625 B.C. (the date of his accession thus
being 626) until 605 B.C., in which year he died, shortly before the victory
won by his son Nebuchadrezzar over the Egyptians at Carchemish, having
been in ill health before Nebuchadrezzar started for Syria. We have seen
how immediately upon his accession to the throne of the Pharaohs, Neku II
profited by the impotence of the Assyrian kingdom, which was enfeebled to
the last degree by long years of Scythian incursions, to penetrate into the
Hamath district.
SHe encountered the army of Judah at Meggido — the same historical
ity where, a thousand years before, Tehutimes III had vanquished the
combined forces of Syria and Phoenicia. The king of Jerusalem was slain
on the field, and his army, retreating in terror to the capital, made his young
son, Jehoahaz, king, ignoring the claims of Eliakim, the eldest, probably
because he was in favour of submitting to Neku. Pharaoh now proceeded,
unmolested, to Riblah in Ccele-Syria, where he made his headquarters, and
confident in his mastery over Judah, ordered Jehoahaz to appear before him.
When the new king arrived he was thrown into chains and Eliakim put in
his place under the name of Jehoiakim.]
Neku' s ambition was next directed to the conquest of the whole of north-
ern Syria; a project which he actually accomplished to a great extent
during the years 608 to 606, whilst the Babylonians, with their Median allies,
were besieging Nineveh. He must certainly have advanced as far as Carche-
mish, since that was the spot where the Egyptian and Babylonian forces met
in 605. The fate of Syria was sealed thereby; it became a province of Baby-
lonia even as it had once been a province of Assyria, and Judah became a
vassal kingdom to Babylonia.
Thus Nabopolassar, who died in 605, while his son was on the march for
Syria, only just missed the satisfaction of seeing the new kingdom of Baby-
lonia which he had founded enter upon the heritage of the Assyrian Empire,
out of which the western province could least of all be spared. He did not
see it : instead the news of his father's death reached the young Nebuchadrez-
zar (Nabu-kudur-usur, i.e. "Nabu protect the crown") shortly after the
victory of the Egyptians, which decided the fate of Syria for the time being;
and leaving his generals to follow up the victory, he had to return to Babylon
in hot haste to assume the royal dignity that awaited him. There he received
the crown at the hands of the great nobles without encountering any obsta-'
cles, and for the long period of his glorious reign, which lasted forty-
two years (604-562) he guided the destinies of his country, extended and
strengthened its borders, and thus made Babylonia a great power, and Baby-
lon one of the most splendid and illustrious cities of ancient times. If we
further take into consideration that it was he who likewise conquered Syria
for Babylonia, we cannot but acknowledge his claim to be counted the first
ruler who entered upon the full possession of Assyria and consolidated it.
Amid all the many and sometimes detailed inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar
which have been found in the ruins of Babylon and other cities, not one
contains any account of his campaigns ; but from a passage in the preamble
of the great inscription of the kingdom, we see that in spite of his preference
for building and other peaceful labours he was a mighty warrior. It runs :
" Under his mighty protection (i.e. that of the god Marduk) I have passed
through far countries, distant mountains, from the upper sea even to the
H. W. — VOL. 1. 2 O
450 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[602-587 B.C.]
lower sea (i.e. probably from the Gulf of Issus to the mouth of the Nile) far-
reaching ways, closed paths where my step was stayed and my foot could
not stand, a road of hardships, a way of thirst ; the disobedient I subdued
and took the adversaries captive, the land I guided aright, the people I
caused to be seized ; I carried away the bad and the good among them, silver
and gold and precious stones, copper, palm wood and cedar wood, whatsoever
was costly, in gorgeous abundance ; the products of the mountains and that
which the sea yielded, brought I as a gift of great weight, as a rich tribute
into my city of Babylon before his (the god's) face." And although the
different campaigns of which we know are distributed over almost the whole
of his long reign, we find mention of only one short war against Aahmes of
Egypt in the thirty-seventh year of it.
With regard to these wars, most of them aimed at completing the work
begun at the battle of Carchemish, and more particularly at preventing fur-
ther interference on the part of Egypt, and at banishing her influence com-
pletely from Babylonian territory, which had now been extended to her very
frontier. It was probably in the third year after Nebuchadrezzar's battle
(therefore in 602 B.C.) that Syria was completely incorporated into the
Babylonian kingdom, leaving him free to think of displaying his power in
the eyes of Jehoiakim, whom Neku had set up as king in Jerusalem, by
advancing against him with an army. The desired result promptly followed,
and from 601 to 599 Jehoiakim became tributary to the king of the Chal-
deans. In the fourth year, 598, the king of Judah withheld the tribute,
probably at the instigation of Egypt. When the Babylonians invaded
Judah (probably at the beginning of 587) Jehoiakim was just dead ; his son
Jehoiachin (known also as Jeconiah) was besieged at Jerusalem and, seeing
further resistance useless, surrendered to Nebuchadrezzar. He was carried
away captive to Babylon with his family and nearly all the princes, warriors,
masons, and smiths ; but, once there, their lot was no hard one, for they
were permitted to settle without molestation and to exercise their own
religion. A great number of them lived thus at Tel-Abib (i.e. "heap of
ruins ") on the canal Chebar [a canal found near Nippur and now called
Kabaru] as we know from the chronicles of Ezekiel, who was one of them.
Jerusalem was not destroyed, but Jehoiachin's kinsman, Mattaniah (another
son of Josiah), was set over the few inhabitants that remained there as a vas-
sal of Babylonia, under the new name of Zedekiah (595-587). The newly
installed sovereign was a weak man, who by his own good will would have
been a loyal vassal ; but ultimately in spite of the warnings of the prophet
Jeremiah, who fully realised the true state of affairs, he threw in his lot
with the war party, who relied on the help of Egypt, and rebelled against
Babylonia.
In 589 Psamthek II (Neku's successor) himself was succeeded by the
young and warlike Uah-ab-Ra (the Hophra of the Bible and the Apries of the
Greeks), who sent a fleet to the assistance of the Phoanicians in an attempt
they made to revolt. Thereupon Nebuchadrezzar marched his troops into
Syria and set up his headquarters at Riblah, the old headquarters of Neku,
so as to operate from thence against Zedekiah, Tyre, and Pharaoh. How
Jerusalem was besieged (589-587) and destroyed, how in the meantime
Uah-ab-Ra's army was vanquished, and how Tyre was then invested (the siege
lasting thirteen years) and forced to pay tribute, if no more — all these events
are likewise known to us only from other sources than cuneiform inscrip-
tions, and the detailed description of them, at least in so far as they relate
to the downfall of the kingdom of Judah, and thus form a part of (not the
KENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON 451
[587-J568 B.C.]
opening era of) Jewish history, lies ready to every reader's hand in the
books of the Bible of which we have given a brief outline. As for Tyre
(after the siege) she remained under the rule of her own kings, though as a
vassal to Babylonia. All the worse was the fate which, in 587, overtook
Judah, whose hopes had been so cruelly deceived, for not only was the city
utterly destroyed (see the moving laments in the so-called Book of Lam-
entations), and the king, blinded and fettered, carried away into captivity
after seeing his sons slain before his face ; but with the exception of the
poor, the day labourers absolutely necessary for the cultivation of the soil
and vineyards, all who had escaped the previous deportation were carried
away by the Babylonian king to the "waters of Babylon" (Psalm 137).
[While his soldiers were keeping their long and weary station under the
walls of Tyre, Nebuchadrezzar turned his attention to another important
matter. Because the people of Judah and Tyre had looked to Egypt for
assistance, they had given the Babylonian king much trouble. Egypt, there-
fore, must suffer for this ; so that she would not feel inclined to repeat her
action of sending an army to Zedekiah's aid. A new Egyptian campaign
was planned.]
A fragment at the beginning of which a prayer (" Thou destroyest my
enemies and makest my heart to rejoice " ) was set down, assigns the above-
mentioned campaign in Egypt to the year 568 (i.e. the thirty-seventh year
of the reign). The passage which refers to it, — "Year 37 of Nebuchad-
rezzar, king of (Babylonia to the land of) Misir, (i.e. Egypt) to give a
battle, he marched and (his troops A-ma)-a-su, the king of Misir assembled
and ..." leaves no doubt that Aahmes or Amasu is the king here meant,
for only the year before, in 569, Aahmes had revolted against Uah-ab-Ra and
forced him to recognise him (Aahmes) as co-regent. He soon afterward
became sole ruler in Egypt ; and, as such, he died in the year 528, shortly
before the conquest of Egypt by the Persians. Nebuchadrezzar meanwhile
contented himself with humbling the pride of Egypt, and refrained from
conquering the country, which even had it been successfully done would
but have raised difficulties for the Babylonian kingdom to cope with. His
chief aim, to keep Syria and Palestine clear of Egyptian influence, was
attained by the campaign.
Of Nebuchadrezzar's other military expeditions, the one mentioned (Jere-
miah xlix. 28-33) against the Bedouins of Kedar and the Arab tribes, which
had settled to the east of Palestine, leads us again to the borders of the Occi-
dent. The town of Teredon, at the mouth of the Euphrates, was founded at
this time as a bulwark against the Bedouins, and by reason of its situation
became, like Gerrha, on the Persian Gulf, and Thapsacus, Tiphsah, on the
middle Euphrates, a mercantile station of some importance. Not until the
time of the New Kingdom of Babylonia did a flourishing trade develop along
the Euphrates, with Armenia and the east coast of Arabia for its extreme
poles; and from the reign of Nebuchadrezzar dates the part played by
Babylon, his capital, as the greatest emporium of the ancient world, and
the proverbial meaning which the name of Babylon has retained down to
our times, to signify the worst aspects (luxury and license) of a capital
city.
From Babylon and the mention of her trade it would be a natural transi-
tion to the buildings erected by Nebuchadrezzar, if we were not first bound to
mention the north-west and east, which are of extreme importance from an
historical point of view, and in which Nebuchadrezzar took the part of a
mediator, if no more, between the Medes and the Lydians.
452 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[W4-5<;2 B.C.]
To return to the buildings erected by Nebuchadrezzar, which, up to this
time form the subject of nearly all the inscriptions discovered, the latter all
show his character in a favourable light. In all we find evidence of the
paternal care of a prince zealous for the welfare of his dominions, and of a
sincere and heartfelt piety which by no means leaves the impression that
it is a mere form of speech. We can listen to his own words prefixed to his
account of the buildings he erected and revealing something of his heart.
" Since the Lord, Marduk, created me, and made fair preparation for my
birth from the womb, from that time forward, when I was born and created,
I have visited the holy places of God, and walked in the ways of God.
To Marduk, my Lord, I prayed ; I took up my parable in prayer to him, the
speech of my heart came (before him) to him I spoke : ' Eternal, Holy, Lord
of all things, for the king, whom thou lovest, whose name thou callest ac-
cording to thy good pleasure, guide his name well, lead (or guard) him in a
straight path. I, the prince, who obeyeth thee, am the work of thy hands,
thou didst create me, thou didst commit unto me the royal dominion over
the whole people, according to thy grace, O Lord which thou sendest forth
upon all. Teach me to love thy august sovereignty, let the fear of thy
divinity be in my heart, bestow (upon me) that which is pleasing unto thee,
thou who preparest my life.' Thereupon the Highest, the Glorious, the first
among the gods, the august Marduk, heard my supplication and accepted my
prayers, he caused his great majesty to rule favourably, he caused the fear of
God to abide in my heart, I fear his majesty." And the conclusion runs:
" Babylon, the capital of the land, I established with the hills of the forest.
To Marduk, my lord, I prayed and lifted up my hand : 'Marduk, lord, the
first of gods, thou mighty prince, thou hast created me, thou hast committed
to me royal dominion over the multitude of the people, I love the majesty of
thy courts as my precious life. Save thy city of Babylon. I have made me
no other capital out of all inhabited places. As I love the fear of thy divin-
ity and seek thy majesty, so incline graciously to my supplication (literally,
to the raising of my hands), hear my prayers. I am the King, the Restorer,
who delights thy heart, the zealous ruler, the restorer of all thy cities. At
thy command, O merciful Marduk, may the house which I have built endure
to all eternity, may I satisfy myself in its abundance. May I come to old
age therein, may I satisfy myself with my glory, may I receive the weighty
tribute therein from the kings of all regions of the world and from all man-
kind. From the horizon of the heavens unto the meridian and at (?) the
rising sun may I have no enemies nor possess any adversaries (lit. them that
put me in fear). May my posterity bear rule therein over the black-headed
people to all eternity.' ';
Nebuchadrezzar, himself, attached the greatest importance to the resto-
ration of the temples of E-sagila and E-zida, as being the most ancient sanctu-
aries of Babylon, and in his briefest inscriptions, the stamp-marks on bricks,
whether used for the building of these two temples or any other edifice,
always had added to his title of king, that of restorer of the temples of
E-sagila and E-zida. Of greater interest to us, however, since we can still
admire the ruins of it, is a temple which is -only briefly referred to in a few
words in the long inscription, but of which we have a detailed account in
another, shorter inscription, namely, the Temple of the Seven Spheres of
Heaven and Earth, which was built in seven stories near (or as a ziggurat
of) E-zida at Borsippa.
But although Nebuchadrezzar devoted most thought to his beloved
Babylon (and to Borsippa) he in nowise neglected other seats of worship of
RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON 453
[604-560 B.C.]
the country. The temple of the Sun, at Sippar, the temple of a god as yet
unidentified, in the city of Baz (Paszitu), the temple of Idi-Anu (the Eye
of Anu), at Dilbat, the temple of Lugal-Amarda (Marad), E-Anna, the
temple of Ishtar, at Erech, the temple of the Sun, at Larsa, and the temple
of the Moon, at Erech, are enumerated one after another as having been rebuilt
by Nebuchadrezzar. With better right than his father he calls himself on
one of the Abu-Habba cylinders "the ruler of Sumer and Accad, who laid
the foundation of the land " (or as Winckler translates it, " made fast the
foundations of the land "), for in truth his new creations extended over the
whole territory that had been Sumer and Accad as we are familiar with it
in ancient Babylonian history, from the reigns of Ur-Ba'u of Ur onward.
Under him, after a long sleep (lasting in places for a thousand years) among
her ruins, the whole of Babylonia kept the festival of her resurrection, and
joyous sacrificial hymns resounded through the length and breadth of the
land during Nebuchadrezzar's long and prosperous reign, as in the days of
her distant prime.
To complete the picture of Nebuchadrezzar's capital, we must in conclu-
sion cast a glance at the vast fortifications with which this king girdled the
city he had created, and so insured it against the most formidable assault.
Nebuchadrezzar did not rest satisfied with completely restoring and enlarg-
ing these fortifications (a work that his father had begun, since they had
again been impaired) ; he included a strip of arable land some four thousand
cubits (about two to three kilometres) in breadth, on the farther side of the
rampart Nimitti-Bel, within another " mountain high " wall, and made it a
part of the outworks, thus casting a gigantic threefold girdle of ramparts
(or walls) and moats about the city. Nor was that enough : " To quell the
countenance of the enemy that he should not harass the (threefold) encom-
passment of Babylon, I surrounded the land with mighty streams, compar-
able unto the waters of the sea ; to cross them was as it were to cross the ocean.
To render an inundation from their midst (the midst of these artificial
courses) impossible, I heaped up masses of earth, I set up brick dams round
about them."
And herewith we must take leave of this truly great ruler, and turn to
his successors, who, unhappily, did not resemble him, and of whom the last,
Nabonidus by name, could alone be compared to him in his zeal for the res-
toration and adornment of the various temples of the country, though in all
other respects he fell far below the greatness of his mighty ancestor. This
inferiority is the reason that the New Babylonian Kingdom hurried so swiftly
to its unexpected end.
THE FOLLOWERS OF NEBUCHADREZZAR
We know from the Ptolemaic canon, Hommel goes on, that after Nebu-
chadrezzar's death (562) llloarudamos (probably a clerical error for Illoaru-
dakos, i.e. Amil-Marduk), the biblical Evil-Merodach, ascended the throne
and died in the second year of his reign (560). Berosus calls him a son of
Nebuchadrezzar, and describes bis short reign as unjust and licentious, this
being the reason why he was murdered by Neriglissor (Nergal-shar-usur), his
sister's husband, and thus son-in-law to Nebuchadrezzar. As a matter of
fact, in direct confirmation of the chronological statements of the Ptolemaic
(•anon, the only contract tablets that have been discovered of the reign of
this king, date from his accession, about July 22, 560 B.C. He is mentioned
in the Old Testament, in the last four verses of the 2nd Book of Kings;
454 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[860-665 B.C.]
"And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of
Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the seven and twentieth
day of the month, that Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon, in the year that he
began to reign, did lift up the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of
prison. And he spake kindly to him and set his throne above the throne
of the kings that were with him in Babylon ; and changed his prison gar-
ments, and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life.
And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily
rate for every day, all the days of his life." It is evident that the Bible here
refers to Amil-Marduk, for on the twenty-seventh Adar 560 this king was
still upon the throne (see the above date, 4th Abu), whilst the first well-
authenticated date of Neriglissor is 25th Marsheshwan, i.e. about 10th
November of that same year.
From the reign of Amil-Marduk we have no inscription, but we are in
better case as regards his successor, Nergal-shar-usur (the Nergal-sharezer of
the Bible ; Berosus, Neriglissor, Ptolemaic canon, Neriga-solasar). He reigned
from 559-556, for there are two inscriptions on cylinders and a brief in-
scription on brick which we may assign to this reign. The subject appears
to be some restoration in the shrine of E-zida at Babylon. Where the
inscription again becomes legible, the king gives an account of the con-
struction of a canal, the waters of which had gone away and withdrawn, and
of palace building.
The following questions are suggested by these inscriptions. Firstly,
who was his father, the Bel-shum-ishkum twice mentioned in them? Let it
suffice here to note the possibility that he may be identical with a former king
of Assyria, the son of Asshurbanapal, who certainly did not reign more than
a few months. The chronology presents no obstacle to the acceptance of
this hypothesis. Let us then assume that Bel-shum-ishkum was born about
645 ; he would then be about twenty years of age at the death of Asshur-
banapal, and about forty at the fall of Nineveh, after which he probably
found a refuge at the Babylonian court. By that time (606) his son Nergal-
shar-usur might very well be about eighteen years old ; if we take this for
granted, then the latter was thirty-seven in the year 587, in which two per-
sons of the same name (Nergal-sharezer, Jeremiah xxxix. 3) are mentioned
among Nebuchadrezzar's nobles (one among the " princes " in general, the
other amongst the officials of highest rank), sixty-four at his accession in
560 B.C. and not quite seventy when he died, which gives a great show of
probability to his identity with one or other of these two Nergal-sharezers.
Another question to which it would be very interesting to find an answer is
that of the wars of Nergal-shar-usur, for, short as his reign was, it is evident
from the two cylinder inscriptions that lie did wage wars. Unfortuately
we have no more exact information on the subject ; but if we consider that
as early as the year 555, that is, only a year after Nergal-shar-usur's death,
disorders of such magnitude had broken out in Mesopotamia, due to the
" Manda warriors" under the leadership of their king Ishtuvegu (Astyages),
that is to say, to Median hordes, that the Babylonians appealed to Kurush
(Cyrus), king of Anshan, who did, in fa«t, succeed in driving the Medes
back, we may be sure that the earliest incursions of the Manda into Babylo-
nian territory (of which Mesopotamia had formed a part since the fall of
Nineveh) took place in the reign of Neriglissor. This hypothesis is directly
confirmed by the tenor of Nabonidus' account of the invasion. In that case
Neriglissor's warlike enterprises were not crowned with brilliant success, or
at all events did not expel the Manda from Mesopotamia altogether,
RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON 455
THE KEIGN OF NABONIDUS (556-538 B.C.)
On the death of Neriglissor in 556, he was succeeded, according to
Berosus, by his son Labassarachos or Labarosoarchodos (in inscriptions
Lal>;islii-Marduk), but it appears that a Babylonian of high rank, Nabu-
naidu ("Nabu is glorious"), the sou of Nabu-balatsu-iqbi ("Nabu hath
foretold his life"), was immediately proclaimed king by an opposition party,
and although Labashi-Marduk made head against Nabu-naidu (or Nabonidus,
as he is usually known) for nine months, the latter dates the beginning of
his reign from the death of Neriglissor. According to Berosus, Labashi-
Marduk was a child, and fell victim to a conspiracy, having already betrayed
tokens of a bad disposition.
According to the Ptolemaic canon, Nabonidus reigned seventeen years,
which agrees with the circumstance that the latest of the numerous contract
tablets belonging to his reign up to this time discovered are dated the 5th of
Ulul (the middle of August) in his seventeenth year. He concerned himself
chiefly with the restoration of old temples elsewhere than in Babylon, as
those at Ur, Larsa, Sippar, and even at Kharran in Mesopotamia, that is, the
oldest sanctuaries in the country; while in Babylon, where he certainly
resided, if only at intervals, he seems to have done nothing except to proceed
with the building of the walls on the river bank.1 Nabonidus was actuated
not merely by religious motives, but by an interest in history and archaeology,
which grew to be an absolute mania with him. His inscriptions give us
minute information as to how he dug and hunted for the foundation cylinders
of these primitive temples, nor does he fail to deal many a sly hit at his
predecessors (Nebuchadrezzar, for example), who had not always conscien-
tiously done this, and had consequently many a time built something that
was not in the original plan. When, after long search, Nabonidus found
these cylinders, often buried deep down in the ground, he reproduced
the tenor of them exactly, frequently giving the precise number of years
between his own reign and that of the ancient Babylonian king in question,
and so providing us with the most valuable data for determining the earliest
periods of Babylonian history. In this way we have learned the date of
Naram-Sim, the ancient king of Agade, of Shagarakti-Buriash [sometimes
read Shagarakti-Shuriash], and lastly, as it would appear, of Khammurabi
(although in this case the computation is incorrect), together with many
other data of historical importance. For this reason the reign of Nabo-
nidus is to us among the most important in Babylonian history, but his
passion for archaeology — which seems to have made him forget the world
entirely, and, in particular, overlook the danger with which the victories of
Cyrus menaced Babylonia — was of less service to himself, and ultimately
cost him his throne and liberty.
We have already mentioned the fragment of the Babylonian chronicle
treating of the reign of Nabonidus and the conquest of Babylon and the
whole Babylonian empire by Cyrus. We will now regard the public events
of the reign of the last native king of Babylonia in the light of this text.
In the first year mention is made of a military expedition with the object of
subjugating a prince of whose name, unfortunately, nothing (or at most the
termination, shu'ishshi) has been preserved, but whom we should, perhaps,
be justified in regarding as the chieftain of a Median tribe.
[* The authorities seem to be in dispute as to Nabonidus' place of residence. Professor
Rogers says (History of Babylon and Assyria, Vol. II, p. 301), "He [Nabonidus] did not
;it Babylon at all, but at Tema, probably an insignificant place, with no other influence in,
history."]
456 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[555-547 B.C.]
From the first section of the cylinder-inscription of Abu-Habba we see
that if, after the deliverance of Kharran, Nabonidus summoned his troops
from the frontier of Egypt and onward to the Gulf of Issus and the Persian
Gulf, to the work of building, or the collection of building material; these
were not military enterprises in the strict sense of the term (and this is
characteristic), but merely expeditions for peaceful ends, which were all the
easier for Nabonidus to achieve, because, since the reign of Nebuchadrezzar
the Babylonians had held undisputed possession of the "Occident" right up
to the Egyptian frontier. The only exception to this rule seems to be the
account of the beginning of the first year (or the beginning of his reign)
given in the chronicle, where, among other things, it is said, "the king sum-
moned his warriors." But this expedition was, in all likelihood, only the
less laborious gleaning left to Nabonidus after the conquest of the Medea
by Cyrus.
The next event narrated in the chronicle is the final defeat of the Medes
by Cyrus, which cannot, therefore, have taken place later than the sixth year
of the reign of Nabonidus, that is, 550 B.C., and may have been earlier.
The account of the seventh year is difficult to understand, but this much
is plain, that in those years Nabonidus was not present at the New Year's
celebration at E-sagila, nay, that the festival in question did not take place
at all. We do not know why this was so, but we may conjecture that the
reason was a hierarchical revolution, a kind of vote of want of confidence in
the king, who was pursuing his works and researches in the temples of Sip-
par, Ur, Larsa, and other cities, heedless of the danger that menaced the
country from Cyrus.
Of greater importance, historically, is the account of the ninth year (547
B.C.). After repeating the statement concerning the non-celebration of the
feast of Bel, it proceeds : On the 5th of Nisan the king's mother died in the
fortified camp on the far side (Sha am? = sha ammat) of the Euphrates above
Sippar ; for three days mourning prevailed and lamentation, in the month of
Sivan there was mourning (official) for the queen-mother throughout the
(whole) land of Accad. In the Nisan (of this year) Kurush (Cyrus), king
of the land of Parsu, had summoned his warriors and crossed the Tigris be-
low Arbela, in order to invade Asia Minor in the following month, Airu,
"from the king he took away his silver and goods, his own children he caused
to mount the [funeral pyre], after his children and the king (he himself,
Cyrus?) were therein."
We know from Herodotus that an expedition of Cyrus against King
Croesus of Lydia took place at this very time, and ended with the siege and
reduction of Sardis and the fall of the kingdom of Lydia, after an indecisive
battle had been fought in Cappadocia, near Pteria (Boghaz-koi), a place
since made famous by the discovery of a Hittite bas-relief. Nabonidus had
joined the alliance between Lydia, Sparta and Aahmes of Egypt, on which
Croesus relied when he began the war against Cyrus ; probably he thought
he could make an easy conquest of Media and Elam after the defeat he ex-
pected Cyrus to suffer in Asia Minor. The Babylonians do not seem to
have taken any active part in the struggle after Cyrus' speedy victory over
the Lydians, but nevertheless with that victory the fate of Babylonia was
practically sealed. For it was obvious that Cyrus, who had not only ruled
over the whole of Media, since the taking of Ecbatana, but was also undis-
puted master of Armenia right up to the western coast of Asia Minor, and
thus had really become emperor (or great king) would take the first
opportunity of seizing upon Babylonia and its wealthy Syrian provinces.
RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON 457
[547-838 B.C.]
Moreover, from this time forth he had the best of reasons for regarding
Nabonidus as a disloyal neighbour who deserved condign punishment.
In the tenth and eleventh years the chronicle first notes the omission of
the Feast of Bel in exactly the same terms as in the case of the seventh and
ninth years, and when the narration begins we find ourselves in the seven-
teenth and last year of the reign of Nabonidus (539 B.C.). After a series
of sentences which are very much defaced the narrative proceeds : " In the
month of Tammuz (June-July, 539), Kurush [Cyrus] fought a battle at
Kish (?) above the canal of Illat (?) against the warriors of the land of
Accad ; the people of the land of Accad rose up against the ranks of soldiers,
on the 14th day (of Tammuz) the city of Sippar was taken without a battle,
Nabonidus fled. On the 17th day (i.e. about July 5, 539), Ugbaru (Gobryas),
governor of Guti (i.e. the district to the east of Arbela), and the warriors of Ku-
rush marched into E-ki (Babylon) ; when Nabonidus thereupon entrenched
himself in E-ki (Babylon) he was taken captive. Even unto the end of the
month the tukkimi (troops ?) of the land of Guti encompassed the gates
of E-sagila, yet were not weapons of any sort laid upon E-sagila and the
(other) temples, nor was the embellishment (i.e. the images and vessels of
the temple) taken away. On the 3rd of Marsheshwan (Arakhsamnu, i.e.
about October 19), Kurush marched into E-ki, the streets were filled in
view of his entry, he established peace in the city; Kurush proclaimed peace
to the whole of Tintir (Babylon), he set Ugbaru (Gobryas), his vicegerent,
as vicegerent over Babylon, and from the month Kislev even until Adar
(November-December, 539-February-March, 538), he caused the gods of
the land of Accad, which Nabonidus had caused to be brought into Babylon,
to be carried back into their own places. In the same (?) month, on the
llth day, Ugbaru went over and the king dies ; from the 27th of the month
Adar, even to the 3rd of Nisan (the end of March, 538), there is mourning in
Accad, all the people loose (lit. cleave) their hair (?) ; on the 4th, Kambujiya
(Cambyses), the son of Kurush, goes to the temple of the city (?) of Khad-
kalamasummu. ..." What follows is defaced beyond translation, and, to
judge from the scraps of lines still decipherable, contains nothing of historic
interest ; for example, it goes on to speak of the temple of E-Anna at Erech.
Thus we see that Babylon itself received King Cyrus with open arms,
and that, even as the Kossseans had usurped and long maintained the mas-
tery of Accad, so now the Persians superseded the native dynasty. The
event was therefore no new thing, and, as a matter of fact, Babylonian his-
tory proceeds upon the old lines under Cyrus and his successors, so that it is
hard to see why most narratives should break off at this point. The national
literature and mode of writing continued to flourish, but the history of
Babylonia and Assyria, of which the short-lived prosperity of the New Baby-
lonian Kingdom was the last chapter, concluded with the entry of Cyrus
into Babylon ; the subsequent history of Babylonia is of local interest only,
and has no further significance for the world.
Lastly, as regards the important original Babylonian inscription of the
reign of Cyrus, which has been referred to before, it most fully confirms the
correctness of the impression made by the narrative of the chronicle on every
unprejudiced reader. The Babylonians, with the hierarchy of the city of
Babylon at their head, were utterly weary of the feeble rule of Nabonidus,
who does not seem even to have been of the blood-royal, and hailed Cyrus as
deliverer. At the bidding of Cyrus the learned Babylonian scribes were
charged to draw up an inscription, and from its contents and wording (which
can hardly have been dictated by the king of Persia) we can clearly realise the
458 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
[538 B.C.]
view of the situation taken by the priestly circles of the country (which gov-
erned the populace). From the very beginning, defaced as it is, we perceive
that Nabonidus is made the scapegoat for everything. He is represented with
having sent forth " to Ur and the other cities oracles that did not beseem
them" (i.e. the gods), with "thinking daily upon evil" (?), with having
" caused the daily sacrifice to cease " and grossly neglected the worship of
the god Marduk ; further, with having " let the fortifications of Babylon fall
into ruin, so that the lord of the gods was greatly incensed in lamentation
thereat," as well as " with wrath that he had brought in (into E-sagila) the
gods (of other Babylonian cities), who were thus constrained to forsake
their (former) temples.
Then it came to pass that Marduk " looked upon his friend," and " laid
hold of his hand, Kurush, king of Anshan, was his name called " ; " he
subdued the land of the Kuti and the whole host of the Manda hordes
beneath his feet ; he caused the black-headed people to fall into his hands ;
in righteousness and justice came he unto them." The god Marduk
" bade him to go to Babylon and take the road to Tintir, like a friend and
comrade went he at his side, the multitude of his troops, whereof the num-
ber, like unto the waters of a river, was not known, girt on the weapons and
marched at his side ; he (Marduk) caused him to enter Shu-anna (Babylon)
without strife or battle ; Babylon, his city, he spared with difficulty ; Naboni-
dus the king, who did not fear him, he gave over into his (Kurush's)
hands ; all the people of Tintir, the whole multitude of Sumer and Accad,
the princes and the ruler who submitted to his dynasty, kissed his feet and
rejoiced in his royal dominion ; their faces shone. The Lord, who (draweth
nigh) with succour, who raiseth the dead to life, who in might bestoweth
benefits upon the whole earth, graciously blesseth him (Cyrus) and hath
respect unto his name. I, Kurush, King of the world, the mighty King,
King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Accad, King of the four quarters of
the Earth, son of Kambujiya, the great King, the King of the city of Anshan,
grandson of Kurush, the great King, the King of the city of Anshan, descen-
dant (libbalbaT) of Sispis, the great King, the King of Anshan, the eternal
shoot of royalty, whose government Bel and Nabu love, to do good unto his
heart and for the superabundance of his joy." Cyrus then proceeds to lay
stress upon his peaceful entry into Babylon and the gladness and rejoicing
amidst which he took up his abode there, on how his troops occupied the
city in peace and he himself visited the other cities in peace, how he repaired
their ruins and loosed their chains (?), how Marduk was gracious towards
him and his son Kambujiya (Cambyses), and how, "at Marduk's august
bidding all the kings who dwelt in royal chambers, from all quarters undeij
heaven, from the upper sea even to the lower sea, and likewise the kings of
the Occident who inhabit [the desert] and they that dwell in tents," all
brought weighty tribute and kissed his feet at Babylon.
" From . . . even unto the cities of Asshur and Ishtar-Damiktu (?), the
city of Agade, the land of Ishnunnak, the cities of Zambaru, Mi-Turnu and
Dur-ilu, even unto the region of the land of Kuti, the cities on the (bank
of) Tigris, where their dwelling-place was from of old, I carried the gods
that dwelt there back to their places," " the gods of Sumer, and Accad, whom
Nabonidus, to the great indignation of the lord of gods, had caused to be
brought into Babylon, I set once more into their shrines in peace at the
command of Marduk."
Such is practically the tenor (and wording) of the Cyrus inscription,
which, considered in connection with the chronicle which has come down to
RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON
469
[538 B.C.]
us from the reign of Nabonidus, sets this important matter of the transfer-
ence of the new Babylonian Empire to Cyrus the Achaemeniad in an entirely
new light. The termination of the political independence of Babylon came
about in quite other guise than the end of Nineveh ; there was no blood-
shed, no siege, no judgment with fire and devastation. A further act of
peace was the permission given by Cyrus to the Jews who dwelt in and
about Babylon to return to the Holy Land. This is referred to in the
prophecy of the great unknown prophet of the latter half of the Babylonian
exile, the so-called Second Isaiah (Isaiah xliv. to the end). " The Lord that
saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure : even
saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple, Thy foundation
shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right
hand I have holden, to subdue nations (the Medes and Lydians) before him ;
and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates ;
and the gates shall not be shut."
The last words involuntarily recall to our minds the gates of Babylon,
which opened of themselves to the clement conqueror. And this prophecy,
no less than the conduct of the Babylonian priests, shows that Cyrus was
preceded by a reputation for clemency; for what would their ready submis-
sion have availed the latter, had Cyrus been a savage conqueror like other
semi-barbaric tribal chiefs? Pillage and many horrors would then have
been the lot of Babylon when she opened her gates to the foreign king. It
seems probable, however, that the Babylonians nourished the certain hope
that Cyrus would spare them.
Thus the history of Babylonia closes peaceably upon the noble figure of
Cyrus, the Achaemeniad prince, who commands our warmest sympathies.
Planted in Babylonian soil at the beginning of time, the primitive civilisa-
tion of the Sumerians was brought to the flower by the Babylonian Semites,
then further developed and transplanted to Asshur and Nineveh. There
the conditions grew ripe under which Assyria became the ruling power of
the world. After the fall of her empire, the ancient mother-country became
for a brief season the centre of the civilisation which had taken its rise there
two thousand years before, and this civilisation now passed on as a legacy to
the Persians, not to die among them, but to revivify and educate, even as,
on the other hand, it drew fresh strength from the youthful vigour of the
Indo-Germanic race, untutored as yet, but abundantly endowed with all
intellectual gifts.* •
BAS-BELIBF OF EUNUCH WARRIORS IN BATTLE
(Found »t Nimrud) (Layard)
CHAPTER VII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF
BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA
WAR METHODS
The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering
spear : and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of car-
cases ; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon
their corpses. — Nahum iii. 3.
IN following the political fortunes of Babylonia and Assyria we have nec-
essarily caught glimpses from time to time of the conditions of civilisation
which form everywhere the background of the picture. But it is desirable
to view some phases of this civilisation more in detail, and an attempt will be
made in the present book to summarise these conditions as a whole, and to
elaborate certain details in reference to the more interesting or more impor-
tant themes. Such an attempt within the spacial limits necessarily imposed
cannot hope to be altogether satisfactory. In particular it must be borne in
mind that we are dealing, or attempting to deal, with a period of time not
less than three thousand years in extent, even if we consider only the mini-
mum epoch covered by a tolerably sure chronology.
It is obvious that in such a sweep of time numerous changes must take
place in the manners and customs of the people, and multiform alterations
must be developed in the various phases of civilisation. This would neces-
sarily be true even if the history of a single people were involved. But, in
point of fact, as we have seen, we have here to do with four tolerably distinct
peoples — the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Chaldeans.
To attempt a brief exposition of the varied civilisations of these four peoples
during a period of several millenniums within brief bounds, would clearly be a
presumptuous task were full details accessible as to all the periods involved.
But we have already seen that such details are not accessible. Meagre
details have come down to us from the Sumerians, and only less meagre ones
from the old Babylonians ; and the reminiscences of the Chaldeans, notwith-
standing their later period in history, are but slightly less vague. It is the
Assyrians that must be looked to chiefly for data that can afford us, at best,
460
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 461
an inferential knowledge of their predecessors; and we must all along re-
member that we are to a certain extent seeing with Assyrian eyes in attempt-
ing to view the Babylonian civilisation. Still, it should be recalled that
important changes in the manners arid customs of any people are usually of
slow development everywhere, and that they were perhaps particularly so
here, because we have to do with the most conservative of races. The Baby-
lonians and Assyrians were own cousins to the Hebrews, and no doubt par-
took in full measure of what Goethe styles the " obstinate persistency " of
that race. The main outline of their civilisation, therefore, probably re-
mained unchanged generation after generation.
On the other hand, it must be understood that the Sumerians, whatever
their precise racial affinities, were a very different people from the Semitic
races that superseded them. There is reason to believe that they were essen-
tially a creative race, whereas the Semites, and in particular the Assyrians,
were pre-eminently copyists and adapters rather than originators. It would
appear that all the chief features of the later Assyrian civilisation were
adumbrated, if not indeed fully elaborated, in that early day when the Sume-
rians were dominant in southern Babylonia. Even the cuneiform system of
writing, with all its extraordinary complexities, is believed by philologists to
give unequivocal evidence of Sumerian origin. But however correct this
view may be, we are constrained to view the Sumerians solely in the light of
their successors. The monumental remains exhumed from amid the ruins of
the palace of Asshurbanapal supply us with the chief documents for the inter-
pretation of a civilisation that had passed away something like three thou-
sand years before this palace itself or its documentary treasures came into
being.
This is somewhat as if one were to study the manners and customs of the
Italians of to-day in order to gain a knowledge of the civilisation of Rome in
the time of the Tarquinians. The parallel is really not quite so complete as
it might at first sight appear, for in many respects practical civilisation
changed more in the nineteenth century than in all the previous centuries of
recorded history. Beyond cavil, the civilisation of the time of Sargon I had
far greater resemblance to the time of Asshurbanapal than the Rome of the
early kings bears to the Rome of King Victor Emmanuel. Nevertheless,
we should bear this corrective view in mind in the alleged attempt to deal
with Mesopotamian civilisation as a whole.
OUR SOURCES
The sources of our' knowledge of Mesopotamian history have been pretty
fully discussed in previous chapters. Beyond the classical traditions, our
sole reliance must be placed upon the monuments. And of these the sculp-
tures are by far the most important in their bearings upon the civilisation of
the people.
Very little is said, except inferentially, by the written inscriptions, that
throws any definite light upon the manners and customs of the people. But
fortunately the Assyrians in particular were much given to pictorial presen-
tation of the scenes of at least certain features of their everyday life ; their
bas-reliefs, therefore, furnish us with the clearest index as to their life customs.
The interpretation of these bas-reliefs in this light was first taken up in
detail by Sir Henry Layard, and his expositions remain to this day the most
complete and satisfactory. We shall have occasion to turn frequently to his
pages in the present book, supplementing his accounts with certain elabora-
462 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
lions, in particular with reference to the religions and legal documents, based
on the more recent readings of the inscriptions.
However much the customs of the Babylonians and Assyrians may have
changed in the course of ages, there was one important regard in which there
was probably no conspicuous alteration from first to last. This was the
character of the government. Like other orientals, the Mesopotamians had
no conception of any government except a thoroughly despotic one. They
were ruled by kings whose authority was absolute, and whose will was
accepted as the sole law. A change of government meant merely the over-
throw of one king by some one who, attaining supreme authority, was him-
self to be recognised as king.
But the assumption and retention of exclusive power in a body politic
by one individual presupposes a triumph of physical force. Kingship in its
oriental manifestation has its foundation in military power. We find, there-
fore, that the Babylonian or Assyrian monarch is able to make himself felt
and remembered just in proportion as he is a competent military leader. To
be a great king he must be a great conqueror. A record of conquests is
substantially the whole story of the royal annals. It is a very sanguinary
and inhuman story as we have seen.
The texts of the inscriptions deal with results rather than with methods.
We are told the names of peoples against whom warfare was waged ; lists of
captives and booty are not forgotten, the idea being of course to perpetuate
the glory of the conqueror. To that end the name of the conqueror himself
is always given, the narrative being usually told in the first person ; but one
never hears so much as the name of a subordinate. It is the king alone to
whom credit is to be given.
What the inscriptions lack in the way of reference to details of the art of
warfare is supplied by the Assyrian bas-reliefs. These represent armies in
action and enable us to form a very clear picture of the war costumes, the
weapons, and to a certain extent of the battle methods of the Assyrians. In
particular the details are given of the methods of assault by which the
Assyrians were accustomed to break down the walls of a rebellious city.
Battering-rams and scaling-towers are depicted in the most realistic manner,
and are a favourite subject of the artist — partly, no doubt, because they lend
themselves to pictorial presentation ; partly, perhaps, because the Assyrians
excelled in this particular phase of warfare. But other phases of warfare are
by no means overlooked. Even such details as the beheading or flaying
alive of captives are presented with gruesome realism.
For the reason already stated, our text will have to do chiefly with the
art of war as practised by the Assyrians, rather than by their predecessors.
Whether any of the implements or methods employed in this relatively late
period originated with the Assyrians themselves, we have no present means
of deciding. The presumption is, however, that the Assyrian king pursued
the art of war in much the same way it had been practised by the old
Babylonian kings from time immemorial."
As the Assyrians possessed disciplined and organised troops, it is proba-
ble that they were also acquainted, to a certain extent, with military tactics,
and that their battles were fought upon some kind of system. We know
that such was the case with the Egyptians ; and their monuments show that
amongst their enemies, also, there were nations not unacquainted with the
military science. They had bodies of troops in reserve ; they advanced and
retreated in rank, and performed various manoeuvres. Although, in the
Assyrian sculptures, we have no attempt at an actual representation of the
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 463
general plan of a battle, as in some Egyptian bas-reliefs, yet from the
in which the soldiers are drawn up before the castle walls, and from the
phalanx which they then appear to form, it seems highly probable that simi-
lar means were adopted to resist tin- assaults of the enemy in the open field.
Tin! king himself, attended by his vizier, his eunuchs, and principal officers
of state, \\as present in battle, and not only commanded, but took an active
part in the affray. Even [the traditional] Sardanapalus, when called upon to
place himself at the head of his armies to meet the invading [traditional]
Modes, showed a courage equal to the occasion, and repulsed his enemies.
Like the Persian monarchs who succeeded him in the dominion of Asia, the
Assyrian king was accompanied to the war, however distant his seat might be,
by liis wives, his concubines, and his children, and by an enormous retinue
of servants. Even his nobles were similarly attended. Their couches were of
gold and silver, and the hangings of the richest materials. Vessels of the
same precious metals were used at their tables; their tents were made of the
most costly stuffs, and were even adorned with precious stones. The canopy
or tent of Holofernes was of purple, gold, and emeralds and precious stones ;
and every man had gold and silver (vessels) out of the king's house.
(Judith ii. 18.) This book contains an interesting account of the luxurious
manner of living of the great Assyrian warriors, confirming what has been
said in the text, and showing that the Persians were, in this respect, as
almost in every other, imitators of the Assyrians. Herodotus (Lib. IX., c.
82 and 83) describes the equipage, furnished with gold and silver, and with
various coloured hangings, and the gold and silver couches and tables, found
in the tents of Mardonius after the defeat of the Persian army. They had
been left by Xerxes when he fled from Greece. They were also accom-
panied by musicians, who are represented in the sculptures as walking
before the warriors, on their triumphant return from battle.
The army was followed by a crowd of sutlers, servants, and grooms ;
who, whilst adding to its bulk, acted as an impediment upon its movements,
and carried ruin and desolation into the countries through which it passed.
As tlu's multitude could not depend entirely for supplies upon the inhabi-
tants, whom they unmercifully pillaged, provisions in great abundance, as
well as live-stock, were carried with them. Holofernes, in marching from
Nineveh with his army, took with him " camels and asses for their carriage,
a very great number, and sheep, and oxen, and goats without number, for
their provision ; and plenty of victuals for every man."
Quintus Curtius thus describes the march of a Persian army : The
signal was given from the tent of the king, on the top of which, so as to be
seen by all, was placed an image of the sun, in crystal. The holy fire
was borne on altars of silver, surrounded by the priests, chanting their
sacred hymns. They were followed by three hundred and sixty-five youths,
according to the number of the days in the year, dressed in purple garments.
The chariot, dedicated to the supreme deity, or to the sun, was drawn by
snow-white horses, led by grooms wearing white garments, and carrying
golden wands. The horse especially consecrated to the sun was chosen from
its size. It was followed by ten chariots, embossed with gold and silver, and
by the cavalry of twelve nations, dressed in their various costumes, and car-
rying their peculiar arms. Then came the Persian immortals, ten thousand
in number, adorned with golden chains, and wearing robes embroidered with
gold, and long-sleeved tunics, all glittering with precious stones. At a short
interval fifteen thousand nobles, who bore the honourable title of relations
of the king, walked in garments which, in magnificence and luxury, more
464
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
resembled those of women than of men. The doryphori (a chosen company
of spearmen) preceded the chariot in which the king himself sat, high above
the surrounding multitude. On either side of this chariot were effigies of
the gods in gold and silver. The yoke was inlaid with the rarest jewels.
From it projected two golden figures of Ninus and Belus, each a cubit in
length. A golden eagle with outspread wings was placed between them.
The king was distinguished, from all those who surrounded him, by the
magnificence of his robes, and by the cidaris, or mitre, upon his head. By
his side walked two hundred of the most noble of his relations. Ten thou-
sand warriors, bearing spears whose staffs were of silver and heads of gold,
followed the royal chariot. The king's led horses, forty in number, and
thirty thousand footmen, concluded the procession. At the distance of one
THE ENEMY ASKING QUARTER OF ASSYRIAN HORSEMEN
stadium followed the mother and wife of the king, in chariots. A crowd of
women, the handmaidens and ladies of the queens, accompanied them on
horseback. Fifteen cars, called armamaxse, carried the children of the king,
their tutors and nurses, and the eunuchs. The king's three hundred
and sixty concubines, who accompanied him, were adorned with royal
splendour. Six hundred mules and three hundred camels bore the royal
treasury, guarded by the archers. The friends and relations of the ladies
were mingled with a crowd of cooks and servants of all kinds. The pro-
cession was closed by the light-armed troops.
The armies were provided with the engines and materials necessary for
the siege of the cities they might meet with in their expedition. If any
natural obstructions impeded the approach to a castle, such as a forest or a
MANNERS AND (TSTo.MS OF I'.ABYLUN 1 A-ASSYKIA 4G5
river, they were, if possible, removed. Rivers were turned out of their
courses, if they impeded the operations of the army ; and warriors are fre-
quently represented in the sculptures cutting down trees which surround
a hostile city.
The first step in a siege was probably to advance the battering-ram. If
the castle was built, as in the plains of Assyria and Babylonia, upon an arti-
ficial eminence, an inclined plane, reaching to the summit of the mound, was
formed of earth, stones, or trees, and the besiegers were then able to bring
their engines to the foot of the walls. This road was not unfrequently
covered with bricks, forming a kind of paved way, up which the ponderous
machines could be drawn without much difficulty.
This mode of reaching the walls of a city is frequently alluded to by the
prophets, and is described by Isaiah : " Thus saith the Lord, concerning the
king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there,
nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. " Similar approaches
were used by the Egyptians. They not only enabled the besiegers to push
their battering-rams up to the castle, but at the same time to escalade the
walls, the summit of which might otherwise have been beyond the reach of
their ladders.
The battering-rams were of several kinds. Some were joined to mov-
able towers which held warriors and armed men. The whole then formed
one great temporary building, the top of which is represented in the sculp-
tures, as on a level with the walls, and even turrets, of the besieged city. In
some bas-reliefs the battering-ram is without wheels ; it was then perhaps
constructed on the spot, and was not intended to be moved. The movable
tower was probably sometimes unprovided with the ram ; but I have not
met with it so represented in the sculptures. When Nebuchadrezzar,
king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem, he "built forts against it round
about." These forts or towers, if stationary, were solidly constructed of
wood; if movable, they consisted of a light frame covered with wicker-
work. The Jews were forbidden to cut down and employ, for this pur-
pose, trees which afford sustenance to man. " Only the trees which thou
knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them
down : and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with
thee until it be subdued."
When the machine containing the battering-ram consisted of a simple
framework, not forming an artificial tower, a cloth of some kind of drapery
edged with fringes and otherwise ornamented appears to have been occa-
sionally thrown over it. Sometimes it may have been covered with hides. ,
It moved either on four or on six wheels, and was provided with one ram or
with two. The mode of working the rams cannot be determined from the
Assyrian sculptures. It may be presumed, from the representations in the
bas-reliefs, that they were partly suspended by a rope fastened to the outside
of the machine, and that men directed and impelled them from within. Such
was the plan adopted by the Egyptians, in whose paintings the warriors,
working the ram, may be seen through the frame. Sometimes this engine
was ornamented by a carved or painted figure of the presiding divinity,
kneeling on one knee and drawing a bow. The artificial tower was usually
occupied by two warriors : one discharged his arrows against the besieged,
whom he was able from his lofty position to harass more effectually than if
he had been below ; the other held up a shield for his companion's defence.
Warriors are not unfrequently represented as stepping from the machine to
the battlements.
H. W. VOL. I. 2n
466
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Ezekiel alludes to all these modes of attack. " Lay siege against it," he
exclaims, speaking of the city of Jerusalem, "and build a fort against it, and
cast a mount against it ; set the camp also against it, and set battering-rams
against it round about."
Archers on the walls hurled stones from slings, and discharged their
arrows against the warriors in the artificial towers ; whilst the rest of the
besieged were no less active in endeavouring to frustrate the attempts of the
assailants to make breaches in their walls. By dropping a doubled chain or
rope from the battlements, they caught the ram, and could either destroy its
efficacy altogether or break the force of its blows. Those below, however,
by placing hooks over the engine, and throwing their whole weight upon
them, struggled to retain it in its place.
The besieged, if unable to displace the battering-ram, sought to destroy
it by fire and threw lighted torches or firebrands upon it. But water was
poured upon the flames, through
pipes attached to the artificial tower.
Other engines and instruments of
war were employed by the besiegers.
With a kind of catapult, apparently
consisting of a light wooden frame
covered with canvas or hides, they
threw large stones and darts against
the besieged, who, in their turn, en-
deavoured to set fire to it by torches.
A long staff with an iron head, re-
sembling a spear, was used to force
stones out of the walls. Mines were
also opened, and the assailants sought
to enter the castle through concealed
passages. Those who worked on
them, or advanced to the attack, were
perhaps protected by the testudo, as
represented in the Egyptian paint-
ings ; but this defence is not seen in
the Assyrian sculptures. Attempts
were made to set fire to the gates of
the city by placing torches against
them, or to break them open with
axes.
Mounting to the assault by lad-
ders was constantly practised, and
appears to have been the most general mode of attacking a castle ; for ladders
are found on those bas-reliefs in which neither the battering-ram nor other
engines are introduced. It is remarkable that the battering-ram is not intro-
duced in the sculptures hitherto discovered at Kuyunjik, nor, as far as I am
aware, in those of Khorsabad. It would appear, therefore, that at the period
of the building of those edifices it had fallen into disuse. Scaling-ladders
appear in Egyptian sculptures as early as the XlXth Dynasty. Ramses III
is seen taking a city, by their means, at Medinet Habu. They reached to
the top of the battlements, and several persons could ascend them at the
same time. Whilst warriors, armed with the sword and spear, scaled the
walls, archers posted at the foot of the ladders kept the enemy in check and
drove them from the walls.
AN ASSYKIAN ARCHER
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 467
The troops. of the besieging army were ranged in ranks below. The king
was frequently present during the attack. Descending from his chariot,
which remained stationary at a short distance behind him, he discharged his
arrows against the enemy. He was attended by his shield bearer and eunuchs,
one of whom generally held over him the emblem of royalty, the umbrella,
whilst the others bore his arms. He is sometimes represented in his char-
iots, superintending the operations, or repulsing a sally. Warriors of high
rank likewise came in chariots, accompanied by their shield bearers and chari-
oteers. The vizier and the chief of the eunuchs are frequently seen in the
midst of the combatants.
The besieging warriors were protected, as I have already mentioned, by
large shields of wickerwopk, sometimes covered with hides, which concealed
the entire person. Three men frequently formed a group ; one held the
shield, a second drew the bow, and a third stood ready with a sword to defend
the archer and shield bearer, in case the enemy should sally from the castle.
The besieged manned the battlements with archers and slingers, who
discharged their missiles against the assailants. Large stones and hot
water were also thrown upon those below. A woman from the battlement
of Thebez cast a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and broke his skull
(Judges ix. 53).
When the battering-ram had made a breach, and the assault had com-
menced, the women appeared upon the walls ; and, tearing their hair or
stretching out their hands, implored mercy. The men are not unfrequently
represented as joining in asking for quarter. When the assailants were once
masters of the place, an indiscriminate slaughter appears to have succeeded,
and the city was generally given over to the flames. In the bas-reliefs war-
riors are seen decapitating the conquered and plunging swords or daggers
into their hearts, holding them by the hair of their heads. The prisoners
were either impaled and subjected to horrible torments or carried away as
slaves. The manner of impaling, adopted by the Assyrians, appears to have
differed from that still in use in the East. A stake was driven into the body
immediately under the ribs. When Darius took Babylon he impaled three
thousand prisoners (Herod, iii. 159). In a bas-relief discovered at Khor-
sabad, a man was represented flaying a prisoner with a semicircular knife.
The Scythians scalped and flayed their enemies, and used their skins as horse-
trappings (Herod, iv. 64).
The women, children, and cattle were led away by the conquerors ; and
that it was frequently the custom of the Assyrians to remove the whole popu-
lation of the conquered country to some distant part of their dominions, and
to replace it by colonies of their own, we learn from the treatment of the people
of Samaria. Eunuchs and scribes were appointed to take an inventory of the
spoil. They appear to have stood near the gates, and wrote down with a pen,
probably upon rolls of leather, the number of prisoners, sheep, and oxen, and
the amount of the booty, which issued from the city. The women were
sometimes taken away in bullock carts, and are usually seen in the bas-reliefs
bearing a part of their property with them — either a vase or a sack perhaps
filled with household stuff. They were sometimes accompanied by their chil-
dren, and are generally represented as tearing their hair, throwing dust upon
their heads, and bewailing their lot.
After the city had been taken, a throne for the king appears to have been
placed in some conspicuous spot within the walls. He is represented in the
sculptures as sitting upon it, attended by his eunuchs and principal officers,
and receiving the prisoners brought bound into his presence. The chiefs
468 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
prostrate themselves before him, whilst he places his foot upon their necks,
as Joshua commanded the captains of Israel to put their feet upon the necks
of the captive kings. This custom long prevailed in the East. In the rock
sculpture of Behistun, Darius is seen with his foot upon the neck of Gometes,
the rebellious Magian, who declared himself to be Bardius, the sou of Cyrus.
When inferior prisoners were captured, their hands were tied behind, or their
arms and feet were bound by iron manacles.
They were urged onward by blows from the spears or swords of the
warriors to whom they were entrusted. In a bas-relief from Kliorsabad, cap-
tives are led before the king by a rope fastened to rings passed through the
lip and nose. This sculpture illustrates the passage in 2 Kings xix. 28 : "I
will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips." The king is repre-
sented in the bas-relief as holding a rope fastened to a ring, which passes
through the lips of a prisoner, one of whose eyes he appears to be piercing
with his spear.
In the sculptures of Khorsabad and Kuyunjik, captives are seen bringing
small models of their cities to the victorious king, as a token of their subjec-
tion. Similar models are borne in triumphal processions.
The heads of the slain were generally collected, and brought either to the
king or to an officer appointed to take account of their number. When
Ahab's seventy sons were killed, their heads were cut off, and brought in
baskets to Jezreel. They were afterwards, laid " in two heaps at the entering
in of the gate " (2 Kings x. 8). The Egyptians generally counted by
hands. This mode of reckoning the loss of the enemy was long resorted to
in the East.
As soon as the soldiers entered the captured city, they- began to plunder,
and then hurried away with the spoil. They led off the horses, carried forth
on their shoulders furniture and vessels of gold, silver, and other metals, and
made prisoners of the inhabitants, who, probably, became the property of
those who seized them. The Assyrian warriors are seen in the sculptures
bearing away in triumph the idols of the conquered nations, or breaking
them into pieces, weighing them in scales, and dividing the fragments.
Thus Hosea prophesied that the calf, the idol of Samaria, should be carried
away by the Assyrians.
When the city had been sacked it was usually given up to the flames and
utterly destroyed. The surrounding country was also laid waste. If it had
been a capital — a place of strength and renown — it was seldom rebuilt on
the same spot, which was avoided as unfortunate by those who survived the
catastrophe and returned to the ruins.
ASSYRIAN WAR COSTUMES AND WAR METHODS
The costume of the warriors differed according to their rank and the
nature of the service they had to perform. Those who fought in chariots,
and held the shield for the defence of the king, are generally seen in coats of
scale armour, which descend either to the knees or to the ankles. A large
number of the scales were discovered in the earliest palace of Nimrud.
They were generally of iron, slightly embossed or raised in the centre, and
some were inlaid with copper. They were probably fastened to a shirt of
felt or coarse linen. Such is the armour always represented in the most
ancient sculptures. At a later period other kinds were used ; the scales
were larger, and appear to have been fastened to bands of iron or copper.
The armour was frequently embossed with groups of figures and fanciful
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA
4G9
ornaments; but there is no reason to believe that the rich designs on the
breasts of the kings were on metal.
The warriors were frequently dressed in an embroidered tunic, which was
probably made of felt or leather, sufficiently thick to resist the weapons then
in use. On the sculptures of Kuyunjik they are generally seen in this attire.
Their arms were bare from above the elbow, and their legs from the knees
downward, except when they wore shirts of mail which descended to the
ankles. They had sandals on their feet. The warriors on the later Assyrian
monuments, particularly on those of Khorsabad, are distinguished by a pecul-
iar ornament, somewhat resembling the Highland phillibeg. It appears to be
fastened to the girdle, and falls below the short tunic.
In the sculptures of Kuyunjik and of monuments of the same period, the
dress of the soldiers appears to vary, according to the manner in which they
are armed. Those with spear
and shield wear pointed or " -.
crested helmets, and plain or
embroidered tunics, confined at
the waist by a broad girdle. A
kind of cross belt passes over
the shoulders, and is ornamented
in the centre of the breast by a
circular disk, probably of metal.
The slingers are attired in the
embroidered tunic, which I con-
jecture to be of felt or leather ;
and wear a pointed helmet, with
metal lappets falling over the
ears. Both the spearmen and
slingers have greaves, which
appear to have been laced in
front.
The archers are dressed in
very short embroidered tunics,
which scarcely cover half the
thigh, the rest of the leg being
left completely bare. They are
chiefly distinguished from other
warriors by the absence of the
helmet. A simple band round
the temples confines the hair,
which is drawn up in a bunch
behind.
It is probable that these various costumes indicate people of different
countries, auxiliaries in the Assyrian armies, who used the weapons most
familiar to them, and formed different corps or divisions. Thus, in the army
of Xerxes were marshalled men of many nations, each armed according to
the fashion of his country, and fighting in his own peculiar way. We may,
perhaps, identify, in the Assyrian sculptures, several of the costumes described
by the Greek historian as worn by those who formed the vast army of the
Persian king.
The arms of the early Assyrians were the spear, the bow, the sword, and
the dagger. The sling is not represented in the most ancient monuments as
an Assyrian weapon, although used by a conquered nation; it was, perhaps,
COSTUME OF AM ASSYRIAN SPEAKMA.N
470 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
introduced at a later period. The bows were of two kinds : one long and
slightly curved, the other short and almost angular ; the two appear to have
been carried at the same time by those who fought in chariots.
The arrows were probably made of reeds, and were kept in a quiver slung
over the back. The king, however, and the great officers of the state were
followed by attendants, Avho carried the quivers and supplied their masters
with arrows. The bow was drawn to the cheek or to the ear, as by the
Saxons, and not to the breast, after the fashion of the Greeks. The barbs
were of iron and copper, several of both materials having been found in the
ruins. When in battle it was customary for the archer to hold two arrows
in reserve in his right hand ; they were placed between the fingers, and did
not interfere with the motion of the arm whilst drawing the bow. When
marching he usually carried the larger bow over his shoulders, having first
passed his head through it. The bow of the king was borne by an attend-
ant. The smaller bows were frequently placed in the quiver, particularly by
those who fought in chariots. A leather or linen guard was fastened by straps
to the inside of the left arm to protect it when the arrow was discharged.
The swords were worn on the left side, and suspended by belts passing
over the shoulders or round the middle ; some were short and others long.
I have already alluded to the beauty of the ornaments on the hilt and sheath.
The dagger appears to have been carried by all, both in time of peace and
war ; even the priests and divinities are represented with them. They were
worn indifferently on the left and right side, or perhaps on both at the same
time. Generally two, or sometimes three, were inserted into one sheath,
which was passed through the girdle. The handles, as I have already men-
tioned, were most elaborately adorned, and were frequently in the shape of
the head of a ram, bull, or horse, being made of ivory or rare stones. A
small chain was sometimes fastened to the hilt or to the sheath, probably to
retain it in its place. A dagger, resembling in form those of the sculptures,
was found amongst the ruins of Nimrud ; it is of copper. The handle is
hollowed, either to receive precious stones, ivory, or enamel.
The spear of the Assyrian footman was short, scarcely exceeding the
height of a man ; that of the horseman appears to have been considerably
longer. The iron head of a spear from Nimrud is in the British Museum.
The shaft was probably of some strong wood, and did not consist of a reed,
like that of the modern Arab lance. The large club pointed with iron, men-
tioned by Herodotus amongst the weapons carried by the Assyrians, is not
represented in the sculptures ; unless, indeed, the description of the historian
applies to the mace, a weapon in very general use amongst them, and fre-
quently seen in the bas-reliefs. This weapon consisted of a short handle,
probably of wood, to which was fixed a head, evidently of metal, in the shape
of a flower, rosette, lion, or bull. To the end of the handle was attached a
thong, apparently of leather, through which the hand was passed. I have
not found any representation of warriors using the hatchet, except when cut-
ting down trees, to clear the country preparatory to a siege. It is, however,
generally seen amongst the weapons of those who fought in chariots, and was
carried in the quiver, with the arrows and short angular bow.
In the bas-reliefs of Kuyunjik, sliugers are frequently represented amongst
the Assyrian troops. The sling appears to have consisted of a double rope,
with a thong, probably of leather, to receive the stone ; it was swung round
the head. The slinger held a second stone in his left hand, and at his feet is
generally seen a heap of pebbles ready for use. That the Persian slingers
were exceedingly expert, used very large stones, and could annoy their ene-
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 471
mies whilst out of the reach of their darts or arrows, we learn from several
passages in Xenophon.
The javelin is frequently included amongst the weapons of the Assyrian
charioteers ; but the warriors are not represented as using it in battle. It
was carried in the quiver amongst the arrows.
Tlie shields of the Assyrians were of various forms and materials. In
the more ancient bas-reliefs a circular buckler, either of hide or metal, perhaps
in some instances of gold and silver, is most frequently introduced. King
Solomon made three hundred shields of beaten gold, three pounds of gold
to each shield (1 Kings x. 17). The servants of Hadad-ezer, king of
Zobah, carried shields of gold (2 Samuel viii. 7). The shield of Goliath
was of brass. It was held by a handle fixed to the centre. Light oblong
shields of wickerwork, carried in a similar manner, are also found in the
early sculptures ; but those of a circular form appear to have been generally
used by the charioteers.
Suspended to the backs of the chariots, and also carried by warriors, are
frequently seen shields in the shape of a crescent, narrow and curved out-
wards at the extremities. The face is ornamented by a row of angular bosses,
or teeth, in the centre of which is the head of a lion. In the sculptures of
Khorsabad the round shield is often highly ornamented. It resembles, both
in shape and in the devices upon it, the bucklers now carried by the Kurds
and Arabs, which are made of the hide of the hippopotamus. In the bas-
reliefs of Kuyunjik some warriors bear oval shields, very convex, and
sufficiently large to cover the greater part of the body. The centre and
outer rim are decorated with bosses.
The shield used during a siege concealed the whole person of the warrior,
and completely defended him from the arrows of the enemy. It was made
either of wickerwork or of hides, and was furnished at the top with a curved
point, or with a square projection, like a roof, at right angles to the body of
the shield, which may have served to defend the heads of the combatants
against missiles discharged from the walls and towers. Such were probably
the shields used by the Persian archers at the battle of Platsea. The archers,
whether fighting on foot or in chariots, were accompanied by shield bearers,
whose office it was to protect them from the shafts of the enemy. Some-
times one shield covered two archers. The shield bearer was usually pro-
vided with a sword, which he held ready drawn for defence. The king was
always attended in his wars by this officer, and even in peace one of his
eunuchs usually carried a circular shield for his use. This shield bearer was
probably a person of rank, as in Egypt. On some monuments of the later
Assyrian period he is represented carrying two shields, one in each hand.
A great part of the strength of the Assyrian armies consisted in chariots
and horsemen, to which we have frequent allusion in the inspired writings.
The chariots appear to have been used by the king and the highest officers
of state, who are never seen in battle on horseback nor, except in sieges, on
foot. They contained either two or three persons. The king was always
accompanied by two attendants — the warrior protecting him with a shield
(who was replaced during peace by the eunuch bearing the parasol), and the
charioteer. The principal warriors were also frequently attended by their
shield bearers, though more generally by the driver alone.
The chariot was used during a siege, as well as in open battle. The
king and his warriors are frequently represented as fighting in chariots with
the enemy beneath the walls of a castle, or as having dismounted from their
cars, to discharge their arrows against the besieged. Jo the latter case,
472 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
grooms on foot hold the horses. When the king in his chariot formed part
of a triumphal procession, armed men led the horses. The chariot was also
preceded and followed by men on foot.
The horsemen formed a no less important part of the Assyrian army
than the charioteers. — " Assyrians clothed in blue, captains and rulers, all
of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses " (Ezekiel
xxiii. 6). Horsemen are seen in the most ancient sculptures of Nimrud.
It is singular, as observes Sir Gardner Wilkinson (Ancient Egyptians, Vol. I,
p. 288), that horsemen are nowhere represented on the monuments of Egypt,
although there can be no doubt, from numerous passages in the sacred
writings, that cavalry formed an important part of the Egyptian armies. I
have already mentioned that disciplined bodies of cavalry were represented
in the bas-reliefs of Kuyunjik. We learn from the Book of Judith that
Holof ernes had twelve thousand archers on horseback (Judith ii. 15).
Solomon had twelve thousand horsemen (1 Kings x. 26). The king him-
self is never represented on horseback, although a horse richly caparisoned,
apparently for his use, — perhaps to enable him to fly, should his chariot
horses be killed, — is frequently seen led by a warrior, and following his
chariot.
In the earliest sculptures the horses, except such as are led behind the
king's chariot, are unprovided with cloths or saddles. The rider is seated
on the naked back of the animal. At a later period, however, a kind of pad
appears to have been introduced ; and in a sculpture at Kuyunjik was repre-
sented a high saddle not unlike that now in use in the East. 6
THE ARTS OF PEACE IN BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA
Nothing else, perhaps, is so vitally important in the life-history of a
nation as its contact with other nations. Such contact alone, it would seem,
can enable a nation in some measure to ward off the lethargy of age, or to
overcome the incubus of custom and superstition.
The isolated nation does not get beyond a certain stage of evolution. It
learns a few secrets, and seems powerless to learn others of itself. Only
through contact with another community can it improve its customs,
get new ideas, acquire better habits of thought and action. We have
already pointed out how Egypt profited in this regard through the foreign
associations that came with the inroad of conquering tribes from the
south and east.
