The sources for the History of the Babylonians and Assyrians may be grouped under four main heads : I. The monumental remains of the Assyrians and Babylonians themselves; II. The Egyptian hieroglyphic texts; III. The Old Testament; IV. The Greek and Latin writers.

Of these four by far the most important in every particular are the monumental remains of the Babylonians and Assyrians.

I. The Monuments of Babylonia and Assyria. From the mounds that cover the ancient cities of Babylonia and Assyria there has come a vast store of tablets, which now number certainly not less than one hundred and simy thousand in the various museums of the world. These tablets contain the literature of the two peoples, a literature as varied in form and content as it is vast in extent. In the end all of this literature may be considered as sources for history. Every business tablet is dated, and from these dates much may be learned for chronology, while even in the tablets themselves there is matter relating to the daily life of the people, all of which must ultimately be valuable in the reconstruction of the social history. So also are all religious texts, all omens and incantations, sources for the study of the history of religious development. But as we are here concerned chiefly with political history, the primary sources are the so-called royal inscriptions. These royal inscriptions begin very early in Babylonian history, and then chiefly as mere records of names and titles. These early kings caused their names and titles to be written in some way upon all their constructions. Even little statuettes and vases bear the royal mark, while the bricks used in the erection of large buildings were stamped with the king's name and the names of the lands over which he ruled. Simple and uninteresting though these often are, they give the political relations of lands and, in con- nection with other materials, enable us to trace out the line of political development. This style of name and title writing continues down to the fall of the Babylonian empire. Alongside of it, however, there was early developed a narrative form of royal inscription, giving an account of the campaigns and conquests of the royal arms. These narrative inscriptions are of three kinds : 1. Annals; 2. Campaign inscriptions; 3. General votive inscriptions.

In the annalistic inscriptions the deeds of the king are arranged in chronological order by years of reign. Of all the ancient sources these are by far the most important, for from them we learn the exact order of events, often a matter of first-rate importance. Besides these texts the kings have left many inscriptions in which the events are arranged in campaigns. While this second class is just as important as the first for the mere statement of events, it is, nevertheless, much less valuable to us. Prom the arrangement of campaigns it is sometimes difficult to ascertain the exact order of events in time, and hence the sequence of conquests or of defeats. The general or votive inscriptions begin usually with a most elaborate ascription of titles, and with all manner of boasting phrases concerning the king's prowess. They then set forth the king's conquests, arranged in groups, and usually after a geographical plan. The order often widely departs from a chronological one, and as some kings have left us only texts of this kind, it is impossible to understand the sequence of events during certain reigns.

The royal inscriptions which describe battle, siege, and conquest are almost exclusively As- syrian. The inscriptions of Babylonian kings which have come down to us are almost without exception peaceful in tone and matter. They record little else than the erection of temples and palaces or the restoration of those which had fallen into partial or complete decay. For the order of events in their campaigns against other peoples as well as for the events themselves we must rely almost entirely upon non-native sources.

In addition to these historical sources the Babylonians and Assyrians have left a great mass of chronological material to which we must give attention later.

In respect of their value as sources of knowledge these monumental remains can only be said to be as valuable as the records of other ancient peoples. They bear for the most part the stamp of reasonableness. Often, indeed, do they contain palpable exaggerations of kingly prowess, of victories, and of conquests. They therefore require sifting and rigid criticism. But in most cases it is possible to learn from the issue of the events the relative importance of them, and so be able to check the measure of extravagance in the narrative. When subjected to the same tests and tried by the same canons of criticism the Assyrian and Babylonian monuments yield as just and true a picture of their national history as the sources of Greek and Roman history to which the world has been so long accustomed. The second source is of far less importance than the first, yet is at times exceedingly valuable.

II. Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts are of very slight importance as direct sources of knowledge concerning the political history of Babylonia and Assyria, but they contain many place and personal names useful in the elucidation of corresponding names in Assyrian texts.

The third source, while more important than the second, is still not so valuable as the primary monumental source.

III. The Old Testament. The gain of the Old Testament has been greater from Assyrian studies than the reverse, though the apologetic value of monumental testimony has often been greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that it was interest in the Old Testament which inspired most of the early explorers and excavators and some of the earlier decipherers and interpreters, and that from the historical notices in the Old Testament came not a few points for the outworking of details in the newly discovered inscriptions. The historical portions of the Old Testament which are still of importance as sources for Assyrian and Babylonian history are especially 2 Kings, while of even greater importance, in many instances, are the prophets Isaiah, Nahum, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

IV. The Greek and Latin Writers. As sources the Greek and Latin writers once held first place, but are now reduced to a very insignificant position by the native monumental records. Nevertheless, they still retain some importance, and need constantly to be used to check and control the native writers as well as to assist in the ordering of their more detailed materials.

First in importance among all the classical writers stands Berossos, or Berosos, for so the name is also transliterated into Greek. He was a Babylonian by origin, and a priest of the great god Bel. The date of his birth and of his death are equally unknown, but it is clear that he was living in the days of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), and continued to live at least as late as Antiochus I Soter (280-261 BC). He wrote a great work on Babylonian history, the title of which was probaby Babyloniaca, though it is also referred to under the title of Chaldaica by Jo- sephus and Clemens. It was dedicated to his patron, Antiochus I Soter. The Babyloniaca was divided into three parts, of which the first dealt with human history from the chaos to the flood, the second from the flood to Nabonassar, and the third from Nabonassar to Alexander. The first two consisted only of lists of kings without any proper historical narrative, while with the third began the real story of events.