Babylon, however, occupied a far more favourable position than Egypt for
contact with other nations, not alone through such warlike channels, but also
through the yet more beneficent channels of peaceful commerce. A glance
at the map shows that Mesopotamia occupies the very centre of the world of
ancient civilisation. By reaching out its hand, so to speak, this way or that,
it came in contact with every civilised nation of the period except China.
It was the connecting link between Persia and. India on the one hand, and
Lydia, Syria, and Egypt on the other. Even Chinese ideas were to some
extent accessible through the mediation of India. No other great nation of
antiquity compares with Babylonia in this regard ; and perhaps this was the
most important reason why this little strip of fertile land between the two
great rivers supported a continuous civilisation, on the whole ever advancing,
millennium after millennium.
If one would correctly understand the development of that Mesopotamian
civilisation, of which our own culture is the direct outgrowth, one must give
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 473
heed to the commercial relations which were so important a factor of national
growth, without which, indeed, no such civilisation as that of Babylon and
Nineveh could have come into existence.
But, of course, commerce builds up local industries. A nation must be a
producer of useful commodities before it can hope to secure, by peaceful
means, the commodities produced by other nations. In connection with the
commercial relations of a nation we must study also its home industries, that
is to say, broadly speaking, its agricultural and manufacturing conditions.
We must see something also of the social customs that grow out of, and rest
upon these industrial conditions ; and of the laws that are the official expres-
sion of the communal intelligence — the index of the communal conscience of
the epoch.a And first we have the privilege of quoting from one who
himself saw Babylon, that is, of course, Herodotus.
BABYLON AND ITS CUSTOMS DESCRIBED BY AN EYE-WITNESS
The Assyrians are masters of many capital towns ; but their place of
greatest strength and fame is Babylon, which, after the destruction of Nine-
veh, was the royal residence. It is situated on a large plain, and is a perfect
square ; each side, by every approach, is 120 furlongs in length ; the space,
therefore, occupied by the whole is 480 furlongs. [The different reports
of the extent of the walls of Babylon are given as follows : By Herodotus
at 120 stadia each side, or 480 in circumference. By Pliny and Solinus at
60 Roman miles, which, at eight stadia to a mile, agrees with Herodotus.
By Strabo at 385 stadia. By Diodorus, from Ctesias, 360 ; but from Clitarchus,
who accompanied Alexander, 365 ; and, lastly, by Curtius, 368. It appears
highly probable that 360 or 365 was the true statement of the circum-
ference.
So extensive is the ground which Babylon occupies, its internal beauty
and magnificence exceeds whatever has come within my knowledge. It is
surrounded by a trench, very wide, deep, and full of water ; the wall beyond
this is two hundred royal cubits high, and fifty wide ; the royal exceeds the
common cubit by three digits. [These measures, being taken from the
proportions of the human body, are more permanent than any other. The
foot of a moderate-sized man and the cubit, that is the space from the end
of the fingers to the elbow, have always been near twelve and eighteen
inches respectively. — BELOE.]
I here think it right to describe the use to which the earth dug out of
the trench was converted, as well as the particular manner in which they
constructed the wall. The earth of the trench was first of all laid in heaps,
and, when a sufficient quantity was obtained, made into square bricks and
baked in a furnace. They used as cement a composition of heated bitumen,
which, mixed with tops of reeds, was placed betwixt every thirtieth course
of bricks. Having thus lined the sides of the trench, they proceeded to
build the wall in the same manner, on the summit of which, and fronting
each other, they erected small watch-towers of one story, leaving a space be-
twixt them, through which a chariot and four horses might pass and turn.
In the circumference of the wall, at different distances, were an hundred
massy gates of brass, whose hinges and frames were of the same metal.
Within an eight days' journey from Babylon is a city called Is [Hit], near
which flows a river of the same name, which empties itself into the Eu-
phrates. With the current of this river, particles of bitumen descend
towards Babylon, by the means of which its walls were constructed. The
474 THE HISTOKY OF MESOPOTAMIA
great river Euphrates, which, with its deep and rapid streams, rises in the
Armenian Mountains, and pours itself into the Red Sea, divides Babylon into
two parts. The walls meet and form an angle with the river at each ex-
tremity of the town, where a breastwork of burnt bricks begins, and is con-
tinued along each bank. The city, which abounds in houses from three to
four stories in height, is regularly divided into streets. Through these,
which are parallel, there are transverse avenues to the river, opened through
the wall and breastwork, and secured by an equal number of little gates of
brass.
The first wall is regularly fortified ; the interior one, though less in sub-
stance, is of almost equal strength. Besides these, in the centre of each
division of the city, there is a circular space surrounded by a wall. In one
of these stands the royal palace, which fills a large and strongly defended
space. The temple of Jupiter Belus occupies the other, whose huge gates
of brass may still be seen. It is a square building, each side of which is of
the length of two furlongs. In the midst a tower rises, of the solid depth
and height of one furlong, upon which, resting as a base, seven other turrets
are built in regular succession. The ascent is on the outside, which, wind-
ing from the ground, is continued to the highest tower ; and in the middle
of the whole structure there is a convenient resting-place. In the last tower
is a large chapel, in which is placed a couch magnificently adorned, and near
it a table of solid gold ; but there is no statue in the place. No man is suf-
fered to sleep here ; but the apartment is occupied by a female, who, as the
Chaldean priests affirm, is selected by their deity from the whole nation as
the object of his pleasures.
They themselves have a tradition, which cannot easily obtain credit, that
their deity enters this temple and reposes by night on this couch. A simi-
lar assertion is also made by the Egyptians of Thebes ; for, in the interior
part of the temple of the Theban Jupiter, a woman in like manner sleeps. Of
these two women, it is presumed that neither of them has any communica-
tion with the other sex. In which predicament the priestess of the temple
of Patarse in Lycia is also placed. Here is no regular oracle ; but whenever
a divine communication is expected, the priestess is obliged to pass the pre-
ceding night in the temple.
In this temple there is also a small chapel, lower in the building, which
contains a figure of Jupiter in a sitting posture, with a large table before
him ; these, with the base of the table and the seat of the throne, are all of
the purest gold, and are estimated by the Chaldeans to be worth eight hun-
dred talents. On the outside of this chapel there are two altars : one is of
gold, the other is of immense size, and appropriated to the sacrifice of full-
grown animals ; those only which have not left their dams may be offered on
the altar of gold. Upon the larger altar, at the time of the anniversary fes-
tival in honour of their god, the Chaldeans regularly consume incense, to the
amount of a thousand talents. There was formerly in this temple a statue
of gold, twelve cubits high ; this, however, I mention from the information
of the Chaldeans, and not from my own knowledge. Darius, the son of
Hystaspes, endeavoured by sinister means to get possession of this, not dar-
ing openly to take it ; but his son Xerxes afterwards seized it, putting the
priest to death who endeavoured to prevent its removal. The temple, be-
sides those ornaments which I have described, contains many offerings of
individuals.
Among the various sovereigns of Babylon, who contributed to the s'trength
of its walls, and the decoration of its temples, and of whom I shall make
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 475
mention when I treat of the Assyrians, there were two females ; the former
of these was named Semiramis, who preceded the other by an interval of
five generations. This queen raised certain mounds, which are indeed
admirable works. Till then the whole plain was subject to violent inunda-
tions from the river. The other queen was called Nitocris. She being a
woman of superior understanding, not only left many permanent works,
which I shall hereafter describe, but also having observed the increasing
Eower and restless spirit of the Medes, and that Nineveh, with other cities,
ad fallen a prey to their ambition, put her dominions in the strongest
posture of defence. To effect this she sunk a number of canals above
Babylon, which by their disposition rendered the Euphrates, which before
flowed to the sea in an almost even line, so complicated by its windings that
in its passage to Babylon it arrives three times at Ardericca, an Assyrian
village ; and to this hour they who wish to go from the sea up the Euphrates
to Babylon are compelled to touch at Ardericca three times on three different
days. The banks also, which she raised to restrain the river on each side,
are really wonderful from their enormous height and substance. At a con-
siderable distance above Babylon, turning aside a little from the stream, she
ordered an immense lake to be dug, sinking it till they came to the water.
Its circumference was no less than four hundred and twenty furlongs. The
earth of this was applied to the embankments of the river, and the sides of the
trench or lake were strengthened and lined with stones brought thither for
that purpose. She had in view by these works, first of all to break the
violence of the current by the number of circum flexions and also to render
the navigation to Babylon as difficult and tedious as possible. These things
were done in that part of her dominions which was most accessible to the
Medes, and with the further view of keeping them in ignorance of her affairs
by giving them no commercial encouragement. Having rendered both of
these works strong and secure, she proceeded to execute the following
project. The city being divided by the river into two distinct parts, who-
ever wanted to go from one side to the other was obliged in the time of the
former kings to pass the water in a boat. For this, which was a matter of
general inconvenience, she provided this remedy, and the immense lake
which she had before sunk became the further means of extending her fame.
Having procured a number of large stones, she changed the course of the
river, directing it into the canal prepared for its reception. When this was
full the natural bed of the river became dry, and the embankments on each side,
near those smaller gates which led to the water, were lined with bricks hardened
by fire, similar to those which had been used in the construction of the wall.
She afterwards, nearly in the centre of the city, with the stones above-men-
tioned, strongly compacted with iron and with lead, erected a bridge. Over
this the inhabitants passed in the daytime by a square platform, which was
removed in the evening to prevent acts of mutual depredation. When the
above canal was thoroughly filled with water, and the bridge completely
finished and adorned, the Euphrates was suffered to return to its original
bed ; thus both the canal and the bridge were confessedly of the greatest
utility to the public. The above queen was also celebrated for another
instance of ingenuity. She caused her tomb to be erected over one of the
principal gates of the city, and so situated as to be obvious to universal
inspection. It was thus inscribed : " If any of the sovereigns, my succes-
sors, shall be in extreme want of money let him open my tomb and take
what money he may think proper; if his necessity be not great, let him
forbear ; the experiment will perhaps be dangerous." The tomb remained
476 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
without injury till the time and reign of Darius. He was equally offended
at the gate's being rendered useless, and that the invitation thus held out to
become affluent should have been so long neglected. The gate, it is to be
observed, was of no use, from the general aversion to pass through a place
over which a dead body was laid. Darius opened the tomb ; but instead
of finding riches, he saw only a dead body, with a label of this import : " If
your avarice had not been equally base and insatiable, you would not have
disturbed the repose of the dead." Such are the traditions concerning this
queen.
The following exists amongst many other proofs which I shall hereafter
produce of the power and greatness of Babylon. Independent of those sub-
sidies which are paid monthly to the Persian monarch, the whole of his
dominions are obliged throughout the year to provide subsistence for him
and for his army. Babylon alone raises a supply for four months, eight
being proportioned to all the rest of Asia, so that the resources of this region
are considered as adequate to a third part of Asia. The government also
of this country, which the Persians call a satrapy, is deemed by much the
noblest in the empire. When Tritantsechmes, son of Artabazus, was appointed
to this principality by the king, he received every day an artaby of silver.
The artaby is a Persian measure which exceeds the Attic medimnus by about
three chgenices. Besides his horses for military service this province main-
tained for the sovereign's use a stud of eight hundred stallions and sixteen
thousand mares, one horse being allotted to twenty mares. He had, more-
over, so immense a number of Indian dogs that four great towns in the
vicinity of Babylon were exempted from every other tax but that of main-
taining them.
The Assyrians have but little rain ; the lands, however, are fertilised and
the fruits of the earth nourished by means of the river. This does not, like
the Egyptian Nile, enrich the country by overflowing its banks, but is dis-
persed by manual labour or by hydraulic engines. The Babylonian district,
like Egypt, is intersected by a number of canals, the largest of which, con-
tinued with a south-east course from the Euphrates to that part of the Tigris
where Nineveh stands, is capable of receiving vessels of burden. Of all
countries which have come within my observation this is far the most fruitful
in corn. Fruit trees, such as the vine, the olive, and the fig, they do not
even attempt to cultivate ; but the soil is so particularly well adapted for
corn, that it never produces less than two hundredfold. In seasons which are
remarkably favourable it will sometimes rise to three hundred. The ear of
their wheat as well as barley is four digits in size. The immense height to
which millet and sesamum will grow, although I have witnessed it myself, I
know not how to mention. I am well aware that they who have not visited
this country will deem whatever I may say on this subject a violation of
probability. They have no oil but what they extract from the sesamum.
The palm is a very common plant in this country and generally fruitful.
This they cultivate like fig trees, and it produces them bread, wine, and
honey. The process observed is this : they fasten the fruit of that which
the Greeks term the male tree to the one which produces the date ; by this
means the worm which is contained in the former entering the fruit ripens
and prevents it from dropping immaturely. The male palms bear insects in
their fruit in the same manner as the wild fig trees. Of all that I saw in
this country, next to Babylon itself, what to me appeared the greatest
curiosity were the boats. These which are used by those who come to the
city are of a circular form and made of skins. They are constructed in
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 477
Armenia, in tin; parts above Assyria, where the sides of the vessels being
formed of willow are covered externally with skins, and having no distinc-
tion of head or stern, are modelled in the shape of a shield. Lining the
bottom of the boats with reeds, they take on board their merchandise, and
thus commit themselves to the stream. The principal article of their com-
merce is palm wine, which they carry in casks. The boats have two oars,
one man to each ; one pulls to him, the other pushes from him. These boats
are of very different dimensions ; some of them are so large as to bear freights
to the value of five thousand talents ; the smaller of them has one ass on
board, the larger several. On their arrival at Babylon they dispose of all
their cargo, selling the ribs of their boats, the matting, and everything but
the skins which cover them ; these they lay upon their asses and with them
return to Armenia. The rapidity of the stream is too great to render their
return by water practicable. This is perhaps the reason which induces them
to make their boats of skin rather than of wood. On their return with their
asses to Armenia they make other vessels in the manner we have before
described.
Their clothing is of this kind : they have two vests, one of linen which
falls to the feet, another over this which is made of wool, a white sash
connects the whole. The fashion of their shoes is peculiar to themselves,
though somewhat resembling those worn by the Thebans. They wear their
hair long, and covered with a turban, and are lavish in their use of perfumes.
Each person has a seal ring, and a cane, or walking-stick, upon the top of
which is carved an apple, a rose, a lily, an eagle, or some figure or other,
for to have a stick without a device is unlawful.
In my description of their laws I have to mention one, the wisdom of
which I must admire, and which, if I am not misinformed, the Eneti, who
are of Illyrian origin, use also. In each of their several districts this custom
was every year observed : such of their virgins as were marriageable were,
at an appointed time and place, assembled together. Here the men also
came, and some public officer sold by auction the young women one by one,
beginning with the most beautiful. When she was disposed of, and, as may
be supposed, for a considerable sum, he proceeded to sell the one who was
next in beauty, taking it for granted that each man married the maid he
purchased. [Herodotus here omits one circumstance of consequence, in
my opinion, to prove that this ceremony was conducted with decency. It
passed under the inspection of the magistrates, and the tribunal superin-
tended the marriage of the young women. Three men, respectable for their
virtue, and who were at the head of their several tribes, conducted the young j
women that were marriageable to the place of assembly, and there sold them .
by the voice of the public crier. — LARCHER. If the custom of disposing of
the young women to the best bidder was peculiar to the Babylonians, that of
purchasing the person intended for a wife, and of giving the father a sum to
obtain her, was much more general. It was practised amongst the Greeks,
the Trojans and their allies, and even amongst the deities. — BELL.ANGER.]
The more affluent of the Babylonian youths contended with much ardour
and emulation to obtain the most beautiful; those of the common people
who were desirous of marrying, as if they had but little occasion for personal
accomplishments, were content to receive the more homely maidens, with a
portion annexed to them. For the crier, when he had sold the fairest, selected
next the most ugly, or one that was deformed ; she also was put up to sale,
and assigned to whoever would take her with the least money. This money
was what the sale of the beautiful maidens produced, who were thus obliged
478 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
to portion out those who were deformed, or less lovely than themselves. No
man was permitted to provide a match for his daughter, nor could any one
take away the woman whom he purchased without first giving security to
make her his wife. To this, if he did not assent, his money was returned
to him. There were no restrictions with respect to residence ; those of
another village might also become purchasers. This, although the most wise
of all their institutions, has not been preserved to our time. One of their
later ordinances was made to punish violence offered to women, and to
prevent their being carried away to other parts ; for after the city had been
taken, and the inhabitants plundered, the lower people were reduced to such
extremities that they prostituted their daughters for hire.
They have also another institution, the good tendency of which claims
applause. Such as are diseased among them they carry into some public
square ; they have no professors of medicine, but the passengers in general
interrogate the sick person concerning his malady, that if any person has
either been afflicted with a similar disease himself, or seen its operation on
another, he may communicate the process by which his own recovery was
effected, or by which, in any other instance, he knew the disease to be
removed. No one may pass by the afflicted person in silence, or without
inquiry into the nature of his complaint.
Previous to their interment, their dead are anointed with honey, and,
like the Egyptians, they are fond of funeral lamentations. Whenever a
man has had communication with his wife, he sits over a consecrated vessel,
containing burning perfumes ; the woman does the same. In the morning
both of them go into the bath ; till they have done this they will neither of
them touch any domestic utensil. This custom is also observed in Arabia.
The Babylonians have one custom in the highest degree abominable.
Every woman who is a native of the country is obliged once in her life to
attend at the temple of Venus, and prostitute herself to a stranger. Such
women as are of superior rank do not omit even this opportunity of separat-
ing themselves from their inferiors; these go to the temple in splendid
chariots, accompanied by a numerous train of domestics, and place them-
selves near the entrance. This is the practice with many, whilst the greater
part, crowned with garlands, seat themselves in the vestibule, and there are
always numbers coming and going. The seats have all of them a rope or
string annexed to them, by which the stranger may determine his choice.
A woman, having once taken this situation, is not allowed to return home
till some stranger throws her a piece of money, and leading her to a distance
from the temple, enjoys her person. It is usual for the man, when he gives
the money, to say, " May the goddess Mylitta be auspicious to thee ! " Mylitta
being the Assyrian name of Venus. The money given is applied to sacred
uses, and must not be refused, however small it may be. The woman is not
suffered to make any distinction, but is obliged to accompany whoever offers
her money. She afterwards makes some conciliatory oblation to the goddess,
and returns to her house, never afterwards to be obtained on similar or on any
terms. Such as are eminent for their elegance and beauty do not continue
long, but those who are of less engaging appearance have sometimes been
known to remain from three to four years unable to accomplish the terms of
the law. It is to be remarked that the inhabitants of Cyprus have a similar
observance.
In addition to the foregoing account of Babylonian manners, we may
observe that there are three tribes of this people whose only food is fish.
They prepare it thus : having dried it in the sun, they beat it very small in
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 47'.)
a mortar, and afterwards sift it through a piece of fine cloth ; they then form
it into cukes, or bake it ;is bread."
The foregoing description by Herodotus refers to the condition of Baby-
lon in the early part of the fifth century B.C., something like fifty years after
the overthrow of the new Babylonian empire by Cyrus. The city still
ivmuim <1 under Persian influence, Babylon being one of the capitals of the
" Great King." The account given has a peculiar value because it is the
only description given by an eye-witness from the Western world that has
come down to us from so early a period.
Herodotus saw with the eyes of a Greek of the age of Pericles, and it is
now admitted that when he describes his personal experiences, he is alto-
gether dependable. His account, therefore, still has full value as supple-
menting the records of the monuments. It is greatly to be regretted that
the Greek historian remained ignorant of the monumental records them-
selves, though it would have been strange had he been able to decipher
them, since the Greeks were notoriously unfamiliar with any language but
their own.
The account of Babylon given by the great geographer, Strabo, which
will be presented in the next chapter, relates to a period not far from the
beginning of the Christian era, and hence carries us ahead of the political
story as told in the preceding books. At this time Babylon had ceased to
be the capital city, though still important. Since Herodotus wrote, some
five hundred years have passed. Alexander has overthrown the Persians,
and Alexander's empire in turn has been overthrown. Yet we may suppose
that the old city of Babylon — the most ancient city retaining influence at
that day — has not very greatly changed, except that its ancient monuments
are falling into ruins. A peculiar interest attaches to this description of the
last stages in the life-history of a city that has seen so many rotations of
fortune, and has lived on through so many shiftings of the political kaleido-
scope.
It is probable that Strabo, like Herodotus, writes as an eye-witness. In
any event his account has full authority, coming from one of the greatest
and most scientific of ancient geographers, who in addition to his geographi-
cal learning had a keen historical sense.*
A LATER CLASSICAL ACCOUNT OF BABYLON
Babylon is situated in a plain. The wall is 385 stadia in circum-
ference and 32 feet in thickness. The height of the space between the
towers is 50, and of the towers, 60 cubits. The roadway upon the walls will
allow chariots with four horses when they meet to pass each other with ease.
Whence, among the seven wonders of the world, are reckoned this wall and
the hanging garden ; the shape of the garden is a square, and each side of
it measures four plethra. It consists of vaulted terraces, raised one above
another, and resting upon cube-shaped pillars. These are hollow and filled
with earth, to allow trees of the largest size to be planted. The pillars, the
vaults, and the terraces are constructed of baked bricks and asphalt.
The ascent to the highest story is by stairs, and at their side are water-
engines, by means of which persons, appointed expressly for the purpose,
are continually employed in raising water from the Euphrates into the gar-
den ; for the river, which is a stadium in breadth, flows through the middle
of the city, and the garden is on the side of the river. The tomb, also, of
Belus is there. At present it is in ruins, having been demolished, it is said,
480 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
by Xerxes. It was a quadrangular pyramid of baked brick, a stadium in
height, and each of the sides a stadium in length. Alexander intended to
repair it. It was a great undertaking, and required a long time for its com-
pletion (for ten thousand men were occupied two months in clearing away
the mound of earth), so that he was not able to execute what he had attempted
before disease hurried him rapidly to his end. None of the persons who suc-
ceeded him attended to this undertaking ; other works also were neglected,
and the city was dilapidated, partly by the Persians, partly by time, and
through the indifference of the Macedonians to things of this kind, particu-
larly after Seleucus Nicator had fortified Seleucia, on the Tigris, near Baby-
lon, at the distance of about three hundred stadia.
Both this prince and all his successors directed their care to that city,
and transferred to it the seat of empire. At present it is larger than Baby-
lon ; the other is in great part deserted, so that no one would hesitate to
apply to it what one of the comic writers said of Megalopolitte in Arcadia :
" The great city is a great desert."
On account of the scarcity of timber, the beams and pillars of the houses
were made of palm wood. They wind ropes of twisted reed round the pil-
lars, paint them over with colours, and draw designs upon them ; they cover
the doors with a coat of asphaltus. These are lofty, and all the houses are
vaulted on account of the want of timber. For the country is bare, a great
part of it is covered with shrubs, and produces nothing but the palm. This
tree grows in the greatest abundance in Babylonia. It is found in Susiana ;
also, in great quantity, on the Persian coast, and in Carmania.
They do not use tiles for their houses, because there are no great rains.
The case is the same in Susiana and in Sitacene. In Babylon a residence
was set apart for the native philosophers called Chaldeans, who are chiefly
devoted to the study of astronomy. Some, who are not approved of by the
rest, profess to understand genethlialogy, or the casting of nativities. There
is also a tribe of Chaldeans who inhabit a district of Babylonia in the
neighbourhood of the Arabians and of the sea called the Persian Sea. There
are several classes of the Chaldean astronomers. Some have the name of
Orcheni, some Borsippeni, and many others, as if divided into sects, who
disseminate different tenets on the same subjects. The mathematicians
make mention of some individuals among them, as Cidenas, Naburianus, and
Sudinus. Seleucus, also, of Seleucia, is a Chaldean, and many other
remarkable men. Borsippa is a city sacred to Diana and Apollo. Hera1
is a large linen manufactory. Bats of much larger size than those in other)
parts abound in it. They are caught and salted for food.
The country of the Babylonians is surrounded on the east by the Susans,
Elymsei, and Parsetaceni ; on the south by the Persian Gulf, and the Chal-
deans as far as the Arabian Messeni ; on the west by the Arabian Scenitse
as far as Adiabene and Gordysea ; on the north by the Armenians and Medes
as far as the Zagros, and the nations about that river.
The country is intersected by many rivers, the largest of which are the
Euphrates and the Tigris ; next to the Indian rivers, the rivers in the south-
ern parts of Asia are said to hold the second place. The Tigris is navigable
upward from its mouth to Opis and to the present Seleucia. Opis is a vil-
lage and a mart for the surrounding places. The Euphrates also is navi-
gable up to Babylon, a distance of more than three thousand stadia. The
Persians, through fear of incursions from without and for the purpose of
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 481
preventing vessels from ascending these rivers, constructed artificial cata-
racts. Alexander, on arriving there, destroyed as many of them as he could,
those particularly (on the Tigris from the sea) to Opis. But he bestowed
great care upon the canals, for the Euphrates, at the commencement of sum-
mer, overflows. It begins to fill in the spring, when the snow in Armenia
melts ; the ploughed land, therefore, would be covered with water and be
submerged, unless the overflow of the superabundant water of the Nile is
diverted. Hence the origin of canals. Great labour is requisite for their
maintenance, for the soil is deep, soft, and yielding, so that it would easily
be swept away by the stream ; the fields would be laid bare, the canals filled,
and the accumulation of mud would soon obstruct their mouths. Then
again, the excess of water discharging itself into the plains near the sea
forms lakes and marshes and reed grounds, supplying the reeds with which
all kinds of platted vessels are woven ; some of these vessels are capable of
holding water when covered over with asphaltus ; others are used with the
material in its natural state. Sails are also made of reeds ; these resemble
mats or hurdles.
It is not, perhaps, possible to prevent inundations of this kind altogether,
but it is the duty of good princes to afford all possible assistance. The as-
sistance required is to prevent excessive overflow by the construction of
dams, and to obviate the filling of rivers produced by the accumulation of
mud, by cleansing the canals and removing stoppages at their mouths. The
cleansing of the canals is easily performed, but the construction of dams
requires the labour of numerous workmen. For the earth being soft and
yielding does not support the superincumbent mass, which sinks, and is
itself carried away, and thus a difficulty arises in making dams at the mouth.
Expedition is necessary in closing the canals to prevent all the water flowing
out. When the canals dry up in the summer-time they cause the river to
dry up also ; and if the river is low (before the canals are closed) it cannot
supply the canals in time with water, of which the country, burnt up and
scorched, requires a very large quantity, for there is no difference, whether
the crops are flooded by an excess or perish by drought and a failure of water.
The navigation up the rivers (a source of many advantages) is continually
obstructed by both the above-mentioned causes, and it is not possible to rem-
edy this unless the mouths of the canals were quickly opened and quickly
closed, and the canals were made to contain and preserve a mean between
excess and deficiency of water.
Aristobulus relates that Alexander himself, when he was sailing up the
river and directing the course of the boat, inspected the canals, and ordered
them to be cleared by his multitude of followers ; he likewise stopped up
some of the mouths, and opened others. He observed that one of these
canals, which took a direction more immediately to the marshes and to the
lakes in front of Arabia, had a mouth very difficult to be dealt with, and
which could not be easily closed on account of the soft and yielding nature of
the soil ; he (therefore) opened a new mouth at the distance of thirty stadia,
selecting a place with a rocky bottom, and to this the current was diverted.
But in doing this he was taking precautions that Arabia should not become
entirely inaccessible in consequence of the lakes and marshes, as it was
already almost an island from the quantity of water (which surrounded it).
For he contemplated making himself master of this country, and he had
already provided a fleet and places of rendezvous, and had built vessels in
Phoenicia and at Cyprus, some of which were in separate pieces, others were
in parts, fastened together by bolts. These, after being conveyed to Thap-
H. W. — VOL. I. 2 I
482 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
sacus in seven distances of a day's march, were then to be transported down
the river to Babylon. He constructed other boats in Babylonia, from cypress
trees in the groves and parks, for there is a scarcity of timber in Babylonia.
Among the Cosscei [Kossaeaus] and some other tribes the supply of timber
is not great.
The pretext for the war, says Aristobulus, was that the Arabians were
the only people who did not send their ambassadors to Alexander ; but the
true reason was his ambition to be lord of all.
When he was informed that they worshipped two deities only, Jupiter and
Bacchus, who supply what is most requisite for the subsistence of mankind,
he supposed that, after his conquests, they would worship him as a third, if
he permitted them to enjoy their former national independence. Thus was
Alexander employed in clearing the canals, and in examining minutely the
sepulchres of the kings, most of which are situated among the lakes.
Eratosthenes, when he is speaking of the lakes near Arabia, says, that the
water, when it cannot find an outlet, opens passages underground, and is
conveyed through these as far as the Coale-Syrians, it is also compressed and
forced into the parts near Rhinocolura and Mount Casius, and there forms
lakes and deep pits. But I know not whether this is probable. For the
overflowings of the water of the Euphrates, which form the lakes and marshes
near Arabia, are near the Persian Sea. But the isthmus which separates
them is neither large nor rocky, so that it was more probable that the water
forced its way in this direction into the sea, either under the ground, or
across the surface, than that it traversed so dry and parched a soil for more
than six thousand stadia : particularly, when we observe, situated midway in
this course, Libanus, Antilibanus, and Mount Casius.
Such, then, are the accounts of Eratosthenes and Aristobulus.
But Polycleitus says, that the Euphrates does not overflow its banks,
because its course is through large plains ; that of the mountains (from which
it is supplied) some are distant two thousand, and the Kossaean Mountains
scarcely one thousand stadia, that they are not very high, nor covered with
snow to a great depth, and therefore do not occasion the snow to melt in
great masses, for the most elevated mountains are in the northern parts
above Ecbatana ; towards the south they are divided, spread out, and are
much lower ; the Tigris also receives the greater part of the water (which
comes down from them) and thus overflows its banks.
The last assertion is evidently absurd, because the Tigris descends into the
same plains (as the Euphrates) ; and the above-mentioned mountains are not
of the same height, the northern being more elevated, the southern extending
in breadth, but are of a lower altitude. The quantity of snow is not, how-
ever, to be estimated by altitude only, but by aspect. The same mountain
has more snow on the northern than on the southern side, and the snow con-
tinues longer on the former than on the latter. As the Tigris therefore
receives from the most southern parts of Armenia, which are near Babylon,
the water of the melted snow, of which there is no great quantity, since it
comes from the southern side, it should overflow in a less degree than the
Euphrates, which receives the water from both parts (northern and southern),
and not from a single mountain only, but from many, as I have mentioned in
the description of Armenia. To this we must add the length of the river,
the large tract of country which it traverses in the Greater and in the Lesser
Armenia, the large space it takes in its course in passing out of the Lesser
Armenia and Cappadocia, after issuing out of the Taurus in its way to Thap-
sacus (forming the boundary between Syria below and Mesopotamia), and
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 483
the large remaining portion of country as far as Babylon and to its inouth, a
course in all of thirty-six thousand stadia.
This, then, on the subject of the canals (of Babylonia).
Babylonia produces barley in larger quantity than any other country, for
a produce of three hundredfold is spoken of. The palm tree furnishes every-
thing else — bread, wine, vinegar, and meal ; all kinds of woven articles are
also procured from it. Braziers use the stones of the fruit instead of char-
coal. When softened by being soaked in water, they are food for fattening
oxen and sheep.
It is said that there is a Persian song in which are reckoned up three
hundred and sixty useful properties of the palm.
They employ for the most part the oil of sesamum, a plant which is rare
in other places.
Asphaltus is found in great abundance in Babylonia. Eratosthenes de-
scribes it as follows :
The liquid asphaltus, which is called naphtha, is found in Susiana ; the
dry kind, which can be made solid, in Babylonia. There is a spring of it
near the Euphrates. When this river overflows at the time of the melting
of the snow, the spring also of asphaltus is filled and overflows into the river,
where large clods are consolidated, tit for buildings constructed of baked bricks.
Others say that the liquid kind also is found in Babylonia. With respect to
the solid kind, I have described its great utility in the construction of build-
ings. They say that boats (of reeds) are woven, which, when besmeared
with asphaltus, are firmly compacted. The liquid kind, called naphtha, is of
a singular nature. When it is brought near the fire, the fire catches it ; and
if a body smeared over with it is brought near the fire, it burns with a
flame, which it is impossible to extinguish, except with a large quantity of
water ; with a small quantity it burns more violently, but it may be smothered
and extinguished by mud, vinegar, alum, and glue. It is said that Alexander,
as an experiment, ordered naphtha to be poured over a boy in a bath, and a
lamp to be brought near his body. The boy became enveloped in flames, and
would have perished if the bystanders had not mastered the fire by pouring
upon him a great quantity of water, and thus saved his life.
Poseidonius says that there are springs of naphtha in Babylonia, some of
which produce white, others black, naphtha ; the first of these, I mean the
white naphtha, which attracts flame, is liquid sulphur ; the second, or black
naphtha, is liquid asphaltus, and is burnt in lamps instead of oil.
In former times the capital of Assyria was Babylon; it is now called
Seleucia upon the Tigris. Near it is a large village called Ctesiphon. This
the Parthian kings usually made their winter residence, with a view to spare
the Seleucians the burden of furnishing quarters for the Scythian soldiery.
In consequence of the power of Parthia, Ctesiphon may be considered as a
city rather than a village ; from its size it is capable of lodging a great multi-
tude of people ; it has been adprned with public buildings by the Parthians,
and has furnished merchandise, and given rise to arts profitable to its masters.
The kings usually passed the winter there, on account of the salubrity of
the air, and the summer at Ecbatana and in Hyrcania, induced by the ancient
renown of these places.
As we call the country Babylonia, so we call the people Babylonians, not
from the name of the city, but of the country ; the case is not precisely the
same, however, as regards even natives of Seleuceia, as, for instance, Diogenes,
the stoic philosopher [who had the appellation of the Baylonian, and not the
SeleucianJ.d
484 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
We turn now from the classical accounts having to do with the manners
and customs of the Mesopotamians to more modern interpretations. The
account of the commercial relations of the Babylonians given in the succeed-
ing section still has full authority, notwithstanding it was written before
modern excavations had created the new science of Assyriology. No later
writer has so profoundly studied the conditions of commerce and trade in
antiquity as Heeren, and his accounts are still the most illuminative accessi-
ble. The monumental pictures and inscriptions, much as they have told us
of the political history, and of the art, literature, and science of the Mesopo-
tamians, have added singularly little to our knowledge of the peaceful rela-
tions of oriental nations as evidenced by their commercial dealings. The
chance references of classical writers still furnish us the foundation of our
knowledge of this subject, and the Assyrian monuments, where they have
thrown any light on the subject at all, have chiefly served to substantiate
our previous inferences. Thus, to cite a single example, the pictures on the
black obelisk of Shalmaneser II show us such beasts as apes and elephants
being brought as tribute to the conqueror, confirming in the most unequiv-
ocal way the belief, based on Ctesias and Strabo, that the Assyrians held
commercial relations with India.
The narrative of Heeren will be supplemented, however, by accounts of
the manners and customs of the people in question based upon a more recent
study of the monuments, both pictorial and documentary. We have already
noted that the sculptures rather than the written documents furnish us a
view of the everyday life of the people. Certain matters, however, such as
those pertaining to legal transactions, could not possibly be known to us
except through the medium of inscriptions. <*
THE COMMERCE OF THE BABYLONIANS
As the European steps into a new world as soon as he has crossed the Alps,
says Heeren, so is the contrast equally striking to the Asiatic traveller upon de-
scending from the mountainous country of Persia and Media, or Irak Ajemi,
into the plain of ancient Babylon and modern Baghdad, the capital of Irak .
Arabi. The connection, frequently so mysterious and inexplicable, which
exists between climates and countries, and even between climates and inhab-
itants, is here most remarkably exemplified. The manners of the people,
their habitations, their dress, are all different. While in Persia and Media
the garments, though long, were closely fitted to the person, they are here,
on the contrary, loose and flowing. The black sheepskin cap which covered
the head gives way to the lofty and proud folds of the turban, and the
girdle, with its single knife, is replaced with the costly shawl and rich
poniard. " On my entrance into the city of the Caliphs," says a modern
traveller (Porter, ii, 243, et seq.), "I found the streets crowded with men in
every variety of dress, and of every shade of complexion. Instead of the
low dwellings peculiar to Persia, the houses were several stories high, with
lattice windows closely shut. The great Bazaar was full of people, and I
saw on all sides innumerable shops and coffee-houses. The sound of voices
and the rustling of silks reminded one of the buzzing of a swarm of bees.
For even now, though but the shadow of its former splendour, Baghdad is
still the grand caravanserai of Asia." But what a change has taken place
in manners and modes of life ! The rigid etiquette of the Persian court has
disappeared ; the tone of society, the relation of the sexes, is under less
constraint, and everything betokens pleasure and voluptuousness. Though
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 485
in the hot season the glowing sky forces the inhabitants during the day into
their underground vaults, yet they enjoy the balmy coolness of night in the
open air on their house tops. The delightful temperature of the winter
months, from the middle of November to that of February, compensates for
the inconveniences of summer, though at the same time it offers irresistible
incentives to all manner of sensual enjoyments.
It must surely have been the same in former times. Can it be supposed
that those who came down the Euphrates from the royal cities of Persia and
Media to the great city of traffic had not the same spectacle before their
eyes? But what is modern Baghdad compared with the ancient capital of
the East '( What crowds must have once thronged the streets and squares
of that city when the caravans of the East and West, with the crews of ships
trading to the south, were there collected together; when the Chaldean
and Persian sovereigns, with their numberless attendants, made it their resi-
dence ; when it was the emporium of the world, and the great centre of
attraction to all nations ! How bustling and animated must not these deso-
late places have been formerly, where all now is still, save the call of the
Bedouin or the roaring of the lion !
The accounts of ancient Babylon given by Jewish and Grecian writers
set before us a picture of wealth, magnificence, aud pomp, though at the
same time a less pleasing representation of luxury and licentiousness. Their
banquets were carried to a disgusting excess, and the pleasures of the table
degenerated into debauchery; nay, at the very time when the victorious
Persians rushed into the city, the princes of Babylon were engaged in festivi-
ties ; and Belshazzar was given up to intoxication in company with thou-
sands of his lords when the hand which wrote on the wall of the royal
banqueting house, and predicted his approaching fate, aroused him to the
dreadful reality of his condition. But this total degeneracy of manners was
above all conspicuous in the other sex, amongst whom were no traces of that
reserve which usually prevails in an eastern harem. The prophet, there-
fore, when he denounces the fall of Babylon, describes it under the image of
a luxurious and lascivious woman, who is cast headlong into slavery from
the seat where she sits so effeminately. Moreover, at these orgies the
women appeared, where they proceeded so far as to lay aside their garments,
and with them every feeling of shame; nay, there was even a religious
enactment, as we are informed by Herodotus, according to which every
woman was obliged to prostitute herself to strangers in the temple of
Mylitta once in her life, and was not allowed to reject any person who pre-
sented himself.
The principal cause of this profligacy of manners was the riches and
luxury consequent upon extended commerce, which Babylon owed to its
geographical position. Climate and religion effected the rest.
I have already had occasion to notice this advantageous situation of
Babylonia, in which respect it was probably superior to every other country
in Asia. While this afforded admirable facilities for traffic by land, it was
equally convenient for maritime and river navigation. The two large rivers
which flowed on each side of it seemed the natural channels of commercial
intercourse with the interior of Asia, and the Persian Gulf by no means
presented the same difficulties and dangers to the navigator as that of
Arabia.
If we add to this the accounts which ancient authors have given us of
the industry, manners, and civil institutions of Babylon, it will be evident
that it owed its splendour and wealth to the same causes which in latter
486 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
times have been the occasion of an extensive commerce to the cities of
Baghdad and Bassorah. They unanimously describe the Babylonians as a
people fond of magnificence, and accustomed to a multitude of artificial
wants, which they could not have supplied except by commercial relations
with many countries, some of them very remote. In their private life,
especially in their dress, costliness appears to have been more their object
than either convenience or utility. Their public festivals and sacrifices were
attended with immense expense, particularly in precious perfumes, with
which they could not have been provided but from foreign countries. The
raw materials, too, required for their celebrated manufactures — flax, cotton,
and wool, and perhaps silk — were either not the produce of their soil, or cer-
tainly not in sufficient quantities for their consumption. Lastly, many of
their civil institutions were of such a nature as only to be calculated for a
city into which there was a continual influx of strangers. On this principle
alone can be explained, not only their custom of exposing sick persons in
the market-place, that they might meet with some one competent to prescribe
for them, but also, and more particularly, the above-mentioned law, which
obliged their women to prostitute themselves in the temple of Mylitta, and
the public auction of marriageable virgins. It has been already observed
that the relations of the sexes are formed in a peculiar manner in large com-
mercial cities, and this will serve to explain many remarkable institutions of
several nations in Asia.
However certain may be the evidence drawn from these principles, and
the accounts of antiquity in general, viz., that Babylon was the great centre
where all nations assembled, and whence they departed to their several des-
tinations, yet it is difficult to enter in detail on the commerce of the Baby-
lonians, and to settle with any degree of accuracy its nature and its course.
The obscure traces of it which yet remain must be laboriously sought for in
the works of Greek and Hebrew writers alone ; the labour, however, will
not be without its recompense, and the general result of this investigation
will be a picture, which, though not complete in its subordinate details, will
yet present a generally faithful outline.
As a preliminary step, however, let us take a glance at the products of
Babylonian skill and industry, amongst which weaving of various kinds
deserves our first notice. The peculiar dress of the Babylonians consisted
partly of woollen, and partly of linen, or probably cotton stuffs. "They
wear," says Herodotus, "a gown of linen (or cotton) flowing down to the
feet, over this, an upper woollen garment, and a white (woollen) tunic cover-
ing the whole." This garb, which must have been too much for so warm a
climate, seems to have been assumed rather for ostentation, than to meet their
actual wants, and probably some alteration was made in it as the weather
became warmer. Their woven stuffs, however, were not confined to domestic
use, but were exported into foreign countries. Carpets, one of the principal
objects of luxury in the East, the floors of the rich being generally covered
with them, were nowhere so finely woven, and in such splendid colours, as at
Babylon. Particular representations were seen on them, of those wonderful
Indian animals, the griffin and others, with which we have become acquainted
by the ruins of Persepolis, whence the knowledge of them was brought to
the West. Foreign nations made use of these carpets in the decoration of
their harems and royal saloons ; indeed, this species of luxury appears no-
where to have been carried farther than among the Persians. With them,
not only the floors, but even beds and sofas in the houses of the nobles were
Covered with two or three of these carpets ; nay, the oldest of their sacred
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 487
edifices, the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargada, was ornamented with a purple one
of Babylonian workmanship.
Babylonian garments were not less esteemed; those in particular called
sindones were in very high repute. It appears that they were usually of
cotton, and the most costly were so highly valued for their brilliancy of col-
our and fineness of texture, as to be compared to those of Media, and set
apart for royal use ; they were even to be found at the tomb of Cyrus, which
was profusely decorated with every description of furniture in use amongst
the Persian kings during their lives. The superiority of Babylonian robes
and carpets will not be a matter of surprise, when we consider how near
Babylon was to Carmania on the one side, and to Arabia and Syria on the
other, and that in these countries the finest cotton was produced.
Large weaving establishments were not confined to the capital, but
existed likewise in other cities and inferior towns of Babylonia, which Semi-
ramis is said to have built on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, and
which she appointed as marts for those who imported Median and Persian
goods. These manufacturing towns also were, as will soon be shown in
respect to Opis, staples for land traffic. The most famous of them was Bor-
sippa, situated on the Euphrates, fifteen miles below Babylon, and mentioned
in history before the time of Cyrus. These were the principal linen and
cotton manufactories, and they still existed in the age of Strabo.
Besides these, the Babylonians appear to have made all kinds of apparel,
and every article of luxury : such as sweet waters, which were in common
use, and probably necessary, from the heat of the climate; walking-sticks
delicately chased with figures of animals and other objects, and also elegantly
engraved stones, were in general use amongst the Babylonians.
These stones begin to form a particular class, since the curiosities called
Babylonian cylinders have become less rare. Many of them have undoubt-
edly served for seal rings ; for in the East the seal supplies the place of a
signature, or at any rate makes it valid, as we still see on specimens of Baby-
lonian documents. The same may be said of the cylinders. We have a
striking illustration of the perfection to which the Babylonians had brought
the art of cutting precious stones in the collection of M. Dorow, which con-
tains a cylinder, formed from a jasper, bearing a cuneiform inscription, and
an image of a winged Ized, or Genius, in a flowing Babylonian dress, repre-
sented in the act of crushing with each hand an ostrich, the bird of Ahriman.
These various manufactures and works of art presuppose an extensive com-
merce, because the necessary materials must have been imported from foreign
countries.
From what has been already adduced, no doubt can be entertained that
Babylon enjoyed a lively commerce with the principal countries of the Per-
sian Empire. Not only did the Persian and Median lords decorate their
houses with the productions of Babylonian skill, but the kings of Persia
spent a great part of the year in that city with all their numerous attend-
ants, added to which the satraps exhibited in the same capital a pomp but
little inferior to royal magnificence. Owing to this intimate connection be-
tween the chief provinces of Persia and Babylonia, the country lying between
this and Susa became the most populous and cultivated in Asia ; and a high-
way was made from Babylon to Susa, which was twenty days' journey dis-
tant, sufficiently commodious for the baggage of an army to be conveyed on
it without difficulty. The investigation, however, is involved in greater
difficulties as we proceed towards the east beyond Persia, though a principal
country to which they traded, that is to say, Persian India, or the present
488 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Belur-land, and with the parts adjacent, whence the Babylonians imported
many of their most highly prized commodities, afford a clear proof of the
direction and extent of this commerce.
The first article which we may confidently assert the Babylonians to have
obtained, at least in part, from these countries, were precious stones, the
use of which for seal rings was very general amongst them. Ctesias says
expressly, that these stones came from India ; and that onyxes, sardines, and
the other stones used for seals were obtained in the mountains bordering
on the sandy desert. The testimonies of modern travellers have proved that
the account of this author is entitled to full credit ; and that even at the
present time the lapis-lazuli is found there in its greatest perfection ; and if
it be added to this that what Ctesias relates of India undoubtedly refers for
the most part to these northern countries, we must consider it probable that
the stones in question were found in the mountains of which we are speak-
ing ; while with regard to the sapphire of the ancients, that is to say, our
lapis-lazuli, I have no doubt that it is a native of this country. A decisive
proof is furnished by Theophrastus, a more recent author, but worthy of
credit. "Emeralds and jaspers," says he, " which are used as objects of deco-
ration, come from the desert of Bactria (of Gobi). They are sought for by
persons who go thither on horseback at the time of the north wind, which
blows away the sand, and so discovers them." " The largest of the emeralds
called Bactrian," says he, in another place, " is at Tyre, in the temple of
Hercules. It forms a tolerably large pillar." The passage, however, of
Ctesias, to which we have referred, as a modern author has justly remarked,
contains some indications, which, relatively to onyxes, appear to refer to the
Ghat Mountains ; since he speaks of a hot country not far from the sea.
The circumstance of large quantities of onyxes coming out of these
mountains at the present day, viz., the mountains near Cainbaya and
Beroach, the ancient Barygaza, must render this opinion so much the more
probable, as it was this very part of the Indian coast with which the ancients
were most acquainted ; and their navigation from the Persian Gulf to these
regions, as will be shown hereafter, admits of no doubt. This opinion, how-
ever, must not lead us to conclude, that the commerce of Babylon was
confined to those countries ; for that they were acquainted with the above-
mentioned northern districts is equally certain.
Hence also the Babylonians imported Indian dogs. This breed is as-
serted to be the largest and strongest that exist, and on that account the
best suited for hunting wild beasts, even lions, which they will very readily
attack. The great fondness felt by the Persians for the pleasures of the
chase, by whom it was regarded as a chivalrous exercise, must have in-
creased the value and use of these animals, which soon became even an object
of luxury. The Persian nobles were obliged to keep a great number of
them, as they formed a necessary part of their domestic economy, and their
train; and they were also accustomed to take them with them on their
journeys and military expeditions. Thus Xerxes, as we are assured by
Herodotus, was followed by an innumerable quantity of dogs, when he
marched against Greece; and an example taken from the same writer
shows to what a pitch the Persian lords and satraps had carried their luxury
in this particular. Tritantsechmes, satrap of Babylon, devoted to the main-
tenance of these Indian dogs no less than four towns of his government,
which were exempted from all other taxes. It is easy to settle the extent
of this branch of commerce, admitting, as is reasonable, that they were
propagated in the country.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 489
The native country of these animals, according to Ctesias, was that
whence precious stones were obtained. And this account of the ancient
author has been confirmed by a modern traveller ; for Marco Polo, in his
account of these regions, has not forgotten to mention large dogs, which
were even able to overcome lions.
A third, and no less certain class of productions, which the Persians and
Babylonians obtained from this part of the world, were dyes, and amongst
them the cochineal, or rather Indian lacca. The most ancient, though not
quite accurate description of this insect, and of the tree upon which it
settles, is also found in Ctesias. According to him, it is a native of the
country near the sources of the Indus, and produces a red, resembling cinna-
bar. The Indians themselves use it for the purpose of dyeing their garments,
to which it gives a colour even surpassing in beauty the dyes of the Persians.
Strabo has preserved to us from Eratosthenes a knowledge of the roads
by which the commodities of the Indian districts, bordering on the Persian
Empire, were conveyed to its principal cities, and especially to Babylon.
The usual high-road, through populous and cultivated regions, first ran in a
northerly direction, in order to avoid the predatory tribes which infested the
desert between Persia and Media. It continued along the southern part of
this desert, as far as one of the most celebrated defiles in Asia, called the
Caspian gates, through which it proceeded to Hyrcania and Aria. In this
latter country, taking its course along the foot of the high and woody
Hyrcanian and Parthian Mountains, the road thence turned northward
towards Bactra. This is the same which Alexander followed in his expedi-
tion against the Bactrians ; and though he left it occasionally to attack the
inhabitants of the neighbouring mountains, he always returned to it. In
Arrian it bears the name of the great military road.
The great commercial route to India was the same as this as far as Aria.
Here, however, it took a different, that is to say, an easterly direction, while
the other proceeded northward towards Bactra. Thence it ran to Proph-
thasia, Arachotus, and Ortospana, where it divided itself into three branches.
One of these went due east to the borders of India ; perhaps the second had
a similar direction, with a little inclination to the south; and the third
turned northward towards Bactria and formed the great road through
which India had communication with this country and its capital, Bactra.
The city must then be regarded as the commercial staple of eastern Asia.
Its name belongs to a people who never cease to afford matter for historical
details from the time they are first mentioned.
We cannot entertain any doubt as to the persons through whose hands
the commodities of India came to Bactra. It is evident, from what has been
said before, that the natives of the countries bordering on Little Thibet and
others, or the northern Indians of Herodotus and Ctesias, formed the caravans
which travelled into the gold desert, and that it was the same people from
whom western Asia obtained ingredients for dyeing, and also the finest wool.
" The country where gold is found, and which the griffins infest," says
Ctesias, " is exceedingly desolate. The Bactrians, who dwell in the neigh-
bourhood of the Indians, assert that the griffins watch over the gold, though
the Indians themselves deny that they do anything of the kind, as they have
no need of the metal ; but (say they) the griffins are only apprehensive on
account of their young, and these are the objects of their protection. The
Indians go armed into the desert, in troops of a thousand or two thousand
men. But we are assured that they do not return from these expeditions
till the third or fourth year."
490 THE HISTOEY OF MESOPOTAMIA
It is clear, from the foregoing statement, that the Indians here mentioned
were no other than the natives of northern India ; and by the desert where
they found gold, must be understood the sandy desert of Cobi, bounding
Tangut on the west and China on the north. With regard, however, to the
account of Ctesias, that caravans of a thousand or two thousand men trav-
elled into this desert, and returned after three or four years laden with gold
— what other direction could this journey have had than to the rich coun-
tries in the most remote and eastern part of Asia ? I willingly leave it to
the reader to judge what degree of probability there is to support this con-
jecture. This distant obscurity indeed prevents our having a clear view,
yet this very obscurity possesses a certain charm.
We are indebted to Strabo for an account of the road by which the wares
of Babylon were conveyed to the shores of the Mediterranean. It ran in a
due northern direction through the midst of Mesopotamia, and reached the
Euphrates near Anthemusia, five and twenty days' journey distant, where it
turned off towards the west to the Mediterranean. This could have been
only a caravan road, because a numerous company of merchants would be
necessary for mutual defence against the predatory nomad tribes, the Scenites,
who infested the desert ; or indeed for procuring a safe passage by the pay-
ment of a ransom. I cannot advance it as certain that this road was gener-
ally used under the Persian dynasty ; yet it appears in the highest degree
probable from the circumstance that roads were seldom or never altered by
the ancients.
Another great military road, described by Herodotus, from station to
station, and leading to Sardis and other Greek commercial towns in Asia
Minor, was made by the Persian kings at a vast expense. It is not, indeed,
to be doubted that political reasons were a principal inducement to the
formation of this road, because the Persians, when they were engaged in war
with the Greeks, scarcely set so high a value upon any of their provinces as
they did upon Asia Minor, with which they were very desirous to further
and maintain an uninterrupted communication. But we moreover learn
from the description of Herodotus, that it was a commercial road, upon
which caravans travelled from the chief cities of Persia into Asia Minor.
According to him the road began from Susa, and not from Babylon ; yet the
vicinity of these two cities and their intimate connection, which has been
remarked above, renders this a circumstance of no importance.
This principal road of Asia, once so famous, having undergone no other
alteration than that occasioned by its different limits, is now commonly used
by caravans from Ispahan to Smyrna ; Tavernier has given us a full descrip-
tion of it. Its present course is from Smyrna to Tokat, and thence to
Erivan. Only the last half has varied ; for, in order to be in the direction
of Ispahan, the traveller now proceeds north-east, beyond the lake of Uru-
miyeh; whereas the ancients, on the contrary, without going so far east,
inclined more to the south, and followed the course of the Tigris.
On the whole, however, the ancient and modern roads agree in one par-
ticular, the reason of which we are told by Herodotus ; that is to say, they
chose the longer in preference to the shorter way, that they might travel
through inhabited countries, and in security. The direct road would have
led them through the midst of the steppes of Mesopotamia, where security
would have been quite out of the question, on account of the roving preda-
tory hordes. Therefore in ancient times, as well as the present, they chose
the northern route along the foot of the Armenian Mountains, where the
traveller enjoyed security from molestation.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 491
As to the rest, the division into stations was evidently adopted for the
advantage of the caravans. According to Herodotus, the distance between
each station was five parasangs, a journey of seven or eight hours ; and this
we learn from Tavernier is exactly the space which caravans consisting of
loaded camels are accustomed to traverse in the course of a day ; but those
of horses travel much faster. As this road, however, was perfectly safe,
there can be no doubt that single merchants and travellers performed the
journey alone.
A third branch of Babylonian commerce in the interior of Asia had a
northern direction, particularly to Armenia. The Armenians had the advan-
tage of the Euphrates to convey their wares to Babylon, and amongst these
wine, which the soil of Babylonia did not produce, was the principal. He-
rodotus has described this navigation ; and we learn from him that the ships
or floats of the Armenians were constructed similarly to those which are at
present seen on the Tigris, under the appellation of kilets. The skeleton
only was of wood ; this had a covering of skins overlaid with reeds ; and an
oval form was given to the whole, so that there was no difference between
the stern and prow. They were filled with goods, especially large casks of
wine, and then guided down the stream by two oars. The size of these barks
varied considerably ; Herodotus observed some which were rated at more
than five thousand talents' burthen [i.e. about 12,000 tons by the least esti-
mate] . On their arrival at Babylon, the conductors sold not only the cargo,
but also the skeleton; the skins, however, were carried back by land on
asses, which they brought with them for the purpose ; since, as the historian
has remarked, the force of the stream rendered it impossible for them to
return up the river : thus, in Germany, the market boats which go down the
Danube to Vienna never return, but are sold with the commodities which
they convey.
We shall be led to conclude, that the navigation of the Euphrates must
have been very important, if we recollect the great works which were per-
formed in order to secure it. Herodotus speaks of it as extraordinary; and,
truly, if we believe, as there is great probability for doing, that this trade
was confined to the consumption of Babylon, it must necessarily have been
very considerable, from the immense population of the city, and from the
peculiarity of its soil, which, as it yielded a superfluity of some things, was
necessarily quite deficient in others. Hence the Babylonians were obliged
to import from the northern regions those necessaries of life which their own
soil failed to produce; and we shall have more distinct notions respecting this
trade if we recollect that Herodotus includes under the name of Armenia, in
addition to the mountainous district which may be termed Armenia proper,
also the whole of that rich and fruitful country, northern Mesopotamia.*
SHIPS AMONG THE ASSYRIANS
One does not think of the Assyrians as a naval people, yet that they
also went down to the sea in ships, we may learn from Layard's researches.
Although the Assyrians were properly an inland people, yet their con-
quests and expeditions, particularly at a later period, brought them into
contact with maritime nations. We consequently find, on the monuments
of Khorsabad and Kuyunjik, frequent representations of naval engagements
and operations on the seacoast. In the most ancient palace of mmrud
only bas-reliefs with a river have been discovered ; they furnish us, however,
with the forms of vessels, evidently of Assyrian construction — all those in
492 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
the sculptures of Khorsabad and Kuyunjik belonging probably to allies or
to the enemy. It may be presumed that the rivers navigated by the early
Assyrians, and represented in their bas-reliefs, were the Tigris, Euphrates,
and Khabur.
Herodotus thus describes the Babylonian vessels of a later period : " The
boats used by those who come to the city (Babylon) are of a circular form,
and made of skins. They are constructed in Armenia, in the parts above
Assyria. The ribs of the vessels are formed of willow boughs and branches,
and covered externally with skins. They are round like a shield, there
being no distinction between the head and stern. They line the bottoms of
their boats with reeds (or straw), and, taking on board merchandise, princi-
BAS-RELIEF OF AN ASSYRIAN GALLEY
pally palm wine, float down the stream. The boats have two oars, one man
to each ; one pulls to him, the other pushes from him. These vessels are of
different dimensions ; some of them are so large that they bear freight to
the value of five thousand talents [£1,000,000 or $5,000,000]. The smaller
have one ass on board, the larger several. On their arrival at Babylon the
boatmen dispose of their goods, and also offer for sale the ribs and the reeds
(or straw). They then load their asses with the skins, and return with
them to Armenia, where they construct new vessels."
I was, at one time, inclined to believe that the description of Herodotus
applied to the rafts still constructed on the rivers of Mesopotamia, and used,
it will be remembered, for the conveyance of the sculptures from Nimrud
to Bassorah. The materials of which they are made are precisely those
mentioned by the Greek historian, and they are still disposed of at Baghdad
in the same way as they were in his day at Babylon. But the boats which
excited the wonder of Herodotus seem to have been more solidly built, and
were capable of bearing animals, to which purpose the modern raft could not
be applied. They were probably more like the circular vessels now used at
Baghdad, built of boughs, and sometimes covered with skins, over which
bitumen is smeared, to render the whole waterproof. The boats commonly
employed for the conveyance of goods and animals, on the lower part of the
Tigris and Euphrates, and for ferries on all parts of those rivers, are con-
structed of planks of poplar wood, rudely joined together by iron nails or
wooden pins, and coated with bitumen.
In a bas-relief, from the most ancient palace of Nimrud, two kinds of
boats are introduced. The larger vessel contains the king in his chariot,
with his attendants and eunuchs. It is both impelled by oars and towed by
men. The smaller resembles that described by Herodotus. The head does
not differ in form from the stern, and two men sit face to face at the oars.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 493
In this bas-relief are also represented men supporting themselves upon
intliited skins — a manner of crossing rivers still generally practised in
Mesopotamia.
The larger boats were steered by a long oar, to the end of which was
attached a square or oval board. This oar was held in its place by a rope
fastened to a wooden pin at the stern. By this contrivance the steersman
had considerable control over the vessel, and could impel it or turn the head
at pleasure. This mode of steering and propelling boats still prevails on
the Mesopotamian rivers.
The vessels of the Khorsabad sculptures show a considerable advance in
the knowledge of ship-building. That they did not belong to the Assyrians,
but to some allied nation, appears to be indicated by the peculiar costume of
the figures in them.1 The form of the vessel is not inelegant; it is that of
a sea monster, the prow being in the shape of the head of a horse, and the
stern in that of the tail of a fish. Several men stand at the oars. The mast,
supported by two ropes, appears to be surmounted by a box, or what is
technically called a crow's nest, which, in the galleys of the Egyptians,
frequently held an archer.
But it was in the sculptures of Kuyunjik that vessels were found repre-
sented in the greatest perfection. From their position in the bas-reliefs,
with reference to the besieging army, it would seem that they did not belong
to the Assyrians themselves, but to a people with whom they were at war,
and whom they appear to have conquered. The sea was also here indicated
by the nature of the fish and marine animals ; such as the star or jelly fish
and a kind of shark. A castle stood on the shore ; and the inhabitants,
attacked on the land side, were deserting the city and taking refuge in their
vessels.
The larger galleys of these bas-reliefs were of peculiar form, and may, I
think, be identified with the vessels used to a comparatively late period by
the inhabitants of the great maritime cities of the Syrian coast — by the
people of Tyre and Sidon. Their height out of the water, when compared
with the depth of keel, was very considerable. The fore part rose perpen-
dicularly from a low sharp prow, which resembled a ploughshare, and was
probably of iron or some other metal, being intended, like that of the Roman
f alley, to sink or disable the enemy's ships. The stern was curved from the
eel, and ended in a point high above the upper deck. There were two tiers
of rowers ; but whether they were divided by a deck or merely sat upon
benches placed at different elevations in the hold, does not appear from the
sculptures. Above the rowers was a deck, on which stood the armed men.
These vessels had only one mast, to the top of which was attached a very
long yard, held by ropes. In the sculptures the sails were represented as
furled. The number of rowers in the bas-reliefs was generally eight on a
side. Only the heads of the upper tier of men were visible ; the lower tier
was completely concealed, the oars passing through small apertures, or port-
holes, in the sides of the vessel.
Besides the vessel I have described, a smaller is represented in the same
lias-reliefs. It has also a double tier of rowers ; but the head and stern are
differently constructed from those of the larger galley, and both being of the
same shape, are not to be distinguished one from the other except by the
position of the rowers. They rise high above the water, and are flat at
the top, with a beak projecting outward. This vessel had no mast, and
1 Small boats similarly constructed are, however, introduced into a bas-relief, which appears
to represent a scene on an Assyrian river or lake.
494 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
was impelled entirely by oars. On the upper deck are seen warriors armed
with spears, and women.
It is impossible to determine from the sculptures the size of the vessels,
as the relative proportions between them and the figures they contain are
not preserved. It is most probable that the four rowers in each tier are
merely a conventional number, and we cannot, therefore, conjecture the
length of the ship from them. No representations of naval engagements,
as on the monuments of Egypt, have yet been found in the Assyrian edifices.
It is most probable that, not being a maritime people, the Assyrians — as
the Persians did afterwards — made use of the fleets of their allies in their
expeditions by sea, furnishing warriors to man the ships. &
LAWS OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS
The sense of justice and its administration play a large part in the
history of any nation; and we are so fortunate as to possess certain light
on the courts and customs of Assyria.
Asshurbanapal opened his library, not only to the documents emanat-
ing from the kings, but also as a depository for collections on law, juridicial
decisions, and contracts between private individuals.
The Assyrio-Chaldean legislation rested on laws and customs which were
already in force under the Sumerian civilisation. A great number of tablets
written in both languages give us the primitive text of the law and the
corresponding Assyrian translation. Others, written in Assyrian, are full of
citations from Sumerian texts.
First of all, there is a long fragment of laws relating to the family,
written in Assyrian and Sumerian. They read as follows :
" It has thus been decided by the sentence of the judge : ' If a son (is
authorised) to say to his father : " Thou art not my father," he (the son) can
sell him, treat him as a forfeit, and give him in payment like money.
" 'If a son (is authorised) to say to his mother: "Thou art not my mother,"
he will cut her hair off, assemble the people, and make her go out of his
house.
'"If a father (is authorised) to say to his son: "Thou art not my son," he
(the father) can shut him up in his dwelling and in the cellar.
'"If a mother (is authorised) to say to her son: " Thou art not my son,"
she can shut him up in her dwelling and in the upper chambers.
" ' If a wife (is authorised) to repudiate her husband, and to say to him :
" Thou art not my husband," she can have him thrown into the river.
" ' If a man (is authorised) to say to his wife : " Thou art not my wife,"
he can have half a mina of silver paid to him.
" ' If the intendant lets a slave escape, if he dies (the slave), if he becomes
infirm, if in consequence of bad treatment he becomes ill, he (the intendant)
shall pay half a bin of corn a day (to the master of the slave).' ':
In these ancient records we likewise find laws concerning property. One
tablet seems to pertain to the observations made by a Sumerian agriculturist,
which were proposed to the Assyrian agriculturists of the seventh century
B.C. First of all are indicated the best conditions of crop-growing, the time
for sowing, the calculating of the income, the tillage, irrigation, and the
injurious animals which must be destroyed.
It is evident that, in spite of the difference in property or wealth, the
interest is always the same, the1 calculation of interest on different sums in
contracts showing that the figures bear a relation to one another.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 495
Loans could be made with or without interest ; they could be made with
or without security, and these securities were of different natures :
" For tin; interest of one's money. . . . He has given as security. . . .
A house, a field, an orchard, a female slave, a male slave."
Exchanges were frequent, and from the data on the tablets, the principal
tilings exchanged are known :
" They exchanged a house for money. They exchanged a field for money.
They exchanged an orchard for money. They exchanged a female slave for
money. They exchanged a male slave for money."
Trials are inherent to human nature and to all epochs. Pleading took
place in Nineveh, Assyria, and Chaldea. On this subject the following
axiom used by the judges and the pleaders, holds perfectly to-day:
" He who listeneth not to his conscience, the judge will not listen to his
right."
There must have been a fairly complicated code of procedure, for traces
are found of an appellative jurisdiction in which the sovereign was the final
judge.
The Sumerian laws likewise fixed the form of individual contracts. The
signature, " qatatu," was the essential feature of the contract.
Signature took place by affixing the seal. One fragment of these tablets
bears witness to this custom so perpetuated in the East from remotest times
to the present. Herodotus mentions the existence of seals as a peculiarity
of the Babylonians.
" Every Babylonian," said he, "had his seal for his personal use." The
Assyrian " kunuk " answers, like our word " seal," both to the instrument and
the mark it left on the plastic earth.
A large number of contracts of private business concerning all the ordi-
nary transactions of life, between individuals, on which figures the mark of
a seal, has been found : contracts of sale or exchange ; contracts of loan or
hire ; acknowledgments of debts, carrying the guaranty of a mortgage or of
chattels. They read like the records of a notary's office. These contracts,
like all the documents of the palace library, are written on the traditional
bricks. These are easily distinguished from other documents by their outer
appearance. After a few lines given up to the names of the contracting
parties, we see the imprints of their seals, or sometimes the imprint of three
finger nails.
The general drift of their contracts is easy to understand ; the clauses are
worded in formal language which proceeds from the nature of the relations of
the two parties according to the object of their agreement. As a usual thing,
these contracts are very simply drawn. They begin by stating the names
and qualifications of the parties who are going to enter into agreement by
the affixment of their seal or by the nail mark, its substitute.
All contracting parties are not called upon to fulfil this formality; it is
only those who have the title of " dominus negotii " the vendor, the lessor,
the lender, those who " hold the pen " as the modern expression is.
A place reserved in the text for the fixing of seal or imprint reveals to
us that their seals had different shapes. As many of these jewels have
descended to us, and as there are a great number in our public and private
collections, it is not without interest to describe them in more detail.
Generally they are hard stones, cut and polished in different ways. Some
are conical or like a truncated pyramid, on the base of which the design is
sunk. Sometimes the seal is in the shape of a spheroid or an ellipsoid. Many
are cylindrical, the design being engraved on the surface of the cylinder,
496 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
and the imprint is obtained by rolling it on plastic earth. Every variety of
precious stones has been cut for this purpose ; the study of these jewels and
their designs is of the greatest interest to the student of art.