Both lists and narrative of Berossos could not fail to be of considerable moment to us, if we had them in even fairly well preserved form. Unhappily, however, the original work has perished, and all that remains are excerpts which have come to us after much copying and many transfers from hand to hand. The history of these fragments is a very curious example of book making in antiquity. In the Mithradatic war a certain Alexander of Miletus was taken prisoner and carried to Rome as the slave of Lentulus, from whom he received the name of Cornelius. In 82 BC he received the Roman citizenship and lived in Rome with some distinc- tion as a man of letters. There he wrote an enormous number of books relating to ancient history, and on that account received the name of Polyhistor. The period of his greatest distinc- tion and productivity was between 70 and 60 BC. His historical works were simply excerpts from the writings of his predecessors, and in this manner he compiled a history of Assyria, the exact title of which is not now known. This history was made up of extracts from Berossos, Apollodoros, Chronica, and the third book of the Sibyllines,and was worked over into pseudo-Ionic Greek by Abydenos. It came also into the hands of Josephus and of Eusebius. Josephus was seeking especially those parts of the history which illustrated the history of the Jews, and naturally took from Alexander only those parts which were suitable for his purpose. In like manner, also, Eusebius copied only portions. By this process we have preserved in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, and in Eusebius, Chronica, small parts of the great work of Berossos, while the dynasties have come down to us from George the Synkellos. Wherever we can secure enough of Berossos to compare with the native monumental sources we find most remarkable agreement vnth them. From Berossos but little is to be learned of direct value, but the support which we gain from these fragmentary remains for the general course of the history is very great. As will later appear, chronological material of much complexity and difficulty is obtained from certain parts of these fragments.

The next Greek writer who comes before us as a possible source is Ktesias. He was a contemporary of Xenophon, and was born of the family of the Asclepiadae at Cnidus. He wandered thence in BC 416 to the court of Persia and became body physician to King Artaxerxes Mnemon, whom he cured of a severe wound received in the battle of Cunaxa, BC 401. In 399 he returned to his native city, and in the ease thus achieved proceeded to work up into historical form the materials he had collected. He wrote in twenty-three books a history of Persia in the Ionic dialect. The first six books treated the history of Assyria, and the rest the history of Persia down to his own time, in which he claims to have used the royal annals of the Persian kings. His work was extensively used in the ancient world, and wherever quoted became at once the object of sharp controversy. He was accused of being untrustworthy and indifferent to truth, and the charges and the controversy continue until today. The severity of the judgments against him probably arise partly out of the acrimonious manner in which he attacked Herodotus, and partly out of the fact that he used Persian sources for his history. In the years of his Persian residence he had so completely absorbed the Persian point of view as to seem hardly just to the Greek conception of their history in its relations to the Persians. If we subject to modem criticism the fragments of his history that remain, our judgment must be that the first six books, relating to the early history of Assyria, are valueless. Whether this was due to the fact that he was unable himself to read the sources which he used, and was therefore obliged to rely upon the word of others to tell him the story found in them, or that he must be accused of actually inventing and setting forth as history an entertaining mass of empty fables, will probably never be decisively determined. The books themselves have perished. Only fragments of them survive in the quotations by Diodorus and Eusebius and others, and in an epitome by Photius. For our purposes they scarcely come into the question at all.

Last of all among the classical writers we come to Herodotus, the father of history. Of the value of his works as a source very diverse opinions have been and are still held. From him surely much was expected. Born in Halicarnassus, in Caria, BC 484, he had associations with the greatest men of his time, and apparently planned his history with skill and care. He desired to tell of the famous events in the struggle between the Greek and the barbarian, and of the causes which led to the Persian war. He traveled extensively in the East, and there is some reason to believe that these journeys were undertaken with a view to the gathering of materials for his history. Egypt he visited, but there is doubt whether he traversed the whole country from the Mediterranean to Elephantine. There is still more doubt concerning his travels beyond the confines of Egypt. He certainly attempts to leave the impression, even when he does not specifically so state, that he also visited Tyre, on the Syrian coast, that he penetrated to Babylon and thence to Nineveh, to Ecbatana, and perhaps even to Susa. Professor Sayce has attempted to prove, with much learning and great acuteness, that "he never visited Assyria and Babylonia", and asserts that "he stands convicted of never having visited the district he undertakes to describe", and concludes with the statement that "the long controversy which, has raged over the credibility of Herodotus has thus been brought to an end by the discoveries of recent years". That Professor Sayce has proved upon Herodotus a host of inaccuracies, some travelers' tales, and has effectually disposed of his claims to rank as an independent source of ancient history there can be no doubt. Yet that in this case, as in other similar modern judgments, there is an excess of skepticism is perhaps no less true. There is good reason for believing that Herodotus had really visited Babylon, for the topographical details which he gives bear frequently the stamp of an eyewitness. The main fact, however, remains that from Herodotus but little of historical value may be learned, save as every single fact is checked by the explicit statements of native monumental historians.

After these there remain among classical writers few who deserve to be mentioned as sources. The chronological materials left by some of them, as, for example, the earlier parts of Berossos and the exceedingly valuable Canon of Ptolemy, will have to be estimated later. From a few other less-known writers, such as Kleitarchos, Arrian, Hieronymos of Kardia, and an unknown writer concerning Alexander the Great (Onesikritos), certain topographical details are learned. Our judgment of all the classical writers must be that their value is entirely subordinate to the native sources, and not so valuable as the notices in the Old Testament or the brief words from the Egyptian hieroglyphic texts.

 

The Babylonian and Assyrian peoples had their seat in a great valley with but one distinct and sharp natural boundary. This clear boundary was the Persian Gulf upon the south, which said to all landsmen, "Thus far shalt thou come and no farther". That boundary these peoples respected and never ventured out on the troubled and mysterious waters. On the east the boundary between them and their next neighbors was fluctuating and uncertain. The natural boundary would seem to be the mountains of Elam, but these mountains slope gradually westward to the plain, and do not rise precipitously from it. Down these slopes poured hordes of men in all ages, and there was no sharp line of defense to keep them from the valley, while on the other hand the people of the valley were often filled with conquering power sufficient to extend their border far up the slopes into Elam. On the north, also, the boundary was almost equally uncertain. The mountains of Armenia might be regarded as the natural border on the north, but these are intimately connected with the great valley, for they belong to the drainage system of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and, like the mountains of Elam, slope naore gently toward than from the valley. On the north, therefore, as on the east, the lands of Assyria and of Babylonia were open to incursion from the outside, of to raids from within outward. The western border was still more indefinite. In the northwest the valley land swept away in a gentle rise from the Euphrates to the plateau of Aram, and over it even to the Mediterranean. While upon the southwest the desert formed the only barrier between the valley and Arabia or the lands of the Jordan valley. Nomadic peoples passed over this barrier with ease, and became powerful factors in the history of the Babylonians. On the other hand, however, the Babylo- nians did not readily pass the broad line of the desert.

Within this roughly bounded country two great empires existed for centuries, and the dividing line between them moved up and down the valley as the power of either became stronger than that of the other. Nature had set no boundary between them, for the whole valley lay open from north to south. Yet, though this is true, there have existed from remote times separate provinces in the valley, with more or less definite boundaries between them. If we begin in the south, these separate provinces may thus be described : Close to the Persian Gulf was a small country, the country of the Sea Lands, the influence of which was marked in the early history of the whole valley. The country of the Sea Lands was entirely alluvial, and small in extent. Through, it in early times the Tigris and the Euphrates passed by separate estuaries into the Persian Gulf. Later, though at what time is unknown, the two rivers united and began to flow through one channel into the sea. This alluvial territory is now growing by the river deposits at the rate of about a mile in seventy years, and there is good reason for believing that its average growth in historic time has been not less than a mile in thirty years. If the ratio of increase has been as high as this, the country of the Sea Lands was a very small land during the period 4000-600 BC. Above it geographically lay the land of the Kaldi, likewise alluvial, and extending northward nearly to the city of Babylon. It has also no line of clear separation from the Sea Lands, nor from Babylonia to the north. As kings from the Kaldi country later ruled in Babylon and had control over the whole vast empire, of which it was the capital, the name of Chaldea was extended by Greek and Roman historians so as to include the whole of Babylonia.

Next above the land of the Kaldi was Babylonia itself, which extended northward along the valley, with two exceptions, to the Armenian mountains. These exceptions were the original lands of Assyria and Mesopotamia.

Assyria, in its original geographical and historical sense, was the small triangular-shaped land lying between the Tigris and the Zab Rivers and the Median mountains. When the Assyrians gained in power and numbers they soon extended their dominion beyond these very narrow boundaries, and with their dominion went likewise the geographical name, so that even in early times the name Assyria had been carried westward to the Euphrates and southward as far as Hit, while to the Greeks and Romans it covered the entire valley. The other separate land or province was the small country included between the Euphrates and the Khabur Rivers and the mountains of Armenia. This was the land known as Nahrina, the Aram-Naharaim of the Hebrews, and the Mesopotamia of the Greeks and Romans. Unhappily this name of Mesopotamia was extended to cover the territory between the Tigris and Euphrates southward even to the Persian Gulf. This completely destroys the historical nomenclature, and introduces a confusion that does not appear in any of the records of either the Assyrians or Babylonians.

For this country between the Tigris and Euphrates, including Assyria, Mesopotamia, Baby- lonia, Chaldea, and the Sea Lands, the ancient inhabitants had no general geographical name. The geographical terminology varied with the rise and fall of political power. There were, however, certain clear exceptions to this general rule. For example, the name Assyria was never extended so as to cover Babylonia proper, though it is extended so far westward. On the other hand, the name Babylonia is carried so far north as almost to include Assyria, though the small original land of Assyria appears always to be kept sharply distinguished. The general term of the Assyro-Babylonian valley may properly be used to cover all the country.

Though the word Mesopotamia was never applied by either Assyrians or Babylonians to their country, yet it is in a real sense the product of two rivers, in a sense almost as complete as that Egypt is the product of the Nile.

The Tigris and the Euphrates have their sources upon opposite sides of the same mountain range. This is the highest ridge between the Black Sea and the great valley, and the only one which has peaks bearing perpetual snow — hence known to the ancient Greeks as the Niphates. From its western side the Euphrates flows westward to Malatiyeh, as though to lose itself in the Mediterranean. But at Malatiyeh the course is suddenly changed to the southeast, passing within a few miles of the source of the Tigris at Lake Goljik, thence forcing its way through the mountains in a tortuous course. Thence its course is generally southeast until opposite Baghdad, where it approaches to within twenty miles of tlie Tigris, and the rivers appear about to form a junction. Both, however, again separate, and only make their final union at last after a very sharp convergence. The estimated length of the Euphrates is seventeen hundred and eighty miles. It is navigable for a distance of twelve hundred miles above its mouth. During its wbole course it is an imposing river — among the greatest rivers of the world. Like most mountain streams, its early course is swift and its bed rocky. Its first great tributary is the Kara Su — that is, the Black Water — at Keban-Maaden, a few miles west of Kharpoot. Its next affluent is the Sajur, received from the right, or west. This is followed by the Balikh, which, in a course of only one hundred and twenty miles, brings the water from Mount Masius. The next is the Khabur, also received from the left, which brings another considerable body of water also from the lower slopes of Mount Masius. From this point, for eight hundred miles until the junction with the Tigris, the Euphrates receives no tributaries whatever. It has been well said that the "upper region of the Euphrates resembles that of the Rhine, while its middle course may be compared with that of the Danube, and its lower with the Nile".