After the imprint of the seals, the object of the contract is stated, then
its nature and its amount, which is sometimes paid down, sometimes at quar-
ter-day ; in certain cases a security is stipulated.
As to money loans, the interest is generally fixed upon by the contracting
parties. Where the contract is silent on this subject it seems as if a general
law were referred to, probably that which is mentioned above.
Measurements, capacities, estimates, and prices are expressed with great
precision, and thus one may determine the importance of the matter discussed
in the contract. The form of drawing up, indicates that the agreement passed
before a magistrate who gave, if I may thus express myself, authenticity to
the stipulations agreed on between the parties, from which they could not
release themselves without penalty of a fine or damages. Generally the fine
was paid into the treasury of Ishtar either at Arbela or Nineveh ; then the
judge decreed the restitution of the sum paid over, with a certain sum for
damages. The contract often contained a more or less extended prayer for-
mula and thus placed the execution of the agreement under the protection of
the gods. The contract ends with the names of witnesses and their status,
and is dated on the day, month, and year of its drawing up.
The contract thus perfected was delivered to a special functionary, who
registered it in the public depository, the superintendence of which was con-
fided to him.
Here are some contracts which help us to understand the methods of draw-
ing up, and inform us as to the nature of the most usual transactions of that
epoch. We give first a contract relating to the sale of a slave ; it is thus
worded :
Sale of a Slave
Seal of Nabu-rikhtav-usur, son of Akhardisu, man of Hasa'i, workman of
Zikkar Ishtar, of the city of ...
Seal of Tebetai, his son, seal of Silim Bin his son, owners of the slave sold.
The girl Tavat-khasina, slave of Nabu-rikhtav-usur. . . . And Nito-
cris obtained her for the price of sixteen drachmas of silver . . . for Takhu
her son, on account of his marriage. She will be slave to Takhu. The
price has been definitely fixed. Whoever in days to come and at no matter
what epoch shall contest this before me, be it Nabu-rikhtav-usur, his sons,
his sons' sons, his brother, his brother's sons, or any other, or his attorney,
should wish to annul the bargain between Nitocris, her sons, or her sons'
sons, shall pay ten minas of silver for the revocation of this contract, it
shall not be sold. Shapimayu, shepherd, Bel-shum-usur, son of Yudanani
Rimbel, son of Atu, are the three men, heirs of the woman because of the
binding of her hands (her first marriage) and of the interest on the wage of
Karmeon who was to inherit (if he lived).
Witnesses: Akhardisu, Zikkar-nipika, Mutumhisu, Khasba.
In the month of Ulul (August) the last day of the year of Asshur-sadu-
sakil.
As before Yum-shamash, Putainpaite, Atu, Nabu-iddin-akhe, presiding.
This document is one of the most curious that we have. First of all, it
contains the name of an Egyptian woman, Nitocris (Nitit-eqar), then that of
Takhu her son, who bears equally an Egyptian name.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 497
The vendor is the daughter of Nabu-rikhtav-usur ; his sons intervene in
their quality of kinsmen for the sale of their slave, that is to say, the servant
of their house. The money is not to be paid to Nitocris or direct descend-
ants, but to third persons who are also designated ; there are the three heirs
of one named Karmeon, who would be the heir if he lived.
Here is another of the same kind :
Sale of a Slave
Seal of Khatai owner of the slave. Lu-akhi is the slave offered up. And
Dannai obtained him from Khatai for the price of twenty drachmas of silver.
The price has been definitely fixed, the slave has been paid for and delivered ;
no annulment of the bargain can now take place. Whosoever in the future
shall claim before me (the nullity of the agreement, shall pay the fine).
Witnesses : Shamash, Khimar, Zabda, Kharaman, Mannuakhi, Zikkar,
Shamash.
In the month of Ulul (August) the fifth day in the year of Nabu-bel-iddin.
In the presence of Zikkar Shamash, the officer.
Contracts of this nature are numerous, and they raise a question on a
point of the history of ancient slavery, which it would be interesting to have
cleared up. What was the origin of these slaves who were at that time
trafficked in, and who do not seem to have had to undergo the law of the
vanquished, and who were so easily carried off after the seizure of a town ?
We have no information on this subject, and we must limit ourselves to
register that which is given us in the above-mentioned texts.
The proprietor of the slave, Khatai, is a Syrian, whilst the slave, Lu-akhe,
is an Assyrian sold to another Assyrian, Dannai, for a sum of money equal
to £3 [116],
Sometimes the contract is not so simple. Complications may arise as to
titles of the property or in its manner of transmission. It is also interesting
to study the status of the contracting parties. One fact seems to be uni-
versal, it is that the stranger — Phoenician, Jew, or Egyptian — had the same
civil rights of contracting, selling, or buying as Assyrian subjects.
Here is a contract of another kind. It concerns the sale of a house.
Instead of their seal the parties affixed marks by pressing their thumb-nails
into the clay.
Sale of a House
Nail of Sharludari, nail of Ahasshuru, nail of the woman Amat-Sula,
wife of Belduru head of three legions, proprietors of the house to be sold.
A house in course of construction with its beams, columns, materials, situate
in the city of Nineveh, bounded by the house of Mannuki-akhe, bounded by
the house of Ankia, bounded by the market-place. And Sil-asshur, the
Egyptian officer, has acquired it by means of a mina of the king's money,
from Sharladuri, Ahasshuru, and the woman Amat-sula, wife of her husband.
The price has been definitely fixed, the house paid for and bought, the
annulment of the contract cannot be allowed.
No matter who, whoever he may be, in days to come, and no matter at
what epoch, even among these persons, contests the right and contract of
Sil-asahur shall pay ten minas of silver. Witnesses: Shushankhu, officer of
the king, Kharmaza, head of three legions, Razu, captain of a vessel, Nabu-
dur, officer, Kharmaza, captain of a vessel, Sin-shar-usur, Zidka.
H. W. — VOL. I. 2K
498 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
The sixteenth day of the month Si van (May) of the year of Zaza, prefect
of the town of Arpad (1692 B.C.).
Before Shamash-ukin-akhe, Litturu, Nabu-shum-iddin.
This act is, above all, remarkable for the names of the contracting parties,
from which we can now recognise that people of different nationalities were
allowed to make contracts in Nineveh with the same rights as the Assyrians.
Thus the names of the witnesses Shushankhu and Kharmaza are Egyptian,
and their original form could easily be restituted. The name of the woman
Amat-Sula is Phoenician and reveals the name of an unknown divinity; liter-
ally it means servant of Sula/
THE CODE OF KHAMMUEABI
We have purposely approached the subject of Mesopotamian law from
the Assyrian side, because the Assyrian laws represent the later forms of
elaboration of the old Babylonian codes on which they are based. In conclu-
sion, however, we shall present in its entirety the oldest known, and at present
the most famous, of these ancient codes, that of king Khammurabi, that the
reader may judge for himself as to the character of the judicial and feudal
system that was in vogue in Babylonia in the third millennium before our
era. This extraordinary document will repay the closest study on the part
of anyone who takes the slightest interest in the evolution of human society.
Until a comparatively recent date the name of Khammurabi, the ruler Mrho
first united the states of the Euphrates valley under one rule, and thus
founded the Babylonian empire, was scarcely known, whereas now we have a
large mass of material dating from his reign — his inscriptions, his letters,
and lastly, most important of all, his code of laws. It is difficult to obtain
more than a vague idea of a country merely from its name, or from the
lists of its kings and their military exploits, which is all that we possess
of most Assyrian and Babylonian kings. The real life of the people wholly
escapes us. This reason alone would make this code inexpressibly valuable,
because, by giving the laws which controlled the social and commercial life of
the people, even to minute details, it gives a picture of the actual condition
of the country.
Aside from its bearing on Babylonian civilisation, however, this code is
one of the most important monuments in the history of the human race.
It is the oldest known legal code in existence, antedating the Mosaic
code by at least a thousand years, and older than the laws of Manu. It
formed the basis of Babylonian legislation until the fall of the empire, and
was compiled by a king living about 2300 B.C., whose rule extended from
the Tigris to the Mediterranean. Khammurabi is generally identified with
Amraphel, the contemporary of Abraham ; and it cannot be questioned that
these laws formed a part of the traditions which the Hebrews brought with
them to their new home.
The Discovery of the Code
The monument containing these laws was not found at Babylon, as might
have been expected, but at Susa (Shushan) in the so-called Acropolis. The
discovery is due to the French excavating expedition under M. de Morgan,
and was made in December and January of 1901-1902. The monument is
a block of black diorite nearly eight feet high. It has been photographed
and published with transcription and translation by Father V. Scheil,3 the
Assyriologist of the expedition, in the Mtmoires de la Delegation en Perse,
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OB^ BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 499
tome IV, Textea Elamites Nfmlti<[u,e». The whole inscription has since been
translated by Dr. II. Winckler* in Der Alte Orient, 4 Jahrgang, Heft 4, 1902,
and the code alone by Rev. C. H. W. Johns,' The Oldest Code of Laws in the
World, Edinburgh, 1903.
The obverse of the stone contains a representation in bas-relief of Kham-
murabi receiving the laws inscribed beneath, from Shamash, the sun-god and
god of right, who is pictured seated on a throne. The king stands in a
respectful attitude before him. The inscription several times mentions the
fact that the laws were given by Shamash ; so the very interesting theory in
The Times, London, of April 14th, 1903, that the god in the picture is Bel
has not much foundation. This theory would connect the code more closely
with the Biblical narrative. To quote from The Times j " The old Bel was
the god who dwelt on the mountain of the world and gave laws to men and
wore on his breast the tablets of destiny. So here we have a curious proof
of the existence of the tradition of the mountain-given law long before the
Mosaic reception on Sinai."
Below the bas-relief on the obverse are sixteen columns of writing with
1,114 lines, and on the reverse there are twenty-eight columns with 2,510 lines.
Five columns of the obverse have been erased and the stone repolished, prob-
ably to make room for an inscription of the conquering Elamite king who
carried the stone away from Babylon to Susa. Possibly one of the dire
calamities which Khammurabi, in the inscription, invokes the gods to send on
anyone who should deface his monument, befell the unfortunate Elamite.
The writing is in a beautifully clear archaic script often used for royal
inscriptions, even after the cursive writing came into use. There are a great
many tablets dating from the same period written in the cursive, some of
them bearing the impression of seals in the archaic. Some seven hundred
lines of the inscription are devoted to proclaiming the titles of the king, his
care for his subjects, his reason for erecting the monument, his maledictions
on anyone who shall interfere with it. Some passages in it remind one of the
majesty of portions of the Psalms. It begins :
" When Anu the supreme, king of the Anunnaki, and Bel, lord of heaven
and earth, who determines the fate of the universe, to Marduk the eldest son
of Ea, god of right, earthly power had assigned, among the Igigi had made
him great, Babylon with his august name had named, in all the woi'ld had
exalted him, in the heart (of that city) an eternal kingdom, whose founda-
tions are firm as heaven and earth, had established, — then did Anu and
Bel call me by name, Khammurabi, the great prince, who fears god, to estab-
lish justice in the land, to destroy the wicked and base, so that the strong
oppress not the weak, to go forth like Shamash (the sun) over the black
heads (i.e., men) to give light to the world, to promote the prosperity of the
people. ..."
Immediately following the code Khammurabi resumes : "The just decrees
which Khammurabi, the wise king, has established ; for the land a sure law
and a happy reign he has procured. Khammurabi, the protecting king, I am.
From the black heads, which Bel gave me, to be a shepherd over whom Marduk
appointed me, I have not held aloof, have not rested ; places of peace I have
provided for them ; I opened up a way through steep passes and sent them
aid. With the powerful arms which Zamama and Ishtar endowed me, with the
clear glance that Ea granted me, with the bravery which Marduk gave me,
the enemy above and below I have rooted out, the deeps I have conquered,
established the prosperity of the country, the dwellers in houses have I made
to live in safety ; a cause for fear I have not suffered to exist. The great
500 THE HISTOKY OF MESOPOTAMIA
gods have chosen me. I am the peace-bringing shepherd whose staff is
straight (i.e., sceptre is just), the good shadow which is spread over my city ;
to my heart the people of Sumer and Accad I have taken, under my protec-
tion have I caused them to live in peace, sheltered them in my wisdom, so
that the strong may not oppress the weak ; to counsel the orphan and the
widow, their head have I raised in Babylon, the city of Anu and Bel ; in
E-sagila, the temple whose foundations are firm as heaven and earth, to speak
justice to the land, to decide disputed questions, to remedy evil, have I writ-
ten my precious words on my monument ; before my picture, as of a king
of justice I have placed them. ... At the command of Shamash, the great
judge of heaven and earth, shall justice reign in the land ; by the order of
Marduk my lord no destruction shall touch my statue. In E-sagila, that I
love, shall "my name be remembered forever ; the oppressed man who has a
cause for complaint shall come before my picture of the king of justice, shall
read the inscription, shall apprehend my precious words, the writing shall
explain to him his case, he shall see his right, his heart shall become glad,
(and he shall say) ' Khammurabi is a lord who is like a father to his subjects,
he has made the word of Marduk to be feared.' . . . Khammurabi, the king
of righteousness, to whom Shamash gave the law, I am."
The inscription contains also many references to public works and his-
torical events which make it one of the most important historical records
ever discovered. One reference to Asshur (Assyria) is particularly important.
It occurs in the introduction to the code and records the restoration of
"its protecting god to the city of Asshur." The name Asshur occurs again
in a letter written by Khammurabi to Sin-idinnam, and also in a private
letter of the period, the former published by Mr. L. W. King* in 1901.
We now turn to the code proper, and the following points are especially
noticeable throughout. The idea of responsibility is very clearly fixed, — a
man who hired an animal was responsible for that animal, — if a boat he was
responsible for the boat, — if he stored anything for another, or carried any-
thing to another, he was responsible so long as the object was in his hands.
Also of builders, — if a man built a house he was responsible for its solidity ;
a physician was held responsible for the life of his patient.
Secondly, we notice the importance of putting everything in writing —
a marriage without a written contract was invalid ; a man who took goods
on deposit, an agent who obtained goods from a merchant, if he had no
document to show for it, could claim no legal aid in case of disagreement.
We have countless contract tablets from this period, containing the seals
and names of witnesses to just such transactions as are provided for in the
code, which show how well this principle was observed.
The law of retaliation or jus talionis is another important feature, as it is
prominent also in the Mosaic code. This is expressed by the familiar phrase
"an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The attempt to make the
punishment balance the crime exactly is carried to such an extent that if
a house fell and killed the owner, the builder was to be put to death, if the
owner's son died, the builder's son was killed. In several of the laws we
notice peculiarly humane provisions, showing that the king really had the
interests of his subjects at heart, and that his words on the inscription and his
desire to be a father to his people were not a vain boast. This is especially
noticeable in a regulation concerning debtors (clause 45), in the provisions
for inheritance, and particularly in the clause concerning the sick wife (148).
It is not to be supposed that all of the laws found in Khammurabi's code
date from his reign. Some of them were much older, as is shown by a dif-
THE GOD SHAMASH DICTATING THE CODE OF LAWS TO KING KHAMMURABI
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 501
ference in the grades of culture represented. Some even assign different
penalties for the same crime (see clauses 6 and 8). As Prof . J astro w* has
pointed out, the ordeal by water cannot have been invented in the same
period as the minute provisions for the inheritance of property.
The so-called Sumerian domestic laws which are very similar to those
before us were known prior to the discovery of Khammurabi's code, and are
known to have been already in use at that time. The code contains some-
thing like 280 clauses, and is arranged in comparatively systematic order.
Space has not permitted the giving of all the provisions in detail. The plan
has been to deal with each class of laws as a whole, in some cases giving
merely the synopsis of a class.1
Miscellaneous Regulations
1. If a man weaves a spell about another man (i.e., accuses him), and
throws a curse on him, and cannot prove it, the one who wove the spell shall
be put to death.
2. If a man weaves a spell about another man, and has not proved it, he
on whom suspicion was thrown shall go to the river, shall plunge into the
river. If the river seizes hold of him, he who wove the spell shall take his
house. If the river shows him to be innocent, and he is uninjured, he who
threw suspicion on him shall be put to death. He who plunged into the
river shall take the house of him who wove the spell on him.
3. If a man has accused the witnesses in a lawsuit of malice and has not
proved what he said ; if the suit was one of life (and death), that man shall
be put to death.
4. If he has sent corn and silver to the witnesses, he shall bear the
penalty of the suit.
5. If a judge has delivered a sentence, has made a decision and fixed it
in writing, and if afterwards he has annulled his sentence, that judge for
having altered his decision shall be brought to judgment ; for the penalty
inflicted in his decision, twelve-fold shall he pay it, and publicly shall they
remove him from his judgment seat. He shall not come back and shall not
sit in judgment with the other judges.
6. If a man has stolen property from the god or palace, that man shall
be put to death ; and he who received the stolen goods from his hands
shall be put to death.
7. If a man has bought or received in deposit, silver, gold, a man or
woman slave, an ox, a sheep, an ass, or whatever it may be, from the hands
of a son of another or a slave of another, without witness or contract, that
man shall be put to death as a thief.
8. If anyone has stolen an ox, a sheep, an ass, a pig, or a boat, if it
belongs to the god or to the palace, he shall return it thirty-fold ; if it belongs
to a noble he shall return it ten-fold ; if the thief has nothing with which to
repay, he shall be put to death.
9. If anyone who has lost something, finds his something that was lost
in the hand (possession) of another ; if the man in whose hand the lost
object was found says: "A trader sold it to me, before witnesses I paid for
it," and if the owner of the lost object says : "Witnesses who know my lost
object I will bring," then shall the purchaser bring the seller who sold it to
him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner of the lost
[' The translation is based on those mentioned in the introduction together with a comparison
of the Babylonian text as given in transcription by V. Scheil.?]
502 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
object shall bring witnesses who know his lost goods : the judge shall con-
sider their words, and the witnesses before whom the purchase was made,
and the witnesses who know the object shall bear testimony before God.
The seller is a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost object
shall receive the object ; the buyer shall get back the money he paid from
the house of the seller.
10. If the buyer does not bring the seller who sold it to him and the wit-
nesses before whom he bought it ; if the owner of the lost object brings the
witnesses who know his object, the buyer is a thief and shall be killed; the
owner shall get his lost object.
11. If the owner of the lost object does not bring his expert witnesses,
then he is a miscreant ; he has accused falsely, he shall die.
12. If the seller has gone to his fate, the buyer shall receive from the
house of the seller five times the costs of the suit.
13. If that man has not his witnesses at hand, the judge shall give him
a respite of six months. If in six months his witnesses do not come, that
man is a miscreant and shall bear the costs of the suit.
14. If anyone steals the minor son of a man, he shall be put to death.
Regulations concerning Slaves
15. If anyone has caused a male slave of the palace or a female slave of
the palace, the male slave of a noble or the female slave of a noble, to go
out of the gate, he shall be put to death.
16. If anyone harbours in his house a runaway male or female slave
from the palace or the house of a noble, and does not bring them out at the
command of the majordomo, the master of the house shall be put to death.
17. If anyone has caught a runaway male or female slave in the field,
and brings him back to his master, the master of the slave shall give him
two shekels of silver.
18. If that slave will not name his owner, to the palace he shall bring
him ; his case shall be investigated ; to his owner one shall bring him.
19. If he retains that slave in his house, and if, later, the slave is found
in his hands, that man shall be put to death.
20. If the slave escapes from the house of the one who caught him, that
man shall swear to the owner of the slave in the name of God and he shall
be quit.
Provisions concerning Robbery
21. If anyone has broken a hole in a house, in front of that hole one
shall kill him and bury him.
22. If anyone has committed a robbery and is caught, he shall be
killed.
23. If the robber is not caught, the man who has been robbed shall make
claim before God to everything stolen from him, and the town and its gov-
ernor within the territory and limits of which the robbery took place shall
give back to him everything he has lost.
24. If it was a life, the city and governor shall pay one mina of silver
to his people.
25. If a fire breaks out in the house of a man, and some one who has
gone thither to put it out raise his eyes to the goods of the master of the
house, and take the goods of the master of the house, that man shall be
thrown into that fire.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 503
Concerning Leases and Tillage
Special rules governed the estates of officers or constables in the king's
employ. They seem to have had land given them by the state, which was
inalienable ; they might not sell it, deed it to wife or daughter, or give it in
return for a debt. In the absence of the proprietor he might give the land
into the keeping of another to manage it for him. This was usually done by
a son or wife. Three years' absence or neglect forfeited his claim to the
land. No man could send a substitute in his place on pain of death for both
himself and the substitute. The king's officers could buy land in their own
right which they were free to dispose of at pleasure, and they could also sell
the land which was theirs by official right to another officer.
42. If anyone has taken a field to cultivate, and has not made grain to
grow in the field, he shall be charged with not having done his duty in the
field ; he shall give grain equal to that yielded by the neighbouring field to
the owner of the field.
43. If he has not tilled the field, has let it lie, he shall give to the owner
of the field grain equal to the yield of the neighbouring field ; and the field
which he left untilled, he shall harrow, sow, and return it to its owner.
44. If anyone has hired an unreclaimed field for three years, to open
(cultivate) it, but has neglected it, has not opened the field, in the fourth
year he shall harrow the field, hoe it, and plant it and return it to the owner
of the field, and 10 GUR of grain for every 10 GAN he shall measure out.
45. If a man has rented his field to a cultivator for the produce and he
has received his produce, and then a storm has come and destroyed the har-
vest, the loss is the cultivator's.
46. If he has not received the produce from his field, but has given his
field on a half or a third share, the grain which is in the field shall the
owner and cultivator share according to their contract.
47. If the cultivator, because in the first year he did not obtain his
living (?), had the field cultivated by another, the owner of the field shall
not blame this cultivator, his field has been cultivated ; at the time of
harvest he shall receive grain according to his contract.
48. If a man has a debt and a storm has devastated his field and carried
off the harvest, or if the grain has not grown on account of a lack of water,
in that year he shall give no grain to the creditor ; he shall soak his tablet
(in water, i.e., alter it), and shall pay no interest for that year.
49. If anyone has borrowed money from a merchant and given a
ploughed field sown with grain or sesame to the merchant and said to
him : " Cultivate the field, harvest and take the grain or sesame which is
thereon ; " when the cultivator has raised grain or sesame in the field, at
the time of harvest the owner of the field shall take the grain or sesame
which is in the field, and shall give to the merchant grain in return for the
money with its interest, which he took from the merchant, and for the sup-
port of the cultivator.
50. If he has given him an (already) cultivated field (of grain) or a field
of sesame, the grain or sesame which is in the field shall the owner of the
field receive ; money and interest to the merchant he shall give.
51. If he has no money with which to pay him, he shall give to the mer-
chant sesame equal to the value of the money which he received from the
merchant, with interest according to the king's tariff.
52. If the cultivator has not raised grain or sesame in the field, his con,,
tract is not altered.
504 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Concerning Canals
The canals built by Khammurabi are frequently referred to in his inscrip-
tions so that we expect to find them mentioned in his laws. Clauses 53-56
are in connection with this subject :
53. If anyone is too lazy to keep his dikes in order and fails to do so,
and if a breach is made in his dike and the fields have been flooded with
water, the man in whose dike the breach was opened shall replace the grain
which he has destroyed.
54. If he is not able to replace the grain, he and his property shall
be sold, and the people whose grain the water carried off shall share (the
proceeds).
55. If anyone opens his irrigation canals to let in water, but is careless
and the water floods the field of his neighbour, he shall measure out grain to
the latter in proportion to the yield of the neighbouring field.
56. If anyone lets in the water and it floods the growth of his neigh-
bour's field, he shall measure out to him 10 GUR of grain for every 10 GAN
(of land).
Each cultivator had an intricate system of small water-ways covering his
land, into which he let water from the main canal at certain times. When
he had watered his field he dammed up the connection again, but if he neg-
lected to do so the water would keep on coming in and eventually flood his
neighbour's land.
If a shepherd let his flock pasture in a field without permission, he was
compelled to return a definite amount of grain to the owner. Anyone cut-
ting down a tree without permission had to pay one-half of a mina of silver.
About thirty-five clauses, from 65 to 100, have been erased. This gap has
been partly filled in from some old fragments of another supposed copy of
this code in the British Museum. One of these supplementary fragments
speaks of house rent : if a tenant has paid his rent for a whole year, and the
landlord turns him out before the end of his term, the landlord shall pay
back to the tenant a proportionate amount of the money which the tenant
gave him.
Commerce, Debt
The reverse of the stele begins with a continuation of the laws regulating
commercial relations, which are extremely important as showing a highly
developed system. If an agent found no opening where he went, he was to
return the capital to the merchant ; also if any mishap befell him in the place
to which he went. If he were robbed by the way, he was to swear before
God that the loss was through no fault of his and could then go free. The
agent was to make out a written statement of the goods received, and
received also a receipt for the money paid to the merchant. Without this
receipt he could lay no claim to his money in case of disagreement.
Curiously enough the wine sellers appear to have been women. We read
in clause 109 : If a wine merchant when rebels meet in her house does not
arrest them and take them to the palace, that wine merchant shall be put to
death. 110. If a votary who does not live in the temple shall open a tavern
or enter a tavern to drink, she shall be burned.
Laws concerning debt are treated of in clauses 113-119. A man
might be imprisoned for debt, or, as in the Mosaic code, he might sell his
wife and children into bondage for debt, but only for three years. We have
a peculiarly doleful picture of a prison of this period, in a letter dating from
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 505
the reign of Khammurabi. It is written by an imprisoned man to his master.
He describes his place of confinement as a "house of want," and begs for
food and clothing, to keep him from death and being devoured by dogs.
If the debtor died a natural death in his confinement, the case was at an end,
but:
116. If the confined man has died in the house of his confinement as
a result of blows or ill-treatment, the owner of the prisoner shall call his
merchant to account. If the man was free-born, his son (of the merchant)
one shall kill ; if he was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver,
and shall lose possession of everything which he gave him.
117. If anyone has an indebtedness, sells wife, son, or daughter for gold
or gives them into bondage, three years in the house of their buyer or their
taskmaster shall they labour ; in the fourth year shall he let them go free.
118. If he gives away a man or woman slave into servitude, and if the
merchant passes them on, sells them for money, there is no protest.
119. If anyone has contracted a debt and sells a slave who has borne
him children, the money which the merchant paid, the owner of the slave
shall pay back to him and buy back his slave.
Clauses 120-126 are in regard to depositing grain and other property in
another's keeping. A written document was necessary and the person who
received the deposit made responsible for what had been intrusted to him.
120. If anyone has stored his grain in the house of another for keeping,
and a disaster has happened in the granary, or the owner of the house has
opened the granary and taken out grain, or if he disputes as to the whole
amount which was deposited with him, the owner of the grain shall pursue
(claim) his grain before God, and the master of the house shall return undi-
minished to its owner the grain which he took.
Domestic Legislation, Divorce, Inheritance
The laws referring to domestic legislation are especially interesting as
showing the position of woman. We know from other documents of the
period that they could hold property in their own name and carry on business,
and we see here that their position was respected.
127. If anyone has caused a finger to be pointed at a votary or the wife
of a man and has not proved (his accusation against) that man, one shall
bring him before the judge and brand his forehead.
A contract was necessary for legal marriage :
128. If anyone has married a wife but has not drawn up a contract with
her, that woman is not a wife.
If a man was taken captive and if, during his absence, his wife married
some one else while there was means of subsistence in the house, she was
drowned. But if she had no means of support, her action was considered
justifiable. If, in the latter case, the husband returned, his wife was to
return to him ; but the children of her second marriage remained with their
father. If the man was a fugitive and had abandoned his native city, but
returned after a time and wanted his wife again, she was not to return to him.
The laws concerning divorce were much like those existing in Moham-
medan countries to-day. If a woman were childless and her husband wished
to divorce her, she received her dowry and marriage portion and returned to
her father's house. If she had borne children and her husband still wanted
to divorce her, she received besides her marriage portion sufficient means to
bring up her children ; and after they were grown, of whatever they received
506 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
they were to give her a son's share. She was also free to marry again.
If the woman were divorced through a fault of her own, she received nothing.
141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house, sets her face to go out,
causes discord, wastes her house, neglects her husband, to justice one shall
bring her. If her husband says, "I repudiate her," he shall let her go her
way, he shall give her nothing for her divorce. If her husband says, "I do
not repudiate her," her husband may take another wife ; that (first) wife
shall stay in the house of her husband as a slave.
A woman who wanted a divorce, if she could show fault in her husband
for it, might take her marriage portion and go home ; but if the fault were
hers she was thrown into the water.
A peculiarly humane provision is the following :
148. If anyone has taken a wife and a sickness has seized her, and if his
face is set towards taking another wife, he may take (her), but his wife
whom the sickness has seized he may not repudiate her, she shall live in the
house he has built, and as long as she lives he shall support her.
149. If that woman does not desire to live in the house of her husband,
he shall give her the marriage portion she brought from her father's house,
and she shall go.
150. If anyone has given his wife, field, garden, house, or property, and
has left her a sealed tablet ; after (the death of) her husband, her children
shall contest nothing with her. The mother shall leave her inheritance to
the child whom she loves ; to a brother she shall not give it.
Laws of inheritance are more particularly dealt with in clauses 162-184 :
162. If anyone has married a wife, and she has borne him children ; if
that woman has gone to her fate, of her marriage portion her father shall
claim nothing ; her marriage portion belongs to her children.
163. If anyone has married a wife and she has borne him no children ; if
that woman has gone to her fate, if the dowry which that man took from
the house of his father-in-law his father-in-law has returned ; on the mar-
riage portion of that woman the husband shall make no claim, it belongs to
the house of her father.
164. If his father-in-law has not returned him the dowry, from her mar-
riage portion he shall deduct all her dowry ; and her marriage portion he
shall return to the house of her father.
165. If any man to his son,, the first in his eyea, has given a field, garden,
and house, and has written a tablet for him ; if afterwards the father has
gone to his fate, when the brothers make a division, the present which the
father gave him he shall keep ; in addition, the goods of their father's house
in equal parts they shall share (with him).
166. If a man has taken wives for his sons, for his little son a wife has
not taken, if afterwards the father has gone to his fate, when the brothers
divide the goods of their father's house, to their little brother, who has not
taken a wife, besides his portion, money for a dowry they shall give him, and
a wife they shall cause him to take.
167. If a man has married a woman, if she has borne him children, if
that woman has gone to her fate ; if afterwards he has taken another wife,
who has borne him children, and if afterwards the father has gone to his fate:
the children shall not divide the property according to their mothers ; they
shall take the marriage portion of their mother ; their father's property they
shall share in equal parts.
168. If anyone has set his face to cut off his son and says to the judge,
" I cut off my son," the judge shall inquire into the matter ; and if the son
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 507
has no grievous offence, which would lead to being cut off from sonship, the
father shall not cut off his son from sonship.
169. If he has a grievous crime against his father to the extent of cutting
him off from sonship, for the first time he (the father) shall turn away his
face ; but if he commit a grievous crime a second time, the father shall cut
off his son from sonship.
170. If to a man his wife has borne children, and if his servant has borne
him children ; if the father during his life has said : " You are my children,"
to the children which his servant bore him, and has counted them with his
wife's children : afterwards if that father has gone to his fate, the goods of
the father's house shall the children of the wife and the children of the ser-
vant share on equal terms. In the division the children of the wife shall
choose (first) and take.
171. And if the father, during his life to the children which his slave
bore him has not said, " You are my chileren," afterwards when the father
has gone to his fate, the property of the father's house the children of
the servant shall not share with the children of the wife. The freedom of the
servant and her children shall be assured. The children of the wife cannot
claim the children of the servant for servitude. The wife shall take her
marriage portion and the gift which her husband gave her and wrote on a
tablet for her, and shall remain in the house of her husband. As long as
she lives she shall keep them, and for money shall not give them ; after her
they belong to her children.
172. If her husband has not given her a gift, her marriage portion she
shall receive entire ; and of the property of her husband's house, a portion
like a son she shall take. If her children force her to go out of the house,
the judge shall inquire into the matter, and if a fault is imputed to the
children, that woman shall not go out of the house of her husband. If that
woman has set her face to go, the gift which her husband gave her she
shall leave to her children. The marriage portion which came from her
father's house she shall keep, and the husband of her choice she shall take.
173. If that woman, there where she has entered, to her second husband
has borne children, and if afterward that woman dies, her marriage portion
shall her earlier and her later children divide between them.
174. If to her second husband she has borne no children, her marriage
portion shall the children of her first husband take.
175. If a free-born woman has married a palace slave or the slave of a
noble, and has borne children ; the owner of the slave on the children of the
free-born woman shall make no claim for servitude.
176. And if a free-born woman marries a slave of the palace or the slave
of a noble, and if when he married her she entered the house of the palace
slave or of the nobleman's slave with a marriage portion from the house of
her father, and from the time that they set up their house together have
acquired property ; if afterward either the slave of the palace or the slave
of the nobleman has gone to his fate, the free-born woman shall take her
marriage portion, and whatever her husband and she since they began
housekeeping have made, into two parts they shall divide; one-half the
owner of the slave shall take, one-half the free-born woman shall take for
her children.
176 a. If the free-born woman had no marriage portion, everything
which her husband and she had acquired since they kept house together,
into two parts they shall divide. The owner of the slave one-half shall
take : one-half shall the free-born woman take for her children.
508 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
177. If a widow, whose children are still young, has set her face to enter
the house of another without consulting the judge, she shall not enter.
When she enters another house the judge shall inquire into that which was
left from the house of her former husband ; and the goods of her former
husband's house to her later husband and to that woman (herself) one shall
confide, and a tablet one shall make them deliver. They shall keep the
house and bring up the little ones ; no utensil shall they give for money.
The buyer who shall buy a utensil belonging to the children of the widow,
shall lose his money ; the property shall return to its owner.
178. If a votary or a vowed woman to whom her father has given a
marriage portion, a tablet has written, and on the tablet he wrote for her
did not write, " After her she may give to whom she pleases," has not per-
mitted her all the wish of her heart ; afterwards when the father has gone
to his fate, her field and garden shall her brothers take, and according to
the value of her portion they shall give her grain, oil, and wool, and her
heart they shall content. If her brothers have not given her grain, oil, and
wool according to the value of her portion, and have not contented her
heart, she shall give her field and garden to a cultivator who is pleasing to
her, and her cultivator shall sustain her. The field, garden, and whatever
her father gave her she shall keep as long as she lives, but for money she
shall not give it, to another she shall not part with it ; her sonship (inheri-
tance) belongs to her brother.
179. If a votary or a vowed woman to whom her father has given a
marriage portion, and has written her a tablet, and on the tablet which he
wrote her has written, " property where (to whom) it seems good to her to
give (let her give)," has allowed her the fulness of her heart's desire : after-
wards when the father has gone to his fate, her property after her death
to whomever it pleases her she shall give ; her brothers shall not strive
with her.
180. If a father to his daughter, a bride or vowed woman, a marriage
portion has not given ; after the father has gone to his fate, she shall receive
of the possession of the father's house a share like one son. As long as
she lives she shall keep it ; her property after her death shall belong to her
brothers.
181. If a father has vowed to God a hierodule or a temple virgin, and
has gone to his fate, she shall have a share in the possession of the father's
house equal to one-third her portion as one of his children. As long as
she lives she shall keep it. Her property after her death shall belong to her
brothers.
182. If a father to his daughter, a votary of Marduk of Babylon, has not
given a marriage portion, a tablet has not written ; after the father has gone
to his fate she shall share with her brothers in the possession of her father's
house ; a third of her share as his child (she shall receive). Control over
it shall not go from her. The votary of Marduk shall give her property
after her death to whomever it pleases her.
183. If a father to his daughter by a concubine has given a marriage
portion, and has given her to a husband and has written her a tablet ; after
the father has gone to his fate, in the goods of the father's house, she shall
not share.
184. If a man to his daughter by a concubine a marriage portion has not
provided, to a husband has not given her ; after the father has gone to his
fate her brothers shall provide her a marriage portion according to the value
of the father's house, and to a husband they shall give her.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 509
Laws concerning Adoption
185. If a man has taken a small child as a son in his own name and has
brought him up, that foster child shall not be reclaimed.
186. If a man has taken a small child for his son, and if when he took
him his father and his mother he offended, that foster child shall return to
the house of his father.
187. The son of a familiar slave in the palace service, or the son of a
vowed woman, cannot be reclaimed.
188. If an artisan has taken a child to bring up, and has taught him
his handicraft, no one can make a complaint.
189. If he has not taught him his handicraft, that foster child shall
return to the house of his father.
190. If a man, a small child whom he took for his son and brought him
up, with his own sons has not counted, that foster son shall return to his
father's house.
191. If a man who has taken a small child for his son and has brought
him up, has afterwards made a home for himself and acquired children, if he
sets his face to cut off the foster child ; that child shall not go his way. His
adoptive father shall give him of his goods one-third a son's share, and then
he shall go. Of the field, garden, and house he shall not give him.
192. If the son of a favourite slave or the son of a vowed woman to the
father who brought him up and to the mother who brought him up say, " Thou
art not my father, thou art not my mother," one shall cut out his tongue.
193. If the son of a palace favourite or the son of a vowed woman has
known the house of his father and has hated the father who brought him up
and the mother who brought him up, and has gone to the house of his father,
one shall tear out his eyes.
194. If a man has given his son to a nurse and if his son has died in the
hand of the nurse, and if the nurse, without the consent of his father or
mother, another child has nourished, she shall be brought to account and
because she nourished another child, without the consent of the father and
mother, one shall cut off her breasts.
Laws of Recompense
195. If a son has struck his father, one shall cut off his hands.
196. If one destroys the eye of a free-born man, his eye one shall destroy.
197. If anyone breaks the limb of a free-born man, his limb one shall
break.
198. If the eye of a nobleman he has destroyed, or the limb of a noble-
man he has broken, one mina of silver he shall pay.
199. If he has destroyed the eye of the slave of a free-born man or has
broken the limb of the slave of a free-born man, he shall pay the half
of its price.
200. If he knocks out the teeth of a man who is his equal, his teeth one
shall knock out.
201. If the teeth of a freedman he has made to fall out, he shall pay one-
third of a mina of silver.
202. If anyone has injured the strength of a man who is high above him,
he shall publicly be struck with sixty strokes of a cowhide whip.
203. If he has injured the strength of a man who is his equal, he shall
pay one mina of silver.
510 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
204. If he has injured the strength of a freedman, one shall cut off his
ear.
205. If the slave of a man has injured the strength of a free-born man,
one shall cut off his ear.
206. If a man has struck another in a quarrel and has wounded him, and
that man shall swear, " I did not strike him wittingly," he shall pay the doctor.
207. If he dies of the blows, he shall swear again, and if it was a free-
born man, he shall pay one-half a mina of silver.
208. If it was a freedman, he shall pay one-third a mina of silver.
209. If anyone has struck a free-born woman and caused her to let fall
what was in her womb, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for what was in
her womb.
210. If that woman dies, one shall put his daughter to death.
211. If it was a freedwoman whom he caused to let fall that which was in
her womb, through his blows, he shall pay five shekels of silver.
212. If that woman dies, he shall pay one-half a mina of silver.
213. If he has struck a man's maid-servant and caused her to drop what
was in her womb, he shall pay two shekels of silver.
214. If that maid-servant dies he shall pay one-third a mina of silver.
Regulations concerning Physicians and Veterinary Surgeons
215. If a doctor has treated a man for a severe wound with a lancet of
bronze and has cured the man, or has opened a tumour with a bronze lancet
and has cured the man's eye ; he shall receive ten shekels of silver.
216. If it was a freedman, he shall receive five shekels of silver.
217. If it was a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give the doctor
two shekels of silver.
218. If a physician has treated a free-born man for a severe wound with a
lancet of bronze and has caused the man to die, or has opened a tumour of
the man with a lancet of bronze and has destroyed his eye, his hands one
shall cut off.
219. If a doctor has treated the slave of a freedman for a severe wound
with a bronze lancet and has caused him to die, he shall give back slave for
slave.
220. If he has opened his tumour with a bronze lancet and has ruined his
eye, he shall pay the half of his price in money.
221. If a doctor has cured the broken limb of a man, or has healed his
sick body, the patient shall pay the doctor five shekels of silver.
222. If it was a freedman, he shall give three shekels of silver.
223. If it was a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels
of silver to the doctor.
224. If the doctor of oxen and asses has treated an ox or an ass for a
grave wound and has cured it, the owner of the ox or the ass shall give to
the doctor as his pay one-sixth of a shekel of silver.
225. If he has treated an ox or an ass for a severe wound and has caused
its death, he shall pay one-fourth of its price to the owner of the ox or the
ass.
Illegal Branding of Slaves
226. If a barber-surgeon, without consent of the owner of a slave, has
branded the slave with an indelible mark, one shall cut off the hands of that
barber.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 611
227. If anyone deceives the barber-surgeon and makes him brand a slave
with an indelible mark, one shall kill that man and bury him in his house.
The barber shall swear, " I did not mark him wittingly," and he shall be
guiltless.
Regulations concerning Builders
228. If a builder has built a house for some one and has finished it,
for every SAR of house he shall give him two shekels of silver as his fee.
229. If a builder has built a house for some one and has not made his
work firm, and if the house he built has fallen and has killed the owner of
the house, that builder shall be put to death.
230. If it has killed the son of the house-owner, one shall kill the son
of that builder.
231. If it has killed the slave of the house-owner, he (the builder) shall
give to the owner of the house slave for slave.
232. If it has destroyed property, he shall restore everything he
destroyed ; and because the house he built was not firm and fell in, out of
his own funds he shall rebuild the house that fell.
233. If a builder has built a house for some one and has not made its
foundations solid, and a wall falls, that builder out of his own money shall
make firm that wall.
Regulations concerning Shipping
234. If a boatman has caulked (?) a boat of 60 GUE for a man, he shall
give him two shekels of silver as his fee.
235. If a boatman has caulked a boat for a man, and has not made firm
his work ; if in that year that ship is put into use and it suffers an injury,
the boatman shall alter that boat and shall make it firm out of his own
funds ; and he shall give the strengthened boat to the owner of the boat.
236. If a man has given his boat to a boatman on hire, if the boatman
has been careless, has grounded the boat or destroyed it, the boatman shall
give a boat to the owner of the boat in compensation.
237. If a man has hired a boatman and a boat, and has loaded it with
grain, wool, oil, dates, or whatever the cargo was ; if that boatman has been
careless, has grounded the ship and destroyed all that was in it, the boatman
shall make good the ship which he grounded and whatever he destroyed of
what was in it.
238. If a man has grounded a boat and has refloated it, he shall pay the
half of its price in silver.
239. If a man has hired a boatman, he shall give 6 GUE of grain a
year.
240. If a freight boat has struck a ferry-boat, and grounded it, the owner
of the grounded boat shall make a statement before God of everything that
was destroyed in the boat and (the owner of) the freight boat which
grounded the ferry-boat shall make good the boat and whatever was destroyed.
Regulations concerning the Hiring of Animals, Farming, Wages, etc.
241. If a man has forced an ox to too hard labour, he shall pay one-third
a mina of silver.
242. If a man hires (the ox) for one year, he shall pay 4 GUR of grain
as the hire of a working ox.
512 THE HISTOEY OF MESOPOTAMIA
243. For the hire of an ox to carry burdens (?) he shall give 3 GUE
of grain to its owner.
244. If anyone has hired an ox or an ass, and if in the field a lion has
killed it, the loss is its master's.
245. If anyone has hired an ox and has caused it to die through ill-
treatment or blows, he shall return ox for ox to the owner of the ox.
246. If a man has hired an ox and has broken his leg or has cut its nape,
he shall return ox for ox to the owner of the ox.
247. If a man has hired an ox and has knocked out its eye, he shall give
one-half its value in silver to the owner of the ox.
248. If anyone has hired an ox and has broken its horn, cut off its tail,
or has injured its nostrils, he shall pay one-fourth of its price in silver.
249. If anyone has hired an ox and God (an accident) has struck him
and he has died, he who hired the ox shall swear by the name of God and be
guiltless.
250. If a furious ox in his charge gores a man and kills him, that case
cannot be brought to judgment.
251. If an ox has pushed a man (with his horns) and in pushing showed
him his vice, and if he has not blunted his horns, has not shut up his ox : if
that ox gores a free-born man and kills him, he shall pay one-half a niina of
silver.
252. If it is the slave of a man he shall give one-third of a mina of silver.
253. If a man has hired a man to live in his field and has furnished him
seed grain (?) and oxen, and has bound him to cultivate the field ; if that
man has stolen grain or plants and they are seized in his possession, one shall
cut off his hands.
254. If he has taken the seed grain (?), for himself exhausted the oxen ;
he shall make restitution according to the amount of the grain which he took.
255. If he has given out the man's oxen on hire or has stolen the grain,
has not caused it to grow in the field ; one shall bring that man to judgment,
for 100 GAN of land he shall measure out 60 GUR of grain.
256. If his community (clan) will not take up his cause, one shall leave
him in the field among the oxen. (?)
257. If a man has hired a harvester, he shall give him 8 GUR of grain for
one year.
258. If a man has hired an ox driver (?), he shall give him 6 GUR of
grain for one year.
259. If a man has stolen a watering wheel (Gis-Apin) from the field, he
shall pay 5 shekels of silver to the owner of the wheel.
260. If he has stolen a watering bucket1 or a plough, he shall pay three
shekels of silver.
261. If a man has hired a herdsman to pasture cattle and sheep, he shall
pay him 8 GUR of grain a year.
262. If a man, oxen or sheep . . . [the stone is here defaced.]
263. If he has destroyed the oxen or sheep which were given him, ox for
ox and sheep for sheep he shall restore to their owner.
264. If a herdsman, to whom oxen and sheep have been given for pastur-
ing, has received his wages, whatever was agreed upon, and his heart is con-
tented ; if he has diminished the oxen or the sheep, has lessened the offspring,
he shall give offspring and produce according to the words of his agreement.
[J The Egyptians call this shaduf. It is an arrangement to draw water from the canal for irri-
gation, and is worked by hand, whereas the wheel for the same purpose (sakieh~) is turned by an
animal.]
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 513
265. If a herdsman, to whom oxen and sheep have been given for pastur-
ing, has deceived, has changed the price, or has given them for money ; he
shall be brought to judgment and he shall return to their owner oxen and
sheep ten times that which he stole.
266. If in the fold a disaster is brought about from God, or if a lion has
killed, the herdsman shall purge himself before God, and the owner of the
fold shall bear the disaster to the fold.
267. If the herdsman has been careless and in the fold has caused loss,
the shepherd shall make good in oxen and sheep the loss he caused in the
fold, and shall give them to their owner in good condition.
268. If a man has hired an ox for threshing, 20 KA of grain is its hire.
269. If he has hired an ass for threshing, 10 KA of grain is its hire.
270. If he has hired a young animal for threshing, 1 KA of grain is its hire.
271. If anyone has hired oxen, a cart, and driver, he shall pay 180 KA of
grain for one day.
272. If anyone has hired a cart alone, he shall give 40 KA of grain for
one day.
273. If anyone has hired a day labourer, from the first of the year to the
fifth month, he shall give him 6 SHE of silver a day ; from the sixth month
to the end of the year he shall give him 5 SHE of silver a day.
274. If anyone hires an artisan, — The wages of a ... are 5 SHE of
silver ; the wages of a brick maker (?), 5 SHE of silver ; the wages of a
tailor, 5 SHE of silver ; the wages of a stone cutter (?) . . . SHE of silver ;
the wages of a .... SHE of silver ; the wages of a .... SHE of silver ;
the wages of a carpenter, 4 SHE of silver ; the wages of a ... 4 SHE of
silver ; the wages of ... SHE of silver ; the wages of a mason .... SHE
of silver, — a day he shall give.
275. If anyone has hired a (ferry-boat ?) its hire is 3 SHE of silver a day.
276. If he has hired a freight boat, he shall give 2£ SHE of silver a day
as its hire.
277. If anyone has hired a boat of 60 GUE he shall give one-sixth of a
shekel of silver as its hire.
Regulations concerning the Buying of Slaves
278. If anyone has bought a man or woman slave and before the end of
the month the bennu-sickness has fallen upon him, he shall return him to the
seller, and the buyer shall take back the money which he paid.
279. If anyone has bought a man or woman slave and a complaint is made,
the seller shall answer for the complaint.
280. If anyone has bought another man's man or woman slave in a strange
land ; when he has come into the country and the owner of the man or woman
slave recognises his property ; if that man or woman slave are natives : without
money he shall grant them their freedom.
281. If they are from another country, the buyer shall declare before God
the money which he paid ; the owner of the man or woman slave shall give
to the merchant the money which he paid, and shall recover his man or
woman slave.
282. If a slave has said to his master, " Thou art not my master," one
shall bring him to judgment as his slave, and his master shall cut off his ear.
Having presented this remarkable code in its entirety, it is hardly neces-
sary to comment upon it at length. It will repay the closest examination
II. W. — VOL. 1. '-' L
514
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
on the part of anyone who is interested in the manners and customs of this
remote period. Prior to the excavations in Mesopotamia, no historian could
have dared hope that we should ever have presented to us so varied and so
authoritative an exposition of the laws that governed society in any part of
the world in the third millennium before our era. Thanks to the imperish-
able nature of the materials on which the Babylonians wrote, this seeming
miracle has now come to pass, and we are in a fair way to have a much more
precise and accurate knowledge of the culture of this ancient people than we
are likely ever to possess regarding European nations of two thousand years
later. The laws that governed the Greeks and Romans of the earlier period,
and the details as to the practicalities of their civilisation, are for the most
part preserved to us only through traditions that utterly lack the authen-
ticity of such an original document as this code of Khammurabi. The sands
of Egypt have recently given up to us a papyrus roll on which is inscribed
the famous treatise on the constitution of Athens by Aristotle ; and the
eagerness with which this document has been scanned by students of Greek
history is in itself an evidence of the paucity of authoritative documents
regarding the classical world during this relatively recent period. It is
peculiarly gratifying then to be able to go back to so much more remote a
period and learn as it were at first hand such interesting details of the laws
that governed the social intercourse of these forerunners of the Greeks.
The fact that the earliest European civilisation undoubtedly deferred in
many ways to this remoter civilisation of the Orient lends additional im-
portance to these wonderful documents from old Babylonia."
CHAPTER VIII. THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS
AND ASSYRIANS
IT is always extremely difficult for a writer of any nationality, to appre-
ciate the peculiar genius of another nation, even as regards its political and
social history. And when we turn to the question of religion, the difficulty
becomes well nigh an impassable barrier. Obviously the effort must be
made, but we can never feel too secure in the results ; certainly not unless we
know the particular bias of the individual interpreter. Perhaps we cannot
better illustrate the difficulties in question than by making two short quota-
tions, each of which includes an estimate of Babylonian influence in general,
and of its religious influence in particular.
One of these estimates runs thus :
"In spite of the skill and knowledge of the Babylonians, and their
wonderful progress in arts and sciences, they had a religion of the lowest
and most degrading kind. True insight into natural phenomena was pre-
vented, and progress beyond the surface of things stopped by a religion
which had a multitude of gods, which were supposed to bring about in an
irregular and capricious manner all the change.3 in nature and all the mis-
fortunes which happened to the people ; thus foresight and medicine were
neglected, and unavailing prayers and useless sacrifices offered to propitiate
the deities, who were imagined to hold the destiny of the human race in
their hands."
The other estimate is quite different :
" The history of Babylonia has an interest of a wider kind than that of
Egypt; from its more intimate connection with the general history of the
human race, and from the remarkable influence which its religion, its
science, and its civilisation have had on all subsequent human progress.
Its religious traditions, carried away by the Israelites who came out from
Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis xi. 31), have through this wonderful people
become the heritage of all mankind, while its science and civilisation,
through the medium of the Greeks and Romans, have become the basis of
modern research and advancement."
Now the curious thing is that these contradictory estimates occur in the
same book, and only separated from one another by a few pages. They were
probably not written by the same man, for the edition we are quoting is one
published after the author's death, and " edited and brought up to date " by
another writer. George Smith was the author, A. H. Sayce the editor, and
both alike have the highest rank as Assyriologists, and any quotation from
either must be considered as having a high degree of authority. Which,
then, is right? Had the Babylonians a "religion of the lowest and most
616
516 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
degrading kind," or was it a religion which has had a " remarkable
influence upon all subsequent human progress " through having been
adopted by the Hebrews, and through them becoming "the heritage of
all mankind"?
Or, again, are the two citations less contradictory than they seem, each
being a correct statement of a particular point of view? Did the Baby-
lonian religion, which the Hebrews are said to have borrowed, really have
elements both of greatness and of degradation, and was it, therefore, capable
of being interpreted in one way or the other, according to the particular
element for the moment considered ? Perhaps this is the fairer view.
Possibly these two phases might be found to pertain to every religion
whatsoever. In any event, we shall have occasion often to quote contra-
dictory views in attempting to get at the truth about the religions of the
various peoples who come before us. And of a certainty we shall some-
times be left in doubt as to the real character of the religion in question.
So long as the sects of Christendom cannot agree among themselves as
to the correct interpretation of the particular records which form their
common basis, we can hardly hope to interpret with full justice the religious
contemplations of people of another genius.
The following account of Assyrian religion by Joachim Menant is based
upon a study of documents from the library of Asshurbanapal, and, as will
be seen, is an exposition of certain details of the subject, rather than an
attempt at a comprehensive analysis. Nevertheless, its explicit depiction of
these details will perhaps give the reader a clearer idea of the Assyrian
religion than could be gained from a more general treatment. As already
pointed out, any interpretation of the mysteries of an oriental religion
must necessarily, in the present state of our knowledge, leave much to
be desired."
It is rather difficult nowadays to distinguish the link which united science
to astrology and astrology to religion. The Assyrio-Chaldean dogma is not
formulated in a text by which we may grasp the whole, and thus we are
obliged to seek traces of it in fragments of different sources and of different
times, without being able to give them the unity they must have had in their
complete form ; in other words, we cannot reconstruct the Assyrian pantheon
as a whole.
The most superficial examination suffices to show that we are in the pres-
ence of a very complicated polytheism, but there is no text to explain the
hierarchy which must have reigned in the celestial world. At the summit
of this hierarchy one can perceive a divinity, one, and at the same time
divisible. Dogma proclaims this divinity in certain passages, but when we
wish to learn its exact individuality, it eludes us, so that we may only seize
the abstraction. We are led to believe in a celestial hierarchy of beings
inhabiting a superior world and subordinated to an all-powerful God, who
governs gods, world, and men. He is enthroned in spaces inaccessible to
us in our condition, and appears only in legends ; his power intervenes only
when the order of the universe is threatened, as we shall see in the legend
of Ishtar, when the goddess of the dwellings of the dead wishes to keep the
daughter of Sin in the dark dwelling, where she is so boldly detained.
This all-powerful God does not seem to be accessible to human beings ;
secondary divinities revolve about him and seem, like him, to be pure spirits.
In the practice of the religion one has a glimpse of an assembly of divinities,
whose relations with humanity are more tangible. These gods assume more
definite form, as a general thing the human one often joined with that of
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 517
various .animals, fish, oxen, or birds. The wings seem to have but a single
symbolical signification, to denote beings of a superior order.
These gods have a rather definite hierarchy, twelve of them being known
as "great gods." The one who appears to be the chief varies according to
locality and time. The chances of political conquest seem to influence him,
and he is changed according to the fortunes of war that give the upper hand
to such and such locality where his cult is followed.
At Nineveh, the god which seems to have been the highest in the celestial
hierarchy, is Ilu ; his character is no further defined and his symbol is often
only the abstract representation of the divinity.
WlNOKD BULL DISCOVERED AT ARBAN
(Laymrd)
In the historical texts of the Assyrian kings we find an enumeration of
the great gods who were invoked by the sovereigns of the earth ; their num-
ber and order is not always constant, but such as they are we can mention :
Ilu (Ana), who is often confounded at Nineveh with Asshur; then Bel
(Baal); and lastly Anu. These three divinities appear as the reflection of
the gods of the superior world, which we have already mentioned, but to
which we have been unable to ascribe names. Then follow the gods more
particularly associated with the visible world : Sin, the god of the moon ;
Shamash, god of the sun ; Bin (Ramman or Adad), god of the higher
regions of the atmosphere, arbitrator of the heavens and earth, the god
who presides over tempests.
A series of divinities seems especially given over to the superintendence
of the planets : Adar over Saturn, Marduk over Jupiter, Nergal over Mars,
Ishtar over Venus, Nabu over Mercury.
r(18 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Ishtar seems always to have a peculiar and special individuality, notwith-
standing that each of the great gods has a spouse who is often invoked with
him, and who seems to complete him. The role of the great spouses of the
great gods is not well understood ; with Ishtar we can see Beltis figure, whose
name is transformed and often becomes like that of Ishtar, a collective appel-
lation of all female divinities; those whose names seem to have a more
permanent character are Zarpanit, the goddess who particularly represents
the fertile principle of the universe, and Tasmit, the goddess of wisdom. All
female divinities seem to have direct relations with humanity, but they often
disappear in the higher and inaccessible world, and then only reveal them-
selves through secondary influences. Secondary gods, whose number is
infinite, are born of these divine couples ; a tablet from the Nineveh library
gives us the list of twelve sons of Anu with their attributes ; of these sons
other divinities are born, but their descent we cannot follow. It is so with
other great gods.
At Babylon the divinities are the same, but the hierarchy is different ;
Bel seems to have replaced Ilu (Ana), and Marduk takes the place of Asshur.
It is easy to be seen that these theogonies come from a common source, which
is every day becoming more accessible to us, but which we have not yet
sufficiently explored to know its exact nature.
The artistic development at which the Chaldeans had arrived from the
remotest antiquity, allows us easily to suppose that we ought to discover in
the pictured monuments that which the texts have not yet revealed to us.
Unfortunately we cannot fix upon the meaning of the figures on the engraved
stones until we shall have complete enlightenment from the texts. The
significance of a symbol cannot be guessed at ; also it is the most we can do
if from all these representations we are able to recognise the figures of four
or five divinities — Ilu, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar, and Zarpanit. There is, more-
over, a special reason why we should be most cautious in our comparisons ;
we know that when the Assyrians took possession of a hostile town, they
carried away the images of strange divinities, and restored them to their
possessors, after inscribing on these images the names of Assyrian gods.
Therefore we should not trust too much to an Assyrian inscription to fix
on the identification of the image of a divinity, as deeds of this nature might
have been repeated in every campaign. It is thus, doubtless, that we may
explain the fact that, while in the whole of Mesopotamia the abstract idea
of the divinity was mentioned by the name Ilu, it appears on the monuments
of the Achaemenidse as Ormuzd.
The Assyrio-Chaldean cult had a very solemn ritual ; we already have a
great number of hymns addressed to the principal divinities ; and as every
month and every day of the month was under the protection of a particular
divinity, one may understand that the Assyrio-Chaldean ritual must have
had a considerable development. There were hymns dedicated to Nabu,
Sin, Shamash, Anuit, to Fire, and to the Elements. Here is a hymn which
can give an idea of the lyric poetry of which the library of Nineveh included
numerous fragments :
" Lord Illuminator of darkness who penetrates obscurity. The Good
God, who uplifts those who are in abjection, who sustains the feeble. The
great gods turn their eyes towards thy light. The spirits of the abyss
eagerly contemplate thy face. The language of praise is addressed to thee
as a single word. The ... of their heads seeks the light of the Southern
sun. Like a betrothed thou restest full of joy and graciousness. In thy
splendour thou attainest the limits of Heaven. Thou art the Standard of
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 519
this wide World. O God, the men who live afar off contemplate thee and
rejoice."
Religious ceremonies bore a relation to external worship; they all
ended in invocation or sacrifice. The cylinder-engraved scenes give us an
idea of these ceremonies ; we usually see the priest in an attitude of adora-
tion or prayer, sometimes alone, but often before an altar, on which reposes
the object of adoration, or that which is going to be sacrificed. The most
usual victim is a ram or a kid. The Assyrian kings never began an im-
portant expedition without having invoked the gods and held religious
ceremonies ; after a victory they offered a sacrifice on the borders of their
newly conquered states. These sacrifices generally took place in the open
air; nevertheless, temples were numerous in Assyria and Chaldea; their
traditional form is that of a step-pyramid (ziggurat) ; every town had one
or two temples of this kind under the patronage of one of the divinities of
the Assyrian pantheon.
A tablet from the library gives us a list of these different sanctuaries,
where the gifts of the faithful multiplied and accumulated until the time
when war came to disperse them.
Cosmogony occupies a large place on the tablets of Asshurbanapal's
library. Amongst all these tablets, those which relate to the creation of the
world, particularly to the history of the flood, have acquired notoriety.
These ancient traditions form a whole which claims the closest attention.
Whatever the philological explanations one may accept, there is one domi-
nating matter which gives an incontestable importance to these remains,
and this is their relation to the Mosaic statements. It is certain that the
fall of Nineveh antedated the Babylonian captivity, and that the Bible in its
present form postdates the return from captivity. It is not without interest,
therefore, to compare the biblical accounts with a text, which could not have
been altered from the day it was buried under the ruins of an Assyrian
palace. This is not all ; these ancient Assyrian legends are really the trans-
lation of a Sumerian text, which Asshurbanapal had copied and translated
from the libraries of lower Chaldea, and we know positively that these texts
antedate the reign of the ancient Sargon, and are therefore earlier by several
centuries than the time when Abraham must have left Chaldea.
It is doubtless not the place here to give way to a discussion on pure
philology ; we will simply say this : when we make a mistake in translating
a hymn addressed to the god Sin, and apply it to quite another divinity of
the Assyrian pantheon, it is a deplorable mistake ; but such an error, were it
the most gross, would have no influence on our present prejudices. It is
otherwise if we refer to a text which can influence our intimate beliefs, be it
to fortify them, combat them, or explain their origin. In England and
other protestant countries the discoveries of George Smith acquired a tre-
mendous notoriety, and his translations are accepted with an eagerness and
confidence which a severe criticism has not justified. In France these dis-
coveries aroused less curiosity from the first, and Assyriologists who study
legendary texts have done so with a dispassionateness which is all the more
conducive to scientific and correct historic results.
Nevertheless, from these sources and authorities, translations have passed
into elementary books, where it has been sought to use them in the support of
preconceived ideas, often by altering their true meaning. We cannot set our-
selves too strongly against such proceedings. It is surely not a new prin-
ciple, that disinterested science must with perfect impartiality scrutinise all
books, legends, and documents which claim the attention of the human mind.
520 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
The history of the creation comprises a collection of several tablets, of
which the text was published in 1875, in the Transactions of the Society of
Biblical Archaeology. This text includes six fragments forming part of a
series of tablets designated in Assyria under the title of "Enuva" (i.e.,
Formerly).*
THE ASSYRIAN STORY OF THE CREATION
Since George Smith first published the tablets various other fragments
have been discovered, the most important new discovery, perhaps, being
made by Mr. L. W. King 3 of a tablet containing a reference to the creation
of man. He found that the tablets belonging to the series are seven in
number, and has published all the hitherto known material in his Seven
Tablets of Creation. The following extracts are taken from his translation :
When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both, —
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was found, no marsh was to be seen ;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies [were ordained]
Then were created the gods in the midst of [heaven]
Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being [ ]
Ages increased [ ]
Then Anshar and Kishar were created, and over them [ ]
Long were the days, then there came forth [ ]
Anu, their son,
Anshar and Anu [ ]
And the god Anu [ ]
Here follow three tablets telling of the revolt of Tiamat and her defeat,
which will be spoken of later on.
The fifth tablet begins :
He (Marduk) made the stations for the great gods ;
The stars, their images, as the stars of the zodiac he fixed.
He ordained the year and into sections he divided it ;
For the twelve months he fixed three stars.
The Moon-god he caused to shine forth, the night he intrusted to him.
He appointed him, a being of the night, to determine the days.
The rest of the tablet is rather badly mutilated. The sixth begins :
When Marduk heard the words of the gods,
His heart prompted him and he devised [a cunning plan].
He opened his mouth and unto Ea [he spake],
That which he had conceived in his heart he imparted [unto him],
" My blood will I take and bone will I [fashion],
I will make man, that man may [ ]
I will create man who shall inhabit [the earth]
That the service of the gods may be established and that [their] shrines [may be built].
But I will alter the ways of the gods, and I will change [their paths] ;
Together shall they be oppressed, and unto evil shall [they ]"
And Ea answered him and spake the word :
The rest of the tablet is too fragmentary for translation. The seventh
contains the fifty titles of Marduk.
Besides these seven tablets there are some which contain other accounts
of the creation. One of these refers to the creation of cattle and the
beasts of the field. «
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 521
When the gods in their assembly had made [the world]
And had created the heavens and had formed [the earth]
And had brought living creatures into being [ ]
And [had fashioned] the cattle of the field, and the beasts of the field, and the creatures [of
the city], —
After [they had ] unto the living creatures [ ]«
The rest is too mutilated for comprehension of anything besides single
words.
THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION
The fact that these tablets as well as so many others of Babylonian
origin were found in an Assyrian library, shows that the Assyrians took
their religion like the rest of their culture from the Babylonians. Indeed
the Assyrian myths, religious doctrines, and observances are so similar to
those of the mother-country that in speaking of Babylonian religion the
Assyrian is usually to be understood as well. The Babylonian religion in
turn was largely influenced by the Summerian which was an astral religion.
The names of the gods are found written with the same ideograms although
they were doubtless pronounced differently. Many of the texts are found
written in Summerian with interlinear Assyrian translations.
Babylonian religion as we first see it is in the form of local cults. Each
city with its surrounding district had its own god, whose authority was
supreme. Thus Anu was worshipped in Erech, Bel in Nippur, Ea in Eridu,
Sin in Uru, Shamash in Larsa and Sippar. When these cities began to be
welded together into political systems, the gods also were put together into
an organised pantheon in which political situations influenced the relations
the gods were made to bear to each other. Thus when Babylon became the
capital of the empire its special god, Marduk, became leader among the gods.
A second characteristic feature of the Babylonian religion is that it is
based on natural phenomena. The myths are nature myths. The story of
the original creation was in a way the prototype of what happened every
year. The earth is covered with water from the winter rains (state of chaos).
The spring sun (Marduk) fights with and overcomes the water (Tiamat) ; the
earth appears, green things of all kinds and life are produced. The story of
the flood may have referred to the annual inundation, with perhaps the added
element of severe winds and a tidal wave from the south. Such inundations
have occurred in historic times. Ishtar's descent into the lower world marks
the autumn when everything is dry and has been burned up by the fierce
summer sun. Ishtar goes to seek the water of life, which in the Babylonian
world was a most appropriate metaphor, because water actually was the life
of the country. Without it the land was arid and desolate as to-day ; with
it, its luxuriant vegetation caused the region about Babylon to be called the
garden of the gods (Karaduniash).
The creation legend as we have it must have been written after the con-
solidation of the empire with Babylon as its capital, because in the story
Marduk, although one of the younger gods, is made the champion and leader
of the others. The tablets on which the legend is contained now usually
go by the name of enuma elish, " when above," from the opening words.
The opening lines of the story relating the creation of the gods, and the lat-
ter part telling of the creation of animals and man, we have already seen.
The version of creation given here is practically the one Berosus gives
of the Babylonians, which is found in Eusebius and which he quotes from
Polyhistor (see Appendix A).
522 THE HISTOKY OF MESOPOTAMIA
In the beginning was chaos, consisting of a watery mass. Only two
beings existed — Apsu, the Deep, and Tiamat, the universal mother. These
two represent the two formative elements from whose union the gods were
created. First Lakhmu and Lakhamu were born, then Anshar and Kishar,
and after a long interval the other great gods. Tiamat, after having
brought forth the gods, conceived a hatred for them and created a large
number of monsters to aid her in a battle against them and gave the
command to her son Kingu. She bore : " giant snakes, sharp as to teeth,
and merciless — with poison she filled their bodies as with blood." Anshar
sends his son Anu against Tiamat, but he is afraid to face her. After Ea
also has been sent in vain, Marduk offers to take up the fight, but first
demands to be recognised by the other gods as their champion. Anshar
summons the great gods to a feast, informs them of all that has taken place,
and calls on them to appoint Marduk as their defender. The gods do so
and hail him with the following words (the translation of the Assyrian
texts is based upon that of Jensen A in his Cogmologie der Bdbylonier) :
Thou art the most honoured among the great gods
Thy fate has no equal, thy decree is Anu.