The Tigris is formed by the junction of two small head streams, the eastern rising near Bitlis, not far from the western bank of Lake Van, while the western comes from the neighborhood of Kharpoot. Unlike the Euphrates, the Tigris receives many important tributaries, which flow down from the Zagros and Elmatine mountains. The first important one of these is the Eastern Khabur, after which in rapid succession follow the Upper Zab, the Lower Zab, the Adhem, and the Diyaleh. This constant accession of fresh water gives the Tigris a character entirely different from the Euphrates. The Euphrates continually decreases in size and flows ever in a more sluggish stream. When it receives the Khabur it is four hundred yards wide and eighteen feet deep; at Irzah or Werdi, seventy-five miles lower down, it is three hundred and fifty yards wide and of the same depth; at Hadiseh, one hundred and forty miles below Werdi, it is three hundred yards wide, and still of the same depth; at Hadiseh, one hundred and forty miles below Werdi, it is three hundred yards wide, and still of the same depth; at Hit, fifty miles below Hadiseh, its width has increased to three hundred and fifty yards, but its depth has been diminished to sixteen feet; at Felujiah, seventy-five miles from Hit, the depth is twenty feet, but the width had diminished to two hundred and fifty yards. From this point the contraction is very rapid and striking. The Saklowijeh Canal is given out upon the left, and some way further down the Hindiyeh branches off upon the right, each carrying, when the Euphrates is full, a large body of water. The consequence is that at Hillah, ninety miles below Felujiah, the stream is no more than two hundred yards wide and fifteen feet deep; at Diwaniyeh, sixty-five miles further down, it is only one hundred and sixty yards wide; and at Lamlun, twenty miles below Diwaniyeh, it is reduced to one hundred and twenty yards wide, with a depth of no more than twelve feet. Soon after, however, it begins to recover itself. The water, which left it by the Hindiyeh, returns to it upon the one side, while the Schatt-el-Hai and numerous other branch streams flow in upon the other; but still the Euphrates never recovers itself entirely, nor even approaches in its later course to the standard of its earlier greatness. The channel from Kurnah to El Khitr was found by Colonel Chesney to have "an average width of only two hundred yards, and a depth of about eighteen or nineteen feet, which implies a body of water far inferior to that carried between the junction of the Khabur and Hit."

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 contraiy, saying, "The river does not, as in Egypt, overflow 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. The rise in the Tigris is due to the melting of the snows on the mountains, and as it drains the southern slopes, and the Euphrates the northern slopes, the Tigris rises more rapidly. The Tigris usually begins to rise early in March. By the first or second week in May the highest point is reached, and the river then declines rapidly and reaches its level at about the middle of June. As the course of the Tigris during the entire upper part of its course is between banks of considerable height, the river rarely overflows. On its lower course, however, and especially between the thirty-second and thirty-first parallels, it covers a wide extent of country. The inundation of the Euphrates is much more regular and extensive. The melting of snow on the northern slopes is slower, and the river begins to swell very slowly about the beginning of March, and gradually increases until the highest point is reached about the end of May, when the waters stand about thirteen feet above low water. At this point the river remains, for about a month, sinks slightly toward the middle of July, and then more rapidly till September.

The Euphrates begins to overflow its banks much higher up than the Tigris, and even at its junction with the Khabur is described as "spreading over the surrounding country like a sea". From Hit downward the river spreads over both banks, but with a strong tendency to flow farther and more deeply over the western bank. The slow and regular rise of the river made it exceedingly valuable for irrigation, and the Babylonian people fully availed themselves of this great opportunity. Along its banks were constructed brick walls provided with break-waters to divert and control the swift current at the rise. Sluice gates controlled the rise so that the eastern bank received an inundation equal to the west, while canals almost innumerable di- verted the retreating waters, and prevented the flow from damaging the cultivable area. 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 system 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 in-gathering of grain as existed when this great valley was the world's granary, and it fills the land vdth 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.

In the lower alluvial country the Tigris and Euphrates have made numerous changes in their river beds. These changes have often begun in the spring and summer floods and then continued. The branch streams which are thus formed perpetually vary, being sometimes so large as to be navigable and again left absolutely dry. Yet, on the whole, with the exception of the great change produced by the union of the Tigris and Euphrates at their mouths, the general course of the rivers remains about the same throughout the historic period.

Of the changes in branch streams by far the most important are on the side of Arabia. There branches off near Hit a wide, deep channel, which skirts the Arabian rocks and passes into the Persian Gulf by an entirely distinct channel. This conveys a considerable body of Euphrates water, and keeps back the encroachment of the desert, thus extending considerably the arable part of Chaldea and the Sea Lands. There is some doubt as to its age, and as to whether or not it was in the beginning partly or wholly artificial.

Besides the two rivers neither Assyria nor Babylonia has any supplies of water beyond one single fresh-water lake, on the Arabian side of the Euphrates fifty miles south of the ruins of Babylon, and twenty-five or thirty miles from the river. It does not appear to have been well known or counted of importance by the ancient inhabitants, for no mention of it has yet been found in any Assyrian or Babylonian texts; it was known to the Romans as Assyrium Stagnum, and is now called Bahr-i-Nedjif. It lies in a basin forty miles long and from ten to twenty miles broad, inclosed ou three sides by limestone hills varying from twenty to two hundred feet in height. On the remaining side there is a ridge of rock which separates it from the Euphrates basin. At the season of the inundation the Euphrates pours water into this lake and then it appears to be a part of the inundation. The water is then sweet and good. When the river returns to its original level the lake remains with but very slight change in volume, but the water becomes so disagreeable as to be unpotable. It has been supposed that this may be due to its connection with rocks of the gypsiferous series.

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. In the far south, along the Persian Gulf, and in the near-by regions, the atmosphere is moist and the heat is of the same character as that of Hindustan or Ceylon. Records do not exist to show the range of the thermometer, but the passing traveler states the simple fact that the temperature is higher than at Baghdad. In Baghdad the average maximum daily temperature indoors during June and July is set down as 107° Fahrenheit, and it often goes up to 120" or 122°. At present this high temperature is also reached in the north as far up at least as Mosul. It is now also rendered much more oppressive by hot winds, which arise suddenly and filled with impalpable sand drive about in eddying circles or sweep in vast clouds over a wide extent of country. This dust becomes at times so thick as to completely shut oflf near objects from the vision, as though by a fog. The gleaming particles of sand shine beneath the sweltering sun, the sand enters nostrils or mouth and seems to choke the very lungs. Death itself sometimes alone terminates the suffering experienced in these terrible visitations. It is, however, altogether probable that in the period of the ancient history neither the heat nor the sand was such a menace. Then the whole land in the south was one vast network of canals. The presence of the body of water thus everywhere spread abroad greatly modified the temperature, so that the sudden change which now exists from the heat of the day to the cool of the night could not have been so great. Besides this these canals made the land a cultivated garden, free almost entirely from the incursion of yellow sand. These sands properly belong to the Arabian desert, from which they yearly come in increasing quantities into the plain and valley. During the period of the glory of Babylon these sand waves had certainly not gone beyond the Euphrates, and they could hardly have reached it. At present from May to November the sky is usually without a single cloud. In November the clouds gather, and in December and January there are heavy rains. These flow rapidly off into the rivers, for there is no canal system to retain the water for use in agri- culture. There is no cold weather in all the land in the sense understood in the temperate zone. There is in midwinter an occasional sign of frost, sufficient to whiten the dew upon the grass in early morning, and in rare cases ice has been known to form in the marshes. So mild, indeed, are the winters that Persian kings made Babylon their winter residence to avoid the bitter cold of their own highlands. In recent times native Indians, expelled for state reasons from their own country, fix their residence in Bassorah or Baghdad to enjoy the mild winter climate.

The whole alluvial plain of Babylonia was proverbially fertile in the ancient world. Herodotus began the chorus of praise in the west, and it has continued with greater or less emphasis down the ages. He begins his praise in the oft-quoted words : "Of all countries that we know, there is none that is so fruitful in grain. It makes no pretension, indeed, of growing the fig, the olive, the vine, or any other tree of the kind; but in grain it is so fruitful as to yield commonly two hundredfold, and when the production is at the greatest, even three hundredfold. The blade of the wheat plant and of the barley plant is often four fingers in breadth. As for the millet and the sesame, I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge; for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia must seem incredible to those who have not visited the country". The same note exactly is struck by Theophrastus in his statement : "In Babylon the wheat fields are regularly mown twice, and then fed off with beasts to keep down the luxuriance of the leaf; otherwise the plant does not run to ear. When this is done the return in lands that are badly cultivated is fiftyfold; while in those that are well farmed it is a hundredfold". Strabo follows in the same strain, saying : "The country produces barley on a scale not known elsewhere, for the return is said to be three hundredfold. All other wants are supplied by the palm, which furnishes not only bread, but wine, vinegar, honey, and meal"; and Pliny says that the wheat crop, where the land is well farmed, a hundred and fiftyfold".

In estimating these tributes to the productiveness of the land it is perhaps well to remember that Herodotus had an affluent imagination and was inclined to exaggerate for effect. Theophrastus is more reliable when speaking of such matters, but probably leaned somewhat on the tradition of Herodotus. The other statements must be exaggerations. To the modern husbandman in this valley the yield of wheat and barley is from thirty to fortyfold. When all allowance is made for the poor methods now followed, and for changed conditions, it is still unlikely that the ancient average yield greatly exceeded sixtyfold.

Modern travelers hardly equal the ancient in their estimate of the fertility of the soil, especially when compared with that of Egypt. Rich, who was a most careful observer and accurate reporter, says, "The soil is extremely fertile, producing great quantities of rice, oats, and grain of different kinds, though it is not cultivated to above half the degree of which it is susceptible". Chesney, who knew the land from much experience during survey work, is even more strong in the statement : "Although greatly changed by the neglect of man, those portions of Mesopotamia which are still cultivated, as the country about Hillah, show that the region has all the fertility ascribed to it by Herodotus". Loftus adds to this the comparative statement that "the soil is not less bountiful than that on the banks of the Egyptian Nile". This statement is, however, of very slight value indeed, for when it was written Loftus had never been in Egypt. Probably the soundest modern estimate is that of Olivier, who knew both Egypt and Babylonia, and adjudged the former to be somewhat more fertile than the latter.