Marduk, thou art most honoured among the great gods
Thy fate has no equal, thy decree is Anu.
From now on thy word shall not be altered,
To put up and to lower, shall be in thy hand ;
What goes out of thy mouth shall be established
Thy decree shall not be resisted.
No one among the great gods shall overstep thy boundary
Marduk, thou our avenger,
We give thee dominion over the whole world.
To test his powers the gods place a garment before Marduk and tell him
to bid it disappear and come back again at his word. When he has accom-
plished this prodigy the gods are pleased and exclaim "Marduk is king."
The avenger after equipping himself for the fray goes out to meet Tiamat
and her host, taking with him his thunderbolt, spear, and net ; he is followed
by seven winds, which he has created. We take up the story again at the
point where Marduk challenges Tiamat to battle :
" Stand ! I and thou let us fight together — "
When Tiamat heard these words
She became like one demented, and lost her senses.
Then cried out Tiamat wild and loud
Her limbs trembled to their very foundations,
She said an incantation, and spoke a formula,
And of the gods of battle, she asked their weapons.
They drew near, Tiamat and Marduk, wise among the gods,
They advanced to battle, came near to fight —
Then the lord spread out his net and surrounded her.
He let loose the evil wind that was behind him.
When Tiamat opened her mouth to its full extent,
He sent the evil wind into it, so that she could not close her lips.
Filled her belly with terrible winds
Her heart was . . . and she opened wide her mouth.
He seized the spear and pierced through her belly
Cut through her inward parts, and pierced her heart.
He overcame her and destroyed her life,
Threw down her body and stood upon it.
When he had killed Tiamat, the leader,
Her might was broken and her host scattered
And the gods, her helpers, who went at her side
Trembled, were afraid, and turned back.
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 523
After Marduk had dealt with the minor rebels
He returned to Tiaraat, whom he had conquered
He cut her in two parts like a fish
He put up one half of her as a cover for the heavens,
Placed before it a bolt and established a watchman —
And commanded him not to let her waters come forth.
The rest of the legend deals with the creation and has been mentioned else-
where. Professor Gunkel* (in his SchSpfung und Chaos~) in speaking of this
myth says that Tiamat's offspring, the monsters of the sea, are the stars in the
constellations of the zodiac. The stars are the children of the night. Mar-
duk is the spring sun, who fights with the waters, finally subdues them, and
brings forth vegetation. This story of Marduk and his fight with the dragon
is sometimes identified with the Christ story. The Babylonians also appear
to have celebrated a festival at the new year, when the sun turned back from
the equator and left the constellation of the water-man. This may be said
to mark the birth of spring. Three months later when the god has grown
sufficiently strong he fights with the waters (Tiamat Sin) and conquers.
The Babylonians pictured the earth as a cone-shaped mountain surrounded
by water. Over this was stretched the dome of heaven behind which was
the heavenly ocean and the home of the gods. In the dome were two gates
through which Shamash the sun-god passed out in the morning and entered
at night. The moon and stars were within the dome, and did not pass
through it as did the sun. Underneath the thick crust of the earth's surface
the space was all filled with water, and within the crust was Arallu, the
home of the dead and land of "no return." This was supposed to be sur-
rounded by seven walls. Although the real home of the gods was beyond
the dome of heaven, they usually lived on the earth and had their council-
chamber on the mountain of sunrise, near the gate through which Shamash
came out in the morning.
The Babylonian gods are very human. They are born, live, love, fight,
and even die, like the people on the earth. The conception is wholly mate-
rialistic. Alfred Jeremias* says of this religion: "A practical streak runs
through the religion of the inhabitants of the Euphrates valley. Their gods
are gods of the living ; they are in active intercourse with them as helpers
in every action, as rescuers from all evil. The whole religious interest cen-
tres on the necessities of this world. There is no room for the anxious reflec-
tion and philosophising as to the whence, and whither of the soul, which is
so characteristic of the Egyptians. With death comes an end of strength
and life, of hope and comfort. Hence their religion as such has little to do
with conceptions of another world."
The names of the chief gods have been already mentioned. Besides the
Hani rabuti, the great gods, there were a hosts of smaller ones, and a large
number of good and evil spirits. Sickness and disease were supposed to be
brought by demons, the children of the under-world who performed the bid-
ding of Allatu and Nergal, the rulers over hades. Allatu's chief messenger
was Namtar, the demon of pestilence. The Annunaki likewise did her
errands of destruction. The Babylonians lived in constant terror of offend-
ing some of these divinities, and a large part of their literature was devoted
to magical formulas and prayers for aid and protection. Before undertaking
any deed it was customary to find out whether or not the omens were favour-
able. Certain days were particularly unlucky and on them nothing could be
done. The 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of every month were among the
unlucky ones. The later Jewish sabbath is thus seen to have been originally
524 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
an unlucky day rather than a holy day. Hugo Winckler has suggested an
ingenious theory for the fact that thirteen has always been considered an
unlucky number. In order to make the Babylonian calendrical system of
lunar months agree with the solar year, it was necessary to insert an extra
month. This thirteenth month was regarded as being in the way and dis-
turbing calculations. So thirteen came to be regarded as a superfluous,
unlucky number. Another sign of the zodiac was appointed for this ex-
tra month, and this was the sign of the raven.
A great many of the tablets which have been excavated contain omens.
Omens were drawn from dreams, from the conjunction of stars and planets,
from earthquakes, eclipses, and in short from all natural phenomena. Con-
nected with this was the magical literature, the hymns, and penitential
psalms. If all a man's precautions had been in vain and disease had come
upon him, there were magical formulas which might rescue him from his
misery, certain prayers or hymns he might recite. Every Babylonian had
his own protecting god and goddess, to whose care he was perhaps commit-
ted at birth, but the intervention of a priest was necessary to appease the
god. The following prayer, from a tablet used as prayer-book for the use of
priest and penitent, is taken from King's" Babylonian Religion and Mythology :
O my God, who art angry, accept my prayer, O my goddess, who art angry, receive my
supplication. Eeceive my supplication and let thy spirit be at rest. O my goddess, look with
pity on me and accept my supplication. Let my sins be forgiven, let my transgressions be
blotted out. Let the ban be torn away, let the bonds be loosened. Let the seven winds carry
away my sighs. I will send away my wickedness, let the bird bear it to the heavens. Let the
fish carry off my misery, let the river sweep it away. Let the beast of the field take it from me.
Let the flowing waters of the river wash me clean.
To ascertain why the evil had come upon the man, questions like the
following were asked, some of which show an advanced moral code :
Has he estranged the father from his son or the son from his father ? Has he estranged the
mother from her daughter or the daughter from her mother ? Has he estranged the brother from
his brother or the friend from his friend ? Has he refused to set a captive free ? Has he shut out
a prisoner from the light ? Has he committed a sin against a god or against a goddess ? Has
he done violence to one older than himself ? Has he said yes for no or no for yes ? Has he used
false scales ? Has he accepted a wrong account ? Has he set up a false landmark ? Has he
broken into his neighbour's house ? Has he come near his neighbour's wife 1 Has he shed his
neighbour's blood ?
On one old tablet which has a Summerian interlinear translation the
stricken man turns to Marduk as an intercessor :
An evil curse like a demon has come upon the man
Sorrow and trouble have fallen upon him
Evil sorrow has fallen upon him
An evil curse, a spell, a sickness,
The evil curse has slain that man like a lamb.
His god has departed from his body,
His guardian goddess has left his side,
He is covered by sorrow and trouble as with a garment, and he is overwhelmed.
Then Marduk saw him
He entered into the house of his father Ea and said to him :
" O my father, an evil curse like a demon has beset the man."
Twice he spoke unto him and said
" I know not what that man has done nor whereby he may be cured."
Ea made answer to his son Marduk :
" O my son, what thou dost not know, what can I tell thee ?
O, Marduk, what thou dost not know, what can I tell thee ?
What I know, thou knowest,
Go my son Marduk,
Take him to the house of purification
Take away the spell from him, remove the spell from him."
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 525
A very pessimistic view of life is shown by the following complaint of a
sick man quoted by Jeremias: "The day is sighing, the night a flood of
tears ; weeping is the month and misery the year."
We have already seen specimens of Babylonian hymnology. The follow-
ing hymn to Sin, as translated from Shrader's "» work on cuneiform inscrip-
tions, shows real religious fervour :
Lord, ruler among the gods, who alone is great on heaven and earth,
Father Nannar, Lord, God Amar, ruler among the gods
Merciful, gracious father, in whose hand the life of the whole land is held.
O Lord, thy divinity is like the distant heaven, like the wide sea, full of majesty.
He who has created the land, founded the temple, called it by name
Father, generator of gods and men, who caused dwellings to be put up, established sacrifice
Who calls to dominions, gives the sceptre, decides fate for distant days,
Mighty leader, whose depths no god sees through
Valiant one, whose knees never grow tired, who opens the way for the gods, his brothers,
Who passes glorious from the depths of heaven to its heights,
Who opens the gate of heaven, makes light for all men.
Father, generator of all, who looks upon living beings who thinks upon
Lord, who utters judgment for heaven and earth, whose decree no one alters
Who holds fire and water, who directs living beings, What god is like to thee f
In heaven who is great ? Thou alone art great.
On earth, who is great ? Thou alone art great.
When thy word resounds in heaven, the Igigi throw themselves upon their faces ;
When thy word resounds on earth the Anunnaki kiss the ground.
When thy word speeds above like the storm wind, it causes food and drink to flourish.
When thy word settles upon the east, the green arises,
Thy word makes stall and herd to be fat, expands living beings.
Thy word causes right and justice to arise, so that men speak justice.
Thy word is the distant heaven, the hidden under-world which no one sees through,
Thy word, who can understand it, who is equal to it ?
O Lord, thou hast no rival in heaven in dominion nor on the earth in power, among the gods thy
brothers.
THE EPIC OF GILGAMISH
The close relation existing between mythology and religion hardly needs
to be pointed out. The great epic of the Babylonians and Assyrians — that
of Gilgamish — is of special interest to us since it contains the Babylonian
story of the flood. The hero's name was formerly read as Izdubar, as the
following quotation from Jeremias * in his Izdubar-Nimrod shows. <*
The epic, which was preserved in the royal library of Nineveh in the
seventh century as a precious national possession, gives us a glimpse into the
Babylonian history of a remote past. The poem deals principally with
" kings who ruled the land in by-gone times," and with a city " which was
old " at the time of the flood, and the epic itself reaches back into very ancient
times. Its scene is laid among cities in the Euphrates district: Uruk (Erech),
Nippur, the "city of ships," Sherippak and Babylon. The geographical
horizon extends beyond these cities to the mountain Nisir, east of the Tigris,
and southwards, beyond the Mashu mountain land, clear into the Persian
Gulf. The central point of interest is the city Uruk, called Uruk supuri,
" the well guarded." Among the aristocracy of this city Izdubar makes
himself distinguished, being " perfect in power, like a mountain ox, excelling
the heroes in might." He overcomes the jealousy of his fellow citizens and
establishes an indigenous kingdom, namely by conquering the tyrant Khum-
baba, who is shown by his name to be of Elamite descent. The attempt has
been made to identify this historical background with the national uprising
of Babylonia, which, according to Berosus, brought about the downfall of
526 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
an Elamite dynasty ruling 2450-2250 B.C. That the tradition really did
reach back to this age is proved by Babylonian seal-cylinders of the oldest
kings, which unquestionably reproduce scenes from the epic, perhaps also the
connection of the epic with certain constellations of the zodiac.
More important than the historical is the mythological background.
Since Babylonian religion did not belong to the " aristocracy of book
religions," it is difficult to form a system from the abundance of religious
literature, the views of which have been influenced by varying popular
opinion. Hence the portrayal of the divine world as found in a finished epic
is the more important. As in the inscription of King Nabunaid, written
2,000 years later, so here we find the two great divine triads, Anu, Bel, Ea,
who represent three parts of the world according to Babylonian ideas
(heaven, earth, ocean), and Shamash, Sin, Ishtar, who represent the chief
heavenly bodies (Sun, Moon, Venus).
The relations between gods and men is pictured in a naive child-like
fashion, as in Homer. Ishtar tries to win the love of the hero Izdubar.
Shamash establishes friendship between the hero and Eabani, the three great
gods Anu, Bel, Ea whisper secrets into his ear. As Ishtar at one time mounts
from out the city to the heaven of her father Bel, so the gods out of fear of
the rising flood " crouch down like dogs at the portals of heaven " ; they
flock like flies around the sacrifice and "smell the good smell."
One remarkable feature of the epic should be noticed here, namely, the
importance attached to dreams. The whole action is set in motion by count-
less dreams, by means of which the gods show men the future and give them
council. This view is characteristic of Babylonian and Assyrian religion.
The ancient Babylonian king Gudea is shown the outline of the temple build-
ing in a dream. Asshurbanapal on his coming to the throne receives an
address of encouragement from the priestly class, which is based on a dream
of his grandfather Sennacherib, and in his campaigns inspiring dreams are
sent to his soldiers from the goddess of war.»
Nothing definite is known as to the time of the composition of this epic.
We do not know if the copy in Asshurbanapal's library was made from a
Babylonian original or not. It is not probable that the whole was written
at one time or by one author.
The Gilgamish epic comprises twelve tablets. These are mutilated and
broken in places leaving gaps in the story, but they are sufficiently well pre-
served to permit us to follow the main thread of the argument. When the
scene opens the city of Erech is suffering under the severe misfortune of a
protracted siege. The inhabitants are in distress and the gods do nothing to
help them. This siege lasts for three years, during which time the gates of
the city remain closed. Then Gilgamish appears, whether as conqueror or
deliverer the mutilated condition of the tablet leaves in doubt. He was
probably the former, since his rule is very severe and the people complain of
his tyrannical acts. In their distress they appeal to the goddess Aruru, who
is elsewhere associated with Marduk in the creation of mankind, to make a
person who shall rival Gilgamish in strength and power. Aruru accordingly
creates Ea-bani, a creature whose whole body is covered with long hair like
a woman's. The upper part of his body is like a man but his legs are those
of a beast. This strange being lives among the beasts of the field, eating
and drinking with them.
Gilgamish fearing that Ea-bani will be sent by the gods against him sends
out a man called the hunter to catch and bring him to Erech. The hunter
lies in wait for him three days, but on account of his great strength is afraid
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 627
to attack him and returns to the city. Gilgamish then sends a harlot from
the temple with the hunter, to tempt Ea-bani. This plan is successful.
Ea-bani forsakes his cattle out of love for Achat, the harlot, and is persuaded
by her to return to Erech and meet Gilgamish. One thinks involuntarily
here of the story of Adam and Eve. There also it is a woman who tempts
man and leads him to civilisation.
Ea-bani would like to match his strength with Gilgamish, but he is
warned in a dream not to do so. Gilgamish is also told in a dream of
Ea-bani's coming, and the goddess to whom he appeals for interpretation
of his dream advises him to make friends with the approaching hero. The
intervention of Shamash, the sun-god, however, is necessary to persuade
Ea-bani to become a companion and friend to Gilgamish.
The two heroes then proceed against the Elainite tyrant, Khumbaba.
The epic tells of the long, hard road they have to follow, of their terror,
and of the wonderful cedar grove in which the fortress of Khumbaba is
placed. Gilgamish has several encouraging dreams to cheer them on, and
they eventually succeed in killing the tyrant. On their return Gilgamish
has the misfortune to incur Ishtar's displeasure. The goddess sues for his
love and invites him to become her husband. He, however, refuses her
favour, even reproaching her for her cruel treatment of her former lovers,
Tammuz among them, all of whom she has forsaken and destroyed. Ishtar
in her rage at being repulsed hastens to her father, Anu, who creates a
divine bull to attack Gilgamish. The latter, however, with Ea-bani's help
succeeds in conquering the bull. He sacrifices his magnificent horns to
Shamash and proudly boasts that he will conquer Ishtar as well as the bull.
But here his success is at an end. Ea-bani dies, probably stricken by Ishtar,
and Gilgamish himself is afflicted by her with a dreadful disease, which
strikes terror to his heart at the thought that he must die like his friend.
Izdubar wept for Ea-bani, his friend ;
In sorrow he laid himself dowu in the field.
" I will not die like Ea-bani,
Grief has entered my soul.
I am afraid of death
And lay me down in the field."
Gilgamish then determines to seek Sit-napishtim and beseech his help to
rescue him from disease and death. After various experiences he comes
to the mountain Mashu, the sunset mountain, whose gates are guarded by
scorpion men. They let him enter and he journeys for twenty-four hours
in intense darkness before he emerges into the sunlight and passes by a tree
and grove with precious stones for fruit. He then comes to the sea coast,
ruled over by a princess Sabitum. She advises him to seek out Arad-Ea,
the former pilot of Sit-napishtim, who may possibly carry him across the
waters. Arad-Ea consents, builds a boat with the aid of Gilgamish and they
set out together. The most difficult part of the voyage is the journey across
the "waters of death." The two finally reach the island home of Sit-
napishtim who, at Gilgamish's request, tells the story of his escape from the
flood (as translated from Jeremias"):
Sit-napishtim said to him, to Gishduba (Gilgamish'),
" I will reveal to thee, Gishduba, something hidden.
And a secret of the gods will I tell thee.
Shurippak, a city which thou knowest — on the banks of the Euphrates it is situated —
This city is old. The gods within it,
Their heart led the great gods to bring up a deluge.
528 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Their father Anu was there, their counsellor, the mighty Bel,
Their herald Ninib, their leader En-nu-gi.
Ninigiazag (Ea) was with them and related their words to a hut of reeds, saying: "O reed hut,
O reed hut ! O wall, wall 1
Reed hut hear ! wall understand !
Thou man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu,
Make a house, build a ship, leave thy possessions, seek thy life.
Abandon thy goods, and save thy life.
Bring up living seed of every kind into the ship,
The ship, which thou shall build.
Its dimensions must be measured ;
Its breadth and its strength must suit each other.
Thou shall place it in the ocean."
I understood and said to Ea, my lord,
" See, my lord, whal thou hasl commanded
I shall heed and perform.
Bui, how shall I answer to the city, to the people and to the elders f
Ea opened his mouth and spake, said to me, his slave,
"This answer shall thou say to them :
Because Bel hateth me
No longer will I live in your city, nor lay my head on Bel s earth.
To Ihe deep will I go down and live with Ea, my lord.
He will then cause il to rain upon ye abundantly.
A large number of birds, a crowd of fishes,
A quantily of animals, abundanl harvesl. . . .
The lines here are too mutilated to make much meaning. According to
some interpretations Sit-napishtim assures his fellow-citizens of coming pros-
perity so that they have no misgivings as to his leaving them ; others, on the
contrary, indicate that Sit-napishtim made no secret of the coming deluge.
Sit-napishtim then relates how he built the ship, gives its dimensions, and
tells what he put into it. He continues (Jeremias' "• translation) :
" I broughl up into the ship my whole family, and my dependants,
Caltle of Ihe field, beasts of Ihe field, artisans all logelher I broughl them up.
Shamash had appointed a signal,
1 The lord of darkness will send a heavy rain in Ihe evening.
Then enler into the ship and close the door.'
The appointed time came ;
The lord of darkness sent a heavy rain in the evening.
I feared the beginning of the day ;
I was afraid to look upon the day.
I enlered the ship and closed the door.
To the pilot of the ship, to Puzur-Bel, the boatman,
I inlrusted the ship and whal was in it.
When the first dawn appeared
A black cloud arose from the foundation of heaven
Ramman thundered wilhin it.
Nabu and Marduk preceded il.
They advanced as leaders over mountain and earth.
Uragal pulled up the anchor ;
Ninib went forth and caused the storm to follow.
The Annunaki raised their torches ;
They lighted the earlh wilh Iheir beams.
The Ihunder of Ramman mounted to heaven ;
Everything light was turned to darkness."
Ramman floods the land, the tempest rages for a whole day, a strong wind
blows the water like mountains upon the people.
"Brother did not see his brother, men could not be distinguished ; in heaven
The gods were afraid of the deluge.
They quailed, they mounted up to the heaven of Anu.
The gods crouched down like dogs, at the borders of heaven.
Ishtar screamed like a woman in travail.
The lady of the gods cried with a loud voice
1 Former man has been turned again to clay
Because I counselled an evil thing in the council of the gods.' "
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 529
Ishtar complains that her offspring have become like fish spawn and the
gods weep with her. After six days, however, the storm abates, the sea
becomes quiet. Sit-napishtim looks out of the window and weeps at the
sight that meets his gaze. Mankind is turned to clay, the world is all sea.
After twelve days land appears, and the ship sticks fast on the top of Mount
Nisit, where it remains for six days.
" When the seventh day drew nigh,
I sent out a dove and let her go. The dove flew hither and thither,
But as there was no resting place for her, she returned.
Then I sent out a swallow and let her go. The swallow flew hither and thither,
But as there was no resting place for her, she returned.
Then I sent out a raven and let her go.
The raven flew off and saw the diminishing of the waters,
She came near and croaked, but did not return.
Then I brought out (all), offered a sacrifice to the four winds ;
I made a libation on the top of the mountain,
I laid out the vessels seven by seven,
Under them I put reed, cedar-wood and incense.
The gods smelled the smell. The gods smelted the good smell.
The gods gathered like flies about the lord of the sacrifice."
When Ishtar arrives she bitterly accuses Bel for having destroyed man-
kind and refuses to let him approach the sacrifice. Bel on his part is angry
that any man whatever has escaped. Ea interposes, rebukes Bel for his
deed, and tells him that in the future some other device shall be used to
punish mankind. Bel accepts the censure and himself leads Sit-napishtim
and his wife out of the ship and blesses them. They are then transported
to an island at the " mouth of the streams " where they are to live forever.
After listening to this story Gilgamish is cured of his disease by Sit-
napishtim who also tells him of a plant which has the power to prolong life.
Gilgamish sets out with Arad-Ea to find it, and their search is indeed suc-
cessful ; but later on in the journey a demon steals the plant, and Gilgamish
returns sorrowfully home. Here he continues to mourn for his lost friend
Ea-bani. In his desire to see him again he appeals in turn to Bel, Sin, and Ea
to assist him, but they are powerless to help him. It is Nergal, god of the
dead, who grants his request and " opened the earth, let the spirit of Ea-bani
come out of the earth like a breath of wind." When asked to describe the
under-world Ea-bani at first answers, " I cannot tell you, my friend, I cannot
tell you," then he bids him sit down and weep while he gives him a gloomy
account of the place, which closes with the following lines (Jeremias'
translation) :
" On a couch he lieth, drinking pure water.
He who was killed in battle — thou hast seen it, I have seen it —
His father and his mother hold his head
And bis wife kneels at his side.
He whose corpse lies in the field — thou hast seen it, I have seen it —
His soul has no rest in the world.
He whose soul has no one to care for it — thou hast seen it, I have seen it.
The dregs of the cup, the remnants of the feast — what is thrown on the street, that is his
food." A
This is the end of the epic. It has been suggested that the whole forms
a solar myth and is divided into twelve parts to correspond to the twelve
months. According to this theory the sixth tablet, relating to Ishtar, and her
treatment of Tammuz and her other lovers, corresponds to the sixth month.
It is the month when everything seems dry and dead after the hot summer
sun, and in this month the festival of Tammuz was celebrated, as a charac-
teristic of which was the weeping for Tammuz related in Ezekiel viii. 14.
H. W. VOL. I. 2M
530 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
The seventh tablet speaking of Gilgamish's illness would thus correspond
to the seventh month, the one following the summer solstice, when the
power of nature seems to grow less, and this was attributed to a disease of
the sun.
ISHTAR'S DESCENT INTO HADES
This idea is brought out more fully in the legend of Ishtar's descent into
the under world. It is possible that the story used to be recited in connec-
tion with the festival of Tammuz just mentioned. Ishtar is pictured as
descending into the lower realms, probably in search of her young husband.
The picture it gives us of the conception the Babylonians had of life after
death is very valuable. The poem begins :
To the land of no return, to the land . . .
Ishtar the daughter of Sin inclined her ear.
To the house of darkness, the dwelling of Irkalla
To the house from which none who enter ever return
To the road whose course does not turn back.
To the house in which he who enters is deprived of light,
Where dust is their nurture and mud their food.
They see not the light, they dwell in darkness.
They are clothed like birds in a garment of feathers.
On the doors and bolts is spread dust.
When Ishtar reached the gate of the land of no return
She spoke to the porter at the gate
" Porter, open thy gate,
Open thy gate, I will enter.
If thou dost not open thy gate, and I do not enter,
I will strike the door, I will break the bolt,
I will strike the threshold and break down the door.
I will raise up the dead to consume the living,
The dead shall be more numerous than the living I "
The porter opened his mouth and spoke,
Spoke to the powerful Ishtar :
" Stay, my lady, do not break it down,
I will go and announce thy name to the queen Allatu."
The porter then informs Allatu that her sister Ishtar stands at the door.
The goddess is displeased at the news but bids the porter open the door and
treat her according to the " ancient laws." These demanded that she should
lose some part of her apparel at each of the seven gates of the under-world
until she stood naked before the throne of its goddess. At the first gate the
porter takes away her crown and she asks : " Why, O porter, dost thou take
the great crown from my head ! " He answers : " Enter, O lady, for these
are the commands of the mistress of the world." At each gate Ishtar
remonstrates at having her ornaments taken from her, and each time the
porter returns the same answer.
When Ishtar comes before Allatu, the latter commands her messenger
Namtar to smite the goddess with disease in all parts of her body. But
while Ishtar is being detained in the lower world, all life has stopped on the
earth's surface. The gods demand her release. A being is specially created
to bring her back. The rest of the story and the meaning of this and the
flood myth is told by C. P. Tiele » as follows : o
The story of Ishtar's descent into hades is unmistakably a nature myth,
which describes in picturesque fashion her descent into the under-world to
seek the springs of living water, probably the central force of light and heat
in the world. When she is imprisoned there by Allatu, the goddess of death
and of the shadow world, and even visited with all sorts of diseases, all
growth and generation stand still in the world, so that the gods take council
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 531
and decide to demand her release. Ea accordingly creates a wonderful being
a kind of priest, called " his light shineth," who is to seek out the fountain
of life, and whom Allatu cannot withstand, however much she may scold and
curse. The goddess is set free, returns to the upper world and brings her
dead lover Tammuz back to life by sprinkling him with the water of immor-
tality. This myth is not cosmological nor ethical, but has already become a
pure anthropomorphic narration, the physical basis for certain episodes and
details of which is often not clear, and which has a tendency to strengthen
belief in immortality. The account of the flood also, which we have in seve-
ral versions and which was itself put together out of various parts, some of
them heterogeneous, betrays the fact that it was put together by a polytheist
and originated in a nature myth. But the nature myths as such lie already
so far behind the author, there is such a naive humour in the way the gods
are represented, everything happens in such a human fashion — one needs
only to think of Ishtar's complaint that she has created men but no brood of
fishes, of the sly excuse with which Ea excuses himself to Bel for having res-
cued his favourite from the destruction planned by the latter, one needs only
to hear how Bel is preached at by the wise Ea for his unreasonable and blind
passion, and how the great Istar declares him to have forfeited his share of
the sacrifice, and then see how he silently acknowledges his wrong by himself
accompanying the man over whose rescue he had become so excited, and
raising him with his family to a place among the gods — one needs only to
think of all this to see that the narrator made use of the mythological mate-
rial only to describe the fall of sinful humanity and at the same time to
remind his hearers that the gods always have means at their command, such
as hunger, pestilence, and wild beasts, to punish the evil-doer, o
The Babylonian view of life after death was particularly gloomy. There
was no hope of anything better. The highest state of happiness pictured
was to lie on a couch and drink clear water ; even for the pious it was a
place of gloom. And there was no possibility of escaping from it. Sit-
napishtim tells Gilgamish in this connection that death must come to all
(we translate again from the version of Jeremias ») :
So long as houses are built,
So long as contracts are made,
So long as brothers quarrel,
So long as enmity exists,
So long as rivers bear their waves [to the sea]
I • •••••••••
The Anunnaki and the great gods determine fate
And Mammetum, the creator of destiny, with them.
They determine life and death,
The days of death are not known.*
We have seen the legend telling of a visit to the lower world ; there are
two which tell of visits to heaven. One is in connection with Etana. In
Asshurbanapal's library were a series of tablets containing the Etana legend.
One portion of the story tells how Shamash helped Etana to find a plant
which would help his wife in child-birth. Another narrates how Etana
mounted to heaven on the back of an eagle. They pause at different stages
to look at the earth beneath them. At the first stop: "The earth appears
like a mountain, the sea has become a pool." They go further and the
eagle again calls to Etana to look at the earth. This time the sea looks like
a belt around the earth. The next time he looks the sea has become a mere
gardener's ditch. After reaching the gate of Anu, Bel, and Ea, the eagle
wants to go still further and persuades Etana to accompany him to Ishtar's
532 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
abode. They fly until the earth appears a mere "garden bed," but here the
rash attempt of the eagle to reach the highest regions appears to be pun-
ished. The two are hurled down from heaven upon the earth. Another
part of the legend tells of a deceit practised upon the eagle by the serpent,
aided by Shamash, in which the eagle dies a miserable death.
The second story of a visit to heaven is found in the legend of Adapa.
This legend was on one of the tablets found at Tel Amarna. Adapa is a son
of the god Ea, and is represented as serving in his temple. One day as he
is fishing in the sea the south wind overturns his boat. Adapa then fights
with the south wind and succeeds in breaking its wings so that it does not
blow for seven days. At the end of this time Anu, in heaven, becomes
aware that the south wind has not been blowing and inquires the reason.
When told, he becomes very angry that anyone should have had the audac-
ity to interfere with any of his creatures. He accordingly sends for Adapa
to appear before him. Ea gives his son advice as to his conduct, telling
him how to secure the good favour of the two porters at the gate, one of
whom is Tammuz. He tells him further : " When thou comest before Anu,
they will offer thee food of death — do not eat. Water of death they will
offer thee — do not drink. They will offer thee a garment — put it on.
They will offer thee oil — anoint thyself." Adapa then reaches heaven,
and everything happens as Ea has told him. Only the food and water
which are offered him are of life not of death, and thus Adapa loses his
chances of eternal life. Anu looks at him in amazement and exclaims : " O
Adapa, why didst thou not eat and drink? Now thou canst not live."
Here, as in the case of Adam in the biblical story, whose name by the way
may possibly be identical with Adapa, we see that a deceit was practised on
man. In each case he is told that the food and water of life will bring him
death, although the Babylonian story differs from the biblical in that the
former freely and gladly accords man knowledge, as represented by the
clothing and oil for anointment, which may be regarded as symbols of
civilisation.
In the Euphrates valley religion was very closely associated with the
actual life of the nation. The temples were storehouses and banking estab-
lishments ; the priests were lawyers and scribes. Every historical inscrip-
tion contains a reference to the gods. Victory was due to their intervention.
Nothing was conceived without them. Their festivals were the great events
of the year. The German excavating society has recently brought to light
the old procession street between Babylon and Borsippa over which the
image of the god Nabu used to be carried on his annual visit to Marduk
at Babylon. This street was decorated with glazed, coloured tiles, repre-
senting a stately procession of lions and other beasts, which show a high
grade of artistic talent.
The Babylonian religion shows its development plainly. In its earliest
phase we have the belief in a great many spirits and demons, who could be
controlled by magic. Then comes the period of local cults followed by the
organised pantheon, in which we see faint signs of a conception of one god
manifested in many forms."
To sum up in the words of Tiele : From all that has been said it will
be seen that the religion of the Babylonians had at an early date attained
a comparatively high stage of development. It had not yet crossed the
boundary of monotheism but remained a theocratic, monarchical polytheism;
nevertheless it came very near that boundary. The gods of mythology were
already treated with great freedom, and the disgust which some of their
THE KELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 533
deeds called forth was not disguised. A comparatively pure and lofty con-
ception of the highest divinity had already been developed, even if it was
called upon by different names. However much superficiality and formality,
however many superstitions and magical customs may have been connected
with the divine worship, it was yet not lacking in deep religious feeling and
moral earnestness, which is shown particularly in the penitential psalms.o
BAS-HELIBF OF WORKMEN AND CABT
(.After Layardl
CHAPTER IX. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE
OF all the revelations regarding the Mesopotamia!! civilisation which the
researches of Botta and Layard and their followers have brought to light,
none perhaps are more interesting than those that showed the position which
art had attained in those far-off and forgotten times. It had all along been
remembered that powerful political empires had risen and fallen here, how-
ever vaguely the details of the history may have been preserved. It was
recalled, too, that these peoples possessed religions with the same fundamental
elements as the Jewish creeds ; but that they had developed an artistic spirit
and artistic craftsmanship far beyond that of any other people of their time,
had been entirely forgotten. Yet, as we have seen, the most striking and
conspicuous of the monuments restored by the explorations were works of
art. We have obtained many glimpses of these in the preceding pages, and
it will not be necessary here to treat them in very great detail ; indeed, it
would be quite impossible to do so within the necessary bounds of space.
Our concern is with the historic relations of the Mesopotamian art develop-
ment rather than with the details of the art itself. Nevertheless, something
more than incidental references will be made to some features of the subject."
The origin of Babylonian-Assyrian civilisation is lost in the darkness of
prehistoric times, like that of the Egyptians and Chinese. We shall see that
even their oldest monuments display a high grade of artistic ability and pre-
suppose a long development. The texts on the oldest monuments are already
written in cuneiform ; the picture writing in which this must have origi-
nated was already out of use, which shows a great progress in civilisation.
As to the origin of this culture various suppositions have been made.
According to the one which has made most headway, it was borrowed by
the Babylonians from a non-Semitic race who inhabited the country before
them, and then spread gradually from the Persian Gulf, where it originated
or whither it was brought from without, towards the north.
It is pure supposition to say that civilisation in Babylonia started out
from the shores of the Persian Gulf and spread from there towards the
north, but it is a supposition which has a high degree of probability. In
this direction points the old legend of the Babylonians, as Berossus relates it,
which describes the origin of civilisation — the legend of the divine fish-man
Cannes, who came up in the morning from the Erythraean Sea, instructed
the inhabitants of Chaldea, who were still living like animals, in the arts and
sciences, and then in the evening disappeared again under the waves. This
fish-god has long since been recognised as the god who is so frequently
depicted on Babylonian and Assyrian monuments, and it can now hardly be
longer doubted that he, the god of the waters, or rather the source of light
534
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 636
and fire in the waters, is the god Ea. This god with his circle is without
doubt indigenous to southern Chaldea. The oldest and most important centre
of his cult is Eridu, situated close to the sea. His son Marduk, and the god
connected with him whom the Semites call Nabu, is especially honoured on
the islands and coast of the Persian Gulf. Thus if legend traces the, culture
of the Chaldeans from the instruction of this god, this is the origin of the
tradition that his worshippers, who must have been mariners and dwellers on
the sea coast, introduced this civilisation into Chaldea.
In agreement with this is the fact that the decrees of Ea and the magic
formulae of Eridu, his chief city situated near the sea, are repeatedly desig-
nated as being very holy and powerful, and as very ancient ; also that the
oldest sayings and traditions which are known to us in the Gisdubas (Gil-
gamesh) epic, are located precisely in places on the sea coast or not far distant
from it. These were also the centres of powerful states, as also of the king-
dom of Ur, and the oldest monuments of Chaldean civilisation which have
yet become known to us were found in southern Babylonia at Telloh.
However, wherever its origin may have been, the great age of Babylonian
culture, of which the Assyrian is only a later branch, stands beyond doubt.
The cylinders of Sargon I as well as the statues found at Telloh show a high
grade of development and presuppose an art which already has a long past
behind it. That the Egyptian culture is younger and even derived from
the Babylonian, and that the latter is thus the oldest in the world, and at the
same time was the mother of all other civilisations of antiquity, as has been
claimed (Hommel), can naturally not be proved and is still doubtful ; but it
is not impossible. And the most remarkable fact is, that at least the plastic
art could never again reach the heights it had already attained in such a
gray antiquity.
This does not mean to imply that the Babylonians did not further
develop the civilisation, the elements of which they had received from their
predecessors. They assimilated it and developed it independently ; it may
even be assumed that they improved on it in more than one respect, and
applied it to higher ends. They also introduced into it much that was
peculiar to them. How far this was the case — what with them was borrowed
and what original, cannot yet be determined in detail. At any rate we are
not justified in attributing to their non-Semitic teachers, as often happens,
everything barbaric, cruel, and repulsive that still characterises their cus-
toms, nor all the superstitions still connected with their religion.
The original inhabitants excelled the Semites in artistic spirit and
ability, perhaps also as traders and mariners, and the latter probably imitated
the former, but seldom reached them and never surpassed them. The Semites,
on the other hand, put more depth and earnestness into their religious life ;
energetically carried out the monarchic principle in this, as also in the life of
the state ; simplified the writing ; enriched the literature, which was thus
rendered more practical, by highly remarkable epic narrations, especially
with epic poems, and even made an attempt to write history. Furthermore,
by the organisation of a capable army, by the warlike talents of their kings
and generals, as also by their unbending character and persevering will, they
established states which endured the most violent upheavals and changes,
and ruled all their neighbours for centuries. If they were behind their pre-
decessors in some points, they far surpassed them in others. The conception
that one people takes on the culture of another, quite as one puts on a bor-
rowed dress, is just as foolish as the conception that a nation relinquishes its
own individuality and originality as soon as it learns something from another.
536 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
The Greeks of whom it has now been proved that they owed much to oriental
peoples, the Persians of whom everyone knows that they borrowed most of
their civilisation from Babylon, prove the contrary. The people who brought
its culture to the southern coasts of Babylonia and probably also to the coasts
of Elan and communicated it to the still uncultured races living there, seems
to have belonged to that peaceful, commercial race which the Hebrews des-
ignated as the " sons of Kush," which was not unlike the Phrenicians and
was placed in the same category ; a race which, while jealous of its inde-
pendence, was not aggressive, although inclined to colonisation and to making
distant journeys. These dwellers on the coasts, together with the inland
tribes, were then conquered by the Semites, perhaps after long battles. If,
however, they became in this way, as always, the teachers of their conquer-
ors, the culture which grew under their influence was none the less a
creation, and thus the inalienable property of the Babylonians.
LITBRATUBE AND SCIENCE
How high a state of civilisation the Babylonians had reached is shown
by the fact that the invention of writing was a long-accomplished fact with
them. The oldest inscriptions known to us, and which certainly date as far
back as 4000 B.C., are already written in a species of character which from
similarity to the second Egyptian style of writing has been called hieratic,
and it has been proved that this hieratic style of writing has been evolved
from older hieroglyphics, long since fallen into disuse.
It is not known whether any other material than stone or clay was used
to write upon, and whether in such case syllabic writing was used or not.
It has been surmised that the Babylonians and Assyrians also used, and per-
haps exclusively at first, papyrus, leather, and other soft materials to write
upon, and engraved upon stone or clay only such matter as they wished to
preserve. This is not improbable, even though we do not possess any such
manuscripts. For as a matter of course the first named materials could not
withstand the Babylonian climate as well as the Egyptian, and only the last
named are proof against fire and water. It is a fact, however, that the bas-
reliefs show the scribes recording the number of the slain on soft material,
probably leather, as well as upon hard tablets. Whether they also wrote
books or letters on papyrus or leather has not been definitely established.
However much the writing of the Babylonians and Assyrians may have
been an inheritance from very ancient times, and how much they may be
indebted to the early Chaldeans for the single form and the structure of
the whole system, the cuneiform writing in which they represented their
language was their own invention in more than one respect, since they did
not thoughtlessly use what was ready to hand, but modified and altered it
with deliberation.
Writing was also used by the Babylonians and Assyrians for purely
literary purposes. The narratives, legends, or poems were inscribed on
tablets of clay, and if in case of a work of greater size, the two sides cov-
ered with microscopic characters did not suffice, a series of such was used,
which were clearly designated and numbered, so that they were in fact
leaves of a book. Generally the title of the whole, as usual with the
Hebrews, the first words and the first words of the following tablet were
inscribed on every tablet. This literature even if limited to the produc-
tions of the imagination, is comparatively abundant. Although in this
respect it may not equal the literature of some races still living, such as the
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 637
Chinese, Arabian, Persian, and Indian, nor that of the ancient times of
Greece and India, which in the last named country grows as luxuriantly as
its vegetation, yet on the other hand, it excels in this respect that of the
other Semitic races, the Hebrews not excepted. This is proved not only
by the writings so far discovered but also by the catalogues of books in
Babylonian libraries or of similar works elsewhere. However, enough has
been brought to light, and in a fair state of preservation, to enable us to
form an opinion of the literary talent of the Babylonians, and to prove
to us what great varieties of it they cultivated.
The Assyrians stand, in a literary sense, in about the same relation to
the Babylonians as the Romans to the Greeks, disciples who never equalled
their masters, although as far as can be seen, even relatively considered,
Koman literature stands higher in relation to Greek than Assyrian stands
in relation to Babylonian. The tendency of the Assyrians was warlike, and
BAKED CLAY CYLINDER OF SAROON II, KINO or ASSYRIA, B.C. 722-705, INSCRIBED WITH A
CHRONICLE OF HIS EXPEDITION
directed to practical ideas : to found a mighty empire, and to maintain their
supremacy was the end for which they strove. Therefore they were more
interested in history than in creations of the imagination ; purely literary
work had little charm for them. Only much later, a desire is awakened in
them to become acquainted with the productions of the Babylonians in this
field, and to acquire as much as possible of it for themselves. And perhaps
even here interest in the ancient religions and national traditions played
a greater role than love for poetry.
The Assyrians seem to have had more taste for what may be designated
the science of the period, than for literature. Here also, they were follow-
ing the lead of the Babylonians, and accomplished little beyond taking pos-
session of the treasures of the Babylonian libraries. The prestige which
attached to the Babylonians in antiquity as the earliest cultivators of science
is well known, although some thought that they had borrowed it from the
Egyptians. Without doubt they reached the greatest eminence in antiquity
in the knowledge of astronomy. Kalisthenes sent Aristotle astronomical
observations from Babylon, which, according to the most moderate state-
538 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
ment, reach back to 1903 before Alexander, i.e., 2324 B.C. ; and there is
nothing improbable in this. The number of eclipses mentioned on the
astronomical tablets would lead to a conclusion that there was an even
longer period of recorded calculations. It may be that the Ziggurat of the
temples, which originally had a religious significance, might, in Assyria at
least, have been used as observatories. It has even been surmised that
the Babylonians had some sort of a telescope, and this surmise rests upon the
finding of a lens in the ruins, and upon the fact that they were acquainted
with the planet Saturn, which is invisible to the naked eye ; but this doss
not seem probable. One thing is certain, they gave names to the constella-
tions, especially to the signs of the Zodiac, which have in part remained
in use. They were acquainted with five planets, and distinguished them
very exactly from the other heavenly bodies. They observed, and with great
accuracy, the eclipses of the sun and moon, perhaps also the sun spots, the
comets, the orbit of Venus, and the position of the Polar star ; but they had
some very childish ideas about the causes of eclipses and the character of
the other heavenly phenomena. Naturally the Milky Way did not escape
their observation. They even calculated the regular recurrence of eclipses
of the moon as well as its phases.
A few of the mathematical tablets extant prove that they had made great
progress in arithmetic and higher mathematics, so indispensable to the study
of astronomy. The prevalent system was the sexagesimal, with the 60 as
the unit, but the decimal system seems to have been known and used.
However in spite of the recognition of the high value of these researches,
they hardly deserve the name of science. These researches were certainly
not undertaken from a love of science. The prime object, no doubt, was to
discover the will of the gods in regard to the future. The science of
mathematics itself was made subservient to the art of divination. Astronomy
was a secondary object, astrology the principal one. Knowledge was sought
of what must happen when there should be a recurrence of certain phases
of stars and heavenly bodies. All observations of planets, comets, and
other stars, of eclipses and other phenomena, were immediately connected
with occurrences on earth, which at some former time had fallen in conjunc-
tion with them and consequently must be expected again.
No more were other branches of science besides astronomy cultivated for
their own sakes. Their science of medicine was based almost entirely upon
magic, and appears to have stood on a lower plane than that of the Egyp-
tians, at least in so far as the still existing inscriptions will permit us to
judge. They indeed used as did the Vedic Indians external and internal
remedies, but they probably regarded them as charms ; whatever progress
they may have made in the science of medicine, the records of it in the
ancient inscriptions prove that it was somewhat less than what we know
of the Vedic physicians and their cures. Thus it is rather an exaggeration
to speak of physical, geographical, grammatical, and mythological writings of
the Babylonians and Assyrians, unless the myths and legends belonging
to literature already discussed are meant.
There are various reasons for the supposition that each of the Babylonian
libraries according to the studies of the several religious and scientific schools
had a distinctive character. The Assyrian libraries, on the other hand, being
all of later date, had more general and more varied contents.
The idea that these libraries were for the use of the general public, is not
well founded, and rather improbable. They were probably designed in the
first place, for the learned men and scribes of the king, as well as for his own
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 539
use, for the instruction of his sons, and future officials, as well as for archives
of the state. They do not in the least prove that culture, learning, and eru-
dition were the property of all classes in Assyria.^
Epistolary Literature
At the same time the large number of written private documents which
have been unearthed — the letters and contract tablets — show that writing
was not an unusual thing among the people as a whole.
From one point of view these old letters are the most interesting form of
Babylonian literature because they show better than anything else the real
life of the nation. At first thought it may seem that a correspondence on
clay must have been cumbersome, but most of these little letters were not so
large as an ordinary envelope and some of them were only two or three inches
long, and could easily be carried in the pocket. Some of them were enclosed
in an outer envelope of clay which frequently contained a copy of the real
document within.
In connection with the code of Khammurabi, his correspondence with
one of his officials, Sin-idinnam, is particularly interesting because in these
letters we find references to the same subjects which are treated of in the
laws. In them all, we see Khammurabi attending to the minutest affairs of
his kingdom, taking a personal interest in everything. It seems to have been
a comparatively easy matter to get the king's ear. He received letters com-
plaining of things we should perhaps consider beneath the notice of a power-
ful king, and he seems to have devoted careful thought to all.
The letters of Khammurabi have been edited and translated by Mr. L.
W. King, of the British Museum. They have been also translated by Dr. G.
Nagel »' for a doctor's dissertation, at Berlin, and published in the Beiir&ge zur
Assyrioloffie, vol. IV. Some of the latter's translations are given below."
To Sin-idinnam say: Thus saith Khammurabi. Naram-Sin the keeper
of flocks hath said : " To the leaders of the troops have our shepherd lads
been given." Thus did he say. The shepherd lads of Apil-Shamash and of
Naram-Sin must not be given to the troopers. Now send to Etil-hi-Marduk
and his fellows that they give back the shepherd lads of Apil-Shamash and
of Naram-Sin which they have taken.
To Sin-idinnam say: Thus saith Khammurabi. The whole canal was
dug, but it was not dug clear into Erech, so that water does not come into
the city. Also ... on the bank of the Duru canal has fallen in. This
labour is not too much for the people at thy command to do in three days.
Directly upon receipt of this writing dig the canal with all the people at thy
command, clear into the city of Erech, within three days. As soon as thou
hast dug the canal, do the work which I have commanded thee.
To Sin-idinnam say: Thus saith Khammurabi. Tummumu of Nippur
has announced to me as follows : " In the place Unaburu (?) I deposited
seventy tons of grain in a granary (?). Avel-ilu has opened the granary
and taken the grain." Thus did he tell me. See, I am sending Tummumu
to thee with this. Let Avel-ilu be brought before thee. Examine their
dispute. The grain belonging to Tummumu which Avel-ilu took, he shall
give back to Tummumu.
To Sin-idinnam say : Thus saith Khammurabi. See, I have ordered and
sent Sin-aiaba-iddina, Guzalu and Shataminu to the war. They will reach
540 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
thee on the 12th day of Marshewau. When they have reached thee, do thou
proceed with them. The cows and flocks of thy province, put into safe
keeping. Also Nabu-raalik, Ilu-naditum, Shainash-mushalim, Sin-usili, Tari-
bum, and Idin-Ninshah shall go with thee and take part in the war.
To Sin-idinnam gay : Thus saith Khammurabi. Immediately upon receipt
of this letter, have all the keepers of thy temple and Ardi-Shamash, the
son of Eriban, the shepherd of the Shamash temple come before thee,
together with their complete account. Send them to Babylon to give their
account. Let them ride day and night. Within two days they should be in
Babylon. »
We also have examples of the private correspondence of the same period,
showing the style of letter one Babylonian wrote to another. The following
remarks and translations of letters are taken from a dissertation giving
letters from the time of Khammurabi.0
The insignificant contents of some of these letters show that letter writing
at that time was a general custom and the theory again and again thrusts
itself forward that a comparatively regular postal service was already in
existence. These letters also show how far Babylonian commerce extended
in the second half of the third century before Christ. Every letter throws
new light upon that far distant past and helps us to form an ever surer pic-
ture of the daily life of the old Babylonian people. Following are a few
examples to give an idea of the epistolary style.
To my father say : Thus speaks Elme«Jm. May Shamash and Marduk keep
my father alive forever. Mayest thou, my father, be in health, mayest thou live.
May the protecting deity of my father lift up the head of my father in favour.
To greet my father have I written. May the prosperity of my father before
Shamash and Marduk endure forever. After Sin and Ramman had spoken
thy name, my father,1 thou, my father, didst speak as follows : " As soon as
I come to Der-Ammizadaduga on the Sharku canal, I will send thee, within
a short space, a lamb with five mina of silver." This didst thou say, my
father. My father made me expectant, but thou hast sent nothing. Now
after thou, my father, hadst started out to Taribu, the queen, I sent a letter
to my father. Thou, my father, hast never voluntarily sent anyone who
brought (even) a silver shekel. In accordance with the ... of Sin and
Ramman who have blessed my father, may my father send me that for
which I am eager, so will my heart not be grieved, and I will pray for my
father to Shamash and Marduk.
To my lord, say : Thus speaketh Belshunu, thy slave. Since I have been
confined in prison thou, my lord, hast kept me alive. What is the reason
that for five months my lord has neglected me ? The house in which I am
confined is a house of want. Now I have sent the Mar-abulli (gate-keeper [?] )
to you with a letter. I am also ill. May my lord have pity on me, send me
corn and vegetables so that I may not die. Send me also a dress to cover
my nakedness. Either a half shekel of silver or two mina of wool let him
(Mar-abulli) bring, for my service let him bring it. Let not Mar-abulli be
sent empty away. If he cometh empty, the dogs will devour me. As thou,
my lord, so also every inhabitant of Sippar and Babylon knows that I am
confined without guilt ; not because of a bilshu, I have been imprisoned.
Thou, my lord, didst send me beyond the river to carry oil, but the Sutu
[> This probably means that the father had been called to a high office.]
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 641
people met me and took me captive. Speak a favourable word to the ser-
vant of the king's grand vizir. Send, that I die not in the house of need.
Send one ka of oil and five ka of salt. What thou didst send a short time
ago was not delivered. Whatever thou sendest, send it well guarded.
To my father say : Thus saith Zimri-erah. May Shamash and Marduk
give my father everlasting life. Ibi-Ninshah the younger brother of Nur-
ilisliu has fallen upon Nabu-atpalam and beaten him ; he has also spoken
insults concerning me which are not to be endured. I shall beat the young
man ! Wherefore has he cursed me ? I have as yet said nothing to the
person. I thought to myself : " I will send to my father, let him send his
decision about the matter, and then I will speak to the person." Now I
have sent a tablet to Nabu-atpalam, for information in this matter. Up !
make a decision in this matter, send your judgment, give (?) a word.
To the secretary of the merchants of Sippar, lahruru speak : Thus saith
Ammidatitana. The wool dealer has informed me as follows : " I have
written to the secretary of the merchants of Sippar, lahruru to send his
spun wool to Babylon, but he has not sent his spun wool." Thus has he
informed me. Why hast thou not sent thy spun wool to Babylon ? Since
thou hast not feared to do this thing, so send — as soon as thou seest this
tablet — thy spun wool to Babylon.1
To Appa speak : Thus saith CUmil-Marduk. May Shamash keep thee
alive. I have spoken in thy behalf to the person in question and he said ;
"Let him come so that he may speak." And the tablets which thou didst
take to examine, take them according to thy examination and come quickly.
To Etil-Shamash-iddina speak: Thus saith Avel-Ruhati. May Shamash
and Ishtar keep thee alive; 1 am well. Humtani has given for Amti-Shamash
8| kat and 15 she of silver. To Musalimma, I will give the money wherever
he commands. I am going into the service of the king's daughter. I will
quickly send thy desire. Send an answer to my tablet J
Among the large number of letters which have been preserved it has
been possible to find more than one written by the same person, and, by put-
ting these together, to get some idea of the life and character of the writer.
The letters of a certain Bel-Ibni are prominent among these. They contain
allusions to historical events mentioned on the monuments, thus contributing
valuable details to these rather barren records of events. Bel-Ibni himself
was a general in the army of Ashurbanapal. Below is a translation of one
of these letters made by Dr. C. Johnston,* in the Epistolary literature of the
Assyrians and Babylonians in the Journal of the American Oriental Society,
vol. XVIII.o
To the lord of kings, my lord, thy servant Bel-Ibni ! May Ashur, Shamash
and Marduk decree length of days, health of mind and body for the lord of
kings, my lord! Shuma, the son of Sham-iddina, son of Gakhal, son of
Tammaritu's sister, fleeing from Elam, reached the (country of the) Dakkha.
I took him under my protection and transferred him from Dakkha (hither).
He is ill. As soon as he completely recovers his health, I shall send him to
the king, my lord.
A messenger has come to him (with the news) that Nadan and the
Pukudeans of Til ... had a meeting with Nabu-bel-shumate at the city of
f1 This is a letter from King Ammiditana, the king who was third from the end of the first
Babylonian dynasty. It is an example of the usual style of a royal letter.]
542 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Targibati, and they took a neutral oath to this effect : " According to agree-
ment we shall send you whatever news we may hear." To bind the bar-
gain (?) they purchased from him fifty head of cattle, and also said to him :
" Our sheep shall come and graze in the pasture (?) among the Ubanateans,
in order that you may have confidence in us." Now (I should advise that)
a messenger of my lord, the king, come, and give Nadan plainly to under-
stand as follows : " If thou sendest anything to Elam for sale, or if a single
sheep gets over to the Elamite pasture (?) I will not let thee live." The
king, my lord, may thoroughly rely upon my report.*
Professor Delitzsch in an article in the Beitrage zur Assyriologie, vol. I.
entitled Beitrage zur Erklcirung der babylonisch-assyrischen Brieflitteratur,
has given a translation of a letter from the king to this same Bel-lbni :
The word of the king to Bel-lbni : May my greeting make glad thy heart !
Concerning thy communication about the Pukudeans on the river Charru —
In the future, whoever loves the house of his lords, shall communicate what-
ever he sees and hears to his lords. See ! whilst thou inform me concerning
the cause of thy communication. *
BAKED CLAY TABLETS FROM THE LIBRARY OF ASSHUKBANAPAL AT NINEVEH
Some of the letters throw light on religious ceremonies, others are com-
munications from astrologers telling whether or not the signs of the heavens
are propitious for certain undertakings. There are still others from physi-
cians telling of patients under their care. The following is translated by
Dr. Johnston : «
To the king, my lord, thy servant, Arad-Nana ! Q-reeting most heartily to
my lord, the king! May Adar and Q-ula grant health of mind and body to my
lord, the king. A hearty greeting to the son of the king .... With regard to
the patient who has a bleeding from his nose, the Rab-mugi reports :
"Yesterday, towards evening, there was much hemorrhage." Those dress-
ings are not scientifically applied. They are placed on the alse of the nose,
oppress the breathing, and come off when there is hemorrhage. Let them
be placed within the nostrils, and then the air will be kept away and the
hemorrhage restrained. If it is agreeable to my lord, the king, I will go
to-morrow and give instructions; (meantime) let me hear how he does.*
Several letters have been preserved of a certain Ishtar-duri, who appears
to have lived during the reign of Sargon (722-705 B.C.), and was perhaps
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 543
identical with the eponym of the same name in the year 714. Dr. Johnston
has translated a communication of his to the king: a
To the king, my lord, thy servant I»htar-duri! Greeting to the king, my
lord! I send forthwith to my lord, the king, in company with my messen-
ger, the physicians Nabu-shum-iddina and Nabu-erba, of whom I spoke to
the king, my lord. Let them be admitted to the presence of the king, my
lord, and let the king, my lord, converse with them. I have not disclosed
(to them) the true facts, but have told them nothing. As the king, my
lord, commands, (so) has it been done.
Shamash-bel-ugur sends word from Der : " We have no inscriptions to
place upon the temple walls." I send therefore to the king, my lord, (to
ask) that one inscription be written out and sent immediately, (and that)
the rest be speedily written, so that they may place them upon the temple
walls.
There has been a great deal of rain, (but) the harvest is gathered. May
the heart of the king, my lord, be of good cheer ! *
ABT
Art occupies too prominent a position in the life of the Babylonians
and Assyrians, and they have produced too much that is original and pecu-
liar to them, for this history to pass over the question in silence. Even a
mere sketch of their culture would be incomplete without it. At the same
time great precaution is necessary. In the determination of the chronolog-
ical succession of undated monuments so much depends on subjective valua-
tion and aesthetic judgment that, without a long and conscientious study of
the history of art, one is liable to serious error. And the determination
of dates largely influences one's conception of the progress of Babylonian-
Assyrian art ; assthetic judgment, one's decision concerning the character,
independence, and value of this artistic effort.
Here again, as in the language, religion, and in the whole civilisation of
this people the unity of the Babylonian-Assyrian race comes clearly to light.
Whatever differences may exist between Babylonian and Assyrian art in the
conception of detail, in certain peculiarities of technique, in the choice of
subjects, at bottom they are one. It has ever been characterised as a
national school in which one and the same character prevails, so that a work
of art, be it from Telloh, Babylon, Nineveh, or Kalah, at once shows its con-
nection with it. All the differences are merely shades, changes caused by
time. This is especially noticeable when one considers what material for
example was used for building. In Babylonia it is difficult to obtain
stone ; there are no rocks there. Consequently this material, which had to
be brought from a distance, and was therefore expensive, was kept like
precious and other metals for the decoration of the whole, for pillars, bas-
reliefs, dedicatory inscriptions, etc., or for making a firm foundation, while
dried and burnt bricks were used for the buildings themselves. Among the
Assyrians this difficulty did not exist. Excellent stone, which was easily
worked, was found in close proximity, and the Assyrians understood how to
hew and shape it. In spite of this, they imitated the Babylonian custom
and used mainly bricks for their buildings. They preferred continually to
repair these temples and palaces, which soon fell into ruin, or else to replace
them by others, rather than to depart from the traditional mode of building
of their ancestors.
544 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
The question has been raised as to whether Babylonian- Assyrian art may
not perhaps have been a daughter of the Egyptian. Without doubt Assyrian
art was at least influenced by it. All the ivory objects which have yet been
found are plainly imitations of Egyptian motives, although they were cer-
tainly not made by Egyptians, and some of them date from the time of
Asshurnazirpal. The lotus ornament also, which is so often used as a temple
decoration, points to an Egyptian origin. Perhaps, however, the models were
not borrowed directly from the Egyptians. Certain dishes and cups for
drink-offering, which occur in Mesopotamia, as well as in western Asia and
southern Europe, are plainly ornamented with Egyptian cartouches, hiero-
glyphics, and symbols, but in such a divergent form that no Egyptian could
have made them ; and these objects have the name of the artificer in Aramaic
characters on the border or back. It is thus plainly to be seen that this
Egyptian fashion wandered into Assyria through the influence of Aramaen
artists.
When it is acknowledged, however, that Egyptian patterns were imitated
by the Assyrians at a comparatively late date, and that Egyptian motives
were borrowed from her artists, it does not by any means follow that Baby-
lonian-Assyrian art as a whole was of Egyptian origin. This could be
proved only from the oldest monuments to be found in Babylonia. It was
in fact believed, when the art works of Telloh first became known, that they
showed a great similarity to the products of Egyptian art. They displayed
the same simplicity and naiveness, the same clean-shorn heads and faces, and
many other coincidences. The connoisseurs of art, however, believe differ-
ently. The similarity is great; nevertheless a careful examination shows
the independence of Babylonian art in respect to Egyptian. Thus in the old-
est monuments the same peculiarities, truth and strength, appear, which in
the later development of art among the Assyrians were so greatly exaggerated,
whereas they are wholly lacking in Egyptian figures.
A further similarity is found between the oldest pyramids in the Nile
valley and the Babylonian- Assyrian Ziggurat. In the first place, however,
the pyramids had a wholly different object from the Ziggurat, and, in the
second place, it must not be forgotten that the Babylonian temple architecture
varies greatly from the Egyptian. If there is any dependence it is not on the
side of the Chaldeans; they did not borrow their art from the Egyptians.
At the same time the similarities are so remarkable, especially between the
old Chaldaic statues and the oldest productions of Egyptian sculpture, such
as the statues of Shafra, Chufu, and Ra-em-ke, that we are compelled here,
as in the case of the writing, to suppose a common stock out of which both
branches grew independently and in a way peculiar to each.
The important discoveries made by the French consul, De Sarsac, at
Telloh have first thrown some light on the old Chaldean art in which the
whole Babylonian-Assyrian art has taken its origin. The question as to
whether the works of art found there are Semitic or non-Semitic does not
concern us here. It is more probably the latter. At any rate we are here
confronted with a civilisation preceding the flourishing period of the known
Semitic dominion in Babylonia.1 A temple was found there 53 by 31 metres
square which shows the same fundamental plan as the later Chaldean archi-
tecture, that is, a structure of burnt on a foundation of dried brick, the
1 For a description of these monuments and the history of their discovery, as well as for the
conclusions which are to be drawn from them for the history of art in Mesopotamia, the reader
is referred to De Sarsac's album of reproductions [I1 Art Chalde'en], also to L. Heerzey, Les
fouilles de Chaldee in the Revue Archceologiqve, 1881, new series, vol. xlii, p. 56 ff. and 257.
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 645
corners exactly facing the points of the compass (not the side as in Egypt),
a Ziggurat in the centre, the whole, as is seen from stamps on the stones,
dating from the time of the priest-prince Gudra, who is known from other
sources, and who rebuilt or founded this temple. Besides, a large number
of larger and smaller works of art were discovered, cylinders, reliefs, bronze
objects, especially statues, which had been collected either by the ruler already
mentioned or by other priestly princes or kings.*
Before building a temple or palace, a religious ceremony took place cor-
responding to what we call to-day laying the corner-stone. Nabuna'id relates
that in the ruins of the oldest Chaldean temples he looked for the foundation
stone, the temen which the original kings had placed there, and that he had
the good fortune to find this corner-stone, whereas several of his prede-
cessors had excavated only in vain. In our days such cylindrical tubes have
been found covered with close writing difficult to decipher, which had been
placed in little niches at the corners of the foundation facing the four points
of the compass. Thus at Nimrod, Rawlinson caused excavations to be car-
ried on in one of the corners of the tower, feeling sure that he would find
objects similar to those which had been met with elsewhere. He relates his
discovery as follows : " At the end of half an hour a small cavity was found.
' Bring me,' " said Rawlinson to the man in charge of the digging, " ' bring
me the dedicatory cylinder.' The workman put his hand into the hole and
showed the cylinder ; those present could not believe their eyes and looked
at each other in amazement. The cylinder, covered with inscriptions, then
came out of the hiding-place where it had been placed probably by the hands
of Nebuchadrezzar himself, and where it had lain for twenty-nine centuries."
In the fruitful excavations which he undertook at Telloh, De Sarsac made
similar discoveries. " I found," said he, " at a depth of scarcely thirty cen-
timeters under the original soil, four cubes of masonry of large bricks and
bitumen, measuring eighty centimeters on each side. In the centre of these
cubes was a cavity of twenty-seven centimeters by twelve and by thirty-five
of depth. This cavity filled with yellow sand enclosed a statuette of bronze,
representing now a man kneeling, again a woman standing, sometimes also a
bull. At the foot of each statue, usually embedded in the bitumen which
lined the cavity, were found two stone tablets, one white, the other black.
It was the black one which usually bore an inscription in cuneiform charac-
ters, like or almost like the one carved on the figure of bronze." Moreover
De Sarsac in place of statuettes found cones of clay in the shape of large
nails with hemispherical heads, and having an inscription around the stem."*
It has been believed that three stages of development may be detected in
this ancient art. To the first belong the reliefs, which represent scenes of
war and burial which have not yet been satisfactorily explained, drawn very
awkwardly and comparatively rough and primitive. This stage represents
the infancy of art. To the second stage are counted the eight statues of
Gudea and the one of Ur-ba-'u which are carved with great skill and fine
artistic feeling out of hard stone, as it appears of diorite.
The strength which characterises the sculptural efforts of the Babylonians
and especially of the Assyrians, is already manifest, although without that
exaggeration of the muscles and joints which is so pronounced with the
latter. Hands and feet in particular are most carefully executed. The
heads are totally different from the hairy and bearded Assyrian, or even early
Babylonian heads. They are perfectly clean shaven, but sometimes seem-
ingly decked with an artificial hair arrangement or something of that sort ;
all just as in Egypt. In addition, an attempt to suggest the folds of dra-
H. W. VOL. I. 2 N
546 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
peries is seen, which we do not find among the Babylonians and Assyrians
nor the Egyptians, but only later among the Persians and Greeks. In the
third so-called classic period are placed works of art of most finished execu-
tion, which show a decided advance, among which are pictures, in which beard
and hair are worked out with the greatest care.
It would be exaggerated scepticism to deny that these art productions
exceed in antiquity, nearly everything found in Babylonia until now. The
only exception could be the beautiful cylinder of the time of Sargon I, if we
assume that this monarch reigned about 3800 B.C., and that this work of art
is of his time. But this is by no means established as a fact.
It can also not be denied that these creations of early Chaldaic art,
although in some instances only feeble attempts, in others, however, are of
such finished perfection, that in succeeding periods they were never excelled
and seldom equalled.
We have here a similar case to one in Egypt, where, for instance, under
the kings of the fourth dynasty, sculpture reached an eminence, which
nothing of later date ever approached, and where the oldest works of art
have a value which none of the Egyptian sculptures of the following centuries
can claim. In both these countries therefore there is an early, surprisingly
rapid development, followed by a speedy decline ; where even in succeeding
brilliant epochs no successful attempts to equal the results of the first florescence
were ever made. Such a phenomenon is all the more striking when it is
considered that these later epochs, whether in Egypt, in Babel, or in Asshur,
were by no means periods of degeneration, but show, although with continual
fluctuations, marked progress in literature, science, government, and general
culture. It seems probable that the cause lies in the difference of race.
The artists who carved the statues of King Schafra, were no more Semites
than, judging from all appearances and from the facial types of the monarchs,
pictured, were the sculptors who immortalised King Gudea. Later on the
Egyptian population became more and more affected by Semitic elements,
and under the increasing influence of the Semites, art declined.
Not until under the Saits, who certainly were not descended from a race
intermixed with Semitic blood, did art rise again to a height which recalled
the palmy days of the ancient realm. Thus early Chaldaic art was the
mother of that of Babylonia and Assyria, and the Semites of Babylon and
Asshur proved themselves diligent students, gifted imitators, who gave to their
works also the stamp of their own genius ; but they were never more than
students and imitators, they never produced anything original which might
stand in equality by the side of early Chaldaic art. The Semitic race occu-
pies one of the foremost positions in the history of civilisation, and is highly
talented. But in architecture and sculpture it has always worked in close con-
nection with foreign masters, and never produced anything really great by
itself.1 The further it goes from the ancient centres, where the great
tradition of the former so highly developed art still lived on, the more unskil-
ful become its productions in this field. Assyria where the Semitic blood
was purer than in Babylonia, and which was certainly surpassed in art by the
latter, Phosnicia, Palestine, and Arabia, are proofs of this. Only when
the Semites have handed down the old tradition which they have at least
preserved, to the Aryans, the Persians, and Greeks, is there an independent
higher development of plastic art. Be that as it may, considered as artists,
1 Here of course only architecture and sculpture in general are intended, without denying
that the Semites, also those of Babylonia and Assyria have accomplished original things in single
cases, in execution, and in certain genres, as, for example, in the reproduction of animal forms.