It is commonly believed that wheat and barley are indigenous to the plains of the Euphrates, and that thence, after a period of cultivation, they spread westward over Syria and Egypt and on to Europe. If this be true, the land might well be expected to yield a good harvest of native cereals.

But the productivity of the land did not stop with the great cereals. The inhabitants had a wide range of vegetables for food, among which are pumpkins, kidney-beans, onions, vetches, egg plants, cucumbers, "gombo" lentils, chick-peas, and beans.

Above the vegetables and cereals of the land rose its trees, of which the variety was great, both of those that yielded fruit and of those that added merely to the beauty of the land; among these were the apple, fig, apricot, pistachio, vine, almond, walnut, cypress, tamarisk, plane tree, and acacia. But valuable and beautiful though they all were, none was equal in utility, in song, or in story with the palm. Prom the most ancient of days down to the present all the Orient has rung with the praises of the palm. In Babylon it found a suitable place for its development. It was cultivated with extreme care. Even in early times the process of reproduction had been discovered, and was facilitated by shaking the flowers of the male palm over those of the female. From the products of this tree the peasantry were able almost to sup- port life. The fruit was eaten both fresh and dry, forming in the latter case almost a sweetmeat. If decapitated, the tree gave a Juice which might be used as a wine, and was "sweet and headachy", in the opinion of Xenophon. The Greeks even assert that the Babylonians derived from the palm bread, wine, vinegar, honey, groats, string and ropes of all kinds, firing, and a mash for fattening cattle.

The fauna of the land was as rich and as varied as its flora. The rivers swarmed with fish. In their slow-flowing waters the barbel and carp grew to large size and were most highly esteemed. But the eel, murena, silurus, and gurnard were also used for food, and found in abundance. By the waters and amid the great reeds which almost seemed to wall in the rivers were birds in extraordinary variety, among them pelicans, cranes, storks, herons, gulls, ducks, swans, and geese.

On land were found the ostrich, the bustard, partridge, thrush, blackbird, ortolan, turtledove, and pigeon, together with birds of prey like eagles and hawks. A few snakes are found, of which only three varieties are known to be poisonous, but none of these are so dangerous as many found in adjoining lands. The larger animals were numerous, but of all the varieties that existed wild only the ox, ass, goat, and sheep were domesticated at an early period and made useful to man. To these were added the domestic hog, which seems, however, to have remained in a semi-wild state. In a later period the horse and camel were brought into use.

But if the domesticated animals were comparatively few, the wild animals were of extraordinary number. At the head of all of them, in the estimation of the Assyrians and Babylonians, stood the lion. He is not so fierce as his namesake of Africa. In size he is not much larger than a St. Bernard dog, and his Assyrian name originally meant big dog. The modern representative in the same regions is not deemed formidable by Europeans, for he never attacks men save when brought to bay in a position from which there is absolutely no chance of escape, when he will fight desperately. The natives, however, hold them in dread, and never make a fight against one which may be seen in the very act of slaying sheep. There are two varieties, one without a mane and the other with a mane of thick, tangled black hair. It is the latter which excites most fear in the native breast. The Assyrian and Babylonian kings hunted lions in the chase, and made great boast of the number that they had slain. The chase of the lion was, indeed, the royal sport, and fills a large share of the numerous monumental illustrations of hunting.

In very early times the elephant wandered at will over the middle Euphrates country, but it disappeared certainly before the thirteenth century, and was henceforward only an object of curiosity, when received by kings as presents in distant wars. Like the elephant, other beasts of chase or prey early disappeared, or ceased to be objects of interest because of their rarity. Among these were the urus, leopard, lynx, wild-cat, hyena, porcupine, beaver, and the ibex. During at least a large part of the history the wild ass and onager roamed in small herds over much of the country and especially between the Balikh and the Tigris. The beauty and swiftness of the wild ass have long been celebrated in the Orient, and the Assyrians admired and represented them in their monuments. It appears that they attempted to tame them for the drawing of chariots, but met with poor success. Modern attempts to make them serviceable have been equally futile. The natives frequently capture foals and rear them on milk in the tent. They become docile and affectionate, but are delicate in captivity and useless for labor. Two varieties of deer appear in monumental representation, the one apparently representing the gray deer, which still exists in the country, and the other the fallow deer, which is now entirely unknown. The hare, also, is frequently exhibited as the object of chase.

While both Babylonia and Assyria were exceedingly rich in flora and fauna, they are both, and especially the former, exceedingly poor in mineral wealth. The alluvium is absolutely destitute of metals and of stone. This had an important reflex influence upon the civilization of the country. As stone was not procurable close at hand, the early builders who would have it for utility or decoration sought it at great distances. From Arabia came probably the earliest stone utilized in the country. This had to be transported long distances overland. The skill required for this in the overcoming of engineering difficulties pushed forward the development of the people in mechanical pursuits, and hence reacted upon civilization. But even as early as 3000 BC stone was brought from the Lebanon and the Amanus. This was rafted down the Euphrates, after a considerable land journey to its upper waters. And herein was cause for the study of problems in river transportation and in the construction of navigable rafts. Such problems as these would be insoluble by natives in the same district at present, but they were successfully carried out on a large scale in early times, as the great buildings and the inscriptions describing them abundantly witness. But, though the Babylonians did thus acquire stone, they could hardly have secured enough to house the entire population as well as for royal residences and the homes of the gods. The need for a permanent and less costly building material was solved in another way. There was beneath their feet an inexhaustible supply of the best qualities of clay. This was readily molded into bricks. Some of these were dried in the sun, and were then deemed sufficient for the filling in of the interiors of walls. Others were baked in kilns, and with these the walls were faced. In the excellence of materials used, and in the perfection of form, texture, and solidity, and in the great size of their bricks the Babylonians have probably never been excelled. The same material was used for the manufacture of books or tablets. These were made even more carefully, and were almost indestructible. For records the ancient world knew nothing their superior and perhaps nothing equal. The papyrus of ancient Egypt was so fragile and so easily destroyed by either fire or water that it bears no comparison with the brick which resisted both almost equally well. The clay tablet has preserved through the centuries a vast literature, much of it uninjured, while untold portions of the literature of the more cultured Egyptians have hopelessly perished.