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 647
the Babylonians and Assyrians stand foremost among the Semites, but they
are indebted for this to the early Chaldeans.
The character of the Babylonian-Assyrian building has remained in
general about the same, from the earliest times, until the destruction of the
nation. The architect, more than any other artist, is dependent upon
the nature of the material at his disposal ; and this in Babylonia was almost
exclusively in the form of tiles of clay, either dried in the sun, or baked in
the fire. The former, which were made most skilfully in Babylonia, were
generally used for foundations, either by simply placing them in layers, or
cementing them with wet clay or pitch, or, as in the substructures of the
Assyrian palaces, by using them while still in a moist condition, in order that
under the pressure of the superstructure they might be united in one solid
mass. For the covering of the walls, baked tiles were used. Enamelled or
glazed bricks were used in those parts of the building which were most
exposed to moisture or the changes of the weather. In Assyria where stone
was not expensive this was also used as the outer coating of walls. This,
however, is the only important variation which the Assyrian architects
allowed themselves. Although it would have been easier for them to erect
more beautiful, more pleasing, and certainly more durable buildings of stone,
they were not able to rise to the attempt, although they had only to carry out
and use in larger measure what had already been found in Chaldea. A short
step was indeed taken in this direction.
The Babylonians already knew how to make wooden pillars or columns,
probably covered with metal, and made use of them in lighter architecture,
as for instance the Naos, or canopy over the figures of the gods. The Assy-
rians not only copied this, but built columns of stone, and a certain origi-
nality and gracefulness in the capitals and bases of their pillars is not to be
denied. However, the column never played the same important role in their
architecture as it does, for instance, in the Graeco-Roman and even in the
Egyptian. In their great buildings they clung almost servilely to the designs
handed down during centuries. The question as to whether the buildings
had more than one story, was formerly almost generally admitted as a fact,
but it is generally denied now, and can really hardly be determined. The
ruins give no positive support to either theory ; but a few reliefs give
representations of two-storied buildings.
Tile construction presents necessarily a certain monotony which is here
accentuated by the absence of windows. To relieve this monotony, glazing,
colouring, or woodwork were resorted to, in case the use of columns was
excluded ; sometimes more artistic measures were used, such as projecting
pilasters, which in Chaldea were somewhat crude, but richly ornamented in
Assyria ; also mosaics of conical form, or decorations of vases on the walls.
The upper stones of the walls were decorated with battlements. The inner,
as well as the outer walls, had a stone covering up to a certain height, and
higher up a polychromatic layer of stucco. Ivory, and particularly bronze
decorations, were much employed. In spite of all this, the impression given
by Babylonian and Assyrian buildings is one of massiveness, almost clumsi-
ness, and the decorations seem childish, paltry, and commonplace. Hence also
the disproportion of length and breadth, in other words the elongated form
of the rooms, whose roof not being supported by columns, had to rest on the
side walls, and whose breadth depended on the length of the roof beams.
On the other hand, the almost exclusive use of tiles had this advantageous
result, that it was almost imperative to make prodigal use of arch and vault
construction. That the Chaldaic architects were the inventors of these
548 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
constructions, with which the Etruscans were formerly erroneously credited,
cannot be positively affirmed, for they are also found in Egypt, although
seldom made use of there. Without doubt, however, the Babylonians and
Assyrians developed them greatly and knew how to make use of them with
great skill. From the false arch, which is formed by allowing each succeed-
ing layer of stone to project over the foregoing one, to the finished arch, all
kinds are represented by them. Not only were all underground canals and
sewers, vaults of masonry, but all gateways ended in arches, and even the
ceilings of some apartments, particularly those in the part of the palaces
which seems to have been the harem were wholly or partially vaulted.
The Babylonians and Assyrians have built extensively many and great
cities enclosed within mighty walls, extended palaces and peculiar temples.
They cannot be enumerated here or even described in general terms.
A few important points, however, may be touched upon. In the first place
it must be noticed that, while in Egypt the monumental buildings were tombs
and temples, in Babylon and Asshur they were mainly palaces. Although
no pains nor expense were spared in the erection of the temples, they were
smaller than the palaces, of which they were in some cases certainly annexes.
The tombs were constructed with great care, in order to guard against
the rapid decay of the corpses, yet the inhabitants of Mesopotamia never
reached the same degree of perfection in the embalming of bodies as the
Egyptians : they were also fitted out with everything that, according to
their faith, was necessary for the dead, but they were piled upon each other,
and thus excluded from view. Art was not expended upon them ; on the
other hand, however, all known means of art were used to decorate the resi-
dences of the kings and the earthly habitations of the gods in the most splen-
did and sumptuous manner. Their size increased continually. The early
Chaldaic palace discovered at Telloh, had an area of only 53 meters long
by 31 broad ; the so-called Wasevas at Warka (Erech) was 200 meters
long by 150 broad; the palace of Sargon II at Dur-Sharrukin covered an area
of about 10 hectares, and contained 30 open courts and more than 200 apart-
ments. Under the Sargonids the rooms also became larger. One in the
palace of Sennacherib was almost as long as the entire palace at Telloh, i.e.,
46 meters long by 12 wide. Another in the palace of Esarhaddon, which
was intended to be 15 meters by 12 meters, remained unfinished, probably
on account of the difficulty of construction. The palace of Asshurbanapal
was of somewhat smaller, though still magnificent proportions. The great
palace of Nebuchadrezzar II, consisting of the old palace of his father and
a new one constructed by him and joined to the old, has not yet been suffi-
ciently explored, but according to the descriptions, must have surpassed in
splendour, if not in size, all those of his predecessors. All palaces were con-
structed on the same plan, and contained separate living apartments for
the king and his court, for his wives, for the lower court officials, and,
as it appears, also a temple with various sanctuaries and a tower.
Too little is as yet known of the Babylonian- Assyrian temples to judge
with any certainty of their style of architecture. Here and there, remains
of temples have been found, but it has not yet been proved that the build-
ings designated as temples were really devoted to religious purposes. Most
of the temples seem to have been small, at any rate not intended for large
assemblages. The altar stood outside and consequently the religious services
must usually have taken place there.
Every large town had many temples but always only one Ziggurat. This
constituted only one part of the principal temple, albeit the most prominent
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 649
one. There were various kinds of such towers, of three or more, sometimes
seven stories, whicli were attainable by a single inclined plane encircling the
whole building, or a double one rising on two sides of it. The ground plan
was a perfect square in some, in others a parallelogram ; all rested, however,
on a massive substructure, and seem to have been crowned with a small
sanctuary.
Although these principal temples, including the Ziggurat, were not of
equal extent with the royal palaces, they were nevertheless imposing build-
ings, and the towers in particular were erected with much care and at
great expense. It would be wrong to conclude from this ratio of temples
and palaces that the Assyrians were less religious and more servile than the
Egyptians, who, entirely dominated as they were by the dogma of immor-
tality, lavished more care on the tombs of the dead kings than on the habita-
tions of the living ones. The valuable decorations and sculptures which
the Assyrians and Babylonians gave to their gods prove their pious tendency.
In reality the whole palace was a sacred edifice in which the representative
of the deity lived on earth with and beside his god.
The aid which architecture received from other arts has already been
briefly mentioned. There are still a few particulars to be noticed in regard
to this point. The Assyrians as well as the Babylonians were skilful workers
in bronze. Proofs of this are the bronze door-sill 1£ meters long, found at
Borsippa, whose decorations of rosettes and squares are in very good taste,
and particularly the bronze gates at Balawat, belonging to the 9th century
B.C., which are masterpieces of their kind, and a great number of other
remains.
Painting was also employed to decorate the exterior as well as the
interior of walls. Ornaments and figures were painted with great skill
on stucco, al fresco in such a case, or on tiles which were afterwards glazed.
These tiles were sometimes joined to make one picture. In what remains
of such work it is shown that painting had attained quite an eminence in
Babylon and Asshur. Drawing and grouping are often very successful, and
the treatment has often a certain breadth. These paintings are also important
because it is seen from them how much conventionality prevailed in Assyrian
sculpture. In painting there is nothing of that exaggerated muscularity nor
of the almost clumsy strength of the sculptured figures. Beard and hair are
not as stiffly curled as in the sculptures, but hang more loosely and naturally. A
A beautiful example of glazed tiling has recently been excavated by the
Deutsche Orient Gesellschaft at Babylon. It is in the so-called Procession
street leading from Babylon to Borsippa ; on either side of the street were
walls faced with coloured tiles representing a stately procession of lions and
other animals, very artistically drawn. «
Sculpture, more than painting, was employed in decorating buildings,
the works of which covered the greater part of the palace walls, and orna-
mented the gateways, courts, terraces, and apartments. The material which
the sculptor used in Chaldea was usually valuable stone difficult to procure,
such as basalt, dolorite, diorite ; in Assyria, generally a commoner, more
easily worked species, such as alabaster and sandstone. The difference of
material naturally influenced the work itself. Figures of cast bronze are
also often found.
The inscriptions of the Babylonian kings often speak of columns erected
in honour of the gods, of which some were made of solid gold or silver,
others only coated with precious metal, and the Assyrian kings also mention
such dedications. Naturally the columns of precious metal have not survived,
650 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
but a great number of stone pillars have been found. It may be chance, that
the greater number of statues in the round are from Babylon, the greater
number of bas-reliefs from Assyria. The objects of these surviving sculptures
are mainly of a religious or historical character. But rarely does a represen-
tation of the domestic life of the monarch or other social circles appear.
Only once is a banquet pictured, that of king Asshurbanapal and his
queen. Otherwise no women, except captives, appear in the reliefs. On the
whole little tendency is shown to represent female beauty and grace, as com-
pared with the Egyptians and especially with the Greeks. The nude female
figure is seldom pictured, and if so, in a repulsively realistic form, as in the
small figures of the mother goddess. Cheerful or comic scenes, which are not
wanting even in Egyptian reliefs and vignettes, are never found here. Hasty
conclusions, however, should not be drawn from this, and it should not be
forgotten, that most of the surviving reliefs are from the palaces, few from
the temples, still fewer from the tombs, and none at all from private resi-
dences. This is doubtless one of the reasons why representations of domestic
or private life are so scarce. In fact, in a few of the tombs reliefs have been
found whose subjects recall favourite representations in those of Egypt. Most
prevalent certainly, are those scenes relating to religious and public life.
In the treatment of these objects, truth is often sacrificed to certain con-
ventionalities. Thus for instance the Lamassi and Shedi, the man-headed
lions and bulls have five legs, in order that they may always present four to
the eye, whether viewed from the front or the side ; the heads are usually
represented in profile with the eyes in full face, but sometimes in full face,
although the image presents a side view to the beholder, which was also
customary in Egypt; so also, the stiff curling of the hair and beard is
unnatural. Apparently no attempt had ever been made in Egypt to make
portraits of historical personages, and the individual differences of rank and
condition can only be recognised by objects of secondary importance. There
is, however, still some doubt upon this point. There is indeed a great
uniformity, but an attempt at least to differentiate facial traits cannot be
overlooked. Ignoring all accessories, the features differ among kings and
higher courtiers on the one hand, and lower men-at-arms on the other,
among men and eunuchs, among adults and youths. Wherever the artists
of Mesopotamia were not limited by conventionality, — notably in the repre-
sentation of animals, — they have surpassed in accuracy, in truth and strength
of representation all other nations of antiquity, the Greeks hardly excepted.
This is particularly true of the representation of native animals, yet foreign
ones were treated with great skill, although the delineation of these betrays
less practice. Even in the picturing of therianthropic deities, they remain as
true to nature as possible, and with much taste and tact allow the human
attributes of the figure to predominate. Wherever it is possible to partially
or wholly break away from tradition, their talent is displayed in a manner
truly marvellous. Their only prominent fault is their exaggerated realism,
which shows itself not only in the monstrous drawing of muscles and joints,
but also in the disgusting details of the nude figures of Astarte.
Too little of the sculpture of the new Babylonian realm has been pre-
served to allow judgment of the state of art during this period. The well
known carving of Nebuchadrezzar II on a cameo would force us to have a
very high opinion of it, if convincing reasons did not argue that, although
genuine, it is the work of a foreign, probably a Cyprian, artist.
There is no doubt that the art of music was cultivated among the Baby-
lonians and Assyrians, since the reliefs show musicians very frequently, at
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE Ml
religious festivals, at triumphal greetings of the victorious king and at fes-
tivities. They play singly or in concert, and also accompany singing. The
musical instruments are of various kinds, and the musicians, who are some-
times very daintily attired, are not always eunuchs, and are of different
ages.
On the whole it must be conceded, that the Assyrio-Babylonian nation
was artistically inclined and that it cultivated various branches of art with
talent and success. If they, the Assyrians in particular, had been able to free
themselves from tradition, they might have surpassed their predecessors and
teachers. They practised art, however, not for itself alone, but as a means
of glorifying the gods or the kings, and the historical reliefs at least, are for
the greater part nothing more than illustrations to the inscriptions, a sort of
war-report in pictures. They were not an artistic people like the Greeks.
Still they have produced more and better results in this respect, than all
other nations of their race put together. And although in some special
instances they may have been excelled by the Egyptians, in others they are
far in advance of them. The Assyrians, following the example of the Baby-
lonians, showed their artistic talents also in the productions of their indus-
tries ; art and industry were with them closely related.
Among the productions to be considered here are primarily the hundreds
of seals, which are still in preservation, and whose number will not seem so
surprising when it is remembered that every Babylonian and Assyrian of
quality had his private seal. In early times these were always, and in later
times generally, cylinders, pierced through the centre, to be worn around
the neck suspended from a cord. The impression was made by rolling them
over moist clay. After the eighth century conical and half-spherical seals
appear. These cylinders are made of many different materials, at first, of
easily carved, later of harder, material, such as porphyry, basalt, ferruginous
marble, serpentine, syenite and hematite. After that, semi-precious stones
were used, jasper, agate, onyx, chalcedony, rock-crystal, garnet, etc. In the
oldest stones the pictured objects were rather suggested by indentations and
strokes, than actually executed and carved ; but gradually a great skilful-
ness was attained, and there are beautiful cuttings in the hard stones also.
The execution varied greatly of course, not only in proportion to the talent
of the artist, but also according to the rank and wealth of the person who
gave the commission. The subjects chosen are mostly of a religious nature,
the adoration of a goddess, an offering of sacrifice, various emblems such as
winged animals, sun, moon, and stars, and very frequently the tree of life,
in whose shadow stand two persons, or which is guarded by two genii.
Under the new Babylonian dominion and under the Achamenides, glyptics
as an art declined rapidly.
Ceramic art seems not to have occupied a very lofty position in Babylonia
at first. Clay vases and utensils, during a long period made by hand, are
crude and inartistic in earliest times. Gradually with the introduction of
the potter's wheel, however, they become more graceful in form, and towards
the end of the Assyrian period are enamelled and decorated with patterns
painted in colours. However, Babylonian ceramic art cannot compete with
that of Greece, although it surpasses that of Egypt. Glass has not been
found in large quantities, to be sure, but quite advanced progress had
been made in its manufacture. The Assyrians and Babylonians showed par-
ticular skill in the working of metals. Bronze, a mixture of copper and tin,
was known to them in the earliest times. They had a knowledge of iron
earlier than the Egyptians, and certainly made much greater use of it. Gold
552
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
objects are commoner than those of silver, and lead is seldom used. Orna-
ments, such as bracelets, earrings, and necklaces are usually cast of precious
metal and often inlaid with pearls. It may be taken as a proof of highly
advanced culture that they used not only spoons, but forks, a luxury in-
troduced into Europe only at the close of the Middle Ages, and that toilet
articles, such as combs, pins, etc., were ornamented with the greatest care
and skill.
The Assyrians were also more skilled in mechanics than the Egyptians and
were not inferior to them in agriculture. Two reliefs, one Assyrian, the other
Egyptian, give us an opportunity to compare how each nation overcame the
difficulties attending the moving and putting in place of their enormous col-
lossi of stone. It is shown
that the Assyrians knew the
use of the lever, which the
Egyptians did not, and that
they took much greater pre-
cautions against upsetting
thecollossi. How the Baby-
lonians and Assyrians, like
the Egyptians and Chinese,
made use of irrigation is
well known. On
the same tablets
with the records of
their deeds of war,
the rulers often
spoke of the laying
out of canals, the regulating and deepening of the river beds "enduring
waters for the enduring use of town and country," and associated their
own names with them. On account of the higher altitude of their country
than that of their southern brethren, the Assyrians had to surmount greater
difficulties in achieving such works, but this did not deter them from rivalry
with them. One canal leading from the Upper Zab and one of its tributa-
ries, irrigated the region between this river and the Tigris, and also supplied
the capital, Kalah, with drinking water.
Sennacherib did something similar for Nineveh, which together with its
environs was completely dependent upon rain. He had a network of canals
constructed, which were fed, partly by the Khushur, and partly by the
small mountain brooks of the- Accad and Tash mountains. Here also two
objects were attained, to furnish Nineveh with good drinking water, and
to make the surrounding country fruitful ; for the king had it all planted
with many kinds of plants, among which was the vine. Floriculture was
also much encouraged by the kings of Babylon and Asshur. They admired
beautiful parks in which strange foreign animals were bred and nurtured.
Marduk-bel-iddin, king of Bit-Yakin, apparently the same who at one time
overcame Babylon, owned sixty-seven vegetable gardens and six parks of
which a catalogue still exists, although he was constantly at war or guarding
against the vengeance of the Assyrians.^
BAS-RELIEF or WILD Sow AND YOUNO AMONG KEEDS
(Layard)
ASSYRIAN AKT
But the world-historic relations of Mesopotamian art are best brought out
by a study of the later and more perfectly preserved examples of Assyrian
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 563
craftsmanship. It was the Assyrian who borrowed more directly from the
Egyptian in developing his art, and who passed on artistic impulses to the
Persians on the one hand, and to the Greeks on the other. The question to
what extent the Assyrians were themselves influenced by the Mycenaean art
of early Greece is one regarding which students of the subject are not agreed,
and which we need not enter upon here."
It is impossible to examine the monuments of Assyria without being
convinced that the people who raised them had acquired a skill in sculpture
and painting, and a knowledge of design and even composition, indicating
an advanced state of civilisation. It is very remarkable that the most
ancient ruins show this knowledge in the greatest perfection attained by the
Assyrians. The bas-relief representing the lion hunt, now in the British
Museum, is a good illustration of the earliest school of Assyrian art yet
known. It far exceeds the sculptures of Khorsabad, Kuyunjik, or the later
palaces of Nimrud, in the vigour of the treatment, the elegance of the
forms, and in what the French aptly term mouvement. At the same time it
is eminently distinguished from them by the evident attempt at composition
— by the artistical arrangement of the groups. The sculptors who worked
at Khorsabad and Kuyunjik had perhaps acquired more skill in handling
their tools. Their work is frequently superior to that of the earlier artists in
delicacy of execution — in the details of the features, for instance — and in
the boldness of the relief; but the slightest acquaintance with Assyrian
monuments will show that they were greatly inferior to their ancestors in
the higher branches of art — in the treatment of a subject and in beauty and
variety of form. This decline of art, after suddenly attaining its greatest
perfection in its earliest stage, is a fact presented by almost every people,
ancient and modern, with which we are acquainted. In Egypt the most
ancient monuments display the purest forms and the most elegant decora-
tions. A rapid retrogression, after a certain period, is apparent, and the
state of art serves to indicate approximately the epoch of most of her remains.
In the history of Greek and Roman art this sudden rise and rapid fall are
equally well known. Even changes in royal dynasties have had an influence
upon art, as a glance at monuments of that part of the East of which we
are specially treating will show. Thus the sculpture of Persia, as that of
Assyria, was in its best state at the time of the earliest monarchs, and gradu-
ally declined until the fall of the empire. After the Greek invasion it
revived under the first kings of the Arsacid branch, Greek taste still exer-
cising an influence over the Iranian provinces. How rapidly art degenerated
to the most barbarous forms, the medals and monuments of the later Arsacids
abundantly prove. When the Sassanians restored the old Persian monarchy
and introduced the ancient religion and sacred ceremonies of the empire, art
again appears to have received a momentary impulse. The coins, gems, and
rock sculptures of the first kings of this dynasty are distinguished by con-
siderable elegance, and spirit of design, and beauty of form. But the decay
was as rapid under them as it had been under their predecessors. Even
before the Chosroes raised the glory and power of the empire to its highest
pitch, art was fast degenerating. By the time of Yezdigird it had become
even more rude and barbarous than in the last days of the Arsacids.
This decline in art may be accounted for by supposing that, in the infancy
of a people, or after the occurrence of any great event having a very decided
influence upon their manners, their religion, or their political state, nature
was the chief, if not the only, object of study. When a certain proficiency
had been attained, and no violent changes took place to shake the established.
554
THE HISTOEY OF MESOPOTAMIA
order of things, the artist, instead of endeavouring to imitate that which he
saw in nature, received as correct delineations the works of his predecessors,
and made them his types and his models. In some countries, as in Egypt,
religion may have contributed to this result. Whilst the imagination, as
well as the hand, was fettered by prejudices, and even by laws, or whilst
indolence or ignorance led to the mere servile copying of what had been
done before, it may easily be conceived how rapidly a deviation from correct-
ness of form would take place. As each transmitted the errors of those who
had preceded him, and added to them himself, it is not wonderful if, ere long,
the whole became one great error. It is to be feared that this prescriptive
love of imitation has exercised no less influence on modern art than it did
upon the arts of the ancients.
As the earliest specimens of Assyrian art which we possess are the best,
it is natural to conclude that either there are other monuments still undis-
covered which would tend to show a gradual progression, or that such monu-
ments did once exist, but have long since perished ; otherwise it must be
inferred that those who raised the most ancient Assyrian edifice derived their
knowledge directly from another people, or merely imitated what they had
seen in a foreign land. Some are inclined to look upon the style and char-
acter of these early sculptures as purely Egyptian. But there is such a dis-
parity in the mode of treatment and in the execution, that the Egyptian
origin of Assyrian art appears to me to be a question open to considerable
doubt. That which they have in common would mark the first efforts of
any people of a certain in-
tellectual order to imitate
nature. The want of rela-
tive proportions in the figures
and the ignorance of per-
spective — the full eye in the
side face and the bodies of
the dead scattered above or
below the principal figures —
are as characteristic of all
early productions of art as
they are of the rude attempts
at delineation of children.
It is only in the later monu-
ments of Nineveh that we
find evident and direct traces
of Egyptian influence : as in
the sitting sphinxes and
ivories of Nimrud, and in the
lotus-shaped ornaments of
Khorsabad and Kuyunjik ;
perhaps also in the custom which then prevailed of inserting the name of
the king, or of the castle, upon or immediately above their sculptured
representations. Neither the ornaments of the earliest palace of Nimrud,
nor the costumes, nor the elaborate nature of the embroideries upon the
robes, with the groups of human figures and animals, nor the mythological
symbols, are of an Egyptian character; they show a very different taste
and style.
The principal distinction between Assyrian and Egyptian art appears to
be that in the one conventional forms were much more strictly adhered to
BAS-BELIEF OF SCRIBES WRITING DOWN THE NUMBER OF
HEADS OF THE SLAIN
(Layard)
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 565
than in the other. The angular mode of treatment, so conspicuous in
Egyptian monuments, even in the delineation of every object, is not per-
ceivable in those of Assyria. Had the arts of the two countries been derived
from the same source — or had one been imitated from the other — they
would both surely have displayed the same striking peculiarity. The Assyr-
ians, less fettered, sought to imitate nature more closely, however rude and
unsuccessful their attempts may have been ; and this is proved by the con-
stant endeavour to show the muscles, veins, and anatomical proportions of
the human figure.
We must not lose sight of the assertion of Moses of Chorene — derived
no doubt from ancient traditions, if not from direct historical evidence —
that when Ninus founded the Assyrian Empire, a people far advanced in civ-
ilisation and in the knowledge of the arts and sciences, whose works the con-
querors endeavoured to destroy, were already in possession of the country.
Who that people may have been, we cannot now even conjecture. The same
mystery hangs over the origin of the arts in Egypt and in Assyria. They
may have been derived, before the introduction of any conventional forms,
from a common source — from a people whose very name, and the proofs of
whose former existence, may have perished even before tradition begins.
The monuments of Assyria furnish us with very important data, as to the
origin of many branches of art, subsequently brought to the highest perfec-
tion in Asia Minor and Greece. I conceive the Assyrian influence on Asia
Minor to have been twofold. In the first place, direct, during the time of the
greatest prosperity of the Assyrian monarchy or empire, when, as it has been
shown, the power of its kings extended over that country ; in the second, indi-
rect, through Persia, after the destruction of Nineveh. Of the influence
exercised upon the arts of western Asia, during the early occupation of the
Assyrians, few traces have hitherto been discovered, unless the remarkable
monuments on the site of ancient Pteria, or Pterium, belong to this period.
The evident connection between the divinities and sacred emblems worshipped
in various parts of Asia Minor, and those of Assyria will be hereafter particu-
larly pointed out. The Assyrian origin of these monuments, and of these
religious symbols, once admitted, we shall have no difficulty in recognising the
influence of Assyria on the arts and customs of Asia Minor. The antiquities
of that country, prior to a well-known period, the Persian occupation, have been
but little investigated. Few remains of an earlier epoch have yet been dis-
covered. That such remains do exist, perhaps buried under ground, I have
little doubt. It is most probable that, as we have additional materials for
inquiry, we shall be still more convinced of this Assyrian influence, pointed
out by Herodotus, when he declares the founder of the kingdom of Lydia to
have been a descendant of Ninus, and by other authors, who mention the
Syrian, or Assyrian, descent of many nations of Asia Minor.
But the second, or indirect, period of this influence is very fully and
completely illustrated by the monuments of Asia Minor, of the time of the
Persian domination. The known connection between these monuments and
the archaic forms of Greek art renders this part of the inquiry both impor-
tant and interesting. The Xanthian marbles, acquired for England by Sir
Charles Fellows, and now in the British Museum, are remarkable illustrations
of the threefold connection between Assyria and Persia, Persia and Asia
Minor, and Asia Minor and Greece. Were those marbles properly arranged,
and placed in chronological order, they would afford a most useful lesson, and
would enable even a superficial observer to trace the gradual progress of art
from its primitive rudeness to the most classic conceptions of the Greek
556 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
sculptor. Not that he would find either style, the pure Assyrian or the
Greek, in its greatest perfection ; but he would be able to see how a closer
imitation of nature, a gradual refinement of taste and additional study,
had converted the hard and rigid lines of the Assyrians into the flowing
draperies and classic forms of the highest order of art.
I have termed this second period that of indirect influence, because the
arts did not then penetrate directly into Asia Minor from Assyria, but were
conveyed thither through the Persians. The Assyrian Empire had already
existed for centuries, and had exercised the supreme power over Asia, before
it was disputed by the kingdoms of Persia and Media, united under one
monarch. The Persians were probably a rude people, possessing neither a
literature nor arts of their own, but deriving what they had from their civil-
ised neighbours. We have no earlier specimen of Persian writing than the
inscription containing the name of Cyrus, on the ruins supposed to be those
of his tomb, at Murghaub [Pasargarda] ; nor any earlier remains of Persian
art than the buildings and sculptures of Persepolis, and other monuments to
be attributed beyond a question to the kings of the Achsemenian dynasty.
It has already been shown that the writing of the Persians was imitated from
the Assyrians, and it can as easily be proved that their sculptures were
derived from the same source. The monuments of Persepolis establish this
beyond a doubt. They exhibit precisely the same mode of treatment, the
same forms, the same peculiarities in the arrangement of the bas-reliefs
against the walls, the same entrances formed by gigantic winged animals
with human heads, and, finally, the same religious emblems. Had this
identity been displayed in one instance alone, we might have attributed it
to chance, or to mere casual intercourse ; but when it pervades the whole
system, we can scarcely doubt that one was a close copy, an imitation, of the
other. That the peculiar characteristics of the Persepolitan sculptures were
derived from the monuments of the second Assyrian dynasty — that is, from
those of the latest Assyrian period — can be proved by the similarity of
shape in the ornaments and in the costume of many of the figures. Thus,
the head-dress of the winged monsters forming the portals is lofty, squared,
and richly ornamented at the top, resembling those of Khorsabad and
Kuyunjik, and differing from the round, unornamented cap of the older
figures at Nimrud.
The processions of warriors, captives, and tribute-bearers at Persepolis
are in every respect similar to those on the walls of Nimrud and Khorsabad ;
we have the same mode of treatment in the figures, the same way of por-
traying the eyes and hair. The Persian artist introduced folds into the
draperies ; but, with this exception, he certainly did not improve upon his
Assyrian model. On the contrary, his work is greatly inferior to it in the
general arrangement of the groups and in the elegance of the details.
From whence the Persians obtained the column and other architectural
ornaments used at Persepolis, it may be more difficult to determine. We have
seen that the column was not unknown to the later Assyrians, although it
does not appear to have been employed in the construction of their palaces.
The Persians, therefore, may have partly derived their knowledge from them ;
and partly, perhaps principally, from the Egyptians, whom, before the foun-
dation of Persepolis, they had already conquered. It will be observed that the
capitals of their columns frequently assume the shape of Assyrian religious
types, the bull for instance ; whilst other portions of them nearly resemble
in the form of their ornaments, though not in their proportions, those of
Egypt.
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE
667
The Persians introduced into Asia Minor the arts and religion which
they received from the Assyrians. Thus the Harpy Tomb and the monu-
ment usually attributed to Harpagus at Xanthus, and other still earlier
remains, show all the peculiarities of the sculpture of Persepolis, and at the
same time that gradual progress in the mode of treatment — the introduction
of action and sentiment, and a knowledge of anatomy — which marks the
distinction between Asiatic and Greek art. Whilst there was a manifest
improvement in the disposition of the draperies and in the delineation of
the human form, we still remark, even in the latest works of the Persian
period in Asia Minor, the absence of all attempt to impart sentiment to the
features, or even to give more than the side view of the human face.
Many architectural ornaments, known to the Assyrians, passed from them,
directly or indirectly, into Greece. The Ionic column is an instance. We
have, moreover, in the earliest monu-
ments of Nineveh that graceful
ornament, commonly called the honey-
suckle, which was so extensively used
in Greece, and is to this day more gen-
erally employed than any other mould-
ing. In Assyria, as I have pointed
out, it was invested with sacred prop-
erties, and was either a symbol or an
object of worship. That the similarity
between the Assyrian and Greek orna-
ment is not accidental, seems to be
proved, beyond a question, by the
alternation of the lotus or tulip, which-
ever this flower may be, with the
honeysuckle, by the number of leaves
or petals of the flower, and by their
proceeding in both from a semicircle,
supported by two tendrils or scrolls.
The same ornament occurs, even in
India, on a lath erected by Asoka at
Allahabad (about B.C. 250); but
whether introduced by the Greeks —
which, from the date of the erection
of the monument, shortly after the
Macedonian invasion, is not improb-
able — or whether derived directly
from another source, I cannot venture to decide.
That the Assyrians possessed a highly refined taste can hardly be ques-
tioned when we find them inventing an ornament which the Greeks after-
wards, with few additions and improvements, so generally adopted in their
most classic monuments. Others, no less beautiful, continually occur in the
most ancient bas-reliefs of Nimrud. The sacred bull, with expanded wings,
and the wild goat are introduced, kneeling before the mystic flower which is
the principal feature in the border just described. The same animals are
occasionally represented supporting disks, or flowers, and rosettes. A bird,
or human figure, frequently takes the place of the bull and goat ; and the
simple flower becomes a tree, bearing many flowers of the same shape. This
tree, evidently a sacred symbol, is elaborately and tastefully formed ; and is
one of the most conspicuous ornaments of Assyrian sculpture.
ASSYRIAN HARNESS
558 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
The flowers at the ends of the branches are frequently replaced in later
Assyrian monuments and on cylinders by the fir or pine cone, and some-
times by a fruit or ornament resembling the pomegranate.
The guilloche, or intertwining bands, continually found on Greek monu-
ments, and still in common use, was also well known to the Assyrians, and
was one of their most favourite ornaments. It was embroidered on their
robes, embossed on their arms and chariots, and painted on their walls.
This purity and elegance of taste was equally displayed in the garments,
arms, furniture, and trappings of the Assyrians. The robes of the king
were most elaborately embroidered. The part covering his breast was
generally adorned, not only with flowers and scroll-work, but with groups
of figures, animals, and even hunting and battle scenes. In other parts of
his dress similar designs were introduced, and rows of tassels or fringes were
carried round the borders. The ear-rings, necklaces, armlets, and bracelets
were all of the most elegant forms. The clasps and ends of the bracelets were
frequently in the shape of the heads of rams and bulls, resembling our
modern jewellery. The ear-rings have generally on the later monuments,
particularly in the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad, the form of a cross.
In their arms the Assyrians rivalled even the Greeks in elegance of
design. The hilt of the sword was frequently ornamented with four lions'
heads; two, with part of the neck and shoulders, made the cross-bar or
defence, and two more with extended jaws were introduced into the handle.
The end of the sheath was formed by two entire lions, clasped together,
their heads turned outward and their mouths open. Sometimes the whole
of the sheath was engraved or embossed, with groups of human figures, ani-
mals, and flowers. The handles of the daggers were no less highly orna-
mented, being sometimes in the form of the head of a horse, bull, or ram.
The sheath frequently terminated in the head of a bird, to which a tassel
was suspended. The part of the bow to which the string was attached was
in the shape of an eagle's head. The quiver was richly decorated with
groups of figures and fanciful designs.
Ornaments in the form of the heads of animals, chiefly the lion, bull, and
ram, were very generally introduced even in parts of the chariot, the harness
of the horses, and domestic furniture. In this respect the Assyrians resem-
bled the Egyptians. 6
ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE AND THE EVOLUTION OF ART
The study of a country's art is interesting, primarily of course purely as
a study in the expression of beauty or in the portraiture of national types
and ideals. The study should not, however, stop here, but one should
consider also the effect each school has had upon the evolution of the world-
art. This phase of Assyrian art has been examined by the Editor in a
paper called " The Influence of Modern Research on the Scope of World
History," a Prefatory Essay to Vol. Ill of the New Volumes of the Ninth
Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, from which a quotation may be
permitted here.*
Whoever would see the story of the evolution of Greek art illustrated,
should go to the British Museum and pass from the Egyptian hall, with its
grotesque colossi, to the Assyrian rooms, with their marvellous bas-reliefs,
and then on to the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon. In particular, the
art treasures of t\e Assyrian collection should demand the closest scrutiny.
In the Nineveh gallery, for example, where one finds collections of strange
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTUltE
559
Assyrian books, the walls are flanked everywhere with bas-reliefs that come
from some buried palace that once stored the literary treasures.
It appears that the kings of that far-off time and land were connoisseurs
of art as well as patrons of literature ; and the art treasures of their palaces
certainly form the most striking, if not the most important, part of the me-
mentoes they have left to us. The more closely these figures in low relief are
examined, the more wonderful they will seem. They take the place of the
Egyptian carvings in the round ; and if they are less striking to first view
than the great sarcophagi, the grotesque gods, and colossal animal forms of
BATTLE n» A MARSH IN SOUTHERN MESOPOTAMIA
that people, they will prove infinitely more expressive and incomparably more
artistic on closer inspection. For these flat sculptures depict, not alone gods
and sacerdotal scenes, but everyday affairs and the events of Assyrian history.
The bas-relief was clearly the focal point of Assyrian art. Even the great
bulls and lions that guarded the palace entrances were only partially detached
from their background, and a frescoed statue of King Asshurnazirpal shows
the same tendency. The full rounded statue was not indeed unknown to
them, as several examples testify ; but their real forte lay in mural decora-
tion in low relief. And the particular walls on which the artists mainly
expended their skill, if we may judge from what the ruins have revealed
to us, were not the walls of temples, but the palaces of kings. It is quite
560 THE HISTOEY OF MESOPOTAMIA
clear that these great conquerors of antiquity were very human, very like
their successors of after times. They loved to have their heroic deeds, real
or alleged, heralded to the world, and recalled incessantly to their own
memories. So one finds whole histories epitomised on these walls — wars,
conquests, victories ; the storming of cities, the slaughter of the enemy, the
leading of captives, and bringing of tribute by subject people — everything,
in short, but Assyrian reverses ; the court artist, true to his colours then
as now, never made the mistake of depicting those.
As historical records these sculptures are of priceless value, both for what
they tell of political history and for the light they throw on the powers and
limitations of antique art. But before you venture to judge the Assyrian
artist in the latter regard, you must pass on to the room of Asshurnazirpal,
and from that to the adjacent room, where the mural decorations of the
dining-hall of the last of the great Assyrian kings, Asshurbanapal, have been
placed in situ, reproducing an effect which they first made in the palace of
Nineveh in the seventh century B.C. Here you may see at once both another
phase of royal life in Assyria and another stage of Assyrian art. Not war,
but the chase is now the theme. King Asshurbanapal is seen in pursuit of
the goat, the wild ass, the lion. The king, of course, towers above his
attendants, though not in the grotesque disproportion of the Egyptian paint-
ings. To the oriental mind such excessive stature seemed indissoluble from
royal station. One recalls how the mother of Darius, made captive at Issus,
mistook Hephsestion for the king, because he was taller than Alexander ; and
how Agesilaus, when he went to Egypt as an ally of the Egyptians, was held
in contempt, despite his renown, because of his diminutive stature ; and one
cannot help wondering what would have been the real aspect of the Assyrian
and Egyptian monarchs could they have been subjected to the camera. Be
that as it may, there was apparently no doubt in the mind of the court artist
as to what his chisel should reveal in this respect, and the king may always
be distinguished by his stature, without regard to his royal robes. Still, it is
notable, as a distinction between Egyptian and Assyrian art, that the realistic
eye of the Assyrian sculptor never let him depict the king as a Brobdingnag
among the pigmies, after the Egyptian fashion. At the most he is a head
taller than those about him.
The royal hunter pursues his quarry sometimes on foot, more usually
standing in his chariot. His weapon is usually the bow, sometimes the
spear; on one occasion he grapples with the lion, hand to jowl, and stabs
the quarry to the heart with a short sword. The quiet dignity and royal
calm with which the feat is achieved must have insured the artist a high
and enduring place in the royal favour. The action, however, of the human
figures in these sculptures is always sedate and reposeful, suggestive of
reserved strength perhaps, or possibly of the artist's limitations. Which-
ever it is, the real power of the artist is not shown in the human figures.
These, to be sure, are in part strongly anatomised ; in the main, they are
fairly proportioned, and, unlike the Egyptian figures, they have the
shoulders drawn in proper perspective. But the faces are fixed, impassive ;
the eyes are not in perspective, and, as a whole, they cannot claim high
merit as works of art, viewed from an abstract modern standpoint. Con-
sidered in relation to their time, they are wonderful enough, so far ahead
are they of anything that we could suppose to have been accomplished in
the world of that day. But they fall far short of the standard which the
same artist has himself given us in animal figures of his composition. It
seems as if the human figures might have been done from memory, whereas
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 661
the animal forms are clearly enough from the natural model. Indeed, when
we turn to these animal figures we may criticise them, not with reservation
as to their age, but from the standpoint of modern art, and as individual
figures they will not be found wanting. The three fundamental canons —
"proportion, action, aspect " — have been successfully met. The lions skulk
sullenly from their cages,
spring furiously into action,
or roll in death agony at the
will of the depicter. The
lioness, with spine broken
by an arrow, dragging her
palsied hind-quarters, is a
veritable masterpiece. The
same is true of many of the
figures of goats, of running
and pacing wild asses, and
of dogs. As a whole, these
animal frescos are nothing BAS-BBLIEP or A WOUNDED LIONESS
leSS than Wonderful. It is (Now In the British Museum)
worth a visit to London
from the remotest land to see these sculptures from the palace of the old
Assyrian king.
Still, though these bas-reliefs have intrinsic merits as works of art, their
chief value is for what they teach regarding the evolution of art in the
world. Previously to their discovery it had been supposed that the stiff
formalism of Egyptian sculpture represented the fullest flight of pre-Grecian
art, and that Greek art itself had stepped suddenly forth, rather a new
creation than an evolution. But the pick and shovel of Layard at Nineveh
dispelled that illusion. For these art treasures, that had lain there under
the deposits of centuries, were found to represent an enormous advance upon
Egyptian models, precisely in the direction of that realism for which Greek
art is distinguished.
If we would judge how direct and unequivocal was the impulse which
the dying nation transferred to the adolescent one in point of art, we have
but to take a few steps in the British Museum, from the Assyrian rooms to
the wonderful hall that holds Lord Elgin's trophies from the desecrated
Parthenon. Look, then, upon the frieze of bas-relief that bears the magic
name of Phidias. If anything can reconcile us to the act that deprived
Greece of her priceless heirlooms, it is the fact that they have found lodg-
ment here close beside their oriental prototypes, where half a million visitors
each year may at least have an opportunity to learn the lesson that human
progress is an accretion, a growth, a building upon foundations ; and, spe-
cifically, that Greek art, no less than other forms of human culture, was an
evolution, and not an isolated miracle. For what is the Parthenon frieze, as
we now come to it fresh from the palaces of Nineveh, but an Assyrian fresco
adapted to the needs and ideals of another race and developed by the genius
of a newer civilisation ? The profiled figures in low relief coursing together,
are they different in conception from the profiled figures of the palaces we
have just left? The horses of the Parthenon frieze might almost seem to
have stepped bodily from the palaces of Asshurbanapal, They have gained
something in suppleness of limb, have altered their attitude in a measure, to
be sure, thanks to their new environment. But their type has not changed
by so much as an actual breed of horses might be changed in as many gen-
ii. W. — VOL. I. 2o
562 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
erations. Note the head, the most typical and characteristic feature of this
Grecian steed. Line for line it is the same head, trappings aside, that we
have just seen at Nineveh. Even the defects of the Assyrian drawing
are there — the too small and slender face, and receding lower jaw, the
tiny ear, the far too full and " chuffy " neck. Possibly no horse in nature
was ever like this, but the Assyrian artist so conceives it ; the Greek copies
that conception ; and the distorted type will be transmitted down the
BAS-RELIEF OF HORSES
§enerations to the Italian of the Renaissance, to the classical painters of
pain, the Netherlands, and Germany, and France ; nay, even to the artist
of the nineteenth century. The court artist of an oriental prince of
the ninth or tenth century B.C. conceives a certain ideal ; and, following
him, a certain type of sculptured horse, such as the artist who carved it has
never seen, steps before the chariot on Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe in
nineteenth-century Paris.0
If Mesopotamian art and literature had been forgotten in succeeding
ages, Chaldean science had not shared the same fate. The fame of the
Babylonian astrology and astronomy was still fresh in the mind of the
Greeks of the day of Diodorus, as we shall see, and it is curious to reflect
that even at this relatively late period after Greece had passed far beyond
the culminating point of her own career the learned Greek looked upon
Chaldean science as something beyond the pale of the science of his own
nation. It would seem as if the cultivated Greek looked back upon the
Babylonian civilisation with something of that reverence which " modern "
European nations have reserved for Greece itself. It is significant, too, that
the Babylonians themselves, even in the day of their decline, continued to
regard the Greeks, along with the rest of the outside world, as " barbarians "
in something more than the Greek sense of the word.
The older civilisation always thus regards the younger, regardless of the
actual relative merits of the two. It was an Egyptian priest who lectured
the famous Greek in these words : " O Solon! Solon ! You Hellenes are but
children, and there is never an old man who is a Hellene. In my mind
you are all young. There is no old opinion handed down among you by
ancient tradition, nor any science hoary with age " ; but the same words
might well have been pronounced by a priest of Chaldea. We have learned
through Diodorus that the Egyptians guarded the secrets of their science
very jealously from the Greeks, who travelled and sojourned there for the
express purpose of learning them ; and there is reason to suppose that much
the same reception was accorded the Greek traveller in Babylonia, since
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTUKE 663
Herodotus seems to have learned so little there beyond what his own direct
observations taught him.
But how much ground the Babylonian had for this arrogance of intellect-
ual attitude the modern world had little material for judging, beyond such
general assertions as that of Diodorus, until the records of the libraries were
revealed. Then it was made evident that as original scientific investigators
the Babylonians were no whit inferior to their contemporaries of the Nile, if,
indeed, they were not superior ; that in short they fully merited the praise
which classical tradition accorded them. A people that thus excelled in
theoretical science, no less than in art and literature and in practical civili-
sation, has many claims to be considered the foremost nation of antiquity. «
A CLASSICAL ESTIMATE OF CHALDEAN PHILOSOPHY AND ASTROLOGY
" Here it will not be amiss to say something of the Chaldeans (as the
Babylonians call them) and of their Antiquity, that nothing worth Remark
may be omitted," says Diodorus, as translated in 1700 by Booth.
" They being the most ancient Babylonians, hold the same station and dig-
nity in the Common-wealth as the Egyptian Priests do in Egypt : For being
deputed to Divine Offices, they spend all their Time in the study of Philoso-
phy, and are especially famous for the. Art of Astrology. They are might-
ily given to Divination, and foretel future Events, and imploy themselves
either by Purifications, Sacrifices, or other Inchantments to avert Evils, or
procure good Fortune and Success. They are skilful likewise in the Art
of Divination, by the flying of Birds, and interpreting of Dreams and Prodi-
gies : And are reputed as true Oracles (in declaring what will come to pass)
by their exact and diligent viewing the Intrals of the Sacrifices. But they
attain not to this Knowledge in the same manner as the Grecians do ; for
the Chaldeans learn it by Tradition from their Ancestors, the Son from the
Father, who are all in the mean time free from all other publick Offices and
Attendances ; and because their Parents are their Tutors, they both learn
every thing without Envy, and rely with more confidence upon the truth of
what is taught them ; and being train'd up in this Learning from their very
Childhood, they become most famous Philosophers, (that Age being most
capable of Learning, wherein they spend much of their time). But the Gre-
cians for the most part come raw to this study, unfitted and unprepar'd, and
are long before they attain to the Knowledge of this Philosophy : And after
they have spent some small time in this Study, they are many times call'd
off and forc'd to leave it, in order to get a Livelihood and Subsistence. And
although some few do industriously apply themselves to Philosophy, yet for
the sake of Gain, these very Men are opinionative, and ever and anon start-
ing new and high Points, and never fix in the steps of their Ancestors. But
the Barbarians keeping constantly close to the same thing, attain to a per-
fect and distinct Knowledge in every particular.
" But the Grecians cunningly catching at all Opportunities of Gain, make
new Sects and Parties, and by their contrary Opinions wrangling and quar-
elling concerning the chiefest Points, lead their Scholars into a Maze ; and
being uncertain and doubtful what to pitch upon for certain truth, their
Minds are fluctuating and in suspence all the days of their Lives, and unable
to give a certain assent unto any thing. For if any Man will but examine
the most eminent Sects of the Philosophers, he shall find them much differ-
ing among themselves, and even opposing one another in the most weighty
parts of their Philosophy. But to return to the Chaldeans, they hold that
564 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
the World is eternal, which had neither any certain Beginning, nor shall
have any End ; but all agree, that all things are order'd, and this beautiful
Fabrick is supported by a Divine Providence, and that the Motions of the
Heavens are not perform'd by chance and of their own accord, but by a cer-
tain and determinate Will and Appointment of the Gods.
" Therefore from a long observation of the Stars, and an exact Knowledge
of the motions and influences of every one of them, wherein they excel all
others, they fortel many things that are to come to pass.
" They say that the Five Stars which some call Planets, but they Interpre-
ters, are most worthy of Consideration, both for their motions and their remark-
able influences, especially that which the Grecians call Saturn. The brightest
of them all, and which often portends many and great Events, they call Sol,
the other Four they name Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter, with our own
Country Astrologers. They give the Name of Interpreters to these Stars,
because these only by a peculiar Motion do portend things to come, and
instead of Jupiters, do declare to Men before-hand the good-will of the
Gods ; whereas the other Stars (not being of the number of the Planets)
have a constant ordinary motion. Future Events (they say) are pointed at
sometimes by their Rising, and sometimes by their Setting, and at other
times by their Colour, as may be experienc'd by those that will diligently
observe it ; sometimes foreshowing Hurricanes, at other times Tempestuous
Rains, and then again exceeding Droughts. By these, they say, are often
portended the appearance of Comets, Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, Earth-
quakes and all other the various Changes and remarkable effects in the Air,
boding good and bad, not only to Nations in general, but to Kings and Pri-
vate Persons in particular. Under the Course of these Planets, they say are
Thirty Stars, which they call Counselling Gods, half of whom observe what
is done under the Earth, and the other half take notice of the actions of Men
upon the Earth, and what is transacted in the Heavens. Once every Ten
Days space (they say) one of the highest Order of these Stars descends to
them that are of the lowest, like a Messenger sent from them above ; and
then again another ascends from those below to them above, and that this
is their constant natural motion to continue for ever. The chief of these
Gods, they say, are Twelve in number, to each of which they attribute a
Month, and one Sign of the Twelve in the Zodiack.
" Through these Twelve Signs the Sun, Moon, and the other Five Planets
run their Course. The Sun in a Years time, and the Moon in the space of a
Month. To every one of the Planets they assign their own proper Courses,
which are perform'd variously in lesser or shorter time according as their
several motions are quicker or slower. These Stars, they say, have a great
influence both as to good and bad in Mens Nativities ; and from the consid-
eration of their several Natures, may be foreknown what will befal Men
afterwards. As they foretold things to come to other Kings formerly, so
they did to Alexander who conquer'd Darius, and to his Successors Anti-
gonus and Seleucus Nicator ; and accordingly things fell out as they de-
clar'd ; which we shall relate particularly hereafter in a more convenient
time. They tell likewise private Men their Fortunes so certainly, that those
who have found the thing true by Experience, have esteem' d it a Miracle,
and above the reach of Man to perform. Out of the Circle of the Zodiack
they , describe Four and Twenty Stars, Twelve towards the North Pole, and
as many to the South.
" Those which we see, they assign to the living ; and the other that do not
appear, they conceive are Constellations for the Dead ; and they term them
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 665
Judges of all things. The Moon, they say, is in the lowest Orb ; and being
therefore next to the Earth (because she is so small,) she finishes her Course
in a little time, not through the swiftness of her Motion, but the shortness
of her Sphear. In that which they affirm (that she has but a borrow'd light,
and that when she is eclips'd, it's caus'd by the interposition of the shadow
of the Earth) they agree with the Grecians.
" Their Rules and Notions concerning the Eclipses of the Sun are but weak
and mean, which they dare not positively foretel, nor fix a certain time for
them. They have likewise Opinions concerning the Earth peculiar to them-
selves, affirming it to resemble a Boat, and to be hollow, to prove which, and
other things relating to the frame of the World, they abound in Arguments ;
but to give a particular Account of 'em, we conceive would be a thing for-
eign to our History. But this any Man may justly and truly say, That the
Chaldeans far exceed all other Men in the Knowledge of Astrology, and have
study'd it most of any other Art or Science : But the number of Years during
which the Chaldeans say, those of their Profession have given themselves to
the study of this natural Philosophy, is incredible ; for when Alexander was
in Asia, they reckon'd up Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand Years since
they first began to observe the Motions of the Stars. But lest we should
make too long a digression from our intended Design, let this which we have
said concerning the Chaldeans suffice." d
THE BABYLONIAN YEAR
The Babylonian year, according to Eduard Meyer, consisted of simple
lunar months (twenty-nine or thirty days), which, as with the Greeks and
the Mohammedans, was determined by the course of the moon itself.
To make this year coincide with the course of the sun, an extra month
was intercalated ; in olden times this seems to have been done after the first
or the sixth month.
This year, with the names of its months, was adopted by the Jews at the
time of the Exile, and is still in use with them. The commencement of
their year (Nisan) falls at the time of the spring equinox. The Babylonians
had no continuous chronology; they dated according to the years of the
kings, or, rather, they marked the year according to any important event
which took place in it. Thus we see dates like " on the 30th Adar in the
Sixth year after the conquest of Nisin by King Rim-Sin."
Later on in Babylon, and also in Assyria, they reckoned simply the years
of the kings, from the day of their accession to the throne. The remainder
of the year, in the course of which the predecessor had died, was therefore
considered the first part of the first year of the new reign, and was very often
called " the beginning of the reign " of the king in question.
Chronological calculations were reckoned from the same starting-point
as in Egypt. They reckon the calendar year in which a king comes to the
throne as his first year, and hence his death takes place in the first year of
his successor. This is the method of the Ptolemaic canon, one of the most
important chronological monuments of antiquity. It is the list beginning
with Nabonassar (about 747 B.C.) of the native and Persian kings or Baby-
lonia, to which the Egyptian rulers up to Alexander are added. It is an
addition to the astronomical work of Ptolemy, and was intended to throw
light on the passages relating to the Babylonian, and later on to the Alexan-
drian chronological methods. It is authentic, and is confirmed by the
monuments, i et, in using the same, it must be recollected that all dates of
566 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
the Egyptian "vague" year (and the Egyptian months) are reduced.
Therefore the first year of the Nabonassar era begins on the 1st Tehuti,
the 26th February, 747 B.C.
In Assyria there is also a second and far more common form of specify-
ing the years. Since a very early date (as far back as the fourteenth
century) it was customary to name the year after some high official. The
year, as such, is called limmu, "eponymic year." Of course, they had con-
tinuous lists of these eponyms ; and we have recovered several fragments.
The lists for the years 893 to 666 are complete, and with fragments we can
go still farther back. The kings frequently used this system, and private
persons regularly used this eponym.
Some copies of the lists contain accounts of the changes of reigns, and
give short statements of important internal and external events of the par-
ticular years. Thus an eclipse of the sun June 15, 763 B.C., mentioned
therein can be astronomically fixed, and the dates arrived at thereby concur
exactly with the accounts of the Ptolemaic canon. The chronological his-
tory of this epoch is therefore perfectly determined.*
THE BABYLONIAN DAY AND ITS DIVISION INTO HOUES
This being the Babylonian method of reckoning dates, it is interesting
to note on what plan they subdivided the day. Investigations were made in
this line by that indefatigable Irishman, Edward Hincks, from whose article
" On the Assyrio-Babylonian Measures of Time," in the Transactions of the
Royal Irish Academy, we quote."
I begin with the day and its divisions.
Our knowledge on this subject is mainly derived from a tablet in the
British Museum, marked K. 15. A paper of mine was read before the Royal
Irish Academy in 1854, and was published in the twenty-third volume of the
Transactions in which this tablet was discussed. As that paper contained
some slight philological errors, I will here repeat the substance of it, correct-
ing those errors.
I now translate the inscription on the Tablet as follows, omitting the cus-
tomary benedictory formula. " On the sixth day of the month Nisan the
day and the night are equal ; six kazabs [kashbu] are the day ; six kazabs
[kashbu] are the night." It is evident that this inscription records the
observation of an equinox ; and I will return to the consideration of it with
that view. At present I will only remark that it points to a double division
of the day, or Nycthemeron ; viz., the first into the day properly so called,
and the night ; which were in this instance equal, though not generally so ;
the second into twelve equal kazabs [kashbu] .
I proceed to the second division of the day into twelve kazabs [kashbu] .
Each of these was equivalent, putting out of sight errors of observation, to
two hours of mean solar time, such as we use in ordinary life. The word
kazab [kashbu] is from a Hebrew root meaning " to fail," which is applied
to streams that run dry. This suggests the primary signification, " runnings
out," namely, of the water which had been poured into a vessel with a small
hole in the bottom. The Babylonians measured time by clepsydrae, which,
when they had been filled, would be emptied in two hours of mean time.
Such clepsydra would maintain a sufficiently accurate division of the day
into twelve kazabs [kashbu] if the first were set to run at apparent noon, the
second when the first had run out, and so on till the thirteenth, which would
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 667
be set to run at the next apparent noon, whether the twelfth was just run-
ning out, or had already run out, or had still a little water in it.
The kazab [kashbu] is mentioned as an ordinary measure of time in more
than one passage. The distance from the mainland to an island in the Per-
sian Gulf is said to be a voyage of thirty kazabs [kashbu] (Botta, 41. 48),
just as that from Cyprus to Syria is said to be one of seven days (Botta,
38. 41). Also, in Rawlinson, 42. 13, Sennacherib speaks of slaughtering his
enemies for the space of a journey or march of two kazabs [kashbu]. This
use of the word seems to me a positive proof that the clepsydrae was in use
among the Assyrians and Babylonians generally, and was not confined to the
astronomers.
There does not appear to me any reason to suppose that a division of the
day from sunrise to sunset into twelve hours, varying in length according to
the season of the year, and again of the night, from sunset to sunrise into
twelve similar hours, was ever known to the Babylonians. Such a division
was in use among the Egyptians, and was adopted from them by the Greeks,
but the Babylonians and Assyrians knew nothing of it. I may here observe
that some modern writers have committed a strange mistake in supposing
the clepsydrae to have been invented so late as the third century before
Christ and at Alexandria. These writers have confounded two totally dif-
ferent things ; viz., the original invention of the clepsydrae marking mean
solar time, which goes back to remote antiquity, and is almost certainly due
to the Babylonians, and the adaptation of the clepsydrae to the teasonable
(/cot/jt/eal) hours of the Egyptians and Greeks, which was accomplished at the
time and place which these writers mention. I have met with no subdivi-
sions of the kazab [kashbu], and I much doubt whether the Babylonians had
any means of marking such./
ASSYRIAN SCIENCE
The exact sciences were cultivated in Assyria from the earliest times;
nor had natural sciences been neglected. Zoology, botany, mineralogy are
largely represented in the library of Nineveh, and as all these tablets con-
tain a Sumerian as well as the equivalent Assyrian text, we are justified in
believing that the Ninevites, in this respect, still followed the traditions of
their predecessors.
We find lists of animals arranged in a certain order which indicates an
attempt at classification ; thus the dog, lion, and wolf are in the same cate-
gory, whilst the ox, sheep, and goat form another. In the enumeration of
the different animals, there is a very evident design of establishing genera
and families, and of distinguishing species. Thus we have a family com-
prising the great Carnivora : the dog, lion, and wolf ; then we have different
species in the dog family — such as the dog itself, the domestic dog, the
coursing dog, the small dog, the dog of Elam, etc. The scientific side of
this classification is revealed by an easily recognised circumstance ; thus one
finds after the common name a special nomenclature, which belongs to a
scientific classification with which the Assyrians seem to have been familiar.
Among the birds similar attempts at classification are evident. Birds of
rapid flight, sea-birds, or marsh birds are differentiated. Insects form a very
numerous class; we see an entire family whose species are differentiated
according as they attack plants, animals, clothing, or wood. Vegetables seem
to be classified according to their usefulness, or the service that industry
can make of them. One tablet enumerates the uses to which wood can be
568 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
put, according to its adaptability, for the timber-work of palaces, the con-
struction of vessels, the making of carts, implements of husbandry, or even
furniture. Minerals occupy a long series in these tablets. They are classed
according to their qualities, gold and silver forming a division apart ; pre-
cious stones form still another, but there is nothing to indicate on what basis
a classification would be established.
If we pass from the natural sciences to geography, we find the latter in
a synthetic and fairly confused state. Nevertheless several lists give us a
series of the names of towns, rivers, and mountains, arranged according to
their geographical disposition, as we can easily prove. Sometimes the data
are of a practical character, and names are followed by mention of natural or
industrial products of localities, their revenue taxes, or tributes. But the
science, par excellence, which was especially cultivated in Assyria, and which
the learned men of Asshurbanapal connected with the greatest care with
antique Chaldean traditions, was astronomy.
This science was not indeed born at Nineveh ; the Greeks teach us that
astronomical observations were first made in lower Chaldea 1903 years before
Alexander, and consequently 2226 years before Christ. Whatever the
value of this date may be, the tradition of this origin is found in the works
of the Assyrians, who constantly refer to the observations of their pre-
decessors. Asshurbanapal had sent these learned men to the old schools of
Mesopotamia, Ur, Sippar, Agade, Babylon ; there to imbibe the elements of
the science which was the glory of the southern empire. In the seventh
century before our era, observations were carried on at Nineveh. At this'
date the fixed stars had long been distinguished from the planets; the si-
dereal revolutions, the divisions of the year, the course of the sun in the
different constellations of the zodiac, periodic return of eclipses, and even
the precession of the equinoxes, had been calculated. These achievements
imply long and conscientious observation, a special intelligence to undertake
them, and simple methods of rigorous calculation.
We are ignorant as to the nature of the instruments with which the
Assyrio-Chaldeans could observe the stars. The chances of error in obser-
vations by the naked eye are evidently very great, and errors can only be
rectified by multiplied operations and the most minute calculations. It is
known that the determining of the periodicity of .the moon's eclipses rests
on a knowledge of the cycle of 223 lunations which bring back the same
eclipses periodically. It is certain that the Assyrio-Chaldeans must have
also known another cycle of 22,325 lunations equalling 1805 tropical years
plus 8 days, or 1805 Julian years of 365J days; after which the eclipses
return with still greater precision in the same order. How long did it take
the human mind to observe and understand a sufficient number of lunations
so as to combine the data they afforded and deduct the law that Meton
formulated and to which he has given his name ?
In regard to eclipses of the sun, the cycle is so very much greater that
the beginnings of the observations on which the calculations of their perio-
dicity would rest, would take us back to a period which is quite beyond the
limits of the historic age. Diogenes Laertius estimates it as 48,863 years.
During that time 373 eclipses of the moon and 832 eclipses of the sun had
been observed. When they turned their attention to the calculations result-
ing from these observations the Assyrio-Chaldeans were marvellously helped
by their system of notation. Their numerical system lent itself with ease
to the most complicated of calculations. We must content ourselves with
stating the results. As we were saying a minute ago, the observations were
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 669
carried on under Asshurbanapal ; the king sent astronomers to different
points to study celestial phenomena, and the results of their labours were
sent him. Here are the terms in which these reports were expressed:
"To the King, my Lord, his humble servant Ishtar-iddin-apal, chief
astronomer of the town of Arbela writes this : Peace and happiness to the
king my master and may he long prosper.
" On the 29th day, I observed the node of the moon, the clouds obscured
the field of observation, and we could not see the moon.
" In the month of Sebat (January) the 1st day during the year Bel-haran-
saduya (648 B.C.)."
Ihe result of this mission was not satisfactory. The eclipse had been
predicted, but although the state of the atmosphere did not allow of observa-
tion, the attesting of this failure proves the care with which every circum-
stance that could serve to explain the phenomenon was noted. Here is an
observation which was entirely successful :
"To the director of observations my Lord, his humble servant Nabu-
shum-iddin, Great Astronomer of Nineveh writes this: May Nabu and
Marduk be propitious to the director of these observations, my Lord.
" The 15th day we observed the node of the moon, and the moon was
eclipsed."
Here is a more complicated observation :
" To the king, my Lord, may the Gods Nabu and Marduk be propitious,
may the great gods grant to the king, my master, long life, the benefits of
the flesh and satisfaction of the heart.
" The 27th day the moon disappeared ; the 28th 29th and 30th day we
continually observed the node of the obscuring sun. The eclipse did not
take place. The 1st day (of the following month) we saw the moon during
the first day of the month Tammuz (June) above the star Mercury of which
I have previously sent an observation to the king my master. In its course
during the day of Anu, around the shepherd star (the planet Venus), it was
seen declining : on account of rain the horns were not very distinctly visible,
and so it was in its whole course. The day Anu I sent the observation of
its conjunction, to the king my master. It was prolonged and was visible
above the star of the Chariot in its course during the day of Baal ; it dis-
appeared towards the star of the Chariot.
" To the King, my Lord, peace and happiness."
The discovery of the precession of the equinoxes is generally attributed
to Hipparchus. It was he, indeed, who taught this fact to the Greeks, and
he estimated its yearly amount as from 36 to 39 seconds ; but it is certain
that he learned about it in Chaldea, and that he obtained the elements of his
calculations from the astronomical observations made on the lower Euphrates.
All the astronomical knowledge of the Ninevite savants had the same point
of origin.
Two thousand years before our era, from the time of a king of Agade
called Sharrukin (Shargani-shar-ali), and who is usually known as Sargon I
(the Ancient), the precession of the equinoxes was an observed and cal-
culated fact, since it had already brought sufficient disturbance into the
calendar to make a corrective element necessary. Sargon had given a
brilliancy to his century which the learned men of Nineveh only echoed.
In his time there was a library at Agade, the importance of which we can
judge by the fragments which were preserved at Nineveh. We are certain
that at these remote times the great divisions of the uranographic chart were
already determined upon. Fixed stars were designated according to the
570
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
different groups or constellations which were known by the names they have
retained to this day.
Outside these fixed stars the signs of the zodiac were perfectly deter-
mined in that portion of the celestial vault which the texts designate by the
name of harranu (the way), that is to say, the way of the stars. These stars
were the planets. The Chaldeans knew of seven, and they were thus known
to them : Shamash, the sun ; Sin, the moon ; Alap-Shamash, Saturn ; Rus, Jupi-
ter ; Ashbat, Venus ; Sulpa-sadu, Mars ; Nivit-Anu, Mercury. The Ninevite
savants borrowed their astronomical knowledge from the Chaldeans; they
made use of the calendar as it was transmitted to them, and as such it has
been used by all nations from the remotest times up to the present day.
The Assyrian year was composed of twelve lunar months. It began
with the new moon preceding the vernal equinox. A well-known tablet thus
fixes the day of the equinoxes : " At the sixth day of the month of Nisan
(March) the days and nights are equal (and comprise), six kashbu for the
day and six kashbu for the night. May Nabu and Marduk be propitious to
the King, my Lord."
To correct the error resulting from the difference between the lunar and
solar year, a supplementary month was intercalated, the length of which
necessarily varied with circumstances. The Ninevite tablets offer us calen-
dars arranged in conformity with the different exigencies of life. Some
are purely scientific, and show us the divisions of the year into days,
months, and seasons. Others are formed to meet the needs of religion, and
tell us, by the day, the feasts consecrated to divinities invoked or honoured
by special ceremonies. Others seem to take current superstitions into
account ; thus days are marked by a particular sign, according as they are
considered propitious or disastrous. We see tables constructed to indicate
the influence of the stars on each day of the year, with a mention of appro-
priate prayers, to propitiate favourable auguries and ward off those which
are fatal.
The importance of these last documents must not be exaggerated ; they
are related to superstitions common to all ages and lands ; and, in the ancient
East, as everywhere else, these beliefs merely represent one of the most curi-
ous, but the least interesting phases of the aberrations of the human mind.?
BABYLONIAN KINO LION HUNTING
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
Such is the fate of empire : Asshur rose
Where elder thrones and prouder warriors stood ;
Before the Memphian priest his precepts chose,
Men reasoned greatly of the highest good ;
Before Troy was, or Xanthus rolled in blood,
Annies were ranged in battles' dread array :
They fought — their glory withered in its bud ;
They perished — with them ceased their tyrants' sway ;
New wars, new heroes came — their story passed away.
— JAMES GATES PBKCIVAL.
IT is a curious paradox that our knowledge of this oldest civilisation
should be the very newest and most novel record with which present-day
history has to deal. The Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Babylonians, of whose
accomplishments we speak so confidently to-day, lived out their national life,
and vanished from the earth, as nations, mostly before civilisation had its
dawning in Europe; and for two thousand years they were but a remi-
niscence.
It was reserved for nineteenth century investigators literally to dig from
the earth their lost records, and to read the secrets of their forgotten
history. Marvellous secrets they were, as we shall see ; but before we
turn to them, it will be of interest to recall the reminiscences that did
service as the history of these wonderful peoples for so many centuries.
In a few extracts we may set forth the substance of all that the world
remembered of that marvellous civilisation from the days of Herodotus
and Diodorus till the middle of the nineteenth century. A mixture of
fact and fable, it still has absorbing interest, the more so that we may now
compare it with the surer records brought to light in our own time.
Aside from their intrinsic interest, the classical records have, in this regard,
a unique importance.
As to the precise classical authorities in question, we have already
become acquainted with Diodorus and ^lianus in the earlier portion of this
work. Another author we shall now have occasion to quote is Berosus.