In the erection of buildings the bricks were joined together in three different ways. They are found simply set together in the interior of walls, without any substance to form a close junc- tion. More commonly they were united by bitumen, which was found in several parts of the country, but especially at Hit. Here are inexhaustible springs which have supplied the whole surrounding country for untold centuries, and form the subject of repeated references in the literature not only of Babylonia, but of Egypt, Greece, and Rome as well. Slime and mud were also used, and with, these calcareous earths appear to have been mixed, the whole forming a solid and extremely tenacious mortar.

From the bitumen pits petroleum is now taken, and may have been known to the ancients. But here ends the very brief catalogue of the mineral products of Babylonia. The land could hardly be poorer in this respect.

In mineral wealth Assyria was incomparably superior to Babylonia. Stone of excellent quality, and in many varieties, such as limestone, conglomerate, and sandstone, is found on every hand, while other stones were easily accessible. A soft and beautiful alabaster, readily cut into slabs, abounds on the eastern banks of the Tigris. This beautiful material was extensively used for wains-coting in Assyrian palaces, and its outer surfaces were then richly carved in bas-reliefs. The progress thus made in the art of sculpture was note-worthy, and is to be numbered among the greatest triumphs won by this warlike people in the arts of peace. The mountains of Kurdistan, easily reached by the rivers or water courses above the great cities, supplied many beautiful forms of marble; while Mount Masius offered a fine quality of dark-colored basalt of great fineness and hardnep. These stones were indeed not used for the walls of buildings. The colonists of Assyria retained the custom of Babylonia, from which they had come, and built their houses, temples, and palaces of brick, and later ages continued to follow their example. Like Babylonia, Assyria had extensive bitumen pits, located at Kerkuk, in the territory between the Lesser Zab and the Adhem, while another source is found in the bed of the Shor-Derreh torrent, near Nimroud. Salt is also obtainable in the former district.

The lands which were thus rich in flora and fauna and sufficiently supplied with minerals for man's ordinary use maintained a great population, largely settled in cities, in which the real political life of the land began. The cities which play important parts in the later history may here be set down, with just enough of color and description to make them real in the story of their political life.

In the far south lay the city of Eridu, which played but a small part in all the history of Babylonia, unless indeed it had importance in a period still more ancient than that known to us. The site is now known as Abu-Shahrein, and has not yet been adequately studied. The remains of the city, so far as they liave been excavated, appear to contain a large temple, which was probably the home of the god Ea, who here received special veneration.

West of Eridu stood the great city Ur, which occupied from the earliest times down to the beginning of Babylon's hegemony a position of distinguished influence in the land, and even there-after continued to be the most important city in the south. The chief god of the city was Sin, the moon god, here worshiped under the name of Nan-nar. The moon god always exerted profound influence over the minds of tlie people, and Ur therefore was early adorned with a large temple for the worship of Sin, which was frequently restored down the centuries to the days of Nabonidus. The ruins of the city have been but slightly explored, and will almost certainly give a rich treasure, at some future day, to a complete examination of them. The mound is now called El-Mugheir — the place of bitumen — for the inhabitants have used it for centuries as a place to secure bitumen, which they dug from between the bricks of Babylonian buildings.

At the modern town of Senkereh, on the left bank of the Sbatt-en-Nil Canal stood the next chief city, Larsa. This was also one of the most ancient cities of the land. The sun god held the chief position in Larsa, and here the early kings Ur-Grur and Dungi built a temple in his honor. This temple found restorers in Hammurabi, Burnaburiash, Nebuchadrezzar, and Nabonidus, and so remained a venerated spot unto the very end of Babylonian history. The city early played an important political part, and retained its place at the head of a small state even down to the reign of Hammurabi. It was the last city to succumb to him and yield allegiance to the conquering might of Babylon.

Somewhat north of Larsa, probably at the mound of Tell-Id, was the city of Girsu, which is mentioned as early as the reign of Dungi, and was the chief city of at least one petty king (Urkagina) in the early period. Its influence was, however, small in comparison with those farther south or when compared with the city of Uruk (Erech, Orchoe), which is but a short distance from it. Uruk was a border city between northern and southern Babylonia, and long remained the center of a small independent kingdom. It was the place of worship of the goddess Nana of the Sumerians, with whom the Semitic inhabitants identified their goddess Ishtar. The temple dedicated to the goddess and called E-Anna (house of' heaven) was built by Ur-Gur and Dungi and often restored. It now forms the ruin of El-Buwarije, while the general mass of ruins is called Warka, which has unhappily not been dug up. The city had independence at an early period, and is coupled by Hebrew tradition with the earliest centers of the land, and Babylonian records go far to prove that this is correct. It was, however, much more than a mere center of power. It was a seat of learning and must have had a library at a very early period. Many books in the library of Asshurbanapal, and especially religious hymns, bear colophons which show that they were copied from originals at Uruk. Strabo adds to this fact the statement that at Orchoe there was a school of Chaldeans, that is in his use of the word "astrologists". This would indicate that culture was still resident in this city, though it had vanished from other more ancient centers. The political, literary, and religious history of the city all make it of so great interest and importance that it is especially a matter for regret that it has never been properly excavated.