As to this author and the exact status of his work, we cannot do better than
quote the following critical estimate from the Babylone et la Chaldte of
Joachim Menant.
" Berosus came of a priestly family and was born in Babylon, about 330
B.C. He himself is authority for the information that he was a contempo-
rary of Alexander the Great. According to Tatian, he is the most learned
of all Asiatic historians. He was deeply versed in the ancient traditions of
571
572 THE HISTOEY OF MESOPOTAMIA
his country and taught them to the Greeks, through whom they have come
down to us. Vitruvius informs us that he left Babylon and went to live on
the island of Cos, where he opened a school of astrology. He invented, or
at least introduced among the Greeks, a particular kind of time-keeping.
There still exist fragments of astrological works to which Berosus has
attached his name, and owing to the special interests of the writers who
have borrowed from his works, the fame of the astrologer perhaps outshines
that of the historian. Pliny (VII. 37) declares that the Athenians erected
a golden-tongued statue to him in the Gymnasium, on account of his
wonderful predictions.
"He wrote in Greek, about 280 B.C., a history of ancient Chaldea and
dedicated it to Antiochus Soter. The work consisted of three volumes,
of which we possess now but a few excerpts preserved in the chronicles of
several historiographers who have lived at different periods and whom it
may be well to mention. First of all there is Flavius Josephus, the great
historian of the Jews, born at Jerusalem 33 A.D. ; then there are St. Clement,
the Alexandrian catechist (born early in the second century A.D., died 217),
Eusebius, Bishop of Csesarea (author of the Symbol of Nice, who lived from
267 to 338), and finally, George Syncellus (so called from the office he filled
under the Bishop of Constantinople, and who died about the year 800).
These writers took from Berosus only just what was needed for their pur-
poses, and none in fact seems to have been personally acquainted with the
work of the learned Chaldean.
" For instance, Syncellus, whose writings show marks of haste and are
by no means free from error, borrows his quotations from Eusebius, whom he
often pretends to correct. Eusebius seems to be indebted to Julius Afri-
canus, who wrote in the third century of our era, and the latter in turn
mentions his obligation to Alexander Polyhistor, who flourished twenty-five
years before Christ. Now Polyhistor takes his references from Apollodorus,
who lived some years before. Josephus in all probability used Alexander
Polyhistor as his source, although he does not say so. Clement of Alexan-
dria had at his elbow the works of King Juba of Mauritania, who reigned
about 30 B.C., and who seems to have taken his material, unfortunately too
limited in amount, from the very works of Berosus, in whom he placed the
utmost confidence.
" One thing is certain, the original text of Berosus in passing through so
many hands and suffering condensation and mutilation must have been con-
siderably altered.
"Berosus had free access to those famous clay-tablet libraries which
Pliny describes and whose importance modern research has revealed. As at
Nineveh, there were at Babylon, Borsippa, Orchoe [Erech], and in the large
cities of Chaldea, archives which contained the national traditions to which
the Chaldean priest was obliged to resort.
" In the days of Berosus the writings in these archives were understood
not only in Babylon, but throughout western Asia. The Assyrio-Chaldean
language was still written in cuneiform characters till the time of the Seleu-
cidae and even during the first century B.C. Berosus was thus enabled to
consult these precious sources, and we know that he went to them. Already
in the priceless debris of these curious archives, fragments in corroboration
of Berosus have been discovered, and these acquisitions only make us regret
the more what is irrevocably lost."
We shall now take up some of the portions of Berosus' history transcribed
by later historiographers."
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
573
THE CREATION AND THE FLOOD, DESCRIBED BY POLYHI8TOB
Berosus, in the first book of his history of Babylonia, informs us that he
lived in the age of Alexander, the son of Philip. And he mentions that
there were written accounts, preserved at Babylon with the greatest care,
comprehending a period of about fifteen myriads of years ; and that these
writings contained histories of the heavens and of the sea ; of the birth of
mankind ; and of the kings, and of the memorable actions which they had
achieved.
And in the first place he describes Babylonia as a country situated be-
tween the Tigris and the Euphrates ; that it abounded with wheat and bar-
ley, and ocrus, and sesame ; and that in the lakes were produced the roots
called gongae, which are fit for food, and in respect for nutriment similar
to barley. That there were also palm trees and apples, and a variety of
fruits ; fish also and birds, both those which are merely of flight, and those
ASSYRIAN BOAT
(From the Monument*)
which frequent the lakes. He adds, that those parts of the country which
bordered upon Arabia were without water and barren ; but that the parts
which lay on the other side were both hilly and fertile.
At Babylon there was (in these times) a great resort of people of various
nations, who inhabited Chaldea, and lived in a lawless manner, like the
beasts of the field.
In the first year there appeared from that part of the Erythraean Sea [the
Persian Gulf] which borders upon Babylonia, an animal destitute of reason,
by name Cannes [perhaps the same as Anu], whose whole body (according to
the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish ; that under the fish's head he
had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined
to the fish's tail. His voice, too, and language, was articulate and human ;
and a representation of him is preserved even to this day.
This Being was accustomed to pass the day among men ; but took no
food at that season ; and he gave them an insight into letters and sciences,
and arts of every kind. He taught them to construct cities, to found temples,
to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowl-
edge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and showed them
how to collect the fruits ; in short he instructed them in everything which
could tend to soften manners and humanise their lives. From that time
nothing material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions.
574 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
And when the sun had set, this Being, Oannes, retired again into the sea, and
passed the night in the deep ; for he was amphibious. After this there ap-
peared other animals like Oannes, of which Berosus proposes to give an
account when he comes to the history of the kings. Moreover, Oannes
wrote concerning the generation of mankind, and of their civil policy ; and
the following is the purport of what he said :
" There was a time in which there existed nothing but darkness and an
abyss of waters, wherein resided most hideous beings, which were produced
of a twofold principle. There appeared men, some of whom were furnished
with two wings, others with four, and with two faces. They had one body
but two heads : the one that of a man, the other of a woman ; likewise in
their several organs, they were both male and female. Other human figures
were to be seen with the legs and horns of goats ; some had horses' feet ;
while others united the hind quarters of a horse with the body of a man, re-
sembling in shape the hippocentaurs. Bulls likewise were bred there with
the heads of men ; and dogs with fourfold bodies, terminated in their extrem-
ities with the tails of fishes. In short, there were creatures in which were
combined the limbs of every species of animal. In addition to these, fishes,
reptiles, serpents, with other monstrous animals, which assumed each other's
shape and countenance. Of all which were preserved delineations in the
temple of Belus at Babylon.
" The person who was believed to have presided over them, was a woman
named Omoroca [a Greek form of the Aramaic word 'Amqia, " the ocean "] ;
which in the Chaldean language is Thalath ; in Greek, Thalassa, the sea ;
but which might equally be interpreted the Moon. All things being in this
situation, Belus came, and cut the woman asunder : and of one half of her
he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens ; and at the same time
destroyed the animals within her. All this (he says) was an allegorical
description of nature. For, the whole universe consisting of moisture, and
animals being continually generated therein, the deity above mentioned took
off his own head : upon which the other gods mixed the blood, as it gushed
out, with the earth ; and from thence were formed men. On this account
it is that they are rational, and partake of divine knowledge.
" This Belus, by whom they signify Jupiter, divided the darkness, and
separated the Heavens from the Earth, and reduced the universe to order.
But the animals, not being able to bear the prevalence of light, died. Belus,
upon this, seeing a vast space unoccupied, though by nature fruitful, com-
manded one of the gods to take off his head, and to mix the blood with the
earth ; and from thence to form other men and animals, which should be
capable of bearing the air. Belus formed also the stars, and the sun, and the
moon, and the five planets."
(Such, according to Alexander Polyhistor, is the account which Berosus
gives in his first book. In the second book was contained the history of
the ten kings of the Chaldeans, and the periods of the continuance of each
reign, which consisted collectively of 120 sars, or 432,000 years ; reaching to
the time of the Deluge. For Alexander, enumerating the kings from the
writings of the Chaldeans, after Ardates the IXth, proceeds to the Xth, who
is called by them Xisuthrus, in this manner :)
After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthrus reigned 18 sars. In his
time happened a great Deluge ; the history of which is thus described. The
Deity, Cronus, appeared to him in a vision, and warned him that upon the
fifteenth day of the month Dsesius [or Dsesia, i.e. May and June] there would
be a flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 675
him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and conclusion of all
things ; and bury it in the city of the Sun at Sippara ; and to build
a vessel, and to take with him into it his friends and relations ; and to
convey on board everything necessary to sustain life, together with all
the different animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fear-
lessly to the deep. Having asked the Deity, whither he was to sail, he
was answered, " To the Gods " : upon which he offered up a prayer for
the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine admonition : and built
a vessel five stadia in length and two in breadth. Into this he put every-
thing which he had prepared ; and last of all conveyed into it his wife,
his children, and his friends.
After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus
sent out birds from the vessel, which, not finding any food, nor any place
whereupon they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After an in-
terval of some days he sent them forth a second time ; and they now returned
with their feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these
birds ; but they returned to him no more : from whence he judged that the
surface of the earth had appeared above the waters. He therefore made an
opening in the vessel, and upon looking out found that it was stranded upon
the side of some mountain ; upon which he immediately quitted it with his
wife, his daughter, and the pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the
earth : and having constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods, and,
with those who had come out of the vessel with him, disappeared.
They who remained within, finding that their companions did not return,
quitted the vessel with many lamentations, and called continually on the
name of Xisuthrus. Him they saw no more ; but they could distinguish his
voice in the air, and could hear him admonish them to pay due regard to re-
ligion ; and likewise informed them that it was on account of his piety that
he was translated to live with the gods ; that his wife and daughter, and the
pilot, had obtained the same honour. To this he added, that they should
return to Babylonia ; and, as it was ordained, search for the writings at Sip-
para, which they were to make known to all mankind : moreover, that the
place wherein they then were, was the land of Armenia [in the Hebrew,
Ararat] . The rest having heard these words, offered sacrifices to the gods ;
and, taking a circuit, journeyed towards Babylonia.
The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, some part of it yet remains
in the Corcyraean [or Gordyaean] Mountains of Armenia ; and the people
scrape off the bitumen, with which it had been outwardly coated, and make
use of it by way of an alexipharmic and amulet. And when they returned
to Babylon, and had found the writings at Sippara, they built cities, and
erected temples : and Babylon was thus inhabited again.
OTHER CLASSICAL FRAGMENTS
Qf the Chaldean Kings
This is the history which Berosus has transmitted to us. He tells us
that the first king was Alorus [or Ur, the Babylonian deity] of Babylon, a
Chaldean: he reigned ten sars: and afterwards Alaparus, and Amelon,
who came from Pantibiblon [Greek form of Sippara]: then Ammenon the
Chaldean, in whose time appeared the Musarus Cannes, the Annedotus from
the Erythraean Sea. (But Alexander Polyhistor, anticipating the event, has
said that he appeared in the first year ; but Apollodorus says that it was
576 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
after forty sars ; Abydenus, however, makes the second Annedotus appear
after twenty-six sars.) Then succeeded Megalarus from the city of Panti-
biblon ; and he reigned eighteen sars : and after him Daonus, the shepherd
from Pantibiblon, reigned ten sars; in his time (he says) appeared again
from the Erythraean Sea a fourth Annedotus, having the same form with those
above, the shape of a fish blended with that of a man. Then reigned Euedo-
rachus, from Pantibiblon, for the term of eighteen sars ; in his days there
appeared another personage from the Erythraean Sea like the former, having
the same complicated form between a fish and a man, whose name was Oda-
con. (All these, says Apollodorus, related particularly and circumstantially
whatever Oannes had informed them of : concerning these, Abydenus has
made no mention.) Then reigned Amempsinus, a Chaldean from Laranchae
[or Larissa]; and he, being the eighth in order, reigned ten sars. Then
reigned Otiartes, a Chaldean, from Laranchee ; and he reigned eight sars.
And upon the death of Otiartes, his son Xisuthrus reigned eighteen sars : in
his time happened the great Deluge. So that the sum of all the kings is ten ;
and the term which they collectively reigned was a hundred and twenty sars.
[From Eusebius.]
Of the Chaldean Kings and the Deluge
So much concerning the wisdom of the Chaldeans.
It is said that the first king of the country was Alorus, and that he gave
out a report that God had appointed him to be the Shepherd of the people :
he reigned ten sars : now a sar is esteemed to be three thousand six hun-
dred years ; a ner six hundred ; and a sos sixty.
After him Alaparus reigned three sars : to him succeeded Amillarus from
the city of Pantibiblon, who reigned thirteen sars : in his time came up from
the sea a second Annedotus, a semi-demon very similar in his form to
Oannes : after Amillarus reigned Ammenon twelve sars, who was of the city
of Pantibiblon : then Megalarus of the same place reigned eighteen sars :
then Daos, the shepherd, governed for the space of ten sars, he was of Pan-
tibiblon [Sippara] ; in his time four double-shaped personages came up out
of the sea to land, whose names were Euedocus, Eneugamus, Eneuboulus,
and Anementus : afterwards in the time of Euedoreschus appeared another
Anodaphus. After these reigned other kings, and, last of all, Sisithrus
[Xisuthrus] : so that in the whole the number amounted to ten kings, and
the term of their reigns to an hundred and twenty sars. (And, among other
things not irrelative to the subject, he continues thus concerning the Deluge) :
After Euedorechus some others reigned and then Sisithrus. To him the
deity Cronus foretold that on the fifteenth day of the month Dsesius
there would be a deluge of rain : and he commanded him to deposit all
the writings whatever which were in his possession in the city of the Sun
in Sippara. Sisithrus, when he had complied with these commands, sailed
immediately to Armenia, and was presently inspired by God. Upon the third
day after the cessation of the rain Sisithrus sent out birds, by way of experi-
ment, that he might judge whether the flood had subsided. But the birds,
passing over an unbounded sea, without finding any place of rest, returned
again to Sisithrus. This he repeated with other birds. And when upon the
third trial he succeeded, for the birds then returned with their feet stained
with mud, the gods translated him from among men. With respect to the
vessel, which yet remains in Armenia, it is a custom of the inhabitants to
form bracelets and amulets of its wood. [From Eusebius.]
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 577
Of the Tower of Babel
They say that the first inhabitants of the earth, glorying in their own
strength and size, and despising the gods, undertook to raise a tower whose
top should reach the sky in the place in which Babylon now stands : but
when it approached the heaven, the winds assisted the gods, and overthrew
the work upon its contrivers : and its ruins are said to be at Babylon : and
the gods introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who till that time had
all spoken the same language : and a war arose between Cronus and Titan.
The place in which they built the tower is now called Babylon, on account of
the confusion of the tongues ; for confusion is by the Hebrews called Babel.1
[From Eusebius.]
Of Abraham [?]
After the Deluge, in the tenth generation, was a certain man among the
Chaldeans renowned for his justice and great exploits, and for his skill in
the celestial sciences. [From Eusebius.]
Of Nabonassar
From the reign of Nabonassar only are the Chaldeans (from whom the
Greek mathematicians copy) accurately acquainted with the heavenly motions:
for Nabonassar collected all the mementos of the kings prior to himself, and
destroyed them, that the enumeration of the Chaldean kings might commence
with him. [From Syncellus.]
Of the Destruction of the Jewish Temple
He (Nabopolassar) sent his son Nebuchadrezzar with a great army against
Egypt, and against Judea, upon his being informed that they had revolted
from him ; and by that means he subdued them all, and set fire to the temple
that was at Jerusalem ; and removed our people entirely out of their own
country, and transferred them to Babylon, and our city remained in a state
of desolation during the interval of seventy years, until the days of Cyrus,
king of Persia. (He then says, that) this Babylonian king conquered Egypt,
and Syria, and Phoenicia, and Arabia, and exceeded in his exploits all that
had reigned before him in Babylon and Chaldea. [From Josephus.]
Of Nebuchadrezzar
When Nabopolassar, his (Nebuchadrezzar's) father, heard that the gover-
nor, whom he had set over Egypt and the provinces of Ccele-Syria and Phoe-
nicia, had revolted, he was determined to punish his delinquencies, and for
that purpose entrusted part of his army to his son Nebuchadrezzar, who was
then of mature age, and sent him forth against the rebel : and Nebuchad-
rezzar engaged and overcame him, and reduced the country again under his
dominion. And it came to pass that his father, Nabopolassar, was seized
with a disorder which proved fatal, and he died in the city of Babylon, after
he had reigned nine and twenty years.
Nebuchadrezzar, as soon as he had received intelligence of his father's
death, set in order the affairs of Egypt and the other countries, and com-
[' Babylon is actually the Greek form of the Assyrian Bab-ilu, " Gate of God." The some-
what similar Hebrew word meaning " confusion" is Bilbool (from balbel). Hence the legend.]
H. w. — VOL. i. 2 JP
578 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
mitted to some of his faithful officers the captives he had taken from the
Jews, and Phoenicians, and Syrians, and the nations belonging to Egypt, that
they might conduct them with that part of the forces which had heavy armour,
together with the rest of his baggage, to Babylonia : in the meantime with a
few attendants he hastily crossed the desert to Babylon. When he arrived
there he found that his affairs had been faithfully conducted by the Chal-
deans, and that the principal person among them had preserved the kingdom
for him : and he accordingly obtained possession of all his father's dominions.
And he distributed the captives in colonies in the most proper places in Baby-
lonia : and adorned the temple of Belus, and the other temples, in a sumptu-
ous and pious manner, out of the spoils which he had taken in this war. He
also rebuilt the old city, and added another to it on the outside, and so far com-
pleted Babylon that none who might besiege it afterwards should have it in
their power to divert the river so as to facilitate an entrance into it : and he
effected this by building three walls about the inner city, and three about the
outer. Some of these walls he built of burnt brick and bitumen, and some
of brick only. When he had thus admirably fortified the city, and had
magnificently adorned the gates, he added also a new palace to those in which
his forefathers had dwelt, adjoining them, but exceeding them in height and
splendour. Any attempt to describe it would be tedious : yet notwithstand-
ing its prodigious size and magnificence, it was finished within fifteen days.
In this palace he erected very high walks, supported by stone pillars ; and by
planting what was called a pensile paradise, and replenishing it with all sorts
of trees, he rendered the prospect an exact resemblance of a mountainous
country. This he did to gratify his queen [Amytis], because she had been
brought up in Media, and was fond of a mountainous situation. [From
Josephus.]
Of the Chaldean Kings after Nebuchadrezzar
Nebuchadrezzar, whilst he was engaged in building the above-mentioned
wall, fell sick, and died after he had reigned forty-three years ; whereupon
his son Evil-merodachus succeeded him in his kingdom. His government,
however, was conducted in an illegal and improper manner, and he fell a
victim to a conspiracy which was formed against his life by Neriglissorus,
his sister's husband, after he had reigned about two years.
Upon his death Neriglissorus, the chief of the conspirators, obtained
possession of the kingdom, and reigned four years.
He was succeeded by his son Labarosoarchodus [Labashi-Marduk], who
was but a child, and reigned nine months ; for his misconduct he was seized
by conspirators, and put to death by torture.
After his death, the conspirators assembled, and by common consent
placed the crown upon the head of Nabonidus, a man of Babylon, and one of
the leaders of the insurrection. It was in this reign that the walls of the city
of Babylon which defend the banks of the river were curiously built with
burnt brick and bitumen.
In the seventeenth year of the reign of Nabonidus, Cyrus came out of Persia
with a great army, and, having conquered all the rest of Asia, advanced hastily
into the country of Babylonia. As soon as Nabonidus perceived he was
advancing to attack him, he assembled his forces and opposed him, but was
defeated, and fled with a few of his adherents, and was shut up in the city of
Borsippus. Upon this Cyrus took Babylon, and gave orders that the outer
walls should be demolished, because the city appeared of such strength as to
render a siege almost impracticable. From thence he marched to Borsippua
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 579
to besiege Nabonidus ; but Nabonidus delivered himself into his hands with-
out holding out the place : lie was therefore kindly treated by Cyrus, who
provided him with an establishment in Carmania, but sent him out of Baby-
lonia. Nabonidus accordingly spent the remainder of his life in that country,
where he died. [From Josephus.1]
Of the Feast of Sacea
Berosus, in the first book of his Babylonian history, says : That in the
eleventh month, called Loos [July], is celebrated in Babylon the feast of
Sacea for five days, in which it is tne custom that the masters should obey
their domestics, one of whom is led round the house, clothed in a royal
garment, and him they call Zoganes. [From Athenseus.]
A Fragment of Megatthenes Concerning Nebuchadrezza*
Abydenus, in his history of the Assyrians, has preserved the following
fragment of Megasthenes, who says: That Nabucodrosorus [Nebuchadrezzar],
having become more powerful than Hercules, invaded Libya and Iberia
[Spain], and when he had rendered them tributary, he extended his conquests
over the inhabitants of the shores upon the right of the sea. It is, moreover,
related by the Chaldeans that as he went up into his palace he was possessed
by some god ; and he cried out and said :
" Oh ! Babylonians, I, Nabucodrosorus, foretell unto you a calamity
which must shortly come to pass, which neither Belus, my ancestor, nor his
queen Beltis, have power to persuade the Fates to turn away. A Persian
mule shall come, and by the assistance of your gods shall impose upon you
the yoke of slavery ; the author of which shall be a Mede, the vainglory
of Assyria. Before he should thus betray my subjects, O ! that some sea
or whirlpool might receive him, and his memory be blotted out forever ; or
that he might be cast out to wander through some desert where there are
neither cities nor the trace of men, a solitary exile among rocks and caverns,
where beasts and birds alone abide. But for me, before he shall have con-
ceived these mischiefs in his mind a happier end will be provided."
When he had thus prophesied, he expired, and was succeeded by his son
Evilmaruchus [Evil-merodach], who was slain by his kinsman Neriglisares ;
and Neriglisares left Labassoarascus his son ; and when he also had suffered
death by violence, they crowned Nabannidochus [Nabonidus], who had no
connection with the royal family ; and in his reign Cyrus took Babylon, and
granted him a principality in Carmania.
And concerning the rebuilding of Babylon by Nabuchodonosor, he
[Megasthenes] writes thus : It is said that from the beginning all things
were water, called the sea ; that Belus caused this state of things to cease,
and appointed to each its proper place ; and he surrounded Babylon with a
wall ; but in process of time this wall disappeared ; and Nabuchodonosor
walled it in again, and it remained so with its brazen gates until the time
of the Macedonian conquest. And after other things he [Megasthenes]
says : Nabuchodonosor having succeeded to the kingdom, built the walls or
Babylon in a triple circuit in fifteen days ; and he turned the river Armacale,
P It is interesting to note that the name of the last native king of Babylonia is given correctly
by Josephus, who seems here to follow the Greek writers in preference to the canonical records
of his own race. The latter, it will be recalled, substitute the name of Belshazzar, a name not
borue by any historical Babylonian king.]
580 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
a branch of the Euphrates, and the Acracanus ; and above the city of Sippara
he dug a receptacle for the waters, whose perimeter was forty parasangs
and whose depth was twenty cubits ; and he placed gates at the entrance
thereof, by opening which they irrigated the plains, and these they called
echetognomones (sluices) ; and he constructed dikes against the eruptions
of the Erythnean Sea, and built the city of Teredon to check the incursions
of the Arabs ; and he adorned the palaces with trees, calling them hanging
gardens. [From Abydenus.] &
NINUS AND SEMIKAMIS
The reader, having already passed in review the chief events of Meso-
potamian history, is aware that the modern historian knows nothing of a
King Ninus, or of any warlike female ruler of Assyria. Nevertheless this
story of Diodorus — the only long account of Assyrian affairs that has come
down to us from antiquity — has true historical value, as showing the
mariner of tradition that may be woven about the half-remembered facts of
history. The account has interest for yet another reason : it is a record
that passed current as the authentic history of Assyria for some eighteen
hundred years — from classical times till after the middle of the nineteenth
century. «
Asia was anciently govern'd, says Diodorus, by its own Native Kings,
of whom there's no History extant, either as to any memorable Actions
they perform'd, or so much as to their Names.
Ninus is the First King of Assyria that is recorded in History ; he per-
form'd many great and noble Actions ; of whom we have design'd to set
forth something particularly.
He was naturally of a Warlike Disposition, and very ambitious of Honour
and Glory, and therefore caus'd the strongest of his Young Men to be
train'd up in Martial Discipline, and by long and continual Exercise inur'd
them readily to undergo all the Toyls and Hazards of War.
Having therefore rais'd a gallant Army, he made a League with Arieus
King of Arabia, that was at that time full of strong and valiant Men. For that
Nation are constant Lovers of Liberty, never upon any Terms admitting of
any Foreign Prince : And therefore neither the Persian, nor the Macedonian
Kings after them, (though they were most powerful in Arms) were ever able
to conquer them. For Arabia being partly Desert, and partly parcht up for
want of Water (unless it be in some secret Wells and Pits known only to
the Inhabitants) cannot be subdu'd by any Foreign Force.
Ninus therefore, the Assyrian King, with the Prince of Arabia his Assistant,
with a numerous Army, invaded the Babylonians, then next bordering upon
him : For the Babylon that is now, was not built at that time ; but the Prov-
ince of Babylon had in it then many other considerable Cities, whose Inhabi-
tants he easily subdu'd, (being rude and unexpert in Matters of War,) and
impos'd upon them a Yearly Tribute ; but carried away the King with all his
Children Prisoners, and after put them to Death. Afterwards he entered
Armenia with a great Army, and having overthrown some Cities, he struck
Terror into the rest, and thereupon their King Barzanus seeing himself un-
able to deal with him, met him with many rich Presents, and submitted him-
self ; whom Ninus out of his generous disposition, courteously receiv'd, and
gave him the Kingdom of Armenia, upon condition he should be his Friend
for the future, and supply him with Men and Provision for his Wars as he
should have occasion.
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 581
Being thus strengthen'd, he invaded Media, whose King Pharnus coming
out against him with a mighty Army, was utterly routed, and lost most of his
Men, and was taken Prisoner with his Wife and Seven Children, and after-
wards Crucified.
Ninus being thus successful and prosperous, his Ambition rose the higher,
and his desire most ardent to conquer all in Asia, which lay between Tanais
and Nile ; (so far does Prosperity and Excess in getting much, inflame the De-
sire to gain and compass more). In order hereunto, he made one of his
Friends Governor of the Province of Media, and he himself in the meantime
marcht against the other Provinces of Asia, and subdu'd them all in Seven-
teen Years time, except the Indians and Bactrians. But no Writer has given
any Account of the several Battels he fought, nor of the number of those
Nations he conquer'd ; and therefore following Ctesias the Cnidian, we
shall only briefly run over the most famous and considerable Countries. He
over-ran all the Countries bordering upon the Sea, together with the ad-
joining Continent, as Egypt and Phenicia, Celo-Syria, Cilicia, Pamphylia,
Lycia, Caria, Phrygia, Mysia, and Lydia ; the Province of Troas and Phrygia
upon the Hellespont, together with Propontis, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and the
Barbarous Nations adjoyning upon Pontus, as far as to Tanais ; he gain'd
likewise the Country of the Caddusians, Tarpyrians, Hyrcanians, Dacians,
Derbians, Carmanians, Choroneans, Borchanians, and Parthians. He pierc'd
likewise into Persia, the Provinces of Susiana, and that call'd Caspiana,
through those narrow Straits, which from thence are call'd the Caspian
Gates. He subdu'd likewise many other less considerable Nations, which
would be too tedious here to recount. After much toyl and labour in vain,
because of the difficulty of the Passes, and the multitude of those Warlike
Inhabitants, he was forc'd to put off his War against the Bactrians to
another opportunity.
Having marcht back with his Army into Syria, he markt out a Place
for the building of a stately City : For in as much as he had surpast all his
Ancestors in the glory and success of his Arms, he was resolv'd to build one
of that state and grandeur as should not only be the greatest then in the
World, but such as none that ever should come after him should be able
easily to exceed.
The King of Arabia he sent back with his Army into his own Country,
with many rich Spoils, and noble Gifts. And he himself having got a great
number of his Forces together, and provided Mony and Treasure, and other
things necessary for the purpose, built a City near the River Euphrates, very
famous for its Walls and Fortifications ; of a long Form ; for on both sides
it ran out in length above an Hundred and Fifty Furlongs ; but the Two
lesser Angles were only Ninety Furlongs apiece ; so that the Circumference
of the whole was Four Hundred and Fourscore Furlongs. And the
Founder was not herein deceived, for none ever after built the like, either as
to the largeness of its Circumference, or the stateliness of its Walls. For
the Wall was an Hundred Foot in Height, and so broad as Three Chariots
might be driven together upon it in breast: There were Fifteen Hundred
Turrets upon the Walls, each of them Two Hundred Foot high. He ap-
pointed the City to be inhabited chiefly by the richest Assyrians, and gave
liberty to People of any other Nation (to as many as would) to dwell there,
and allow'd to the Citizens a large Territory next adjoining to them, and
call'd the City after his own Name, Ninus.
When he had finish'd his Work here, he marcht with an Army against
the Bactrians, where he marry'd Semiramis ; who being so famous above any
582 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
of her Sex (as in History it is related) we cannot but say something «f her
here in this Place, being one advanc'd from so low a Fortune, to such a state
and degree of Honour and Worldly Glory.
There's a City in Syria, call'd Ascalon, near which is a deep Lake abound-
ing with Fish, where not far off stands a Temple dedicated to a famous
Goddess call'd by the Syrians Derceto [Dagon], she represents a Woman in
her Face, and a Fish in all other parts of her Body, upon the account following,
as the most Judicious among the Inhabitants report ; for they say, that Venus
being angry at this Goddess, caus'd her to fall into a vehement pang of Love
with a beautiful Young Man, who was among others sacrificing to her, and was
got with Child by him, and brought to Bed of a Daughter ; and being asham'd
afterwards of what she had done, she kill'd the Young Man, and expos'd the
Child among Rocks in the Desert, and through Sorrow and Shame cast her self
•into the Lake, and was afterwards transform'd into a Fish ; whence it came to
pass, that at this very Day the Syrians eat no Fish, but adore them as Gods.
They say that the Infant that was expos'd, was both preserv'd and nourish'd
by a most wonderful Providence, by the means of a great Flock of Pigeons
that nestled near to the Place where the Child lay ; for with their Wings
they cherish't it, and kept it warm ; and observing where the Herdsmen and
other Shepherds left their Milk in the Neighbouring Cottages, took it up in
their Bills, and as so many Nurses thrust their Beaks between the Infants
Lips, and so instil'd the Milk : And when the Child was a Year old, and
stood in need of stronger Nourishment, the Pigeons fed it with pieces of
Cheese which they pickt out from the rest : When the Shepherds return'd,
and found their Cheeses pickt round, they wondred (at first) at the thing ;
but observing afterward how it came to pass, they not only found out the
cause, but likewise a very beautiful Child, which they forthwith carry'd
away to their Cottages, and made a Present of it to the King's Superintendent
of his Flocks and Herds (whose Name was Simma) who (having no Children
of his own) carefully bred up the Young Lady as if she had been his
own Daughter, and call'd her Semiramis, a denomination in the Syrian
Language deriv'd from Pigeons, which the Syrians ever after ador'd for
Goddesses. And these are the Stories told of Semiramis.
Being now grown up, and exceeding all others of her Sex for the Charms
of her Beauty, one of the King's great Officers, call'd Menon, was sent to
take an account of the King's Herds and Flocks : This Man was Lord President
of the King's Council, and chief Governor of Syria, and lodging upon this
occasion at Simma's House, at the sight of, Semiramis, fell in love with her,
and with much intreaty obtain'd her from Simma, and carried her away with
him to Nineve, where he Marry'd her, and had by her two Sons, Hypates and
Hydaspes : And being a Woman of admirable Parts as well as Beauty, her
Husband was altogether at her Devotion, and never would do any thing
without her Advice, which was ever successful.
About this time Ninus having finish'd his City (call'd after his own
Name), prepar'd for his Expedition against the Bactrians ; and having had
experience of the greatness of their Forces, the valour of their Souldiers,
and the difficulties of passing into their Country, he rais'd an Army of the
choicest Men he could pick out from all Parts of his Dominions ; for because
he was bafll'd in his former Expedition, he was resolv'd to invade Bactria
with a far stronger Army than he did before. Bringing therefore his whole
Army together at a General Randezvouz, there were numbred (as Ctesias
writes) Seventeen Hundred Thousand Foot, above Two Hundred and Ten
Thousand Horse, and no fewer than Ten Thousand and Six Hundred Hooked
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 583
Chariots. This number at the first view seems to be very incredible ; but
to such as seriously consider the largeness and populousness of Asia, it cannot
be judg'd impossible. For if any (not to say any thing of the Eight
Hundred Thousand Men that Darius had with him in his Expedition against
the Scythians, and the innumerable Army Xerxes brought over with him
into Greece) will but take notice of things done lately, even as of Yesterday,
he'l more easily credit what we now say. For in Sicily Dionysius led only out
of that one City of Syracuse, an Hundred and Twenty Thousand Foot, and
Twelve Thousand Horse ; and lancht out of one Port, a Navy of Four
Hundred Sail, of which some were of Three Tyre of Oars, and others of Five :
And the Romans a little before the Times of Hannibal, rais'd in Italy of
their own Citizens and Confederates, an Army little less than a Million of
Fighting Men ; and yet all Italy is not to be compar'd with one Province
of Asia for number of Men. But this may sufficiently convince them that
compute the ancient Populousness of the Countries by the present depopu-
lations of the Cities at this day.
Ninus therefore marching with these Forces against the Bactrians, divided
his Army into Two Bodies, because of the straitness and difficulty of the
Passages. There are in Bactria many large and populous Cities, but one is
more especially Famous, call'd Bactria, inr which the King's Palace, for great-
ness and magnificence, and the Citadel for strength, far excel all the rest.
Oxyartes reign'd there at this time, who caus'd all that were able, to bear
Arras, and muster'd an Army of Four Hundred Thousand Men. With these he
met the Enemy at the Straights, entering into his Country, where he suffered
Ninus to enter with part of his Army : When he saw a competent number
enter'd, he fell upon them in the open Plain, and fought them with that reso-
lution, that the Bactrians put the Assyrians to flight, and pursuing them to
the next Mountains, kill'd a Hundred Thousand of their Enemies ; but after
the whole Army enter'd, the Bactrians were overpower'd by number, and
were broken, and all fled to their several Cities, in order to defend every one his
own Country. Ninus easily subdu'd all the rest of the Forts and Castles ;
but Bactria itself was so strong and well provided, that he could not force
it ; which occasion'd a long and tedious Siege, so that the Husband of
Semiramis (who was there in the King's Camp) being Love-sick, impatient
of being any longer without his wife, sent for her, who being both discreet
and couragious, and endowed with other noble Qualifications, readily im-
brac'd the opportunity of shewing to the World her own natural Valour and
Resolution; and that she might with more safety perform so long a Journey,
she put on such a Garment as whereby she could notf be discern'd whether
she were a Man or a Woman ; and so made, that by it she both preserv'd her
Beauty from being scorcht by the heat in her Journey, and likewise was thereby
more nimble and ready for any business she pleas'd to undertake, being of
her self a youthful and sprightly Lady ; and this sort of Garment was in so
high esteem, that the Modes afterwards when they came to be Lords of
Asia, wore Semiramis's Gown, and the Persians likewise after them.
As soon as she came to Bactria, and observ'd the manner of the Siege,
how Assaults were made only in open and plain Places most likely to be en-
ter'd, and that none dar'd to approach the Cittadel, because of its natural
Strength and Fortification, and that they within took more care to defend
the lower and weaker parts of the Walls, than the Castle where they neglected
their Guards, she took some with her that were skilful in climbing up the
Rocks, and with them with much Toyl, pass'd over a deep Trench, and pos-
ss'd her self of part of the Castle ; whereupon she gave a Signal to them
584 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
that were assaulting the Wall upon the Plain. Then they that were within
the City being suddenly struck with a Panick Fear at the taking of the
Castle, in desperation of making any further defence forsook the Walls.
The City being taken in this manner, the King greatly admir'd the Valour
of the Woman, and bountifully rewarded her, and was presently so passion-
ately affected at the sight of her Beauty, that he us'd all the Arguments
imaginable to persuade her Husband to bestow his Wife upon him, promising
him as a Reward of his Kindness, to give him his daughter Sosana in Mar-
riage : But he absolutely ref us'd ; upon which the King threaten'd him,
that if he would not consent, he would pluck out his Eyes.
Menon hereupon out of fear of the King's Threats, and overpower'd with
the Love of his Wife, fell into a distracted Rage and Madness, and forthwith
hang'd himself. And this was the occasion of the advancement of Semiramis
to the Regal state and dignity.
Ninus having now possess'd himself of all the Treasures of Bactria (where
was abundance of Gold and Silver) and settled his Affairs throughout the
whole Province of Bactria, returned with his Army to his own Country.
Afterwards he had a Son by Semiramis, call'd Ninyas, and dy'd leaving
his Wife Queen Regent. She bury'd her Husband Ninus in the Royal Pal-
ace, and rais'd over him a Mount of Earth of a wonderful bigness, being Nine
Furlongs in height, and ten in breadth, as Ctesias says : So that the City
standing in a Plain near to the River Euphrates, the Mount (many Furlongs
off) looks like a stately Cittadel. And it's said, that it continues to this day,
though Nineve was destroy'd by the Medes when they ruin'd the Assyrian
Empire.
SEMIKAMIS BUILDS A GKEAT CITY
Semiramis was naturally of an high aspiring Spirit, ambitious to excel all
her Predecessors in glorious Actions, and therefore imploy'd all her Thoughts
about the building of a City in the Province of Babylon ; and to this end
having provided Architects, Artists, and all other Necessaries for the Work,
She got together Two Millions of Men out of all Parts of the Empire to be
imploy'd in the building of the City. It was so built as that the River Eu-
phrates ran through the middle of it, and she compass'd it round with a Wall
of Three Hundred and Sixty Furlongs in Circuit, and adorn'd with many
stately Turrets ; and such was the state and grandeur of the Work, that the
Walls were of that breadth, as that Six Chariots abreast might be driven
together upon them. Their height was such as exceeded all Mens belief that
heard of it (as Ctesias Cnidius relates). But Clitarchus, and those who after-
wards went over with Alexander into Asia, have written that the Walls were
in Circuit Three Hundred Sixty Five Furlongs ; the Queen making them of
that Compass, to the end that the Furlongs should be as many in number
as the Days of the Year : They were of Brick cemented with Brimstone ;
in height as Ctesias says Fifty Orgyas ; but as some of the later Writers
report, but Fifty Cubits only, and that the Breadth was but a little more
than what would allow two Chariots to be driven afront. There were Two
Hundred and Fifty Turrets, in height and thickness proportionable to the
largeness of the Wall. It is not to be wondered at, that there were so few
Towers upon a Wall of so great a Circuit, being that in many Places round
the City, there were deep Morasses ; so that it was judg'd to no purpose to
raise Turrets there where they were so naturally fortify'd : Between the
Wall and the Houses, there was a Space left round the City of Two Hun-
dred Foot.
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 685
That the Work might be the more speedily dispatcht, to each of her
Friends was allotted a Furlong, with an allowance of all Expences necessary
for their several Parts, and commanded all should be finish'd in a Years time ;
which being diligently perfected with the Queen's Approbation, she then
made a Bridge over the narrowest part of the River, Five Furlongs in length,
laying the Supports and Pillars of the arches with great Art and Skill in the
Bottom of the Water Twelve Foot distance from each other. That the Stones
might be the more firmly joyn'd, they were bound together with Hooks of
Iron, and the Joints fill'd up with melted Lead. And before the Pillars, she
made and placed Defences, with sharp pointed Angles, to receive the Water
before it beat upon the flat sides of the Pillars, which caus'd the Course of the
Water to run round by degrees gently and moderately as far as to the broad
sides of the Pillars, so that the sharp Points of the Angles cut the Stream,
and gave a check to its violence, and the roundness of them by little and little
giving way, abated the force of the Current. This bridge was floor'd with
great Joices and Planks of Cedar, Cypress and Palm Trees, and was Thirty
Foot in breadth, and for Art and Curiosity, yielded to none of the works of
Semiramis. On either side of the River she rais'd a Bank, as broad as the
Wall, and with great cost drew it out in length an Hundred Furlongs. She
built likewise Two Palaces at each end of the Bridge upon the Bank of the
River, whence she might have a Prospect over the whole City, and make her
Passage as by Keys to the most convenient Places in it, as she had occasion.
And whereas Euphrates runs through the middle of Babylon, making its
course to the South, the Palaces lye the one on the East and the other on the
West Side of the River ; both built at exceeding Costs and Expence. For
that on the West had an high and stately Wall, made of well burnt Brick,
Sixty Furlongs in compass ; within this was drawn another of a round Cir-
cumference, upon which were portray'd in the Bricks, before they were burnt,
all sorts of living Creatures, as if it were to the Life, laid with great Art in
curious Colours. This Wall was in Circuit Forty Furlongs, Three Hundred
Bricks thick, and in height (as Ctesias says) a Hundred Yards, upon which
were Turrets an Hundred and Forty Yards high.
The Third and most inward Wall immediately surrounded the Palace,
Thirty Furlongs in Compass, and far surmounted the middle Wall, both in
height and thickness ; and on this Wall and the Towers were represented
the Shapes of all sorts of Living Creatures, artificially exprest in most lively
Colours. Especially was represented a General Hunting of all sorts of wild
Beasts, each Four Cubits high and upwards; amongst these was to be seen
Semiramis on Horseback, striking a Leopard through with a Dart, and next
to her, her Husband Ninus in close Fight with a Lion, piercing him with his
Lance. To this Palace she built likewise Three Gates, under which were
Apartments of Brass for Entertainments, into which Passages were open'd
by a certain Engin.
This Palace far excell'd that on the other side of the River, both in great-
ness and adornments. For the outmost Wall of that (made of well burnt
Brick) was but Thirty Furlongs in compass. Instead of the curious Por-
traiture of Beasts, there were the Brazen Statues of Ninus and Semiramis,
the Great Officers, and of Jupiter, whom the Babylonians call Belus ; and
likewise Armies drawn up in Battalia, and divers sorts of Hunting were
there represented, to the great diversion and pleasure of the Beholders.
After all these in a low Ground in Babylon, she sunk a Place for a Pond
Four-square, every Square being Three Hundred Furlongs in length, lin'd
with Brick, and cemented with Brimstone, and the whole Five and Thirty
586 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Foot in depth : Into this having first turn'd the River, she then made a Pas-
sage in nature of a Vault, from one Palace to another, whose Arches were
built of firm and strong Brick, and plaister'd all over on both sides with
Bitumen Four Cubits thick. The Walls of this Vault were Twenty Bricks
in thickness, and Twelve Foot High, beside and above the Arches ; and the
breadth was Fifteen Foot. This Piece of Work being finish'd in Two Hun-
dred and Sixty Days, the River was turn'd into its ancient Channel again,
so that the River flowing over the whole Work, Semiramis could go from
one Palace to the other, without passing over the River. She made likewise
Two Brazen Gates at either end of the Vault, which continu'd to the time
of the Persian Empire.
In the middle of the City, she built a Temple to Jupiter, whom the Baby-
lonians call Belus (as we have before said) of which since Writers differ
amongst themselves, and the Work is now wholly decay'd through length of
Time, there's nothing that can certainly be related concerning it : Yet it's
apparent it was of an exceeding great height, and that by the advantage of it,
the Chaldean Astrologers exactly observ'd the setting and rising of the Stars.
The whole was built of Brick, cemented with Brimstone, with great Art and
Cost. Upon the top she plac'd Three Statues of beaten Gold of Jupiter, Juno
and Rhea. That of Jupiter stood upright in the posture as if he were walk-
ing ; he was Forty Foot in height, and weigh'd a Thousand Babylonish Tal-
ents. The Statue of Rhea was of the same weight sitting on a Golden Throne,
having Two Lions standing on either side, one at her Knees, and near to them
Two exceeding great Serpents of Silver, weighing Thirty Talents apiece.
Here likewise the Image of Juno stood upright, and weighed Eight Hundred
Talents, grasping a Serpent by the Head in her right Hand, and holding a
Scepter adorn'd with precious Stones in her left.
For all these Deities there was plac'd a Common Table made of beaten
Gold, Forty Foot long, and Fifteen broad, weighing Five Hundred Talents :
Upon which stood Two Cups weighing Thirty Talents, and near to them as
many Censers weighing Three Hundred Talents : There were there likewise
plac'd Three Drinking Bowls of Gold, one of which dedicated to Jupiter,
weigh'd Twelve Hundred Babylonish Talents, but the other Two Six Hun-
dred apiece ; but all those the Persian Kings sacrilegiously carry'd away.
And length of Time has either altogether consum'd, or much defac'd the
Palaces and the other Structures ; so that at this day but a small part of
this Babylon is inhabited, and the greatest part which lay within the Walls
is turn'd into Tillage and Pasture.
There was likewise a Hanging Garden (as it's call'd) near the Citadel,
not built by Semiramis, but by a later Prince, call'd Cyrus, for the sake of a
Curtesan, who being a Persian (as they say) by Birth, and coveting Meadows
on Mountain Tops, desir'd the King by an Artificial Plantation to imitate
the Land in Persia. This Garden was Four Hundred Foot Square, and the
Ascent up to it was as to the Top of a Mountain, and had Buildings and
Apartments out of one into another, like unto a Theater. Under the Steps
to the Ascent, were built Arches one above another, rising gently by degrees,
which supported the whole Plantation. The highest Arch upon which the
Platform of the Garden was laid, was Fifty Cubits high, and the Garden
itself was surrounded with Battlements and Bulwarks. The Walls were
made very strong, built at no small Charge and Expence, being Two and
Twenty Foot thick, and every Sally-port Ten Foot wide : Over the several
Stories of this Fabrick, were laid Beams and Summers of huge Massy Stones
each Sixteen Foot long, and Four broad.
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 587
The Roof over all these was first cover'd with Reeds, daub'd with abun-
dance of Brimstone ; then upon them was laid double Tiles pargeted together
with a hard and durable Mortar (such as we call Plaister of Paris), and over
them after all, was a Covering with Sheets of Lead, that the Wet which
drencht thnm^'li the Earth, might not rot the Foundation. Upon all these
was laid Earth of a convenient depth, sufficient for the growth of the
greatest Trees. When the Soyl was laid even and smooth, it was planted
with all sorts of Trees, which both for Greatness and Beauty, might delight
the Spectators. The Arches (which stood one above another, and by that
means darted light sufficient one into another) had in them many stately
Rooms of all Kinds, and for all purposes. But there was one that had in it
certain Engins, whereby it drew plenty of Water out of the River through
certain Conduits and Conveyances from the Platform of the Garden, and no
body without was the wiser, or knew what was done. This Garden (as we
said before) was built in later Ages.
But Semiramis built likewise other Cities upon the Banks of Euphrates
and Tigris, where she establish'd Marts for the vending of Merchandize
brought from Media and Paretacena, and other Neighbouring Countries.
For next to Nile and Ganges, Euphrates and Tigris are the noblest Rivers
of all Asia, and have their Spring-heads in the Mountains of Arabia, and are
distant one from another Fifteen Hundred Furlongs. They run through
Media and Paretacena into Mesopotamia, which from its lying in the middle
between these Two Rivers, has gain'd from them that Name ; thence passing
through the Province of Babylon, they empty themselves into the Red Sea.
These being very large Rivers, and passing through divers Countries, greatly
inrich the Merchants that traffick in those Parts ; so that the Neighbouring
Places are full of Wealthy Mart Towns, and greatly advanc'd the glory and
majesty of Babylon.
Semiramis likewise caus'd a great Stone to be cut out of the Mountains
of Armenia, an Hundred and Twenty Five Foot in length, and Five in
breadth and thickness ; this she convey'd to the River by the help of many
Yokes of Oxen and Asses, and there put it Aboard a Ship, and brought it
safe by Water to Babylon, and set it up in the most remarkable High-way
as a wonderful Spectacle to all Beholders. From its shape it's call'd an
Obelisk (Obelos in Greek signifies a Spit) and is accounted one of the Seven
Wonders of the World. There are indeed many remarkable and wonderful
things to be seen in Babylon ; but amongst these, the great quantity of
Brimstone that there flows out of the Ground, is not to be the least admir'd,
which is so much, that it not only supply'd all their occasions in building
such great and mighty Works, but the common People profusely gather it,
and when it's dry, burn it instead of Fewel ; and though it be drawn out by
an innumerable Company of People, as from a great Fountain, yet it's as
plentiful as ever it was before. Near this Fountain there's a Spring not big,
but very fierce and violent, for it casts forth a Sulphureous and gross Vapour,
which suddenly kills every living Creature that comes near to it ; for the
Breath being stopt a long time, and all power of Respiration taken away by
the force of the Exhalation, the Body presently swells so, that the Parts
about the Lungs are all in a Flame.
Beyond the River there is a Morass, about which is a crusty Earth ; if any
unacquainted with the Place get into it, at first he floats upon the Top, when
he comes into the Middle he's violently hal'd away, and striving to help
himself, seems to be held so fast by something or other, that all his Labour
to get loose is in vain. And first his Feet, then his Legs and Thighs to his
588 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Loyns are benumm'd, at length his whole Body is stupify'd, and then down
he sinks to the Bottom, and presently after is cast up dead to the Surface.
And thus much for the Wonders of Babylon.
SEMIRAMIS BEGINS A CAREER OF CONQUEST
When Semiramis had finish'd all her Works, she marcht with a great
Army into Media, and encamp'd near to a Mountain call'd Bagistan ; there
she made a Garden twelve Furlongs in Compass : It was in a plain Cham-
pain Country, and had a great Fountain in it, which water'd the whole
Garden. Mount Bagistan is dedicated to Jupiter, and towards one side of
the Garden has steep Rocks seventeen Furlongs from the Top to the Bottom.
She cut out a Piece of the lower Part of the Rock, and caus'd her own Image
to be carv'd upon it, and a Hundred of her Guard that were Launceteers
standing round about her. She wrote likewise in Syriac Letters upon the
Rock, That Semiramis ascended from the Plain to the Top of the Mountain
by laying the Packs and Fardles of the Beasts that follow'd her one upon
another.
Marching away from hence, she came to Chaone, a City of Media, where
she incamp'd upon a rising Ground, from whence she took notice of an
exceeding great and high Rock, where she made another very great Garden
in the very Middle of the Rock, and built upon it stately Houses of Pleasure,
whence she might both have a delightful Prospect into the Garden, and view
the Army as they lay incamp'd below in the Plain ; being much delighted
with this Place she stay'd here a considerable Time, giving up her self to all
kinds of Pleasures and Delights, for she forbore marrying lest she should
then be depos'd from the Government, and in the mean time she made
Choice of the handsomest Commanders to be her Gallants ; but after they
had layn with her she cut off their Heads.
From hence she march'd towards Ecbatana, and arriv'd at the Mountain
Zarcheum, which being many Furlongs in Extent, and full of steep Preci-
pices and craggy Rocks, there was no passing but by long and tedious
Windings and Turnings. To leave therefore behind her an Eternal Monu-
ment of her Name, and to make a short Cut for her Passage, she caus'd the
Rocks to be hew'd down, and the Valleys to be fill'd up with Earth, and so
in a short time at a vast Expence laid the Way open and plain, which to this
day is call'd Semiramis's Way.
When she came to Ecbatana, which is situated in a low and even Plain,
she built there a stately Palace, and bestow'd more of her Care and Pains
here than she had done at any other Place. For the City wanting Water
(there being no Spring near) she plentifully supply'd it with good and whole-
som Water, brought thither with a great deal of Toyl and Expence, after
this manner : There's a Mountain call'd Orontes, twelve Furlongs distant
from the City, exceeding high and steep for the Space of five and twenty
Furlongs up to the Top ; on the other side of this Mount there's a great
Mear which empties it self into the River. At the Foot of this Mountain
she dug a Canal fifteen Foot in Breadth and Forty in Depth, through which
she convey'd Water in great Abundance into the City. And these are the
Things which she did in Media.
Afterwards she made a Progress through Persia and all the rest of her
Dominions in Asia, and all along as she went she plain'd all the Way before
her, levelling both Rocks and Mountains. On the other hand in Champain
Countries she would raise Eminences on which she would sometimes build
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 689
Sepulchres for her Officers and Commanders, and at other times Towns and
Cities. Throughout her whole Expeditions she always us'd to raise an
Ascent, upon which she pitcht her own Pavilion, that from thence she might
have a View of her whole Army. Many Things which she perform'd in
Asia remain to this day, and are call'd Semiramis's Works.
Afterwards she pass'd through all Egypt, and having conquer'd the
greatest Part of Lybia, she went to the Temple of Jupiter Hammon, and
there inquir'd of the Oracle how long she should live ; which return'd her
this Answer, That she should leave this World and afterwards be for ever
honour'd by some Nations in Asia, when Ninyas her Son should be plotting
against her.
When she had perform'd these things, she marcht into Ethiopia, and
having subdu'd many Places in it, she had an Opportunity to see what was
there very remarkable and wonderful. For they say there's a four-square
Lake, a hundred and sixty Foot in Circuit, the Water of which is in Colour
like unto Vermilion, and of an extraordinary sweet Flavour, much like
unto old Wine ; yet of such wonderful Operation, that whosoever drinks
of it goes presently mad, and confesses all the faults that ever he had been
before guilty of ; but some will scarce believe this Relation.
The Ethiopians have a peculiar way of burying their Dead ; for after they
have embalm'd the Body they pour round about it melted Glass, and then
place it upon a Pillar, so that the Corps may be plainly seen through the
Glass, as Herodotus has reported the thing. But Ctesias of Cnidus affirms
that he tells a Winter-tale, and says that it's true indeed that the Body is
embalm'd, but that Glass is not pour'd upon the naked Body, for the Bodies
thereby would be so scorch'd and defac'd that they could not possibly retain
any likeness to the dead : And that therefore they make an hollow Statue of
Gold, and put the Body within it and then pour the melted Glass round upon
this Statue, which they set upon some high Place, and so the Statue which
resembles the dead is seen through the Glass, and thus he says they used to
bury those of the richer Sort ; But those of meaner Fortunes they put into
Statues of Silver ; and for the poor they make Statues of Potter's Clay, every
one having Glass enough, for there's Abundance to be got in Ethiopia, and
ready at hand for all the Inhabitants. But we shall speak more fully of the
Customs and Laws of the Ethiopians and the Product of the Land and
other things worthy of Remark presently when we come to relate their Antiq-
uities and old Fables and Stories.
SEMIRAMIS INVADES INDIA
Semiramis having settl'd her affairs in Egypt and Ethiopia, return'd with
her Army into Asia to Bactria : And now having a great Army, and enjoying
a long Peace, she had a longing Desire to perform some notable Exploit by
her Arms. Hearing therefore that the Indians were the greatest Nation
in the whole World, and had the largest and richest Tract of Land of all
others, she resolv'd to make War upon them. Stabrobates was at that time
King, who had innumerable Forces, and many Elephants bravely accoutred
and fitted to strike Terror into the Hearts of his Enemies. For India for
the Pleasantness of the Country excell'd all others, being water'd in every
Place with many Rivers, so that the Land yielded every year a double Crop ;
and by that Means was so rich and so abounded with Plenty of all things
necessary for the Sustenance of Man's Life, that it supply'd the Inhabitants
continually with such things as made them excessively rich, insomuch as it
590 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
was never known that there was ever any Famine amongst them, the
Climate being so happy and favourable ; and upon that account likewise
there's an incredible Number of Elephants, which for Courage and Strength
of Body far excel those in Africa. Moreover this country abounds in
Gold, Silver, Brass, Iron and pretious Stones of all sorts, both for Profit
and Pleasure.
All which being nois'd abroad, so stirr'd up the Spirit of Semiramis, that
x(tho' she had no Provocation given her), yet she was resolv'd upon the War
against the Indians. But knowing that she had need of great Forces, she
sent Dispatches to all the Provinces, with Command to the Governors to list
the choicest young Men they could find, ordering the Proportion of Souldiers
every Province and Country should send forth according to the largeness of
it ; and commanded that all should furnish themselves with new Arms and
Armour, and all appear in three years time at a general Randezvouz in Bactria
bravely arm'd and accoutred in all Points. And having sent the Shipwrights
out to Phoenicia, Syria, Cyprus, and other Places bordering upon the Sea-
costs, she prepar'd Timber for them fit for the Purpose, and order'd them to
build Vessels that might be taken asunder and convey'd from place to place
wherever she pleas'd. For the River Indus bordering upon that Kingdom
being the greatest in those parts, she stood in need of many River-boats to
pass it in Order to repress the Indians. But being there was no Timber
near that River she was necessitated to convey the Boats thither by Land
from Bactria.
She further consider'd that she was much inferior to the Indians for Ele-
phants (which were absolutely necessary for her to make use of) she there-
fore contriv'd to have Beasts that should resemble them, hoping by this
Means to strike a Terror into the Indians, who believ'd there were no
Elephants in any place but India.
To this End she provided three hundred thousand black Oxen, and dis-
tributed the Flesh amongst a Company of ordinary Mechanicks and such
Fellows as she had to play the Coblers for her, and ordered them by stitching
the Skins together and stuffing them with Straw to imitate the Shape of an
Elephant, and in every one of them she put a Man to govern them, and a
Camel to carry them, so that at a distance they appear'd to all that saw them
as if they were really such Beasts.
They that were imploy'd in this Work wrought at it night and day in a
Place which was wall'd round for the Purpose, and Guards set at every Gate,
that none might be admitted either to go in or out, to the end that none
might see what they were doing, lest it should be nois'd abroad and come to
the Ears of the Indians.
Having therefore provided Shipping and Elephants in the space of two
years, in the third she randezvouz'd all her Forces in Bactria. Her
Army consisted (as Ctesias says) of three Millions of Foot, two hundred
Thousand Horse, and a hundred Thousand Chariots, and a hundred Thou-
sand Men mounted upon Camels with Swords four Cubits long. The Boats
that might be taken asunder were two Thousand ; which the Camels carry'd
by Land as they did the Mock-Elephants, as we have before declar'd. The
Souldiers made their Horses familiar with these feign'd Beasts by bringing
them often to them, lest they should be terrify'd at the Sight of them ; which
Perseus imitated many Ages after when he was to fight with the Romans,
who had Elephants in their Army out of Africa. However this contrivance
prov'd to be of no Advantage either to him or her, as will appear in the Issue
herein a little after related.
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 691
When Stabrobates the Indian King heard of these great Armies and the
mighty Preparation! made against him, he did all he could to excel Semiramis
in everything. And first he built of great 'Canes four Thousand River-
boats : For abundance of these Canes grow in India about the Rivers and
Kenns, so thick as a Man can scarce fathom : And Vessels made of these
Reeds (they say) are exceeding useful, because they'l never rot or be worm-
eaten.
He was very diligent likewise in preparing of Arms and going from Place
to Place throughout all India, and so rais'd a far greater Army than that of
Semiramis. To his former Number of Elephants he added more, which he
took by hunting, and furnish'd them all with everything that might make
them look terrible in the Face of their Enemies, so that by their Multitude
and the Couipleatness of their Armour in all Points it seem'd above the
Strength and Power of Man to bear up against the violent Shock of these
Creatures.
Having therefore made all these Preparations, he sent Embassadours to
Semiramis (as she was on her March towards him) to complain and upbraid
her for beginning a War without any Provocation or Injury offer'd her ; and
by his private Letters taxed her with her whorish Course of Life, and vow'd
(calling the Gods to witness) that if he conquer'd her he would nail her to
the Cross. When she read the Letters, she smil'd, and said, the Indian should
presently have a Trial of her Valour by her Actions. When she came up
with her Army to the River Indus she found the Enemies Fleet drawn up in
a Line of Battle ; whereupon she forthwith drew up her own, and having
mann'd it with the stoutest Souldiers, joyn'd Battle, yet so ordering the Mat-
ter as to have her Land-forces ready upon the Shoar to be assisting as there
should be Occasion. After a long and sharp Fight with Marks of Valour
on both sides, Semiramis was at length victorious, and sunk a Thousand of
the Enemies Vessels, and took a great number of Prisoners. Puffed up with
this Success she took in all the Cities and Islands that lay in the River, and
carry'd away a hundred Thousand Captives. After this the Indian King drew
off his Army (as if he fled for Fear) but in Truth to decoy his Enemies to
pass the River.
Semiramis therefore (seeing things fall out according to her wish) laid a
broad Bridge of Boats (at a vast Charge) over the River, and thereby passed
over all her Forces, leaving only threescore Thousand to guard the Bridge,
and with the rest of her Army pursu'd the Indians. She plac'd the Mock-
Elephants in the Front that the Enemies Scouts might presently inform the
King what Multitudes of Elephants she had in her Army : And she was not
deceiv'd in her hopes ; for when the Spies gave an Account to the Indians
what a great Multitude of these Creatures were advancing towards them,
they were all in amaze, inquiring among themselves, whence the Assyrians
should be supply'd with such a vast number of Elephants : But the Cheat
could not be long conceal'd, for some of Semiramis's Souldiers being laid by
the Heels for their Carelessness upon the Guard (through Fear of further
Punishment) made their Escape and fled to the Enemy, and undeceiv'd them
as to the Elephants ; upon which the Indian King was mightily encourag'd,
and caus'd Notice of the Delusion to be spread through the whole Army, and
then forthwith march'd with all his Force against the Assyrians, Semiramis on
the other hand doing the like.
When they approach'd near one to another, Stabrobates the Indian King
plac'd his Horse and Chariots in the Van-guard at a good distance before the
main Body of his Army. The Queen having plac'd her Mock-Elephants at
592 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
the like distance from her main Body, valiantly receiv'd her Enemies Charge ;
but the Indian Horse were most strangely terrify'd ; for in Regard the
Phantasms at a distance seem'd to be real Elephants, the Horses of the Indians
(being inur'd to those Creatures) prest boldly and undauntedly forward ;
but when they came near and saw another sort of Beast than usual, and the
smell and every thing else almost being strange and new to them, they broke
in with great Terror and Confusion, one upon another, so that they cast some
of their Riders headlong to the Ground, and ran away with others (as the
Lot happen'd) into the midst of their Enemies.
Whereupon Semiramis readily making use of her Advantage, with a Body
of choice Men fell in upon them, and routed them, forcing them back to their
main Body : And though Stabrobates was something astonish'd at this unex-
pected Defeat, yet he brought up his Foot against the Enemy with his
Elephants in the Front : He himself was in the right Wing, mounted upon a
stately Elephant, and made a fierce Charge upon the Queen her self, who hap-
pen'd then to be opposite to him in the left.
And tho' the Mock-Elephants in Semiramis's Army did the like, yet
they stood the violent shock of the other but a little while, for the Indian
Beasts being both exceeding strong and stout, easily bore down and destroy'd
all that oppos'd them, so that there was a great Slaughter ; for some they
trampl'd under foot, others they rent in pieces with their Teeth, and
toss'd up others with their Trunks into the Air. The Ground therefore
being cover'd with Heaps of dead Carcases and nothing but Death and
Destruction to be seen on every hand, so that all were full of Horror and
Amazement, none durst keep their Order or Ranks any longer.
Upon which the whole Assyrian Army fled outright, and the Indian King
encountered with Semiramis, and first wounded her with an Arrow in the
Arm, and afterwards with a Dart (in wheeling about) in the Shoulder, where-
upon the Queen (her Wounds not being mortal) fled, and by the Swiftness
of her Horse (which far exceeded the other that pursu'd her) she got off.
But all making one way to the Bridge of Boats, and such a vast Multitude
of Men thronging together in one strait and narrow Passage, the Queen's
Souldiers miserably perish'd by treading down one another under foot, and
(which was strange and unusual) Horse and Foot lay tumbling promiscuously
one over another.
When they came at length to the Bridge, and the Indians at their
Heels, the consternation was so great that many on both sides the Bridge
were tumbled over into the River. But when the greatest part of those
that remain'd had got over, Semiramis caus'd the Cords and Tenons of
the Bridge to be cut, which done, the Boats (which were before joyn'd
together, and upon which was a great Number of Indians not in the Pursuit)
being now divided into many Parts, and carry'd here and there by the force
of the Current, Multitudes of the Indians were drown'd, and Semiramis was
now safe and secure, having such a Barrier as the River betwixt her and her
Enemies. Whereupon the Indian King being forewarn'd by Prodigies from
Heaven and the Opinions of the Soothsayers, forbore all further pursuit.
And Semiramis making Exchange of Prisoners in Bactria return'd with
scarce a third part of her Army.
A little time after, Semiramis being assaulted by an Eunuch through the
treacherous Contrivance of her Son, remembred the former Answer given
her by the Oracle at the Temple of Hammon, and therefore pass'd the Busi-
ness over without punishing of him who was chiefly concern'd in the Plot :
But surrendring the Crown to him, commanded all to obey him as their
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 593
lawful King, and forthwith disappear'd as if she had been translated to the
Gods, according to the Words of the Oracle. There are some which fabu-
lously say she was metamorphos'd into a Pigeon ; and that she flew away with
a Flock of those Birds that lighted upon her Palace : And hence it is that
the Assyrians adore a Dove, believing that Semiramis was enthron'd amongst
the Gods. And this was the End of Semiramis Queen of all Asia, except
India, after she had liv'd Sixty two years, and reign'd Forty two. And these
are the Things which Ctesias the Cnidian reports of her in his History.
ANOTHER VIEW OF SEMIRAMIS
Athenaeus, and some other Writers, affirm that she was a most beautiful
Strumpet, and upon that account the King of Assyria fell in Love with her,
and at first was taken into his Favour, and at length becoming his lawful Wife
she prevail'd with her Husband to grant her the sole and absolute Authority
of the regal Government for the space of five days. Taking therefore upon
her the Scepter and royal Mantle of the Kingdom, the first day she made a
sumptuous Banquet and magnificent Entertainments, to which she invited the
Generals of the Army and all the Nobility, in order to be observant to all her
Commands.
The next day having both great and small at her beck, she com-
mitted her Husband to the Gaol : And in Regard she was of a bold and
daring Spirit, apt and ready to undertake any great Matters, she easily gain'd
the Kingdom, which she held to the time of her old Age, and became famous
for her many great and wonderful Acts : And these are the Things which His-
torians variously relate concerning her."
The second account of Semiramis which Diodorus summarises in the
concluding paragraph above from " Athenzeus and some other writers "
would appear to have been widely accepted in classical times. The same
story is told by JElianus, and is worth quoting, if for nothing else, for the
quaintness of diction of Fleming's sixteenth century translation.
" Of Semiramis some say this, and some set downe that, and amonge all
other thinges this (as deserving a monument of sempeternall memorye) is
recorded that shee was the moste bewtifull, the most amiable Lady and
Queene throughout the universall worlde, albeit shee dyd litle regarde her
fine proporcion, her excellent comlynesse, her angelicall grace : aud had no
respect to the trymming and decking of her body with gorgeous garments,
and robes of royalty. It fortuned that this Semiramis, by reason of the
rumor and fame of her surpassing beauty, was sent for into Assiria, that the
king of that region might satisfie himselfe with the sight of her peerelesse
majestic, before whose presence she came according to the tennor of the
message.
" The King of Assiria, had no sooner cast his wanton eye upon her, but
was forthwith inflamed with the fire of affection towardes her. After certaiue
circumstances over passed, she required of the King a rich rewarde, namely,
a robe of estate, the government of Asia for five dayes continuaunce, and the
absolute authorytie in all thinges that were done in the kingdome. Which
peticion of the Queene was granted unto by the King, no deniall made to
the contrary. In conclusion when she was set and established in the throne
of majesty, and had gotten all things (without exception) in the gripes of
her aspiryng minde she commanded the King to be slayne, whereby he was
dispossessed of his dominion, and she presently thereupon enjoyed the scepter
and crowne imperiall over Assiria uuiversall."d
H. W. — VOL. I 2<}
594 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
REIGN OF NINYAS TO SARDANAPALUS
To complete our view of the classical traditions regarding Assyria, we
must hear what Diodorus has to tell us of the successors of Semiramis.
Comparison of his account with the lists of Assyrian monarchs, as now
known to us, will show how greatly the perspective of Assyrian history was
foreshortened as viewed by the classical eye, and how vague appeared the
outline of the historical picture. Not even the names of the greatest of
oriental monarchs were remembered, though the reminiscences of their
deeds had not quite been forgotten. We shall see in subsequent chapters
how the names and the accurate records of the deeds were restored to hisr
tory. It may be added, however, that no authentic account of the destruc-
tion of Nineveh has been as yet recovered. For aught that is known
to the contrary, the picturesque story of Sardanapalus, as narrated by
Diodorus, may be true in its essentials, though it is improbable that the
name of the last ruler of Nineveh is correctly given. Still, the rather
theatrical character of the Greek conception of oriental customs is not to
be forgotten.
It should be added that modern historians are not quite agreed as to the
exact period of Assyrian history to which the Sardanapalus stories were
applied. Lenormant was disposed to believe that the Greek tradition was
based upon reminiscences of a relatively early destruction of Nineveh. It
is known that the Assyrian Empire suffered a partial eclipse after its first
period of greatness, and it is possible that some unknown king of about
the tenth century B.C. was the original of the Sardanapalus fable. Most
recent historians, however, are disposed to think that the Greek story really
applies to the final destruction of Nineveh, and that Asshurbanapal was the
historical monarch whose vaguely remembered deeds gave foundation to
the chief features of the story. The fact that Asshurbanapal was so great
a connoisseur of literature and art, lends a certain colour to this supposition.
It is of course understood that Asshurbanapal was not the last ruler
of Nineveh, and that the Greek myth, if based upon his life, erred in
associating him with the final catastrophe.0 Here is the story as Diodorus
tells it :
Ninyas the Son of Ninus and Semiramis, succeeded, and reign'd peace-
ably, nothing at all like his Mother for Valour and martial Affairs. For
he spent all his Time shut up in his Palace, insomuch as he was never
seen of any but of his Concubines and Eunuchs ; for being given up wholly
to his Pleasures, he shook off all Cares and everything that might be irk-
some and troublesome, placing all the Happiness of a King in a Sordid
Indulgence of all sorts of Voluptuousness. But that he might reign the
more securely, and be fear'd of all his Subjects, every year he rais'd out of
every Province a certain number of Souldiers, under their several Generals,
and having brought them in the City, over every Country appointed such a
Governor as he could most confide in, and were most at his Devotion. At
the end of the year he rais'd as many more out of the Provinces, and sent
the former home, taking first of them an Oath of Fidelity. And this he did,
that his Subjects observing how he always had a great Army ready in the
Field, those of them who were inclin'd to be refractory or rebel (out of fear
of Punishment) might continue firm in their due Obedience. And the
further Ground likewise of this Yearly Change was, that the Officers and
Souldiers might from time to time be disbanded before they could have time
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
to be well acquainted one with another. For length of Time iu martial Iiu-
pluvnients so improves the Skill and advances the Courage and Resolution
of the Commanders, that many times they conspire against their Princes, and
wholly fall off from their Allegiance.
His living thus close and unseen, was a covert to the Voluptuous Course
of his Life, and in the meantime (as if he had been a God) none durst in the
least mutter anything against him. And in this manner (creating Com-
manders of his Army, constituting of Governors in Provinces, appointing the
Chamberlains and Officers of his Houshold, placing of Judges in their
several Countries, and the ordering and disposing of all other Matters as he
thought fit most for his own Advantage) he spent his Days in Nineve.
After the same manner almost liv'd all the rest of the Kings for the space
of Thirty Generations, in a continu'd Line of Succession from Father to
Son, to the very Reign of Sardanapalus ; in whose time the Empire of the
Assyrians devolv'd upon the Medes, after it had continu'd above Thirteen
Hundred and Sixty Years, as Ctesias the Cnidian says in his Second Book.
But it's needless to recite their Names, or how long each of them reign'd, in
regard none of them did any thing worth remembring, save only that it may
deserve an Account how the Assyrians assisted the Trojans, by sending
them some Forces under the Command of Memnon the Son of Tithon.
For when Teutamus reign'd in Asia, who was the Twentieth from Ninyas
the Son of Semiramis, it's said the Grecians under their General Agamemnon,
made War upon the Trojans, at which time the Assyrians had been Lords of
Asia above a Thousand Years. For Priam the King of Troy (being a
Prince under the Assyrian Empire, when War was made upon him) sent
Ambassadors to crave aid of Teutamus, who sent him Ten Thousand Ethio-
pians, and as many out of the Province of Susiana, with Two Hundred
Chariots under the Conduct of Memnon the Son of Tithon. For this Tithon
at that time was Governor of Persia, and in special Favour with the King
above all the rest of the Princes : And Memnon was in the Flower of his
Age, strong and couragious, and had built a Pallace in the Cittadel of Susa,
which retain'd the Name of Memnonia to the time of the Persian Empire.
He pav'd also there a Common High-way, which is call'd Memnon's Way to
this day. But the Ethiopians of Egypt question this, and say that Memnon
was their Countryman, and shew several antient Palaces which (they say)
retain his Name at this day, being call'd Memnon's Palaces.
Notwithstanding, however it be as to this matter, yet it has been gener-
ally and constantly held for a certain Truth, that Memnon led to Troy
Twenty Thousand Foot, and Two Hundred Chariots, and signaliz'd his
Valour with great Honour and Reputation, with the Death and Destruction
of many of the Greeks, till at length he was slain by an Ambuscade laid for
him by the Thessalians. But the Ethiopians recover'd his Body, and burnt
it, and brought back his Bones to Tithon. And these things the Barbarians
say are recorded of Memnon in the Histories of their Kings.
Sardanapalus, the Thirtieth from Ninus, and the last King of the Assyr-
ians, exceeded all his Predecessors in Sloth and Luxury ; for besides that,
he was seen of none out of his Family, he led a most effeminate Life : For
wallowing in pleasure and wanton Dalliances, he cloathed himself in
Womens Attire, and spun fine Wool and Purple amongst the throngs of his
Concubines. He painted likewise his Face, and deckt his whole Body with
other Allurements and proceeded to such a degree of Voluptuousness and
sordid Uncleanness, that he compos'd Verses for his Epitaph, with a Com-
mand to his Successors to have them inscrib'd upon his Tomb after his
596 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Death, which were thus Translated by a Grecian out of the Barbarian
Language (An Epitaph fitter for an Ox than a Man, says Aristotle),
What once I gory' d I now enjoy,
And wanton Lusts me still imploy.
All other things by Mortals priz'd,
Are left as Dirt by me despis'd.
Being thus corrupt in his Morals, he not only came to a miserable end
himself, but utterly overturn'd the Assyrian Monarchy, which had coutinu'd
longer than any we read of.
For Arbaces a Mede, a Valiant and Prudent Man, and General of the
Forces which were sent every Year out of Media to Nineve, was stir'd up by
the Governor of Babylon (his Fellow Soldier, and with whom he had con-
tracted an intimate familiarity) to overthrow the Assyrian Empire. This
Captain's Name was Belesis, a most Famous Babylonian Priest, one of those
call'd Caldeans, expert in Astrology and Divinations ; of great Reputation
upon the account of foretelling future Events, which happen'd accordingly.
Amongst others, he told his Friend, the Median General, that he should de-
pose Sardanapalus, and be Lord of all his Dominions. Arbaces hereupon
hearkning to what he said, promis'd him, that if he succeeded in his At-
tempt, Belesis should be chief Governor of the Province of Babylon : Being
therefore fully persuaded of the truth of what was foretold, as if he had re-
ceiv'd it from an Oracle, he enter'd into an Association with the Governors
of the rest of the Provinces, and by feasting and caressing of them, gain'd
all their Hearts and Affections. He made it likewise his great business to
get a sight of the King, that he might observe the Course and manner of his
Life ; to this end he bestow'd a Cup of Gold upon an Eunuch, by whom
being introduced into the King's Presence, he perfectly came to understand
his Lasciviousness, and Effeminate course of Life. Upon sight of him, he
contemn'd and despis'd him as a Vile and Worthless Wretch, and thereupon
was much more earnest to accomplish what the Chaldean had before declar'd
to him. At length he conspir'd with Belesis so far, as that he himself per-
suaded the Medes and Persians to a defection, and the other brought the
Babylonians into the Confederacy. He imparted likewise his Design to the
King of Arabia, who was at this time his special Friend.
And now the Years attendance of the Army being at an end, new Troops
succeeded, and came into their Place, and the former were sent every one
here and there, into their several Countries. Hereupon Arbaces prevail'd
with the Medes to invade the Assyrian Empire, and drew in the Persians in
hopes of Liberty, to join in the Confederacy. Belesis in like manner per-
suaded the Babylonians to stand up for their Liberties. He sent Messengers
also into Arabia, and gain'd that Prince (who was both his Friend, and had
been his Guest) for a Confederate.
When therefore the Yearly Course was run out, all these with a great
number of forces flockt together to Nineve, in shew to serve their Turn
according to custom, but in truth to overturn the Assyrian Empire. The
whole number of Soldiers now got together out of those Four Provinces,
amounted to Four Hundred Thousand Men. All these (being now in one
Camp) call'd a Council of War in order to consult what was to be done.
Sardanapalus being inform'd of the Revolt, led forth the Forces of the
rest of the Provinces against them ; whereupon a Battel being fought, the
Rebels were totally routed, and with a great Slaughter were forc'd to
the Mountains Seventy Furlongs from Nineve.
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 597
Being drawn up a Second time in Battalia to try their Fortune in the
Field, and now fac'd by the Enemy, Sardanapalus caus'd a Proclamation to
be made by the Heralds, that whosoever kill'd Arbaces the Mede, should re-
ceive as a Reward, Two Hundred Talents of Gold, and double the Sum to
him (together with the Government of Media,) who should take him alive.
The like Sum he promis'd to such as should kill Belesis, or take him alive.
But not being wrought upon by these Promises, he fought them again, and
destroy'd many of the Rebels, and forc'd the rest to fly to their Camp upon
the Hills.
Arbaces being disheartn'd with these Misfortunes, call'd a Council of
War to consider what was fit further to be done : The greater part were for
returning into their own Countries, and possess themselves of the strongest
Places, in order to fit and furnish themselves with all things further neces-
sary for the War. But when Belesis the Babylonian assur'd them that the
(Jods promis'd, that after many Toyls and Labours they should have good
success, and all should end well, and had us'd several other Arguments (such
as he thought best) he prevail'd with them to resolve to run through all the
hazards of the War.
Another Battle therefore was fought, wherein the King gain'd a third
Victory, and pursu'd the Revolters as far as to the Mountains of Babylon.
In this Fight Arbaces himself was wounded, though he fought stoutly, and
slew many of the Assyrians with his own Hand.
After so many Defeats and Misfortunes one upon the neck of another, the
Conspirators altogether despair'd of Victory, and therefore the Commanders
resolv'd every one to return to their own Country. But Belesis, who lay
all that Night Star-gazing in the open Field, prognosticated to them the next
day, that if they would but continue together Five Days, unexpected Help
would come, and they would see a mighty change, and that Affairs would have
a contrary aspect to what they then had ; for he affirm'd, that through his
Knowledge in Astrology, he understood that the Gods portended so much by
the Stars ; therefore he intreated them to stay so many days, and make trial
of his Art, and wait so long to have an Experiment of the Goodness of
the Gods.
All being thus brought back, and waiting till the time appointed, News
on a sudden was brought that mighty Forces were at hand, sent to the King
out of Bactria. Hereupon Arbaces resolv'd with the stoutest and swiftest
Soldiers of the Army, forthwith to make out against the Captains that were
advancing, and either by fair words to perswade them to a defection, or by
Blows to force them to join with them in their Design. But Liberty being
sweet to every one of them, first the Captains and Commanders were
easily wrought upon, and presently after the whole Army join'd, and made
up one intire Camp together. It happen'd at that time, that the King of
Assiria not knowing any thing of the Revolt of the Bactrians, and puft up
by his former Successes, was indulging his Sloath and Idleness, and preparing
Beasts for Sacrifice, plenty of Wine, and other things necessary in order to
feast and entertain his Soldiers.
While his whole Army was now feasting and revelling, Arbaces (receiv-
ing intelligence by some Deserters of the Security and Intemperance of the
Enemy) fell in upon them on the sudden in the Night ; and being in due
order and discipline, and setting upon such as were in confusion, he being
before prepar'd, and the other altogether unprovided, they easily broke into
their Camp, and made a great Slaughter of some, forcing the rest into
the City.
598 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
THE DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH
Hereupon Sardanapalus committed the charge of the whole Army to
Salemenus his Wife's Brother, and took upon himself the defence of the
City. But the Rebels twice defeated the King's Forces, once in the open
Field, and the Second time before the Walls of the City; in which last
ingagement Salemenus was kill'd, and almost all his Army lost, some being
cut off in the pursuit, and the rest (save a very few) being intercepted, and
prevented from entring into the City, were driven headlong into the River
Euphrates ; and the number of the Slain was so great, that the River was
dy'd over with Blood, and retain'd that Colour for a great distance, and a
long course together.
The King being afterwards besieg'd, many of the Nations (through desire
of Liberty) revolted to the Confederates ; so that Sardanapalus now perceiv-
ing that the Kingdom was like to be lost, sent away his Three Sons and Two
Daughters, with a great deal of Treasure into Paphlagonia, to Cotta, the
Governor there, his most intire friend ; and sent posts into all the Provinces
of the Kingdom, in order to raise Souldiers, and make all other Preparations
necessary to indure a siege. And he was the more incouraged to this, for
that he was acquainted with an ancient Prophesy, That Nineve could never
be taken by force, till the River became the City's Enemy ; which the more
incourag'd him to hold out, because he conceiv'd that was never like to be ;
therefore he resolv'd to indure the Siege till the Aids which he expected out
of the Provinces came up to him.
The Enemy on the other hand grown more couragious by their Successes,
eagerly urg'd on the Siege, but made little impression on the Besieg'd by
reason of the strength of the Walls ; for Ballistes to cast Stones, Testudos
to cast up Mounts, and Battering Rams were not known in those Ages. And
besides (to say truth) the King had been very careful (as to what concern'd
the defence of the place) plentifully to furnish the Inhabitants with every
thing necessary. The Siege continu'd Two Years, during which time
nothing was done to any purpose, save that the Walls were sometimes
assaulted, and the Besieg'd pen'd up in the City. The Third Year it hap-
pened that Euphrates overflowing with continual Rains, came up into a part
of the City, and tore down the Wall Twenty Furlongs in length.
The King hereupon conceiving that the Oracle was accomplish'd, in that
the River was an apparent Enemy to the City, utterly despair'd, and there-
fore that he might not fall into the Hands of his Enemies, he caus'd a huge
Pile of Wood to be made in his Palace Court, and heapt together upon it all
his Gold, Silver, and Royal Apparel, and enclosing his Eunuchs and Con-
cubines in an Apartment within the Pile, caus'd it to be set on Fire, and
burnt himself and them together, which when the Revolters came to under-
stand, they enter'd through the Breach of the Walls, and took the City ;
and cloath'd Arbaces with a Royal Robe, and committed to him the sole
Authority, proclaiming him King.
When he had rewarded his followers, every one according to their demerit,
and appointed Governors over the several Provinces, Belesis the Babylonian,
who had foretold his advancement to the Throne, put him in mind of his
Services, and demanded the Government of Babylon, which he had before
promis'd him. He told him likewise of a Vow that he himself had made to
Belus, in the heat of the War, that when Sardanapalus was conquer'd, and
the Palace consum'd, he would carry the Ashes to Babylon, and there raise
a Mount near to his Temple, which should be an eternal Monument to all
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 599
that sailed through Euphrates, in memory of him that overturn'd the Assyr-
ian Empire.
But that which in truth induc'd him to make this Request was, that he
had been inform'd of the Gold and Silver by an Eunuch (that was a
l)i'serter) whom lie had hid and conceal'd : Arbaces therefore being ignorant
of the Contrivance (because all the rest beside this Eunuch, were consumed
with the King) granted to him liberty both to carry away the Ashes, and
likewise the absolute Government of Babylon without paying any Tribute.
\V hereupon Belesis forthwith prepar'd Shipping, and together with the
Ashes carry'd away most of the Gold and Silver to Babylon. But when the
King came plainly to understand the Cheat, he committed the Exaini nation
and Decision of this Theft to the other Captains who were his Assistants in
tin' deposing of Sardanapalus. Belesis upon his Trial confess'd the Fact,
and thereupon they condemn'd him to lose his Head.
But the King being a Man of a noble and generous Spirit, and willing to
adorn the beginning of his Reign with the Marks of his Grace and Mercy,
not only pardon'd him, but freely gave him all the Gold and Silver which
had been carry'd away ; neither did he deprive him of the Government of
Babylon, which at the first he conferr'd upon him, saying, That his former
good Services did overbalance the Injuries afterwards. This gracious Dis-
position of the King being nois'd abroad, he thereby not only gain'd the
Hearts of his People, but was highly honour'd, and his Name famous among
all the Provinces, and all judg'd him worthy of the Kingdom, who was so
compassionate and gracious to offenders.
The like Clemency he shew'd to the Inhabitants of Nineve ; for though
he dispers'd them into several Country Villages, yet he restor'd to every one
of them their Estates, but raz'd the City to the ground.
The rest of the Silver and Gold that could be found in the Pile (of
which there were many Talents) he convey'd to Ecbatana the Seat Royal
of Media.
And thus was the Assyrian Empire overturn'd by the Medes after it had
continu'd Thirty Generations : from Ninus above Fourteen Hundred Years."
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA, AND
THEIR RESULTS
The consecrated metals found
And ivory tablets, underground,
Winged seraphim, and creatures crown'd
When air and daylight filled the mound,
Fell into dust immediately.
And even as these, the images
Of awe and worship — even as these —
So, smitten with the sun's increase,
Her glory mouldered and did cease
From immemorial Nineveh. — ROSSETTI.
A WISH expressed by Herder early in the nineteenth century, that explora-
tions might be made in the region of the buried cities of Babylonia and
Assyria, was destined to meet with early realisation. The exact sites of
various of these cities, long utterly forgotten, were discovered ; excavations
were made, and a harvest of buried records brought to light, surpassing in
interest and importance the wildest dreams of anticipation. Not merely the
ruins of city walls and of fallen palaces were exhumed, but with them won-
derfully preserved sculptures and ornaments of surprising artistic excel-
lence ; and, more important still, voluminous written records, historical and
literary, imprinted on slabs and cylinders of brick — the books of the
period — in strange wedge-shaped characters of unknown import, which
modern scholarship soon sufficed to decipher. How these marvellous feats
were accomplished had best be explained before we turn to the historical
records which they brought to light. It is a thrilling record, which has no
exact counterpart elsewhere in history." The story of how the work was
begun is told by that pioneer in the field of Assyriology, Sir A. H. Layard:
THE RUINS OF NINEVEH AND M. BOTTA'S FIRST DISCOVERY
Were the traveller to cross the Euphrates to seek for such ruins in
Mesopotamia and Chaldea as he had left behind him in Asia Minor or Syria,
his search would be vain. The graceful column rising above the thick
foliage of the myrtle, ilex, and oleander ; the gradines of the amphitheatre
covering a gentle slope, and overlooking the dark blue waters of a lake-like
bay; the richly carved cornice or capital half hidden by the luxuriant
herbage, are replaced by the stern, shapeless mound rising like a hill from
the scorched plain, the fragments of pottery, and the stupendous mass of
brickwork occasionally laid bare by the winter rains. He has left the land
where nature is still lovely, where, in his mind's eye, he can rebuild the
temple or the theatre, half doubting whether they would have made a more
grateful impression upon the senses than the ruin before him. He is now
600
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA 601
at a loss to give any form to the rude heaps upon which he is gazing. Those
of whose works they are the remains, unlike the Roman and the Greek, have
left no visible traces of their civilisation, or of their arts : their influence has
long since passed away. The more he conjectures, the more vague the
results appear. The scene around is worthy of the ruin he is contemplating ;
desolation meets desolation : a feeling of awe succeeds to wonder ; for there
is nothing to relieve the mind, to lead to hope, or to tell of what has gone
by. These huge mounds of Assyria made a deeper impression upon me,
gave rise to more serious thoughts and more earnest reflection, than the
temples of Baalbec and the theatres of Ionia.
In the middle of April I left Mosul for Baghdad. As I descended the
Tigris on a raft, I again saw the ruins of Nimrud, and had a better oppor-
tunity of examining them. It was evening as we approached the spot. The
spring rains had clothed the mound with the richest verdure, and the fertile
meadows, which stretched around it, were covered with flowers of every
hue. Amidst this luxuriant vegetation were partly concealed a few frag-
ments of bricks, pottery, and alabaster, upon which might be traced the
well-defined wedges of the cuneiform character. Did not these remains
mark the nature of the ruin, it might have been confounded with a natural
eminence. A long line of consecutive narrow mounds, still retaining the
appearance of walls or ramparts, stretched from its base, and formed a vast
quadrangle. The river flowed at some distance from them : its waters,
swollen by the melting of the snows on the Armenian hills, were broken
into a thousand foaming whirlpools by an artificial barrier, built across the
stream. On the eastern bank the soil had been washed away by the current;
but a solid mass of masonry still withstood its impetuosity. The Arab,
who guided my small raft, gave himself up to religious ejaculations as we
approached this formidable cataract, over which we were carried with some
violence. Once safely through the danger, he explained to me that this
unusual change in the quiet face of the river was caused by a great dam
which had been built by Nimrod, and that in the autumn, before the winter
rains, the huge stones of which it was constructed, squared, and united by
cramps of iron, were frequently visible above the surface of the stream.1 It
was, in fact, one of those monuments of a great people, to be found in all
the rivers of Mesopotamia, which were undertaken to ensure a constant
supply of water to the innumerable canals, spreading like network over the
surrounding country, and which, even in the days of Alexander, were looked
upon as the works of an ancient nation. No wonder that the traditions
of the present inhabitants of the land should assign them to one of the
founders of the human race ! The Arab explained the connection between
the dam and the city built by Athur, the lieutenant of Nimrod, the vast
ruins of which were then before us, and of its purpose as a causeway for the
mighty hunter to cross to the opposite palace, now represented by the mound
of Hammurn Ali. He was telling me of the histories and fate of the kings of
a primitive race, still the favourite theme of the inhabitants of the plains
of Shinar, when the last glow of twilight faded away, and I fell asleep as we
glided onward to Baghdad.
My curiosity had been greatly excited, and from that time I formed the
design of thoroughly examining, whenever it might be in my power, these
singular ruins.
1 Diodorus Siculus. it will be remembered, states that the stones of the bridge built by Semi-
ramis across the Euphrates were united by similar iron cramps, whilst the interstices were filled
up with molten lead.
602
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
It was not until the summer of 1842 that I again passed through Mosul
on my way to Constantinople. I was then anxious to reach the Turkish
capital, and, travelling Tatar, had no time to explore ruins. I had not,
however, forgotten Nimrud. I had frequently spoken to others on the sub-
ject of excavations in this and another mound, to which a peculiar interest
also attached; and atone time had reason to hope that some persons in England
might have been induced to aid in the undertaking. I had even proposed an
examination of the ruins to M. Coste, an architect who had been sent by the
French government, with its embassy to Persia, to draw and describe the
monuments of that country.
On my arrival at Mosul, I found that M. Botta had, since my first visit,
been named French consul there ; and had already commenced excavations
on the opposite side of the river, in the large mound called Kuyunjik. These
_. excavations were on a very small
scale, and, at the time of my pas-
sage, only fragments of brick and
alabaster, upon which were engraved
a few letters in the cuneiform char-
acter, had been discovered.
Whilst detained by unexpected
circumstances at Constantinople, I
entered into correspondence with a
gentleman in England on the sub-
ject of excavations; but, with this
exception, no one seemed inclined
to assist or take any interest in such
an undertaking. I also wrote to
M. Botta, encouraging him to pro-
ceed, notwithstanding the apparent
paucity of results, and particularly
calling his attention to the mound
of Nimrud, which, however, he de-
clined to explore on account of its
distance from Mosul and its in-
convenient position. I was soon
called away from the Turkish
capital to the provinces ; and for
some months numerous occupations
prevented me turning my atten-
tion to the ruins and antiquities
of Assyria.
In the meanwhile M. Botta, not discouraged by the want of success which had
attended his first essay, continued his excavations in the mound of Kuyunjik :
and to him is due the honour of having found the first Assyrian monument.
This remarkable discovery owed its origin to the following circumstances.
The small party employed by M. Botta were at work on Kuyunjik, when a
peasant from a distant village chanced to visit the spot. Seeing that every
fragment of brick and alabaster uncovered by the workmen was carefully
preserved, he asked the reason of this, to him, strange proceeding. On being
informed that they were in search of sculptured stones, he advised them to
try the mound on which his village was built, and in which, he declared,
many such things as they wanted had been exposed on digging for the founda-
tions of new houses. M. Botta, having been frequently deceived by similar
EXCAVATIONS AT KUYUNJIK
(Laywd)
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA 603
stories, was not at first inclined to follow the peasant's advice, but subse-
quently sent an agent and one or two workmen to the place.
After a little opposition from the inhabitants, they were permitted to sink
a well in the mound ; and at a small distance from the surface they came to
the top of a wall which, on digging deeper, they found to be built of sculp-
tured slabs of gypsum. M. Botta, on receiving information of this discovery,
went at once to the village, which was called Khorsabad. He directed a
wider trench to be formed, and to be carried in the direction of the wall.
He soon found that he had opened a chamber, which was connected with
others, and constructed of slabs of gvpsum covered with sculptured representa-
tions of battles, sieges, and similar events. His wonder may be easily
imagined.
A new history had been suddenly opened to him — the records of an
unknown people were before him. He was equally at a loss to account for
the age and the nature of the monument. The art shown in the sculptures,
the dresses of the figures, the mythic forms on the walls, were all new to
him, and afforded no clew to the epoch of the erection of the edifice, and to
the people who were its founders. Numerous inscriptions, accompanying
the bas-reliefs, evidently contained the explanation of the events thus
recorded in sculpture. They were in the cuneiform, or arrow-headed,
character. The nature of these inscriptions was at least evidence that the
building belonged to a period preceding the conquest of Alexander ; for it
was generally admitted that after the subjugation of the west of Asia by the
Macedonians, the cuneiform writing ceased to be employed. But too little
was then known of this character to enable M. Botta to .draw any inference
from the peculiar arrangement of the wedges, which distinguishes the vari-
eties used in different countries. However, it was evident that the monu-
ment appertained to a very ancient and very civilised people; and it was
natural from its position to refer it to the inhabitants of Nineveh — a city,
which, although it could not have occupied a site so distant from the Tigris,
must have been in the vicinity of the place. M. Botta had discovered an
Assyrian edifice, the first, probably, which had been exposed to the view of
man since the fall of the Assyrian Empire.
M. Botta was not long in perceiving that the building which had been
thus partly excavated, unfortunately owed its destruction to fire ; and that
the gypsum slabs, reduced to lime, were rapidly falling to pieces on exposure
to the air. No precaution could arrest this rapid decay ; and it was to be
feared that this wonderful monument had only been uncovered to complete
its ruin. The records of victories and triumphs, which had long attested
the power and swelled the pride of the Assyrian kings, and had resisted the
ravages of ages, were now passing away forever. They could scarcely be
held together until an inexperienced pencil could secure an imperfect evi-
dence of their former existence.
Almost all that was first discovered thus speedily disappeared ; and the
same fate has befallen nearly everything subsequently found at Khorsabad.
A regret is almost felt that so precious a memorial of a great nation should
have been thus exposed to destruction, when no precaution could keep entire
or secure the greater part of it ; but as far as the object of the monument is
concerned, the intention of its founders will be amply fulfilled, and the records
of their might will be more widely spread, and more effectually preserved,
by modern art, than the most exalted ambition could have contemplated.
M. Botta lost no time in communicating his remarkable discovery to the
principal scientific body in France. Knowing the interest I felt in his
604 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
labours, he allowed me to see his letters and drawings as they passed through
Constantinople ; and I was amongst the first who were made acquainted with
his success. And here I gladly avail myself of the opportunity of mentioning,
with the acknowledgment and praise which they deserve, his disinterestedness
and liberality, so honourable to one engaged in the pursuit of knowledge.
During the entire period of his excavations, M. Botta regularly sent me not
only his descriptions, but copies of the inscriptions, without exacting any
promise as to the use I might make of them. That there are few who would
have acted thus liberally, those who have been engaged in a search after an-
tiquities in the East will not be inclined to deny.
M. Botta's communications were laid before the " Academic," by M. Mohl ;
and that body, perceiving at once the importance of the discovery, lost no
time in applying to the Minister of Public Instruction for means to carry on
the researches. The recommendation was attended to with that readiness
and munificence which almost invariably distinguished the French govern-
ment in undertakings of this nature. Ample funds to meet the cost of ex-
tensive excavations were at once assigned to M. Botta, and an artist of
acknowledged skill was placed under his orders to draw such parts of the
monument discovered as could not be preserved or removed.
BAS-RELIEF OF FISH, HILLS, AND TREES
With the exception of a few interruptions on the part of the local author-
ities, who were suspicious of the objects of the excavations, the work was
carried on with activity and success, and by the beginning of 1845 the
monument had been completely uncovered. The researches of M. Botta
were not extended beyond Khorsabad; and having secured many fine speci-
mens of Assyrian sculpture for his country, he returned to Europe with a
rich collection of inscriptions, the most important result of his discovery .&
LAYARD'S DISCOVERIES AT NINEVEH
It is indeed a matter for regret there is not the space to continue Layard's
own account of his discoveries. Professor Hommel has summarised this,
however, in an exceedingly satisfactory manner, and his account is here given.
Brilliant as Botta's achievements had been, they were quite cast into
the shade by what the English statesman, Sir (then Mr.) A. H. Layard, the
sole discoverer of Nineveh, had accomplished for all branches of investiga-
tion and knowledge of Assyrian antiquity, by means of the excavations, prin-
cipally in Kuyunjik and Nimrud, but also in Neby Yunus, Kalah Shergat,
and other mounds of ruins in the neighbourhood of Nineveh ; these excava-
tions were made with the assistance of Hormuzd Rassam, who subsequently
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA 605
continued them. We remember how, from as far back as the year 1840, it
was Layard's ardent desire to be able to undertake some excavations. He
had hailed Botta's lucky find without envy, and was indeed the first who, in
some letters in the Malta Times which afterwards went the rounds of many
European newspapers, directed public attention to the newly discovered
Assyrian royal palace, which Botta at first assigned to the Sassauian period.
Then, in the autumn of 1845, the eagerly-looked-for funds were at last
obtained by the munificence of the English ambassador at Constantinople,
Sir Stratford Canning (afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), to whom
the British Museum already owed the acquisition of the costly marbles of
Halicarnassus. Thus, towards the end of the year 1845, Layard was able to
begin the excavations. He set to work on the Nimrud pile of ruins, which
lies a distance of five hours to the south of Mosul, and had previously
attracted his attention when Botta was still in Mosul. He laboured under
the greatest difficulties, far greater than those which Botta had to overcome
— to see how far this statement is from exaggeration, Layard's own account
should be perused — the work having at first to be carried on in profound
secrecy so as to excite as little suspicion as possible in the Turkish authorities
and in the population.
It was not to be long before Layard's efforts were crowned with success.
By the end of November several bas-reliefs were laid bare, whose execution
appeared to surpass even those of the sculptures of Khorsabad, and which
were accompanied by cuneiform inscriptions. In spite of many interrup-
tions the work proceeded rigorously, and manifold were the discoveries
thus brought to light. One deserving of special interest was that of the
gigantic head of one of the colossal winged lions, with men's heads, which the
Assyrians placed at the entrance of their palaces for the sake of spreading ter-
ror amongst the inhabitants of surrounding districts. For it was everywhere
whispered and believed that none other than Nimrod in person had risen
from the earth. All this had occurred in the spring of the year 1846. The
funds for the excavations lasted till the middle of June 1847 ; and when
Layard returned to Europe he had laid bare in Nimrud no less than three
great Assyrian royal palaces, namely : the grand northwestern palace,
which Asshurnazirpal had built (884-861 B.C.) on the ruins of an an-
cient structure (dating from Shalmaneser I, the founder of Calah, circa
1300 B.C.?); the central palace, probably built by Asshurnazirpal's suc-
cessor, Shalmaneser II (a predecessor of the biblical Shalmaneser), where
was found the famous black obelisk ; and lastly, Esarhaddon's once mag-
nificent southwestern palace (681-669 B.C.). The northwestern palace
yielded the richest spoil : it was also far better preserved than the contents
of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad, where Botta had made his excavations.
As Sir Stratford Canning had presented the British Museum with everything
moveable which Layard had discovered and brought to light, even at the end
of this first expedition of Layard's, a collection of Assyrian antiquities
(principally bas-reliefs and inscriptions), such as existed nowhere else, was
despatched to London. The unwearied energy of the discoverer of Nineveh
succeeded in taking it unhurt, first to Bassorah, from whence the valuable
freight was forwarded to the ship — truly not the smallest part of the task
he had begun so gloriously, and now still more gloriously accomplished.
The period which followed was employed by Layard in summarising the
results obtained in a vigorous narrative, furnished with many illustrations,
the work called Nineveh and its Remains, which was published just as
Layard was on the point of going to Assyria for the second time — on this
GOG
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
occasion at the expense of the British Museum. The sensation which the
book created in England was enormous, and its most important result was
that henceforth the government turned its attention to the excavations. So
in 1849 Layard was given leave of absence from his diplomatic post at Con-
stantinople for the purpose of making new discoveries on Assyrian soil, and
Hormuzd Rassam, who had already been his assistant and happened just
then to be in London, was sent after him (also officially).
If on the first expedition Layard had done little more than explore Nim-
rud (the ancient Calah), the labours of the second (1849-1851), were on
the contrary practically limited to the mounds of ruins of Kuyunjik with
Neby Yunus, the site of Nineveh itself.' Here Botta had first begun his
excavations, but entirely without success, for he had merely caused diggings
BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING A FORTIFIED CITY, A KIVBR WITH A BOAT AND RAFT, AND A CANAL
(Found at Kuyunjik. — Layard)
to be made to the depth of a few feet, and without any method, instead of
making his chief object the remains of the platform, on which the buildings
he was seeking had been erected. And it was here that Layard, at the end
of his first expedition, and after having been obliged to dig twenty feet
down, had discovered Sennacherib's south-western palace (705-682 B.C.).
But the real fruits of this discovery were now the object of the second un-
dertaking. For if in this Layard was still occupied with Nimrud, the work
there was only a species of gleaning, the excavations and discoveries in
Arban, on the Khabur and in Bavian were, in comparison with the rest, only
a short trial-trip, and the main thing still remained the minute investigation
and laying bare of the great south-western palace in Kuyunjik. It was not
till this was finished that he employed the rest of his time and money in a
visit to Babylonia (at the end of 1850), of which, however, Layard himself
says " that they (i.e. the discoveries amongst the ruins of ancient Babylon)
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA GOT
were far fewer and of far less importance than he had expected"; he also
g;ivc the first exact description of the mounds of Niffer, the ancient Nippur,
south-fust of Babylon. All his experiences and all the results of this second
expedition were set down by Layard in the Discoveriet in the Ruins of Nin-
eveh and Babylon, a work, seven hundred pages in length and with many
illustrations, besides plans and maps, which appeared in London as early as
the beginning of the year 1853.
Tliis popular book had, like the former one, a prodigious success, and was
shortly after translated into German ; as a supplement to it Layard's great
publications were announced, namely, that magnificent work, the Monu-
ments of Nineveh, and a volume of inscriptions which was the forerunner
to the great work on inscriptions published by the British Museum in five
volumes (1861-1884).
But to return to Layard's excavations which he resumed in the middle of
October, 1849, at the place where he had interrupted them two years before.
It is simply impossible within a short space to give a clear idea of what Layard
and his workmen, assisted by Hormuzd Rassam, brought to light before the mid-
dle of the year 1850 in that south-western palace of Sennacherib which Asshur-
banapal restored. Any one who would form a clear idea of it must peruse
Layard's magnificent descriptions of it for himself. Assyrian antiquity
rose from the earth and grew more and more distinct, and so intelligible was
the language of the hundreds of bas-reliefs, that, even without understanding
the inscriptions, every one was in a position to construct for himself a toler-
ably clear picture of the manners and customs, the life and occupations, in
short, the whole civilisation of the ancient Assyrians, and this merely from
the illustrations in Layard's two popular books. But the most important dis-
covery made in this palace, indeed the most important in its results of all the
Assyrian excavations, was the remains of a regular library of thousands of
clay tablets, which were heaped up in two chambers, covering the floor a foot
thick. These the restorer of the palace, the accomplished king Asshur-
banapal (668 B.C., the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, and Asnapper of the
Bible) had had collected, and had deposited them, partly here, partly (prob-
ably in duplicate) in other palaces, as in particular in the northern palace,
which was also in Kuyunjik, and was discovered by Rassam. The tablets
of gray and yellow clay found in the so-called Lion Room of Asshur-
banapal's northern palace, were in most cases broken into smaller or larger
fragments, probably because in the general ruin they had fallen down from
the upper story into the space in which they covered the ground ; many,
however, were still whole. Of course only later investigation could suc-
ceed in bringing the broken fragments together again, and then only
partially; one of these tablets, restored by piecing together sixteen frag-
ments, gives the Babylonian story of the Flood, which George Smith
successfully recognised from amongst the thousands of scattered frag-
ments; the reader will appreciate the condition in which most of these
clay book -pages (to use a paradoxical expression) have come down to us.
The size of the tablets seldom exceeds nine by six and a half inches ; but
many, especially tablets containing contracts, were considerably smaller.
The greater number bore the inscription, " Series of tablets . . ., tablet
number . . .; Palace of Asshurbanapal, king of the universe, king of
Assyria . . .," after which came a series of phrases, mostly stereotyped,
which indicates the tablet in question as belonging to the library of Asshur-
banapal, the great collector of ancient Babylonian literature in Assyrian
character. In the restored tablet of the Flood, the place of the signature
608 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
is clearly recognisable on the first of the columns ; it is the last of the
columns, for they are always to be counted from right to left (instead of
from left to right). But especially clear to the eye of a layman is the
addition to the signature, which represents a kind of library mark, unlike
that of the specially prized Ishtar hymn in two languages (S. M. 954, British
Museum); the latter differs somewhat from the ordinary tenor of these
signatures, inasmuch as a whole genealogy is put, instead of the sentence
usual elsewhere ; translated literally it runs :
" (series:) ir shimma dimmir Ninna." — Complaint to the goddess Ishtar.
(The usual number of the tablet is not placed here.)
He has written and engraved it like its original.
" Palace of Asshurbanapal, king of Assyria,
Sou of Esarhaddon, king of the universe, king of Assyria, ruler of Babylon,
King of Sumer and Accad, king of the kings of Ethiopia and Egypt,
King of the four regions, son of Sennacherib,
King of the universe, king of Assyria, who puts his trust in the god Asshur and the goddess
Ninlil, in Nabu and Tashmit.
May the god Nabu be thy guide 1 "
In general, however, these signatures ran as follows :
(The first word of the tablet following.)
" Xth tablet (of the series beginning thus :)....
" Palace of Asshurbanapal, the king of the universe, the king of Assyria, to whom Nabu
and Tashmit had given ear, who took clear eyes for the preparation (?) of the writing of
tablets, whilst under the kings my predecessors nothing of the kind (nin shipru shu' atu)
was attempted — the wisdom of Nabu, (tikip santakki), a fullness of beauty, did I write,
arrange, and engrave on tablets ; to see and read it I placed it in my palace."
After which, in some examples, there follows :
" May the light of Asshur, the king of the gods, be thy guide I
Whosoever shall write his name by my name,
May Asshur and Ninlil (Beltis) destroy him and root his name and his seed out of the land ! "
The contents of the tablets in which Asshurbanapal caused the wisdom of
the god Nabu (identified by the ancients with Mercury) to be written of in
this fashion, were varied to an extent scarcely conceivable. They contained
the primitive spells and formulas for oaths of the people of Sumer, as well
as the somewhat later hymns to the gods, and penitential psalms of the Acca-
dian population of northern Babylonia, almost all of them with interlinear
translations into the Semitic language of ancient Babylon ; also legends of
Semitic character and epic poems almost as old as the Accadian hymns;
astronomical and astrological texts ; historical inscriptions (as, for instance,
those of Agum-kakrime and the ancient Sargon) ; chronological lists, calendars,
and a great deal besides ; all of which was collected by Asshurbanapal and by
him handed down to posterity. It is hard to say in what direction the
literary pieces thus preserved fail to cast a light on the ancient Babylonians
into whose cultivation the Assyrians were, indeed, once initiated, and to
whom they were in all essentials indebted for their own ; it is certain that
we should now be acquainted with no single one of those primitive magic
verses, had not Asshurbanapal had them written out afresh. And what
should we know of the Sumerians and Accadians without these songs? But
this is not enough. A great part of the Asshurbanapal library consists
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA
8QO
of philosophical aids to the knowledge and acquisition of the Sumerio-
Accadian language, as well as of the Semitic Assyrio-Babylonian, and
to the writing (the so-called syllabary) as well as to the spoken language ;
these aids include vocabularies, grammatical paradigms, and even collections
of phrases in two languages.
Whilst Layard was exploring the south-western palace at Kuyunjik,
adding undreamt-of treasures to those acquired in his first expedition to the
country, and finding quantities of new cuneiform texts of the s6-called third
species of the Assyrian genus, so that he seemed to have been the first to
gather the materials for the deciphering of this kind of cuneiform writing, it
had been already completed, at least in the main, by the labours of Saulcy
(1849) and, above all, by those of Henry Rawlinson (1847-1851). Layard's
book, Nineveh and its Remains, which appeared in 1849, had already introduced
us into the midst of Assyrian antiquity, although the inscriptions which
accompanied the sculptures could not yet give us any further information
elucidating them. But in the Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and
Babylon, which appeared in the beginning of 1853, we already find the
correct interpretation of several Assyrian names of kings, countries, towns,
and gods, and even the correct rendering of the substance of connected his-
torical inscriptions, which Layard owed to the information communicated in
the interval by Henry Rawlinson and the Irishman, E. Hincks, who had also
brought great acuteness to bear on this department of study. The numerous
fresh historical documents which Layard brought with him could not have
appeared at a more favourable time ; above all, the first of the chests con-
taining Asshurbanapal's library could not have entered London at a better
moment. For, once a basis was established for the reading of the cuneiform
writing of the Babylonian and Assyrian languages, all that was needed to
advance along the path so successfully entered upon was new texts, and
these now began to flow in, in abundances
BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING TTOLATHPILKSB& III
(Found it Nlmruil. — Ltjrard)
H. W. — VOL. I. 2 B
610 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
LATER DISCOVERIES IN BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
The work of exploration rested entirely between the years 1855 and
1872. Great progress was made, however, in the decipherment of inscrip-.
tions and the popularisation of the results, and the mind of the public was
prepared to appreciate the greatness of the work that was to follow.
The importance of George Smith's decipherment in 1872 of the Baby-
lonian story of the Deluge was at once recognised, and led to his being sent
to Nineveh in January, 1873, under the auspices of the Daily Telegraph.
As soon as he had discovered some further fragments of the deluge story,
however, the newspaper was satisfied, and he was recalled. On a second
expedition, sent out in the same year by the British Museum, Smith made
no startling discoveries. Smith's work, while small in amount when com-
pared with that of the early explorers, brought to light much valuable
material, and aroused great enthusiasm in England. The British Museum
sent him on a third expedition in 1876 ; but he was prevented from making
any excavations, and died of fever on his way back.
The next expedition, that of Hormuzd Rassam in 1877, resulted, among
other things, in the identification of the site of Sippar, and the discovery
of numerous interesting inscriptions and of some beautifully ornamented
inscribed bronze plates that had adorned the gates of the palace of
Shalmaneser II.
In this same year, 1877, M. Ernest de Sarzec, then just appointed French
consul at Bassorah on the Persian Gulf, began that series of brilliant
explorations which he has carried on more or less continuously ever since.
His enthusiasm for archaeological research was backed by an extensive
knowledge of the conditions of the country, and his efforts were rewarded
with an unusual degree of success from the very start.
The first four years were devoted to an extensive and systematic exca-
vation of Telloh, a great mound about five miles from the Shatt-el-khai,
in southern Babylonia, and now identified with the ancient Shirpurla. The
first season was marked by the discovery of two large terra-cotta cylinders,
twenty-four inches long and twelve in diameter. The inscriptions on these
cylinders, which contained fully two thousand lines each, were the longest
then known from an early period. By the end of the four seasons of work a
great temple had been uncovered, one hundred and seventy-five by one hun-
dred feet in dimensions, and built on a mound from sixteen to twenty feet
high. The bricks of the outer wall, which was five feet thick, were one foot
square and bore the name Gudea. The objects found in the interior of the
temple have proved very important to early Babylonian history. One room
contained eight statues of an early period, all headless, however, having been
mutilated by barbarians of a later time.
Scarcely less important was De Sarzec's discovery in 1894 of a chamber
in which were found thirty thousand tablets. While a considerable pro-
portion of them were religious documents, most of these tablets were
commercial, agricultural, and industrial archives.
The Louvre has profited greatly by the work of De Sarzec, for a large
part of his discoveries has found its way thither.
The American expeditions have been among the most successful ones
in this field. The Wolfe expedition of 1884-1885 — so called from Miss
Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, who defrayed its expenses — confined its work
to a thorough exploration of the whole field, not only visiting the sites
of previous excavations, but examining many new mounds as well. The
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA 611
succeeding expeditions have been sent out under the auspices c.f the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania. The first one, in 1888-1889, under tin- direction of
Dr. John P. Peters, with Professors II. V. Hilprecht and R. F. Harper as
Assyriologists, began excavations at Niffer, the site of ancient Nippur.
They had many difficulties with native tribes and Turkish officials, but
succeeded in making a trigonometrical survey of all the mounds and obtain-
ing a great number of antiquities of all sorts. Dr. Peters, however, modestly
characterises the expedition as " more or less of a failure."
In 1890 work was begun again. Thousands of tablets and various
kinds of objects were obtained, and were all sent to the Imperial Museum
at Constantinople. Professor Hilprecht was sent to Constantinople to
catalogue the finds. He did the work with great skill and tact, and the
Sultan repaid the University of Pennsylvania for his services by the gift of
a large part of the collection.
The third expedition was sent out in 1893 under the direction of Mr.
J. H. Haynes, who had been the business manager of the first two. With
a single brief interruption of two months in 1894 he carried on the work
steadily until 1896, accomplishing what no European had ever ventured to
attempt before. This expedition and the fourth one, which set out under
Haynes in 1899 and was joined by Hilprecht in 1900, procured many
thousands of tablets and antiquities of other kinds. These finds have
enriched the store of Babylonian literature with vast quantities of texts,
religious, commercial, and historical.
The first German expedition, in 1897, like the first American, simply
explored Babylonia and Assyria. Then in 1899 Dr. Robert Koldewey, who
had been a member of the first expedition, accom-
panied by Dr. Bruno Meissner, went out under
the auspices of the German Orient Society. They
went to work at the mound of El-Kasr, Babylon,
which covers the remains of the palace of Nebu-
chadrezzar. Their first success was in the find-
ing of a new Hittite inscription and many tablets
of the Neo-Babylonian period. Great results may
be expected from their future work.
The Turks, themselves, have naturally the best
opportunity for carrying on the work of explora-
tion, for they can count upon the support instead
of the opposition of the officials, and can keep the
natives under control. Thus far one expedition
has been sent out. It was under the direction
of Father Scheil, a distinguished Assyriologist, a
French Dominican. Its complete success shows
that if the Turkish government can once be
aroused to the importance of the work, greater
discoveries may be expected.
One of the most important discoveries of cunei-
form inscriptions was made at Tel-el- Amarna in Egypt in 1888. From these
tablets, which are letters and despatches of Amenhotep III and Amenhotep
IV and of many monarchs of western Asia, much valuable chronological
material has been obtained, as well as much light upon social relations.
The great discoveries of the past thirty years are but an inspiration to
further exploration. The work is bound to be carried on until the buried
cities have been completely brought to light again.ad
612
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
THE RESULTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS
We have followed the story of the excavation's in Babylonia and Assyria
with some detail because of the unique character of the record. It remains
now to examine the results of these excavations in their bearings upon the
story of history. For, of course, it is the material supplied by the workers
in this field rather than the work itself which has pertinence in the present
connection.
HUNTING SCENE FROM A BAS-RELIEF IN THE PALACB OF ASSHURNAZIRPAL
Great numbers of historical documents have been restored to us, sufficing,
as has already been suggested, to rebuild the history of the all but forgotten
nations. Such historical documents as are not to be found in connection
with Greece or Rome, or even of the civilisation of the Middle Ages down
to about the tenth century A.D., are supplied us from the ruins of the
Babylonian and Assyrian cities. These documents, as already pointed out,
are in the form of inscriptions on fragments of brick. These inscriptions,
in an altogether unknown character, were at first enigmatic, but oriental
scholarship soon availed to decipher them. The story of this decipherment
must be outlined here for comparison with the account of the decipherment
of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which has already been presented. In no
other cases except these two has the historian been called upon to deal with
a great mass of documents written in an absolutely dead language. It must
be remembered that the so-called dead languages of the classical world were
never really forgotten. All through the Middle Ages there were number-
less scholars who had an expert knowledge of Greek and Latin. Indeed,
these languages were the current medium of scholarly intercourse through-
out the dark ages. But the Babylonian and Assyrian languages, like the
Egyptian, were dead in the fullest significance of the term ; that is to say,
they were utterly unknown to any human being for a period of more than
two thousand years. Their restoration was one of the marvels of nineteenth-
century scholarship ; and while the details of this feat of scholarship do not
properly come within the province of the historian in the narrower sense,
they have such universal interest that we shall do well to present at least
their outline here.
Before turning to the story of decipherment, however, it will be well to
gain an idea as to the number and the variety and character of the historical
documents in question. And perhaps the best way to do this will be to
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA 613
take a glance at the contents of the Assyrian collections in the British
Museum, giving particular attention to the marvellous library of King
Asslmrliunapal, one of the last of the great rulers of Assyria — a remark;ilil<-
collection of books, the discovery of which has been already referred to in
the previous section. Nothing could give one a more vivid realisation of
the character of this ancient oriental civilisation than the most casual
glance at the sample books from this old library. Having inspected, how-
ever casually, this marvellous set of documents, one is prepared to take up
the chronological history of the Babylonians and the Assyrians with a fresh
interest based upon the comprehension that this people, so long regarded as
scarcely more than mythical, possessed a civilisation strangely comparable
in many essential features to the civilisation of our own time."
TREASURES FROM NINEVEH
The most casual wanderer in the British Museum can hardly fail to
notice two pairs of massive sculptures, in the one case winged bulls, in the
other, winged lions, both human-headed, which guard the entrance to the
Egyptian hall, close to the Rosetta stone. Each pair of these weird crea-
tures once guarded an entrance to the palace of a king in the famous city of
Nineveh. As one stands before them his mind is carried back over some
twenty -seven intervening centuries, to the days when the "Cedar of
Lebanon " was " fair in his greatness " and the scourge of Israel. A wave
of emotion sweeps over one when he first sees them, and Byron's stirring
lines, reminiscent of school-day oratory, ring in the memory:
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
The Assyrian ! The ruler of Nineveh ! For two thousand five hundred
years he was only a name and a memory; yet here stand great monuments
to testify to the reality of his sometime greatness.
These huge lions are pertinent in the present connection because of the
inscriptions that are graven across their pedestals. A glance reveals the
strange characters in which these records are written, graven neatly in
straight lines across the stone, and looking, to casual inspection, like nothing
else so much as random nights of arrow-heads. The resemblance is so strik-
ing that this is sometimes called the arrow-headed character, though it is
more generally known as the wedge or cuneiform character. A strange
writing this, "it seems almost incredible that it can really be susceptible of
interpretation and translation into a modern language. And, indeed, the
feat of interpreting it was one of the greatest achievements of nineteenth-
century scholarship ; but of this we shall have more to say in a moment.
But importance aside, what an interest must now attach to objects with
such a history as belongs to these ! The very sculptures before us, for
example, were perhaps seen by Jonah when he made that famous voyage to
Nineveh some seven or eight hundred years B.C. A little later the Babylo-
nian and the Mede revolted from Assyrian tyranny, and descended upon the
fair city of Nineveh, and almost literally levelled it to the ground. But
these great sculptures, among other things, escaped destruction, and at once
hidden and preserved by the accumulating debris of the centuries, they
stood there age after age, their very existence quite forgotten. When
614 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Xenophon marched past their site with the ill-starred Expedition of the Ten
Thousand, in the year 400 B.C., he saw only a mound which seemed to
mark the site of some ancient ruin ; but so ephemeral is fame that the Greek
did not suspect that he looked upon the site of that city which only two
centuries before had been the mistress of the world.
So ephemeral is fame ! And yet the moral scarcely holds in the sequel ;
for we of to-day, in this new, undreamed-of Western world, behold these
mementoes of Assyrian greatness, fresh from their twenty-five hundred
years of entombment, and with them records which restore to us the history
of that long-forgotten people in such detail as it was not known to any
previous generation since the fall of Nineveh. For two thousand five hun-
dred years no one saw these treasures or knew that they existed. One
hundred generations of men came and went without once pronouncing the
names of Kings Asshurnazirpal or Asshurbanapal. And to-day, after cen-
turies of oblivion, these names are restored to history, and, thanks to the
character of their monuments, are assured a permanency of fame that can
almost defy time itself. It would be nothing strange, but rather in keeping
with their previous mutations of fortune, if the names of Asshurnazirpal
and Asshurbanapal should be familiar household words to future genera-
tions that have forgotten the existence of an Alexander, a Caesar, and a
Napoleon. For when Macaulay's prospective New Zealander explores the
ruins of the British Museum, the records of the ancient Assyrians will pre-
sumably be there unscathed, to tell their story as they have told it to our
generation, although every manuscript and printed book may have gone the
way of fragile textures.
But the past of the Assyrian sculptures is quite necromantic enough
without conjuring for them a necromantic future. The story of their resto-
ration is like a brilliant romance of history. Prior to the middle of the
nineteenth century the inquiring student could learn in an hour or so all
that was known in fact and in fable of the renowned city of Nineveh. He
had but to read a few chapters of the Bible and a few pages of Diodorus to
exhaust the important literature of the subject. If he turned also to the
pages of Herodotus and Xenophon, of Justin and Jilianus, these served
chiefly to confirm the suspicion that the Greeks themselves kne-;» almost
nothing more of the history of their famed oriental forerunners.
The current fables told of a first king Ninus and his wonderful queen,
Semiramis ; of Sennacherib, the conqueror ; of the effeminate Sardanapalus,
who neglected the warlike ways of his ancestors, but perished gloriously at
the last, with Nineveh itself, in a self-imposed holocaust. And that was all.
How much of this was history, how much myth, no man could say ; and
for all any one suspected to the contrary, no man could ever know. And
to-day the contemporary records of the city are before us in such profusion
as no other nation of antiquity, save Egypt alone, can at all rival. Whole
libraries of Babylonian documents are at hand that were written twenty or
even thirty centuries before our era. These, be it understood, are the origi-
nal books themselves, not copies. The author of that remote time speaks to
us directly, hand to eye, without intermediary transcriber. And there is
not a line of any Hebrew or Greek inscriptions of a like age that has been
preserved to us ; there is little enough that can match these ancient books
by a thousand years. When one reads of Moses or Isaiah, Homer, Hesiod,
or Herodotus, he is but following the transcription — often unquestionably
faulty, and probably never in all parts perfect — of successive copyists of
later generations. The oldest known copy of the Bible, for example, dates
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA
615
from the fourth century A.D. — 1000 years after the last Assyrian records
\vrn: inside, and read, and buried, and forgotten.
As to the earlier Mesopotamian records, they date back some 5000 —
perhaps 7000 — years B.C.: at least 1000 years before the period assigned
by Archbishop Usher's long-accepted Chronology for the creation of the
world itself. Solomon, who lived about 1000 B.C., is accredited with the
declaration that "of the making of many books there is no end." Modern
exegesists tell us that it was not Solomon, but a later Alexandrian inter-
loper, who actually coined the phrase ; but nevertheless it appears that the
saying would have been perfectly intelligible, in Mesopotamia, not merely
to Solomon's contemporaries, but to generations that lived long before the
BAS-RELIEF FROM AN ASSYRIAN PALACE, SHOWING ASSYRIA!. SOLDIERS, PRISONERS BEINO FLAYED
ALIVE, CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS, ETC.
Jewish nation, as such, came into existence. At all events, there was at
least one king of Assyria — namely, Asshurbanapal — who hved only a few
generations after Solomon, and whose palace boasted a library .
10,000 volumes— a library, if you please, in which the books were num-
bered and shelved systematically, and classified, and cared for by an offi
librarian. From this library, records have come to us during the past
ivnlury that have reconstructed the history of Asiatic antiquity.
If you would care to see some of these strange documents, you have 1
a little way to go from the site of the winged lion here in the British Mu
Meantime, the?e are other sculptures here which you can hardly pass «:
noticed. As we pass the human-headed lions and enter the hall of Ass
nazirpal, we shall see other evidences of Assyrian greatness that might easily
lead our thoughts astray from the writing. Here, forming the wall, are has
reliefs on which the famous scene of the lion hunt is shown; a 1
616 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
on are all manner of war scenes ; and there some domestic incidents, the
making of bread or a like comestible, and its baking in an oven ; and there
again is the interior of a stable with a man gravely grooming a horse much
as it might be done in any stable to-day.
All these must not be allowed to distract our attention, for these graphic
illustrations have nothing directly to do with writing. Here, however, at
the end of the hall, are some other bas-reliefs more pertinent to our present
inquiry. That winged god, for example, carrying a fawn, has a fine flight
of arrows across the background and figures alike, differing in the latter re-
gard from the lion we have just left. In the hall just beyond are some illus-
trations of a different combination of picture and text. Here is the famous
obelisk of Shalmaneser, which, like all the things thus far noted in the As-
syrian collection, was found by Sir Henry Layard at Nineveh. It is virtu-
ally an illustrated book, telling in word and text of the conquest of many
countries by King Shalmaneser II.
The figures of the upper row report the payment of tribute by " Sua of
Gilzani, who brought silver, gold, lead, vessels of copper, horses, and drome-
daries." It will be observed, of course, that only one side of the obelisk is
here shown. The other three sides in each case depict other phases of the
payment of the tribute by the same conquered enemy. The second tier of
figures is of peculiar interest, because it shows the payment of tribute by
" Yaua, the son of Khumri." This is, as the Bible student interprets
it, " Jehu, the son of Omri." The conquered Israelite brings " silver
and gold, lead and bowls, dishes, cups, and other vessels of gold," and
the forms of these vessels, as well as the costumes of the Hebrews them-
selves, are well shown in the illustrations. The third row of figures rep-
resents the "payment of the tribute of the land of Musri, consisting of
dromedaries, buffaloes, elephants, apes, and other animals." The grotesque
figures of the alleged apes, with their altogether human heads, are suggestive
as showing how these strange foreign animals appealed to the imagination
of the Assyrian artist, causing him to depart from that fine realism which
he brought to bear upon the delineation of more familiar animals. The
fourth set of pictures shows the payment of tribute of the land of Sukhi,
and the fifth a not dissimilar tribute from the country of Patin. The in-
scriptions at the top and base of the obelisk give details of the conquests,
recording among other things how Shalmaneser captured 1121 chariots and
470 battle horses and the whole camp of Hazael, king of Damascus.
Perhaps the most curious example of economy of material in a makeshift
book that the Assyrian collection at the British Museum has to show, is
illustrated in the figure of the god Nabu, which forms part of the Nineveh
collection, and which stands in the hall just beyond the obelisk of Shal-
maneser. Here, as a glance at the illustration will show, the skirt of the
robe of the human figure is used as a ground for an elaborate inscription.
The effect is rather decorative and distinctly unique. This figure has the
further interest of affording an illustration of what the Assyrian artist
could do when he adopted the expedient, for him unusual, of working in
the round. The great masterpieces of Assyrian art were modelled in bas-
relief. Occasionally, however, the artist attempted the full figure, as in
the present case ; but it can hardly be claimed that the success of this is
at all comparable with that attained by the other method. There are low
reliefs in the hunting scenes contained in the dining-hall of Asshurbanapal,
as represented here in the British Museum, that are real works of art. The
wounded lioness dragging her haunches, the hunted goats, the pacing wild
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA
617
asses, are veritable masterpieces. No such claim can be made for the god
Nabu or for any other full statue that the excavations of Nineveh have
revealed. But on the other hand the texture of the skirt of this god gives
it an abiding interest of a unique character.
A further interest attaches to this statue, as to many others of the
Assyrian monuments, because of its bearing upon the religion of that
famous people. Until the discovery of these long-buried monuments, prac-
tically all that was known of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians
was contained in the pages of Herodotus. Strange
tales he tells of what he saw in the temples of Baby-
lon, where, as he alleges, all the women of the city,
of whatever class or rank, were obliged at least once
in a life-time to prostitute themselves for hire. The
inscriptions on the monuments tell us nothing of
such practical phases of worship as this, but they
do show that the Assyrians were an intensely reli-
gious people, closely comparable in that regard to
their cousins the Hebrews. Their religion, too, it
would appear, was of that firmly grasped self-
sufficient kind which puts aside all doubt ; which
assumes as a primordial fact that one's own view
is right ; that one's gods are the only true gods, and
that all the outside world must be regarded as one's
proper prey. A further illustration of this phase
of the subject will claim our attention when we
come to examine the religious writings of the Assyr-
ians a little more in detail.
Another illustration of a curiously Assyrian com-
bination of art and letters is shown in the sculptured
lion that guards the entrance to the next hall. This
lion is a memento of the same reign as that human-
headed one at the other doorway, but it is very different in workman-
ship, and clearly the product of another artist. For one thing it is a
veritable lion, not a mythical compound beast, except, indeed, that it shares
with the other the peculiarity of a fifth leg. Assyrian tastes seem to have
required that four legs should be visible from whatever point of view the
statue of an animal was regarded ; hence the anomaly. For the rest, this
gigantic beast shows many points of realistic delineation, and it is artisti-
cally full of interest. The head in particular expresses feeling in a most
unequivocal way.
But the most curious characteristic of this sculpture is the way in which
the writing is carried from the slab right across the body of the animal
itself, and also across its front legs. Perhaps this was done at the command
of the king, merely as a convenient expedient that all the desired records of
the conquest might be given a place, but the effect at a little distance is
curiously as if the artist had striven to get the feeling of hair in a stiff and
formal manner, in keeping with the conventional rendering of the mane.
Again it has been suggested that the writing has been carried across the
body of the lion to safeguard it. There was a not unusual custom among
ancient monarchs of scraping out the inscription of a predecessor and sup-
planting it with one's own. So great a monarch as Ramses II, in Egypt,
did not scruple to do this, and a remarkable case is shown on an Arabian
temple where the conscienceless monarch actually substitutes his own name
OBELISK OF SRALMAN
(Now In the British M
618
THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
for the correct one of the builder, in a tablet claiming authorship of the
temple of which the tablet is a part. That the kings of Assyria had occasion
to fear such jugglery is shown by the inscriptions on the book tablets in the
royal library at Nineveh, where Asshurbanapal, after telling that the books
are of his library, calls a curse upon any one who shall ever put another
name beside his own. Perhaps, then, King Asshurnazirpal thought to
transmit a record of his deeds more securely to posterity by inscribing them
across the back of this lion, for doubtless the sculpture was considered a
masterpiece, and the king felt, we may suppose, that artistic taste might
prevent a sacrilege which mere conscience would not interdict.
THE LIBRARY OF A KING OF NINEVEH
We come now to the place in the British Museum in which some of these
treasures of the old Assyrian king are guarded. They occupy part of the
series of cases placed down the centre of the room known as the Nineveh
Gallery. Perhaps it is not too much to speak of these collections as forming
the most extraordinary set of documents of all the rare treasures of the Brit-
ish Museum, for it includes not books alone, but public and private letters,
business announcements, marriage contracts — in a word, all the species of
written records that enter into the everyday life of an intelligent and cul-
tured community.
DETAIL FROM THE OBELISK OF SHALMANESEB II
But by what miracle have such documents been preserved through all
these centuries? A glance makes the secret evident. It is simply a case of
time-defying materials. Each one of these Assyrian documents appears to
be, and in reality is, nothing more or less than an inscribed fragment of
brick, having much the colour and texture of a weathered terra-cotta tile
of modern manufacture. These slabs are usually oval or oblong in length,
and an inch or so in thickness. Each of them was originally a portion of
brick clay, on which the scribe indented the flights of arrow-heads with some
sharp-cornered instrument, after which the document was made permanent
by baking. They are somewhat fragile, of course, as all bricks are, and many
of them have been more or less crumbled in the destruction of the palace at
Nineveh ; but to the ravages of mere time they are as nearly invulnerable as
almost anything in nature. Hence it is that these records of a remote civ-
ilisation have been preserved to us, while the similar records of such later
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA 619
civilisations as the Grecian have utterly perished ; much as the flint imple-
ments of the cave-dweller come to us unchanged, while the iron implements
of a far more recent age have crumbled away.
Consider even in the most casual way the mere samples that are exhibited
here in the museum. This first case, the label tells us, contains tablets —
sample leaves, if you will — from the famous "Creation" and "Deluge"
series. That is to say, from the book which has been called the Chaldean
Genesis, and which excited such a furor of attention when George Smith of
the British Museum first deciphered part of its contents, because it seemed
to give so striking a clew to the origin of the sacred book of the Hebrews.
The Hebrew legends are very differently received to-day from what they
were even fifty years ago, thanks to the advance of science ; but these Chal-
dean stories of the creation and destruction of mankind still have absorbing
interest as historical documents in the story of the mental evolution of our
race, both for what they teach of the ideas of remote generations of men, and
for what they taught the generation of our immediate predecessors about the
true status of comparative mythology.
It will be recalled that the Assyrians were Semites closely related to the
Hebrews. Indeed, tradition held that Father Abraham, in common with the
ancestors of the Assyrians, came from the land of the Chaldeans. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find that these sacred books of the Assyrians are
replete with the same traditions and give expression to much the same cast
of thought as the sacred books of the Hebrews. Thus, here we have a closely
comparable account of the creation of the world out of primeval chaos and of
the destruction of all but a favoured few in a universal deluge. Even the
story of the sending out from the ark of first one bird and then another,
until finally the raven found a place to alight, when the ark itself had
stranded on a mountain top, is reproduced with such closeness of detail as
practically to demonstrate a common origin of the two traditions.
Here, again, is a story of how Sargon, an early king of Agade, was cast
away, Moses-like, in a basket, to be rescued from the waters of the Euphrates
by a compassionate discoverer of his plight. There is even a tablet which
gives intimations of the story of the building of the Tower of Babel. And
with it all there is imbued the same black, dreadful view of life that actuated
the authors of the Old Testament. Always we are made to feel th^ threat
of the angry deity ; always this religion is a religion of fear. Generosity,
brotherly love, compassion, morality — in a broad sense these words play but
little part in the terminology of the Semite. The Semitic conqueror was
notorious for his cruelty. He loved to persecute his victim, to crucify him,
to flay him alive. The writers of the Hebrew and of the Assyrian books
alike record these deeds without a shudder. They show to the psychologist
a race lacking in imagination, which is the mother of sympathy, but imbued
through and through with egotism. The legends of the sacred books give
further evidence of these same traits. Here before us, among the other tab-
lets just noted, are the famous stories of the descent of Ishtar, the Goddess
of Love, into the nether regions, and of the trials and perils which she
encountered there, and those that fell upon the outside world because of her
absence. It is recorded that when finally a messenger was sent from a supe-
rior power demanding her release, the powers of the nether world gave IKT
up unwillingly, but retained the innocent messenger to torture in her stead ;
and it probably never occurred to the mind of the Assyrian soothsayer that
it might have been within the power of the superior gods to release the inno-
cent messenger as well.
620 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
Another famous set of tablets records the adventures of Gil-garnish, whose
heroic trials and mighty deeds suggest the Hercules of the Greeks. All in
all, these religious and mythological texts give us the closest insight into
the moral nature of the Assyrian, not merely during the period of Asshur-
banapal, but for many generations before, since these sacred books are in
the main but copies of old Babylonian ones, dating from the most remote
periods of antiquity.
The tablets of the next case illustrate a different phase of Assyrian
mental activity. They are virtually books of reference, and schoolbooks
— that is, " Grammatical Tablets, Lists of Cuneiform Signs, Explanatory
Lists of Words, etc. — drawn up for use in the Royal Library at Nineveh."
They include a tablet of " words and phrases used in legal documents, to
serve as grammatical examples ; one column being in the Sumero-Accadian
language, the other an Assyrian translation ; also lists of a verbal formation,
and an explanatory list of words " — a dictionary, if you please ! Even more
remarkable is a tablet giving a list of picture characters with the archaic
forms of cuneiform signs to which they were thought to correspond ; this
list being supplemented by another in which the archaic forms themselves
are interpreted with the " modern " equivalent. This tablet shows that,
in the belief of the ancient Assyrian, the cuneiform character had been
developed, at a remote epoch, from a purely historical writing (as was
doubtless the case), but that the exact line of this development had faded
from the memories of men in the latter-day epoch of the seventh century B.C.
In the case beyond are tablets with lists of " Names of Birds, Plants,
Bronze Objects, Articles of Clothing, etc., for reference as an aid to writing
literary compositions." Then lists of officials, and other documents relating
to the history of Babylonia- Assyria, including historical inscriptions of Sen-
nacherib. Beyond, a set of letters, public and private, mostly inscribed on
oval bits of clay, three or four inches long, and sometimes provided with
envelopes of the same material. Of this numerous collection of letters, the
one that attracts most popular attention is that in which King Sennacherib
refers to certain objects given by him to his son Esarhaddon. This is com-
monly known as the "will of Sennacherib." Near this is another letter that
is interesting because it is provided with a baked-clay envelope, into which
the letter slipped as a kernel of a nut into its shell. The envelope bears the
inscription, " To the King, my Lord, from Asshur Ritsua," and it is authen-
ticated by two impressions of the writer's seal.
This use of seals, by-the-bye, is quite general, particularly in the case of
official documents. Sometimes, as in the case of a contract tablet shown
here, the witness, in lieu of seal, gives the stamp of his finger nail, this being
equivalent, I suppose, to " John Doe, his mark." It is hardly to be sup-
posed that the average Assyrian could write any more than the average
Greek or Roman could, or, for that matter, the average European of a
century ago. The professional scribe did the writing, of course, whence the
necessity for seals to assure authenticity of even ordinary letters. Doubtless
the art of gem engraving, which the old Chaldeans carried to amazing per-
fection, followed by the Greeks and Romans, has been allowed to decline in
recent generations largely because the increasing spread of education —
not to mention gummed envelopes — made seals less and less a necessity.
Perhaps the art may be revived in the age of the typewriter. But if one
stops to speak of seals, he could hardly be restrained from rushing off to the
wonderful collection in the gem department of the British Museum, where
the Grseco-Roman intaglios would drive all thought of other collections
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA C21
from his head, — though even there the Cyprian finds would lead him back
irrevocably to the Babylonian model, — whereas, for the moment, our true
concern is not with seals of any sort, but with the documents they are
purposed to authenticate.
Tlir.se documents are of the strangest assortment ; and yet not strange,
so precisely similar are they to the official records of modern communal
existence. Thus here is one tablet, of about the year 650 B.C., record! ir.;
the sale of a house. There another tells of the leasing of certain property,
for a term of six years, for twelve shekels of silver. And, capping the
climax, here are tablets recording the loan of money, veritable notes, with
even the rate of interest — twenty per cent — carefully prescribed. One
learns that the money broker did a thriving business in old Nineveh. How
near to us those days are, after all !
And nearer yet they seem when we pass to the cases of the tablets of
omens and forecasts based upon the position of the stars and planets, the
actions of animals and reptiles, the flight of birds, and the appearance of
newly born offspring. For when superstition is in question all races are
kin, and all times are contemporary. The European of to-day who shudders
when he sees the moon over his left shoulder, is brother in spirit to the
Assyrian astrologer who used this "astrolabe" to forecast the events of his
own immediate future. And these incantations, religious and magical rites,
prayers, hymns, litanies — do they not make it clear that the Assyrian was
indeed our elder brother ? Does this lifted veil then show us a vista of three
millennia, or only of as many generations ? At least it serves to bring home
to us — and I doubt if any other exhibit could do it as forcibly — how slow,
how snail-like is the rate of human progress. Yet, after all, how vain this
moralising; for who does not know that the day when Nineveh saw its
prime was only the yesterday of human civilisation? If one doubted it
before, he can doubt no longer, since he has wandered down the rooms in
which the relics from the library of Asshurbanapal are exhibited, glancing
thus casually at the accommodating English labels.
Naturally, the stock of material bearing upon this topic has been con-
stantly increased by new explorations, notably by those of Oppert at Nineveh,
and of De Sarzec at Telloh, by which the French Government has supple-
mented the early collections of the pioneer of the work, Botta ; by various
German exploring companies ; and, more recently, by the American exploring
expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, under Dr. John P. Peters,
which secured such important results at Nippur. But the greatest repository
of all still remains that which Layard and his assistant and successor in the"
work, Rassam, followed by George Smith, secured for the British Museum.
The other collections afford important sidelights; but the main story of
Assyrian life and history, as at present known to us, is told only by the books
from the wonderful library of the palace of Asshurbanapal at Nineveh ; and
these can be studied only in the British Museum, or in the publications which
the workers of that institution have from time to tune given to the world.
After glancing at these documents for the first time, none but a heedless
person can fail to have brought home to him a more vivid picture of the life
of antiquity, and a truer historical perspective than he can previously have
possessed. For more than two thousand years Greek culture has dominated
the world, and it has been the custom to speak of the Greek as if he were the
veritable inventor of art and of culture; but these documents have led
to a truer view. Here one looks back, as it were, over the heads of the
Greeks, and catches glimpses of a people that possessed a high civilisation
622 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
when the Greeks were still an upstart nation, only working their way out of
barbarism.
Now it appears to be nothing less than a law of nature that every nation
should look with contempt upon every other nation which it regards as
contemporary. With a highly artistic people, whose chief pride is their
artistic taste, this feeling reaches its climax. The Greek attitude in this
regard is proverbial. But it is just as fixed a law of nature that every nation
should look with reverence upon some elder civilisation. The Romans
adopted the Greek word "barbarian," and applied it to all other nations —
except the Greeks. The Greeks did not return the compliment. For them
the Romans were parvenus — parvenus to be looked on with hatred and con-
tempt. I doubt not the Athenian child gave the deadliest possible insult to
his playfellow when he called him a Roman ; just as the Parisian child of
to-day reserves the appellation " anglais " as the bitterest anathema of his
vocabulary. But when the Greek turned his eyes in the other direction, and
looked out upon Egyptian and Babylonian civilisation, he was gazing into
the past, and his contempt changed to reverence, precisely as with the
Frenchman of to-day, who looks back with reverence upon the civilisation
of ancient Greece and Rome, while utterly contemning all phases of the
nineteenth-century civilisation save his own.
It was gladly admitted by the Greeks that these oriental civilisations
had flowered while Greek culture was yet in the bud. Solon, the law-giver,
was reported to have travelled in Egypt, and to have been mildly patronised
by the Egyptian priests as the representative of an infant race. Herodotus,
though ostensibly writing of the Persian war, devotes whole sections of his
history to Egypt, and accepts, as did his countrymen, the Egyptian claims
to immense antiquity without a scruple. Plato even resided for some years
in Egypt, as Diodorus tells us, in the hope of gaining an insight into the
mysteries of oriental philosophy.
Regarding the Assyrio-Babylonians, apparently hardly any story was too
fanciful to gain a measure of credence with the classical world. Herodotus,
to be sure, only credits the Assyrians with ruling for five hundred and
twenty years before the overthrow of Nineveh ; and Diodorus, following
Ctesias, raises the figure only to about one thousand four hundred years.
But these figures were probably based on a vague comprehension that
Assyria proper had a relatively late period of flowering, as was, indeed, the
fact ; and the rumours regarding the age of Babylonian civilisation as a whole
may be best illustrated by recalling that Cicero thought it necessary to
express his scepticism regarding a claim, seemingly prevalent in his time,
that Babylonian monuments preserve astronomical observations dating back
over a period of two hundred and seventy thousand years. Pliny, on the
other hand, quoting " Epigenes, a writer of first-rate authority," claims for
the astronomical records only a period of seven hundred and twenty years,
noting also that Berosus and Critodemus still further limit the period to
four hundred and eighty years. But the very range of numbers shows how
utterly vague were the notions involved ; and Pliny himself draws the
inference of " the eternal use of letters " among the Babylonians, indicating
that even the minimum period took the matter beyond the range of western
history.
But for that matter nothing could be more explicit than the testimony of
Diodorus, who, writing some three centuries after what we now speak of as
the "golden age" of Greece, plainly indicates that not Greece but Meso-
potamia was looked to in his day as the classic land of culture. And we
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA
of to-day are enabled — the first of any generation in our era — to
glimpses of tho data on which that estimate was b.i.-,.-.!. .H,(| t,, mnlrrM;ui.l,
by tlie witness of our own eyes, that the fabled glory of ancient Assyria
was uo myth, but a very tangible reality.
ASSYRIAN LKTTKK ur BAKED CLAY AMD FRAOMKNT OF ITS BROKKX E.NVKLOPB
(Now In the British Museum)
HOW THE ASSYRIAN BOOKS WEEK READ
But all along we have followed the story of these strange books, taking
for granted their meaning as interpreted on the labels, and ignoring for
the moment the great marvel about them, which is not that we have the
material documents themselves, but that we have a knowledge of their
actual contents. The flights of arrow-heads on wall, on slab, or tiny brick
have surely a meaning; but how has any one guessed that meaning?
These must be words — but what words? The hieroglyphics of the
Egyptians were mysterious in all conscience ; yet, after all, their symbols
have a certain suggestiveness, whereas there is nothing that seems to
promise a mental leverage in the unbroken succession of these cuneiform
dashes. Yet the Assyrian scholar of to-day can interpret these strange
records almost as readily and as surely as the classical scholar interprets a
Greek manuscript. And this evidences one of the greatest triumphs of
nineteenth-century scholarship ; for, since almost two thousand years, no
man has lived, previous to our century, to whom these strange inscriptions
would not have been as meaningless as they are to the most casual stroller
who looks on them with vague wonderment here in the museum to-day.
For the Assyrian language, like the Egyptian, was veritably a dead language;
not, like Greek and Latin, merely passed from practical everyday use to
the closet of the scholar, but utterly and absolutely forgotten by all the
world. Such being the case, it is nothing less than marvellous that it
should have been restored.
It is but fair to add that this restoration probably never would have
been effected with Assyrian or with Egyptian had the language, in dying,
left no cognate successor ; for the powers of modern linguistry, though
great, are not actually miraculous. But, fortunately, a language once de-
veloped is not blotted out in toto; it merely outlives its usefulness and is
gradually supplanted, its successor retaining many traces of its origin. So,
just as Latin, for example, has its living representatives in Italian and the
other Romance tongues, the language of Assyria is represented by cognate
Semitic languages. As it chances, however, these have been of aid rather
in the later stages of Assyrian study than at the very outset ; for the first
clew to the message of the cuneiform writing came through a slightly
different channel.
Curiously enough, it was a trilingual inscription that gave the clew, as
in the case of the Rosetta stone; though with a very striking difference
withal. The trilingual inscription now in question, instead of being a
small portable monument, covers the surface of a massive bluff at Behistun,
624 THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
in western Persia. Moreover, all three of its inscriptions are in cuneiform
character, and all three are in languages that, at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century, were absolutely unknown. This inscription itself, as a
striking monument of unknown import, had been seen by successive genera-
tions. Tradition ascribed it, as we learn from Ctesias, through Diodorus, to
the fabled Assyrian queen, Semiramis. Tradition is quite at fault in this ;
but it is only recently that knowledge has availed to set it right. The
inscription, as is now known, was really written about the year 515 B.C., at
the instance of Darius I, king of Persia, some of whose deeds it recounts in
the three chief languages of his widely scattered subjects.
The man who, at the actual risk of life and limb, copied this wonderful
inscription, and, through interpreting it, became the veritable " Father of
Assyriology," was the English general, Sir Henry Rawlinson. His feat was
another British triumph over the same rivals who had competed for the
Rosetta stone ; for some French explorers had been sent by their govern-
ment, some years earlier, expressly to copy this inscription, and had reported
that to reach the inscription was impossible. But British courage did not
find it so, and in 1835 Rawlinson scaled the dangerous height and made
a paper cast of about half the inscription. Diplomatic duties called him
away from the task for some years, but in 1848 he returned to it, and com-
pleted the copy of all parts of the inscription that have escaped the ravages
of time. And now the material was in hand for a new science, which
General Rawlinson, assisted by a host of others, soon began to elaborate.
The key to the value of the Behistun inscription lies in the fact that its
third language is ancient Persian. It appears that the ancient Persians had
adopted the cuneiform character from their western neighbours, the Assyri-
ans, but in so doing had made one of those essential modifications and im-
provements which are scarcely possible to accomplish except in the transition
from one race to another. Instead of building with the arrow-heads a mul-
titude of syllabic characters, including many homophones, as had been, and
continued to be, the custom of the Assyrians, the Persians selected a few of
these characters, and ascribed to them phonetic values that were almost
purely alphabetical. In a word, while retaining the wedge as the basal
stroke of their script, they developed an alphabet ; making that last won-
derful analysis of phonetic sounds which even to this day has escaped the
Chinese, which the Egyptians had only partially effected and which the
Phosnicians were accredited by the Greeks with having introduced into the
western world. In addition to this all-essential step, the Persians had intro-
duced the minor, but highly convenient, custom of separating the words of
a sentence from one another by a particular mark, differing in this regard
not only from the Assyrians and the Egyptians, but from the early Greek
scribes as well.
Thanks to these simplifications, the old Persian language has been prac-
tically restored about the beginning of the nineteenth century, through the
efforts of the German, Grotefend; and further advances in it were made
just at this time by Burnouf in France, and Lassen in Germany, as well as by
Rawlinson himself, who largely solved the problem of the Persian alphabet
independently. So the Persian portion of the Behistun inscription could at
last be partially deciphered. This, in itself, however, would have been no
very great aid towards the restoration of the languages of the other portions,
had it not chanced fortunately that the inscription is sprinkled with proper
names. Now, proper names, generally speaking, are not translated from one
language to another, but transliterated as nearly as the genius of the Ian-
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA
guage will permit. It was the fact that the Greek word " Ptolemaios " was
transliterated on the Rosetta stone, that gave the first clew to the sounds
of the Egyptian characters. Had the upper part of the Rosetta stone been
preserved, on which, originally, there were several other names, Young
would not have halted where he did in his decipherment.
But fortune, which had been at once so kind, and so tantalising in the
case of the Rosetta stone, had dealt more gently with the Behistun inscrip-
tion ; for no fewer than ninety proper names were preserved in the Persian
portion, and duplicated, in another character, in the Assyrian inscription.
A study of these gave a clew to the sounds of the Assyrian characters.
The decipherment of this character, however, even with this aid, proved
enormously difficult, for it was soon evident that here it was no longer a
question of a nearly perfect alphabet of a few characters, but of a syllabary
of several hundred characters, including many homophones, or different
forms for representing the same sound. But with the Persian translation
for a guide on the one hand, and the Semitic languages, to which family the
Assyrian belonged, on the other, the appalling task was gradually accom-
plished, the leading investigators being General Rawlinson, Professor Hincks,
and Mr. Fox Talbot, in England ; Professor Jules Oppert in Paris ; and
Professor Eberhard Schrader in Germany ; though a host of other scholars
soon entered the field.
This great linguistic feat was accomplished about the middle of the cen-
tury. But so great a feat was it, that many scholars of the highest standing,
including Ernest Renan in France, and Sir George Cornwall Lewis in England,
declined at first to accept the results, contending that the Assyriologists had
merely deceived themselves by creating an arbitrary language. The matter
was put to the test in 1855, at the suggestion of Mr. Fox Talbot, when four
scholars, one being Mr. Talbot himself, and the others General Rawlinson,
Professor Hincks, and Professor Oppert, laid before the Royal Asiatic Society
their independent translations of an hitherto untranslated Assyrian text.
A committee of the society, including England's greatest historian of the
century, George Grote, broke the seals of the four translations, and reported
that they found them unequivocally in accord as regards their main purport,
and even surprisingly uniform as regards the phraseology of certain pas-
sages ; in short, as closely similar as translations from the obscure texts of
any difficult language ever are. This decision gave the work of Assyriolo-
gists an official status, so to say, and the reliability of their method has never
since been in question.
Thus it has come about that these inscribed bricks from the palace of
Asshurbanapal, which, when the first of them was discovered, were as mean-
ingless as so many blank slabs, have been made to deliver up their message.
And a marvellous message it is, as we have already seen.
Merely to have satisfied a vague curiosity as to the past traditions, how-
ever, would be but a small measure of the intellectual work which the
oriental antiquities have had a large share in accomplishing. Their message
has been one of truly world-historic import. Thanks to these monuments
from Egypt and Mesopotamia, the student of human civilisation has to-day
a sweep of view that hitherto has been utterly withheld from him. Until
the crypts by the Nile and the earth mounds by the Tigris and Euphrates
gave up their secrets, absolutely nothing was known to scholarship of the
main sweep of civilisation more anciently than about the sixth century B.C.
Beyond that all was myth, fable, unauthenticated tradition. And now
the indubitable monuments of civilisation carry us back over a period at
H. W. — VOL. I 2 8
CL'G THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA
least three times as great. Archbishop Usher's famed Chronology, which so
long dominated the ideas of men, is swept away, and we learn from evidence
graven in stone and baked indelibly in bricks that in the year 4004 B.C.,
which our Bible margins still point out as the year of Creation, vast com-
munities of people, in widely separated portions of the earth, had attained a
high degree of civilisation. In the year when the proverbial first man wan-
dered naked in Eden, the actual man lived with thousands of his fellow-men
in vast cities, where he built houses and temples, erected wonderful monu-
ments, practised such arts as glass-making, sculpture, and painting, and
recorded his thoughts in written words. And from that day to this
stretches the thread of civilisation, unbroken by any universal flood or other
cataclysm.
Now, to be sure, we are told that Archbishop Usher and his kith and
kin were but gullible and misguided enthusiasts, to have thought they de-
tected chronological sequence where none such existed ; but it was rank
heresy to have propounded such a view until the new monuments gave us
the rudiments of a true chronology. Other evidence had, indeed, proven
the antiquity of the earth and of man himself, but the antiquity of civilisa-
tion still depends upon these oriental monuments alone for its demonstration.
The chronology of ancient history has no other authenticated source ; and
chronology, as Professor Petrie has said, is "the backbone of history." To
be sure, the exact chronology of remote antiquity is not by any means as
fixed and secure as might be desired. The antiquarian in dealing with the
remoter epochs must count by centuries rather than by years. But the
broad outlines of the question are placed beyond cavil. So long as the dan-
ger mark of the flood year stared the investigator in the face, every foot of
earlier chronology was controversial ground, and each remoter century must
battle for recognition. But now, thanks to the accumulation of evidence,
all that is past, and the most ardent partisans of Hebrew records vie with
one another in tracing back the evidences of civilisation in Egypt and Meso-
potamia, by centuries and by millennia. It is thought by Professor Hil-
precht, that the more recent excavations by the Americans at the site of
Nippur have carried the evidence back to 6000 or perhaps even 7000 years
B.C., and no one's equanimity is disturbed by the suggestion, except, pos-
sibly, that of the Egyptologist, whose records as yet pause something like a
thousand years earlier, and who feels a certain jealousy lest his Egyptian of
seven thousand years ago should be proven an uninteresting parvenu.
But note how these new figures disturb the balance of history. If our
forerunners of eight or nine thousand years ago were in a noonday glare of
civilisation, where shall we look for the much-talked-of " dawnings of his-
tory " ? By this new standard the Romans seem our contemporaries in
latter-day civilisation ; the " golden age " of Greece is but of yesterday ;
the Pyramid builders are only relatively remote. The men who built the
temple of Bel, at Nippur, in the year, let us say, 5000 B.C., must have felt
themselves at a pinnacle of civilisation and culture. As Professor Mahaffy
has suggested, the time of the Pyramids may have been the veritable autumn
of civilisation. Where, then, must we look for its spring-time ? The answer
to that question must come, if it comes at all, from what we now speak of as
prehistoric archaeology; the monuments from Memphis and Nippur and
Nineveh, covering a mere 10,000 years or so, are records of later history .)
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
*
[The letter « is reserved for Editorial Matter]
CHAPTER I. LAND AND PBOPLK
6 Q. WEBER, Allgemeine Weltgeschichte. — • EDUARD MEYER, Oeschichte des Alterthums. —
* F. HOMMKL, Oeschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens. — • R. W. ROGERS, History of Babylonia
and Assyria, —f J. P. PETERS, Nippur.
CHAPTER II. OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY
6 IIuoo RADAU, Early Babylonian History down to the IVth Dynasty of Ur. — • A. H.
SAYCE, from the article " Babylonia and Assyria," in the New Volumes of the Ninth Edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica. — d E. A. T. W. BUDOE, Babylonian Lift and History.
CHAPTER III. THE RISC OF ASSYRIA
6 H. WINCKLER, Oeschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens. — « EDUARD MEYER, Oeschichte
des Alterthums. — * E. BABELON, Histoire de V Orient. — « C. P. TIELE, Babylonisch-Assyrische
Oeschichte.
CHAPTER IV. FOUR GENERATIONS or ASSYRIAN GREATNESS
* C. P. TIELE, Babylonisch-Assyrisehe Qtschichtt. — • HERODOTUS, The History of Herodo-
tus (translated from the Greek by William Beloe). — ff E. A. T. W. BUDOE, Annals of Shal-
maneser II, Sennacherib, and Asshurbanipal.
CHAPTER V. THE DECLINE AND FALL or ASSYRIA
* R. W. ROOERS, History of Babylonia and Assyria. — ° C. P. TIELE, Babylonisch-Assyri-
Oes:hichte.
CHAPTER VI. RENASCENCE AND FALL or BABYLON
* F. HOMMEL, Oeschichle Babyloniens und Assyriens.
CHAPTER VII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS or BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA
6 A. H. LA YARD, Nineveh and its Remains. — « HERODOTUS, Tht History of Herodotus
(translated from the Greek by William Beloe). — <* STRABO, The Geography of Strabo (trans-
lated from the Greek by J. Falconer and H. C. Hamilton), — ' A. H. L. HEEREN, Historical
Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Principal Nations of Antiquity
(Asiatic Nations). — / JOACHIM MENANT, La Bibliotheque du Palais de Ninive.
CHAPTER VIII. TUB RELIGION or THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS
Rel
ung
HARD SCHRADKR, Die Keilinschriften und Das Alte Testament, 3rd edition. — • A. JEREMIAS,
Izdubar Nimrod, — « C. P. TIELE, Babylonisch-Assyrische Oeschichte.
627
628 BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
CHAPTER IX. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE
* A. H. LAYARD, Nineveh and its Remains. — ° HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, "The Influence
of Modern Research on the Scope of World History," Prefatory Essay in Volume III of the
New Volumes of the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. — d DIODORUS SICULUS,
The Historical Library (translated from the Greek by G. Booth). — * EDUAKD MEYER,
Oeschichte des AUerthums. — /EDWARD HINCKS, from an article " On the Assyrio-Babylonian
— a JOACHIM
Assyrische Geschiclite.
Briefe aus der Zeit Hammurabis. — * C. JOHNSTON, in the "Epistolary Literature of the
Assyrians and Babylonians" in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. XVIII. —
1 FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH, article "Beitriige zur Erklilrung der babylonisch-assyrischen Brief-
litteratur " in Beitrage zur Assyriologie, Vol. I. — m F. LENORMANT, Histoire ancienne de
r Orient.
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
6 ISAAC PRESTON CORY, Ancient Fragments. — c DIODORUS SICULUS. Ttie Historical Library,
(translated from the Greek by G. Booth). — <* CLAUDIUS ^ELIANUS, The Variable History of
jjflianus (translated from the Greek by A. Fleming).
APPENDIX B. EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THEIR RESULTS
* A. H. LAYARD, Nineveh and its Remains. — » F. HOMMEL, Oeschichte Babyloniens und
Assyriens — d R. W. ROGERS, History of Babylonia and Assyria. —1 HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS,
The History of the Art of Writing.
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY
BASED ON THE WORKS QUOTED, CITED, OR EDITORIALLY CONSULTED IN
THE PREPARATION OF THE PRESENT HISTORY, WITH CRITICAL AND
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
jEliamis. Claudius, The Variable History of JUianus. Translated by A. Fleming.
London, 1576. — Ainaworth, W., Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldea. Lon-
don, 1842; Chaldeans of Central Kurdestan. — Amiaud, A., in de Sarzec's Dccouvertes en
Chaldee. Paris, 1844, 2 vols.; (in collab. with F. Scheil) Les inscriptions de Salmanasar.
Paris, 1890. — Aures, A., Traite de ine'trologie assyrienne. Paris, 1801.
Babelon, E., Manuel d'arche'ol. orientale. Paris, 1888. — Berlin. (•.. Babylonian
Chronology and History. London, 1892 ; The Pre-Akkadian Semites. London, 1886. —
Bewsher, Lieut., Mesopotamia : Sheriat-el-Beyta to Tell Ibrahim. — Bezold, C., The Tell-
el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum. London, 1892; Catalogue of the Cuneiform
Tablets in the Kuyunjik collection in the British Museum. London, 1889; Uberblick
iil«T die babylonisch-assyrische Literatur. Leipsic, 1886. — BUlerbeck, A., Susa. Leij).sic,
1893. — Birch, S., Records of the Past. London, 1 873, 12 vols. — Bonavia, E., Flora ol the
Assyrian Monuments. London, 1894. — Boscawen, W. St. 11., lectures on the History of
Assyria. London, 1886; Assyria and Babylonia. London, 1836. — Botta, P. E., and
Flaadrin. E., Monuments de Ninive. Paris, 1849-1850, 5 Tola.
Paul Emil Botta was born at Turin December 6, 1802, and died at Acheres, new
Poissy, France, March 29th, 1870. He was French consul at Alexandria, and in 1842 was
transferred to the office of vice-consul at Mosul, of which he was the first titulary consul.
In December, 1842, he studied the tumulus which covered the right bank of the Tigris
opposite Mosul; superficially explored Kuyunjik; and then at Khorsabad discovered
(from March to October, 1843) the remains of the town and palace of Doursaryonkin,
founded by Sargon II, king of Assyria. The objects found during these discoveries were
transportsd to France in 1846, and form the main contents of the Musde Assyrien of the
Louvre.
Braiidis, J., Uber den historischen Gewinn aus der Entzifferung der Assyr. Inschriften.
Berlin, 1856. — Brown, F. T., Assyriology. New York, 1885. — Bruce, P., Three Inscrip-
tions of Nabopolassar, King of Babylonia, B.C. 625-604 ; In Amer. Jour, of Sem. Lang.,
vol. 16, p. 178. Chicago, 1900. — Briinnow, R. E., Classified List of All Simple and Com-
pound Cuneiform Ideographs. Leyden, 1887-1889. — Brtuton, C. A., Les inscriptions assyri-
IMIIICS et 1'Ancien Testament. Park, 1875. — Budge, E. A. W., Babylonian Life and
History. London, 1884; The History of Esar-Haddon. London, 1880; Annals of Shal-
manasser II, Sennacherib and Assurbani-Pal. London, 1880; A Guide to the Babylonian
and Assyrian Antiq. of the British Museum. London, 1900.
Cara, P. C. de, Gli Hethei-Pelasgi. Rome, 1895. — Cartwrlght, J., Travels through
Syria, Mesopotamia, etc. London, 1611. — Caasas. L. F., Voyage Pittoresque en Syne.
Paris, 1799. — Cavaniol. II., Les monuments en Chaldee, en Assyrie et k Babylone. Paris,
1870, — Clercq, L. de, Antiquites assyriennes. Paris, 1888. — Cloquet, L., L'art monu-
mental des egyptiens et des assyriens. Paris, 1896.
Delattre, A. J., Esquisse de geographic assyrienne. Paris, 1883; Les inscriptions his-
toriques de Ninive, etc. Paris, 1879; L'Asie occid. dans les inscriptions assyriennes.
Brussels, 1885; L'assyriologie depuis onze ans. Paris, 1891; L'exactitude en histoire
d'apres un Assyriologiste. Louvain, 1888. — Delitzsch, Friedrich, Die Entstehung deg
630 A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIA!* HISTORY
altestens Schriftsystems. Leipsic, 1897; Handel, Recht und Sitte im alten Babylonien (in
Velhagen and Klasing's Monatshefte, Jahr. 13, Vol. II, p. 47. Berlin, 1899); Assyrische
Studien. Leipsic, 1874.
Friedrich Delitzsch, the son of Franz Delitzsch, was born at Erlangen, September 3, 1850.
Professor of Assyriology in the University of Berlin, he devoted himself to the study of
Assyriology, and attained a wide reputation as an Assyriologist. He was appointed Pro-
fessor of Assyriology at the University of Leipsic. His writings have been mostly upon
the subject of Assyria and ancient Assyrian life, and he has made some translations from
the works of other historians, notably George Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis. He
made a deep sensation in Germany in 1902 by his lecture on " Babel and the Bible," in
which he pointed out the similarity of the story of Moses in the bulrushes to the ancient
legend of the birth of Sargon I, king of Babylon ; noted the Babylonian custom of resting
every seventh day, the word being shabattu (whence Sabbath), and many other points in
which the Babylonian influence is shown in the Bible.
Dieulafoy, J., La Perse et la Chaldee. Paris, 1887. — Diodorus, S., The Historical
Library, London, 1700. — Duncker, M., Geschichte des Alterthums. Leipsic, 1878, 6 vols.
English translation : The History of Antiquity. London, 1880, 6 vols.
Edwards, C., The Witness of Assyria. London, 1893. — Epping, C., Astronomisches
aus Babylon. Freiburg, 1889. — Evans, G., An Essay on Assyriology. London, 1883.—
Evetts, B. T. A., Cylinders of Sennacherib. London, 1889 ; Inscription of the Reign of
Evil-Merodach, Neriglissar and Laborosoarchod. Leipsic, 1892.
Peer, H. L., Les Ruines de Ninive. Paris, 1864. — Ferguson, J., The Palaces of Niniveh
and Persepolis Restored. London, 1857. — Pontane, M., Histoire Universelle. Paris, 1881-
1889, 6 vols.
Marius Fontane was born at Marseilles, September 4, 1838. He was destined to follow
a commercial career, and was sent by a French house in Marseilles to represent it in the
Orient. While there he was brought into relations with M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, and
became his private secretary. Through the efforts of M. de Lesseps, Fontane was succes-
sively associated as secretary-general to the Suez and Panama Canal Companies. M. Fontane
was early drawn into literary work, and in spite of his official duties found time to devote
much attention to political economy, religion, learning, and history in all its branches. In
his Universal History he devotes much space to questions of race and primitive religions in
the historical evolution of humanity. Marius Fontane has come into prominence largely
through his writings on the subject of history, but also through his explorations in the
countries lying about the Isthmus of Suez.
Pradenburg, J. N., Fire from Strange Altars. Cincinnati, 1891. — Fraser, J. B., Meso-
potamia and Assyria, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. New York, 1892.
Oatschet, A. S., Historic Documents from the XI Vth Century B.C. (In Amer. Anthropol-
ogist, vol. 10, p. 121. Washington, 1897.) — Ginzel, F. K., Die astronomischen Kentnisse der
Babylonier und ihre culturhistorische Bedeutung. Leipsic, 1901. — Goss, W. II., Hebrew
Captives of the Kings of Assyria. London, 1890. — Guyard, S., Melanges d'Assyriologie.
Paris, 1883. — Goodspeed, George S., A History of Babylonia and Assyria. New York, 1903.
Hal^vy, J., Documents religieux de 1'Assyrie. Paris, 1882 ; La nouvelle Evolution de
Paccadisme. Paris, 1878 ; Aper9u grammatical sur 1'allographie assyro-babylonienne. Paris,
1885; Essai sur les inscriptions du Safa. Paris, 1882; Recherches critiques sur 1'origine de
la civilisation babylonienne. Paris, 1876.
Joseph Halevy, of Jewish origin, was born at Adrianople, December 15, 1827. He came
to study at Paris, and became a naturalised Frenchman. In 1868 he visited northern
Abyssinia to study the Jewish religion of the Falashas. (The Falashas are a Hamitic
tribe which professes the Jewish religion, and claims descent from Hebrew immigrants who
followed the queen of Sheba.) In 1869 he was sent to Yemen on a mission of the Acade'mie
des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. He remained there two years, and brought back six
hundred and eighty-three Sabaic inscriptions. In 1872 he received a gold medal from the
Socidtd de Ge~ographie and the Volney prize from the Institut. He afterwards became
Professor of Ethiopian at the fecole pratique des hautes etudes. He was one of the most
active collaborators in the Journal Asialique, and wrote frequently on the most disputed
questions concerning the philology and the archaeology of the East to the Academic des
Inscriptions. His theories as to the origins of the Mesopotamian peoples and languages
made a profound impression on all the scholarly world, and while they have met with
bitter opposition they are entitled to all the consideration that is due to such deep and
tireless research.
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 631
Harkness, M. E., Assyrian Life and History. London, 1883. — Harper. R. F., Assyrian
and Babylonian Letters. London, 1802-1902, 8 vols Havet, E., Meiinoire sur la date des
Merits. 1'aris. — Heeren, A. II. L., Historical Researches, etc. Oxford, 1839, 2nd ed., 5 voU.
— Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the Philosophy of History. London, 1857. — Helm, O. (in
collab. with Hilprecht, 11. V.), Chemiache Lntersuchung von altbabylonischeu Kupfer-
und Hrnn/.r-llegeiistanden und deren Alters-Bestimmune (in Berl. Gesellsch. f. Anthrop.
Verh.). Berlin, 1901. — Herder, J. G. von, Outlines of the Philosophy of History of Man.
London, 1803, 2 vols.
Johann Gottfried von Herder was born at Mohrungen, East Prussia, August 25, 1744.
His education was mostly private. His first writings appeared when he was about twenty
years of age. His first considerable work, Fragmente liber die neure deutsche Literatur,
appeared in 1767. This work attracted the favourable attention of Leasing, and made him
widely known. In 1776 he obtained the post of upper court preacher and upper member of
the Consistory at Weimar. At this post he passed the rest of his life. " He possessed
a power of intuition which must be considered in many cases as prophetic, and which made
him a pathfinder whose traces are followed up to the present day." His Study of the
Philosophy of History will naturally be compared with the work on the same subject by his
contemporary Hegel. It created almost a furor of excitement in its day, and may still be
read with interest and profit by every earnest student of history. Its essential attitude of
mind appears peculiarly archaic in our day, evidencing the utterly changed point of view
from which history is regarded in our generation. Herder, like most other philosophical
historians of his time, saw everywhere the hand of God in history, and was firmly imbued
with the idea that all human events were but the working out of a divine plan, the broad
outlines of which had been fully revealed to man. The modern historian tries to be a scien-
tist rather than a philosopher, and he finds scant proof of this basis on which Herder worked,
but views or attempts to view the course of world-history as a candid or impartial investi-
gator of facts and of rational human motives, feeling by no means sure that he grasps the
full import of any metaphysical theological bearings of these facts and motives, if such there
be. Yet for this very reason the writings of Herder have a peculiar value, as they not alone
evidence the mental grasp of the age in which they were written, but serve at the same
time to point out a significant difference between that time and our own.
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus. London, 1808, 2nd ed., 4 vols. — Heuzey , L.,
Un palais chaldeen. Paris, 1888. La construction du roi Our-Nina d'apres les lev^s et les
notes de M. de Sarzec (in Rev. d'Assyr. et d'Arch^ol., voL 4, p. 87. Paris, 1898). — Hilprecht,
H. V., The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania (Old Babylonian
Inscriptions), Am. Phil. Soc. Philadelphia, 1896; Recent Researches in the Bible Lands.
Philadelphia, 1896 ; The Recent Excavations of the University at Nippur (in Univ. of Penn-
sylvania Bui., vol. 2, p. 87, and vol. 3, p. 373, Philadelphia, 1899).
Hermann Hilprecht was born at Hohenerxleben, Germany, June 28, 1859. He is at pres-
ent professor in the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Hilprecht was interested from the
outset in the expedition of the University of Pennsylvania to Babylonia, to which we have
more than once referred. At a later stage he was curator and scientific director of the
expedition, in which Mr. Haynes had charge of the field-work, 1893-95 and 1897-1900, after
1 )r. 1 Vters' retirement. Though he spent but a month in actual field-work, he spent several
years in working up at Constantinople or Philadelphia the ample supply of materials which
the various expeditions procured, and his results, as published from time to time, have been
noted everywhere as distinct and important additions to our technical knowledge of Assyri-
ology. The greatest popular interest in these discoveries perhaps grows out of the light that
they throw on the extreme antiquity of Babylonian history. Dr. Peters and Professor
Hilprecht both assure us that the secure records gained by the excavations of Nippur carry
the history of Babylonia back to a period at least a thousand years earlier than the date
ascribed by Archbishop Usher's long-famed chronology for the creation of the world, and
Professor Hilprecht's latest investigations justify the belief that the earliest records from
Nippur are not newer than the year 7000 B.C.
Hincka, E., On the Assyrio-Babylonian Measures of Time. Dublin, 1874. — Hird,
W. G., Monumental Records. London, 1889. — Hoefer, J. C. F., Memoires sur les mines de
Ninive. Paris, 1850. — Hommel, F., Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens. Berlin, 1885 ;
Semitische Volker und Sprachen. Leipsic, 1881 ; Abriss derbabylonisch-assyrischen und israel.
Gesch. Leipsic, 1880 ; Der babylonische Ursprung der aegypt. Kultur. Miinchen, 1892.
Fritz Hommel was born at Ansbach, July 31, 1854. Professor of Semitic Languages in the
University of Munich. Professor Hommel is a distinguished member of that band of Ger-
man students who have made orientalism their life-work. His particular studies have had to
do chiefly with the Semitic race. His history of Babylonia and Assyria is one of the most
recent and certainly among the most comprehensive and authoritative works on the subject
that have yet been written. As Professor Hommel is yet a comparatively young man, he very
632 A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY
naturally belongs to the advanced school of Assyriologists, and his work may be looked to
with confidence for an expression of the furthest present advance of research. In particular,
Professor Hommel is distinguished as an ardent champion of the Babylonian or Chaldean
origin of the Phoenician alphabet in opposition to the theory of de Rouge, which ascribed
to ft an Egyptian origin. Most of Hommel's publications are to be had only in the original
Howorth, II. II., The Early History of Babylonia (in Engl. Hist. Rev., vol. 13, pp. 1,
209 vol. 14, p. 625, vol. 16, p. 1); On the Earliest Inscriptions from Chaldea (in Proc. Soc.
Bibl. Archeol., vol. 21, p. 289, London, 1899).
Jastrow, M., The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. Boston, 1898 ; Nabopolassar and
the Temple to the Sun-god at Sippar (in Amer. Jour, of Sem. Lang. ; Chicago, 1899, vol. 15,
p. 65). — Jensen, P., Kish (in Ztschr. fur Assyriologie ; Berlin, 1901, vol. 15): Assyrisch-
babylon, Mythen und Epen (in Keilschrftl. Bibl. ; Berlin, 1900, vol. 6) : Die Cosmologie der
Babylonier. Strassburg, 1890. — Johnson, C., The Fall of the Assyrian Empire (in studies
in honour of B. L. Gildersleeve ; Baltimore, 1902, p. 113) : The Fall of Nineveh (in Amer.
Orient. Soc. Jour.; New Haven, 1901, vol. 22, pt. 1, p. 20). — Justinius, Justin's History
of the World. London, 1875. — Jeremias, A., Holle und Paradies bei den Babylomern.
Leipsic, 1900.
Kaulen, F., Assyrien und Babylonien, nach den neuesten Entdeckungen. Freiburg,
1891, 4th ed. — Kennedy, J., Early Commerce of Babylonia with India, etc. London, 1898.
— King, L. W., Babylonian Religion and Mythology, London, 1899; Letters and Inscrip-
tions of Hammurabi, etc. London, 1898-1900, 3 vols.
Leonard William King was born in London, December 8, 1869, and educated at Rugby
and King's College, Cambridge. As assistant in the department of Egyptian and Assyrian
Antiquity of the British Museum, he has made very extensive studies in the literature of
Babylonia and Assyria. He has collected and arranged many series of cuneiform inscrip-
tions, besides adding much to the literature on both Babylonia and Assyria. His writings
are for the most part rather technical.
Kinns, S., Graven in the Rock. London, 1891. — Knudtzon, J. A., Assyr. Gebete an
den Sonnengott. Leipsic, 1893, 2 vols. — Kohler, J., and Peisser, F. E., Aus dem babylo-
nischen Rechtleben. Leipsic, 1890. — Koldewey, R., in Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie.
Dec., 1887. — Krall, 3., Grundriss der altorientalischen Geschichte. Wien, 1899.—
Kriiger, J., Geschichte der Assyrier und Iranier, vom XIII, bis zum V. Jahrh. v. C.
Frankfurt, 1856.
Langlois, V., Le Dunuk-Dasch, tombeau de Sardanapale a Tarsovo (in Rev. Archeol. ;
Paris, 1853, vol. 10). — Laurent, A., La Magie et la Divination de 1'Orient. Paris, 1894. —
Layard, A. H., Nineveh and its Remains. London, 1849, 2 vols. ; Nineveh and Babylon.
London, 1853 ; Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia. London, 1887 ; Monu-
ments of Nineveh. London, 1849-1854.
Sir Austin Henry Layard was born in Paris, of English parentage, March 5, 1817. He
spent the years of his early youth in Florence. On returning to England he began the study
of law. In 1839 he took an extended tour, chiefly within the Turkish Empire. Here he
learned Persian and Arabic. In 1842 he spent some months in exploring the antiquities of
south-western Persia. It was during this expedition that he became interested in the excava-
tions being made at the supposed site of Nineveh by M. Botta. In 1845 he returned to
Mosul and began his series of researches. The material that he gathered in this expedition
greatly enriched the oriental department of the British Museum ; and by means of the
cuneiform inscriptions found the ancient oriental history was completely reconstructed. In
1852 he made a second series of excavations in Assyria, adding largely to his former dis-
coveries. The same year he was elected to Parliament. In 1854 he visited Crimea, witness-
ing some battles there. He was chosen lord rector of Aberdeen University in 1855, and in
1866 became a trustee of the British Museum. Shortly after this he was elected foreign
member of the Institute of France. In 1869, Ambassador to Spain; in 1878, to Constanti-
nople. He died July 5, 1894. The name of this famous Englishman will always be indelibly
associated with the origin of the science of Assyriology. To Layard it was chiefly due that
the once famous but long almost forgotten city of Nineveh was exhumed and its buried
treasures given to the world. The story of these exhumations is a part of the history of
Assyria-Babylonia, and has already been told.
Lehmann, C., Altbabylon, Maass und Gewicht. Berlin, 1889; Beitrage zur alten
Geschichte. Leipsic, 1901 ; Shamasshumukin, Kbnig von Babylonia, 668-669 v. C. Leipsic,
1892 ; Zwei Hauptprobleme der altorientalischen Chronologie und ihre Losung. Leipsic,
J898. — Lenormant, F., Les dieux de Babylone et de I'Assyrie, Paris, 1877; Lettres.
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 633
nssyriologique8,2nd series; fitudes accadiennes. Paris, 1879-1880; Chaldean Ma^ic : Origin
.mil Development. London, 1877; Premieres civilisations. Paris; in collah. with Cheva-
lier, I-:., A Manual of the Ancient History of the East London, 1869-1870, 2 voLs. ; in
collah. with Babelon, K., Histoire ancienne de 1'Orient Paris, 1881-1886.
Franfois Lenormant was born in Paris 17th January, 1837 ; died there 10th December, 1883.
His education was private. Early in life he showed a special aptitude and liking for the
study of the oriental languages. He travelled extensively in Egypt, Turkey, and Greece,
and became prominent for his researches in the Accadian languages. In 1874 he was
appointed Professor of Archaeology at the Bibliotheque, Paris. The son of an archaeologist
of distinguished merit, Lenormant grew up in an atmosphere of scholarship, and early
evinced a keen taste for all that pertained to archaeology. He entered the field of Assyri-
ology in its infancy, and soon became known as a leader among the masters in that field,
and his early death was regarded everywhere as one of the severest blows which oriental
archaeology could have received. Lenormant was regarded by his fellow-workers as having
a peculiar genius for his task, and his taste for literary work was no less keen than his
scholarship. The fact that his great work on Oriental History was at once translated into
English vouches for its popular interest. Unfortunately he did not live to complete his still
more important work on the same subject, to which the last years of his life were devoted.
Lincke, A. A., Bericht iiber die Fortschritte der Assyriologie, 1886-1893. Leipsic, 1894.—
Lindl, 10. , Die Datenliste der ersten Dynast ie von Babylon; in Beitrage zur Assyriologie.
Leipsic, 1901. — Loftus, W. K., Chaldea and Susiana. London, 1857. — Lot*, W., Die
Imschriften Tiglathpileser I. Leipsic, 1880. — Lyon, G., Keilschrifttexte Sargon's, Konigs
von Assyrien, 722-705 v. C. Leipsic, 1883.
Maccalester, S. H., Babylon and Nineveh. Boston, 1892. — Macphail, 8. K., Monu-
mental witness to Old Testament History. London, 1879. — Martin, G., La campaigne de
Sennakerib en Palestine, etc. Montauban, 1892. — Martin, F., Textes religieux assyriens
et babyloniens. Paris, 1900. — Maapero, G. C. C., Histoire ancienne despeuples de 1'Orient.
Paris, 1886; The Struggle of the Nations. London, 1896 ; The Dawn of Civilisation. Lon-
don, 1897 ; Life in Ancient Assyria. London, 1892. — Meissner, B., Beitrage rum altbaby-
lonischen Privatrecht. Leipsic, 1893. — Menant, .!., Baby lone et la Chaldee. Paris, 1875 ;
De'couvertes assyriennes. La Bibliotheque du palais de Ninive. Paris, 1880; Empreintes
de cachets assyrio-chalde'ens releves au Musee britannique sur des contrats d'inte'ret prive".
Paris, 1883 ; Les pierres grave'es de la Haute- Asie. Recherches sur la glyptique orientale.
Paris, 1883, 1886 ; Les noms propres assyriens ; recherches sur la formation des expressions
ide'ographiques. Paris, 1861; Hammourabi (King of Babylon) Inscriptions. Paris, 1873;
Les tongues perdues de la Perse et de 1'Assyne. Paris, 1890 ; Annales des rois d'Assyri*.
Paris, 1874 ; Ninive et Babylone. Paris, 1888 ; Les fausses antiquity's de 1'Assyrie. Paris, 1888.
Joachim Menant was born at Cherbourg, France, 16th April, 1820. The life of this famous
orientalist furnishes yet another illustration of the practical man of affairs who finds also
time for the most abstruse scholarship. Throughout a long life until 1890, when at the ripe
age of three score years and ten, he was retired with the title of Honorary Councillor.
Menant lived the practical everyday life of a magistrate, and practised this profession with
such assiduity and judgment as to attain the highest distinction. Yet, at the same time, he
found leisure hours enough to make himself everywhere recognised as one of the most
accomplished of Assyriologists. A comparatively young man, when the discoveries of
Botta and Layard and their successors first brought the Assyrian treasures to the attention
of the world, Menant seemed from the very first to have been seized with a desire to inves-
tigate the strange inscriptions from Nineveh. He was among the first who undertook the
investigation of the strange cuneiform writing and from then till now he has kept well in
the van of the constantly growing company of Assyriologists. The list of his works is
little more than a succession of papers on one or another of the subjects most intimately
connected with this field. Most of them are of a technical character, and, therefore, have
necessarily appeared only to a limited audience. In one or two instances, however, and
notably in the case of the little book on the library of Asshurbanapal, he has descended to the
popular level, and has shown himself capable of handling the most abstruse topics in a way
to make them delightfully interesting to the least scholarly of readers. Strange to say, this
beautiful little book has never been hitherto translated into English, and a like neglect has
attended nearly all the other publications of the author. It is difficult to find an explanation
of this neglect unless it be the author's well-known attitude towards the status of the ancient
Hebrew records. On more than one occasion he has expressed the opinion that to single
out the Jews among the peoples of antiquity as the one important race of their time is
wofully to distort the prospective of history. Needless to say such an opinion as this
throws one counter to the prejudices of a large proportion of people, including the mass of
Assyriologists among the rest.
634 A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIA^ HISTORY
Menard, L., Histoire des anciens peuples de 1'Orient. Paris, 1883. — Meyer, E.,
Geschiohte des Alterthums. Stuttgart, 1884, etc., 5 vols., in progress. — Monaco, A.,
Orientalia. Rome, 1891. — Muecke, Ch., Von Euphrat zum Tiber. Untersuehungen zur
alien Geschichte. Leipsic, 1899. — Mueller-Simonis, P., Relations des missions scienti-
fiques. Washington, 1892. — Murdter, F., Gesch. Babyloniens und Assyriens. Stutt-
gart, 1891.
Niebuhr. B. G., Lectures on Ancient History. London, 1852, 2 vols. — Niebuhr, M.,
Geschichte Assure und Babels. Berlin, 1854. — Niebuhr, C., Die erste Dyuastie von
Babel (in Vorderasiat. Ges. Mitt., vol. 3, p. 43). Berlin, 1897; Studien zur Geschichte des
alten Orientes. Leipsic, 1894; Die Chronologic der Geschichte Israels, Aegyptens, Babylo-
niens und Assyriens von 2000-700 v. Chr. Leipsic, 1895. — Nikel, J., Herodot und die
Keilschriftforschung. Paderborn, 1896.
Oppert, J., Babylone et Chaldee. Paris, 1874 ; L'immortalite de I'ame chez les Chaldeens.
Paris, 1875 ; The Real Chronology of the Babylonian Dynasties. London, 1888 (in collab.
with J. Menant) ; Documents juridiquesdel'Assyrieet de la Chaldee. Paris, 1877; Histoire
des empires de Chaldee et d'Assyrie. Versailles, 1865 (in collab. with J. Menant) ; Pastes
de Sargon. Paris, 1863 ; Expedition scientifique en Mesopotamie. Paris, 1859-1863, 2 vols. ;
Fragments mythologiques. Paris, 1882 ; Fragments de cosmogonie chaldeenne. Paris, 1879 ;
La fixation de la Chronologie des derniers rois de Babylone. Paris, 1893 ; La condition des
esclaves a Babylone. Paris, 1888; Les inscriptions assyriennes des Sargonides et les fastes
de Ninive. Paris, 1863.
Jules Oppert was born at Hamburg, 9th July, 1825. Professor Oppert is a German by birth
but a Parisian by adoption. His whole oriental studies have been not alone made in Paris,
but many of them under the direct auspices of the French Government, so that Frenchmen
are perhaps justified in claiming him almost as a fellow-countryman. Professor Oppert has
that comprehensive scholarship which is characteristic rather of the German than the
Frenchman. He is a philologist and linguist of the broadest type. Unfortunately for the
general public the German cast of his mind shows itself still further in his apparent con-
tempt for the literary graces. He is a scholar who works for scholars, and it is but seldom
that he has written anything which comes well within the grasp of the general public. His
is, therefore, a name which one meets everywhere in pursuing the literature of Assyriology,
but the results of whose investigations must usually come to the general reader, as it were,
through an interpreter.
Feiser, F. E., Keilinschriftliche Aktenstiicke. Berlin, 1890; Studien zur Oriental.
Alterthumskunde. Berlin, 1897. (In Vorderasiat, Ges. Mitt. 1897, 4 vols.) ; Babylon,
Vertrage. Berlin, 1890 ; A Sketch of Babylonian Society (in Smithsonian Institute. An-
nual Report, 1898. Washington, 1899). — Perrot, G., A History of Art in Assyria. London,
1884. — Peters, J. P., Nippur, or Explorations and Adventures, etc. New York and Lon-
don, 1897, 2 vols. ; Some Recent Results of the University of Pennsylvania, Excavations
at Nippur (in Amer. Jour, of Archeol., vol. 10, pp. 13, 352, 439, Princeton, 1895) ; The
Seat of the Earliest Civilisation in Babylon and the Date of its Beginnings (in Amer.
Orient. Soc. Jour., New Haven, 1896).
Dr. John Punnett Peters was formerly professor of Hebrew in the University of Pennsyl-
vania; at present rector of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York City.
For more than a generation after the discoveries of Botta and Layard and their suc-
cessors in Mesopotamia had been furthered by companies of English and French and
German explorers, America had taken no part in the work, but in 1880, the University
of Pennsylvania determined to make amends for this neglect by sending out a fully
equipped exploring party. The leader of this movement, and the man who personally
conducted the explorations of the first two years in the field, was Professor J. P. Peters.
Through his energetic efforts the numberless difficulties that such an enterprise involves
were overcome, and some most important discoveries were made. The chief of these was
the location of the Babylonian city of Nippur, the site of that ancient temple of Bel, which
was, as Dr. Peters points out, to many generations of old Babylonians and Assyrians what
the temple of Jerusalem has been to the peoples of Christendom. His discoveries at Nippur
have added greatly to the work that has been carried on at Babylon and Nineveh, and
" helped to carry our knowledge of civilised man two thousand years farther back than was
known less than half a century ago." At Nippur he discovered what is probably the oldest
known temple in the world. Both his expeditions met with very bitter and determined
opposition from government officials and wandering inhabitants in the vicinity of Nippur,
and it is mainly due to his fearless determination that successful excavations were finally
made.
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Pinches, T. G., Religious Ideas of the Babylonians. London, 180:{; Xotes. London,
'in Royal Asiatic Soc. Jour.; 1900, p. 75, 1900); 'I \v
•Seals of the British Museum (in Jour. Brit. Archeol.
1892; Sumerian or Cryptography (in Royal Asiatic Soc. Jour.; 1900, p. 75, 1900); The
Babylonian and Assyrian Cylinder-S
Paris, 1807-1890.— Pognon, II., Inscription de Meron-Nerar, roi d'Assyrie. Paris, 1884.
Les inscriptions babyloniennes du Wadi Brissa. '.
Kssai sur 1'histoire universelle. Paris, 1890, 2 vols.
Les inscriptions babyloniennes du Wadi Brissa. Paris, 1887. — PreVost-Paradol, L. A.,
:ii sur 1'histoire universelle. Paris, 1890, 2 Tola
Radau, II., Early Babylonian History. New York, 1900. — Ragozln, Z. A., The Story
of Chaldea (Stories of the Nations). London, 1888; Media, Babylon and Persia. London,
1889; Assyria. London, 1888. — Ranwolf, L., Journey into Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia.
— Rassam, II., Excavations and Discoveries in Assyria. London; Asshur and tne Land
of Ni m rod. Cincinnati, 1897; Babylonian Cities. London, 1883.
Hormuzd Rassam was born of Chaldean Christian parents at Mosul, Turkey, in 1826.
In 1845 he became acquainted with Austin H. Layard, who was then exploring Assyrian
ruins, and becoming much interested in the work of Layard, he accompanied him to
England in 1847, continuing his studies in that country. In 1864 he was sent by the British
Government on a mission to Abyssinia to secure the release of several Europeans who were
held prisoners by King Theodore, but he was himself imprisoned for two years by that
king. Shortly after securing his release he visited the Babylonian-Assyrian region for
the British Museum, and while on this expedition and others following, he made many
important discoveries. Notable among these discoveries are the bronze gates of Balawat,
from the time of Shalmaneser II (858-824 B.C.), and the Abu-Habba tablet, recording the
restoration of the temple by Nabu-apal-iddin, a contemporary of Shalmaneser II. The name
of Rassam is associated with that of Layard, and with the early history of Assvriology.
Rassam was primarily an explorer; he assisted Layard in his earlier work at Nineveh,
and himself carried on the investigations for the British Government after Layard had
been called to other fields. Rassam has never become an Assyriologist in the technical
acceptance of the term, contenting himself generally with securing the material on which
tlif investigations of numerous scholars have been based. The greatest single feat which he
accomplished was the discovery of the now famous library of Asshurbanapal. He has himself
told the story of his discoveries in books that are not so widely known as they deserve to be.
Rawlinaon, G., The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World. 2nd ed. London,
1871; A Manual of Ancient History. Oxford, 1869; Herodotus. London, 1858-75,4 vols. ;
Papers in Jour. Royal Asiatic Soc.; vols. X, XI, XII. London, 1885; The Cuneiform
Inscriptions of Western Asia. London, 1861-1891.
George Rawlinson (brother of Sir Henry Rawlinson) was born at Chadington, Oxford-
shire, England, in 1815. He was educated at Swansea and at Ealing School. He graduated
from Trinity College, Oxford, with classical honours, in 1838. He was elected Fellow of
Exeter College in 1840. In 1859, as Bampton Lecturer, he delivered his famous lecture on
Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scriptural Recordt. He was chosen Camden Pro-
fesso*- of Ancient History in 1861, and in 1872 was made Canon of Canterbury. His
historical writings cover nearly the entire history of the Ancient Orient Some one has
said of Canon Rawlinson that his scholarship is of a peculiarly German type, and the
criticism would seem to be essentially just. Few other Englishmen of our generation have
covered so wide a field of history, and covered it so thoroughly as has Professor Raw-
linson. The whole field of south-western Asia in antiquity he has made peculiarly his own,
and in a series of widely circulated books he has imparted his knowledge to the world,
some of them, as that on the Parthian Monarchy, dealing with nations that other his-
torians had very much neglected. All of this work, as has been said, is based upon
scholarly investigations that might justly be said to be profound. If in his estimate of
certain portions of this history, in particular as regards the newer ideas of the chronology
of the remoter periods, Professor Rawlinson has hardly kept pace with the leaders of the
newest generation, this is certainly not more than one should expect in one whose memories
carry him back to the very beginnings of the " time " controversy. The Canon died in 1902.
Rawlinson, II. C., Outline of the History of Assyria. London, 1852. — Records of
the Past (Birch, S.). London, 1873, 12 vols. — Revue d'Assyriologie. Paris, 1886, etc. —
Rich, C. L, Babylonia and Persepolis : Memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon. London, 1818. —
Robertson, H. S., Voices of the Past from Assyria and Babylonia. London, 1900. — Rogers,
R. W., History of Babylonia and Assyria. London, 1901, 2 vols.
Sachau. E., Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien. Leipsic, 1885 ; Am Euphrat und Tigris.
Leipsic, 1900. — Sarzec, G. C. E., de, Decouvertes en Chalde"e. Paris, 1884-1893, 2 vols.
636 A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIA]* HISTORY
Gustave Charles Ernest Chocquin de Sarzec was born llth August, 1836. After the dis-
coveries of Botta and Layard had shown the scientific world what neglected treasure-houses
were to be found in Mesopotamia, it was natural that explorers should seek out the other
fields of ancient activity, in particular those to the south in Old Babylonia, and yet older
Chaldea. Among those who went into the latter field most successfully was M. de Sarzec.
His explorations at Tello, one of the oldest seats of Mesopotamian civilisation revealed a vast
quantity of most interesting antiquities of a type in many ways different from those of the
comparatively recent Assyrian period. In particular the statues in the round, which seem
to have been a common form of artistic expression with the ancient Chaldeans, have interest
because of their difference from the bas-reliefs that were the favourite sculptures of the
artists of Nineveh. In the interpretation of the large store of material which De Sarzec
secured he had had the assistance of M. Layon Heuzey and M. Amiaud.
Sayce, A. H., Lectures on the Religions of Ancient Assyria and Babylonia. London,
1888; Ancient Empires of the East. London, 1884; Assyria: its Princes, Priests, and
People. London, 1882 ; Babylonians and Assyrians : Life and Customs. New York, 1899 ;
Social Life among the Assyrians. London, 1893; Primer of Assyriology. London, 1894;
The Races of the Old Testament. London, 1891 ; Fresh Light from the Ancient Monu-
ments. London, 1884.
Archibald Henry Sayce, born at Shirehampton, near Bristol, 25th September, 1846. Deputy
Professorof comparative Philology at Oxford from 1876 to 1890; at present Professor of Assyri-
ology at Oxford. The well-known Oxford Professor has been one of the most versatile and
active of orientalists. He seems equally at home whether the field be Egypt, Mesopotamia,
or Assyria, and he is a writer of such indefatigable industry that scholarly works on one sub-
ject or another are constantly coming from his pen. Professor Sayce is by no means a closet
student only but is a traveller of wide experience, and latterly it has become his custom to
spend his winters and springs house-boating in Egypt. He has a rare merit of combining the
utmost scholarship with a capacity for clear presentation of his subject, and his works are
therefore almost as well known to the general reader as they are to the specialist. In each
generation there are but a few men who combining these traits act as interpreters between
the land of scholarship and the abiding place of ordinary mortals and among these in our
generation Professor Sayce takes a foremost rank.
Saulcy. L. F. J. C., de, Recherches sur la chronologic des empires de Ninive, de
Babylone et d'Ekbatane. Paris, 1854. — Schafer, B., Die Entdeckungen in Assyrien und
Aegypten in ihrer Beziehung zur heiligen Schrift. Wien, 1896. — Schmidt, V., Assyriens
of Aegyptens gamle Historic. Copenhagen, 1872-1877. — Sohrader, E., Cuneiform Inscrip-
tions and the Old Testament. London, 1873, 2 vols. ; Die Hollenfahrt der Istar ein
altbabylon. Epos; Giessen, 1874; Eine Sammlung von ttbersetzungen der wichtigsten
Texte fKeilinschriftliche Bibliothek). Berlin, 1889-1901, vols. 1-6; Keilinschriften und
Geschichtsforschung. Giessen, 1878.
Eberhard Schrader was born at Brunswick, Germany, 5th January, 1836. He studied at the
gymnasium in Brunswick and in the University at Gottingen. Shortly after finishing his
studies in Gottingen he was appointed Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at
Zurich, and later he filled corresponding chairs at Giessen and Jena. In 1875 he was given
a professorship and made a member of the Royal Academy at Berlin. He also edited
Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek. Only a few of his works have been translated into English,
most notable among these being The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament.
Smith, G., Assyrian Discoveries. London, 1875; Assyria, from the Earliest Times.
London, 1875; The Chaldean Genesis. London, 1881; The History of Babylon. London,
1877; History of Sennacherib (from inscriptions). London, 1878; History of Asshurba-
nipal (from inscriptions). London, 1871 ; Assyria from the Earliest Times to the Fall of
Nineveh. New York, 1876.
George Smith was born in London, England, 26th March, 1840. He is said to have first
become interested in Assyriology from having to engrave some cuneiform plates for publi-
cation. He at once took up the study, and a little later was appointed to a position in
the Assyrian department of the British Museum. He very soon became one of the great
promoters of Assyriology. With Sir Henry Rawlinson he edited vols. III-IV of, The
Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia. In 1872 he discovered among the clay books of
the British Museum fragments of a story of the Deluge, similar to the biblical version. Soon
after this he visited Nineveh to make further search for clay books in Asshurbanapal's
palace, and his expedition was very successful. The Deluge story proved to be part of
a great poem written on twelve tablets. He made two other expeditions for the Museum,
but on the last one was stricken with fever and died at Aleppo, 19th August, 1876. George
Smith was known among orientalists as a man who had a peculiar instinct for the transla-
tion of obscure texts. He devoted his entire life to oriental studies, and came to be
recognised as one of the foremost of orientalists.
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES i;.!7
Spiegel, F., Die altpersischen Keilinschriften 2nd ed. Leipsic, 1881. — Btrabo, The
Geography of Strabo. Londoii, 1854,3 vols Btrassmaier, ,(. N., Hahylonischf 'I
"•, 1889; Inschrifteu von Nabuchodonosor, Konig von Babylon (Uii'.i .Vil). Leipsic,
1881). — Btreck, M., Die alte Landschaft Babylouien nach den arabischen Geographeu.
Leyden, 1000, 2 vols.
T.Ubot. W. H. For (in Records of the Past). London, 1856, 18 vols. ; Inscription of
Tiglath Pileser I, King of Assyria, B.C. 1150 (in Jour. Uoyal Asiatic Soc.). London, 1857.
William Henry Fox Talbot was born llth February, 1800, at Laycock Abbey, near Chippen-
ham, England. He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining the
Porson prize there in 1820. Contributed papers to the Royal Society in 1822, and in the same
year began a series of optical researches and experiments which afterward played an hn|*Tt-
ant part in photography. In connection with nis scientific studies he devoted much of hi*
time to the study of archeology, and in later life gave his entire time to it. He shares the
honour with Sir Henry Kawlinson and Dr. Hincks of being one of the first to decipher
the cuneiform inscriptions of Nineveh. He died at Laycock Abbey (> 17th September, 1877.
Talbot was a master in the field of Assyriology. He was, indeed, one of the first to gain
distinction in this line, and in a peculiar sense one of the founders of the science.
Taylor, W. C., Students' Manual of Ancient History. London, 1882. — Tlele, C. P.,
History of Assyria. London, 1886; Eastern Asia according to the most recent Discoveries.
London, 1894 ; Comparative History of Egyptian and Mesopotamian Religion ; Babyl.-assyr.
Geschichte. Gotha, 1886-1888, 2 vols. (in Records of the Past). London, 1873, 18 vols.
Cornells Petrus Title was born at Leyaen, Holland, 16th December, 1830. He was educated
in the university of that city, giving especial attention to the study of philosophy and history.
In 1877 he was appointed to the chair of History and Religion in the University of Leyden.
His numerous publications on history and philosophy have been widely translated. Pro-
fessor Tiele enjoys the distinction somewhat rare among his countrymen of a quite cosmo-
politan reputation. As an authority on ancient religions he has no superior, and his
writings are almost as well known in Germany, France, England, and America as in his
native Holland.
Valbuena, R. F., Egipto y Asiria resucitados la parte. Madrid, 1895. — Van den
Berg, E., Petite histoire ancienne des peuples de 1'Orient. Paris, 1883. — Vanx, W. G. W.,
Nineveh and Persepolis. London, 1880. — Vigoroux, F., La Bible et les decouvertes en
Assyrie. Paris, 1887.
Wachsmuth. C., Einleitung in das Studium d. alten Geschichte. Leipsic, 1895.—
Wahrmund, A., Babylonierthum und Christenthum. Leipsic, 1882. — 'Ward, W. H.,
Notes on Original Antiquities. Baltimore, 1887; Report on the Wolfe Expedition to
Babylonia. Boston, 1886 ; The Babylonian Caduceno (in Amer. Orient Soc. Jour., vol. 14).
New Haven, 1890 ; The Story of the Serpent and the Tree (in Amer. Antiq. and Orient.
Jour., vol. 20, p. 211). Chicago, 1898. — Weber, G., Allgemeine Weltgeschichte. Leip-
sic, 1857-1880, 15 vols. — Weiss, J. B. von, Geschichte des Orients. 1886. — Weiambach,
F. H., Zur Losung der sumerischen Frage. Leipsic, 1897; Uber einige neuere Arbeiten rur
babyl. pers. Chronologic (in Deutsche Morgenland. Ges. Zeitch., vol. 55, p. 195. Leipsic,
1901). — Wernicke,C., Geschichte des Alterthums. 1890. — Wilberforce, R. F., The Five
Empires. London, 1899. — Winckler, H., Sammlung von Keilschrifttexten. Leipsic,
1893-1894; Untersuchungen zur altorientalischen Gescnichte. Leipsic, 1889; Geschichte
Babyloniens und Assyriens. Leipsic, 1892; Altorientalische Forschungen, Leipsic, 1893-
1897 ; Volker und Staaten des alten Orients. Leipsic, 1900. — Woltmann, A. K., History
of Painting. London, 1880, 2 vols. — Wood, R., The Ruins of Palmyra.
Zimmern, H., The Babylonian and the Hebrew Genesis. London, 1901.
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