On the banks of the canal Shatt-el-Hai, which unites the Tigris and Euphrates, is a mound Telloh, from which have come vast stores of inscribed tablets of every description. It marks, in all probability, the site of the ancient city of Lagash, which had a long history as a separate state, though with many fluctuations of power.

The next city in our progress northward was Isin, of which, unhappily, very little is known. It was linked in the title of the kings who made Nippur, its near-by neighbor, the chief city of the land, but its history was swallowed up in the greater history of the places about it, and its ruins have not been certainly identified.

Nippur, on the other hand, is now the best known city in all Babylonia. The greatest discoveries yet made beneath the soil of the entire land were made here by the University of Pennsylvania expedition. Nippur was the oldest center of the worship of the god Bel, and may be the oldest city of all Babylonia of which there is any known record. As Ur was the city of the moon god, and Sippara the city of the sun god, so was Nippur the home of Bel, and as these three were the greatest of the gods of Babylonia, so their cities outranked all others in early political history, until dethroned by force; after which they continued to be the chief places of veneration in all the empire. Nippur was rich in buildings devoted to religion and to royal residence, and its great ruin mound, Niffer or Nuffar, has yielded an extraordinary mass of ancient treasures.

But great as all these cities were in age, and rich though they continued to be in religious associations, they were all surpassed in influence by the city of Babylon. They were forgotten of men when the dust and sand settled upon them, but the glory and the shame of Babylon re- mained. Even the name of the city lived on in the ruin heap Babil. The chief ruins of Babylon lie near the modem village of Hillah, and cover such a great extent of country that until very recently no men have been found bold enough to attempt the exploration of the entire mound. The city laid no claim to great age, and was probably not very ancient when Hammurabi made it the chief city over all the land and displaced the more ancient seats of power. The religious glory of the city was also in a sense fictitious. Its chief god had been Marduk (the biblical Merodach), and to him fitting worship was paid for generations. But Marduk's own position in the pantheon was not great enough to bring to the city a religious primacy, and he was therefore identified with the great god Bel, and under that name was worshiped in Babylon. To him was erected a great temple in pyramidal form rising to seven stories, and known as E-sagila. Kings vied with each other to make this the largest and most beautiful shrine in the empire, and in it all rulers must needs "take the hands of Bel" before their authority was deemed valid. So came the city to possess political power, dominion over the hearts and consciences of men, and wealth unapproachable. To Babylon in the days of Nabonidus was joined another city, Borsippa, which may have been as old as the capital itself. In it stood the temple of E-zida, now Birs Nimroud, dedicated to Nabu (the biblical Nebo), on which kings lavished almost as much labor and wealth as upon E-sagila. The two cities were linked also in their religious festivals, for on the first day of Nissan (March April), the beginning of a new year, the god Nabu left his temple in solemn procession to visit his father, Marduk, in Babylon. Of so great importance was this festival that the king was required to share in it, no matter where he might be at the time, whether on business or pleasure bent, under the penalty of forfeiting for the coming year the title of king of Babylon. It is easy to see that this gave enormous power to the priesthood, for it was they alone who represented these great deities in the eyes of all the people.

Five hours (about fifteen miles) northeast of Babylon lay Kutha, now a mound and village called Tell-Ibrahim, once the leading city of northern Babylonia before the rise of the city of Babylon. The chief god of the city was Nergal, whose temple was called E-shid-lam, at which passing kings were wont to pay honors and offer sacrifices. From Kutha a profound influence passed into the world's history by the act of one, of the Assyrian kings. Sargon deported thence a number of inhabitants to Samaria on the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, who introduced the worship of Nergal and then engrafted upon it features derived from the religion of Jehovah. In close relation with Kutha stood the near-by city of Kish, somewhat as Borsippa stood to Babylon.

In the extreme northern part of Babylonia, and nearly opposite to the present Baghdad, lies the mound Akerkuf,' which marks the site of Dur-Kurigalzu (Kurigalzuburg), a city named after a Babylonian king, but the influence of which in history was slight. Much the same may be said of the city of Upi (Opis) during most of the period of Babylonian history, with this exception, that it appears to have had some influence during the Hammurabi period.

The cities of Assyria were not so ancient as those of Babylonia, and their general character was commercial rather than religious, military rather than peaceful and culture-loving. Their temples were indeed large and imposing, for the Assyrians had amassed great wealth in war, and they believed, no less than the Babylonians, that the gods had led them to victory. They also boasted great piles devoted to the residence of kings, in which, however, libraries were not so common as in Babylonia.

The first city of Assyria in age was Asshur, whose site is now marked by the mound of Kalah Shergat, on the right bank of the Tigris. It was originally a colony and dependency of Babylonia, but its kings spread their power over the adjoining country, which they named Asshur, after their city. It was the home of the great god Asshur, whose temple E-kharsag-kurkurra was erected by the earliest rulers of whom we know anything, and frequently restored by later monarchs. When Calah became the capital of the kingdom Asshur lost its dignity and decreased in size, but retained a certain reverence as the ancient site of the most revered national god, and as the mother city of the kingdom.

A little farther north, but on the eastern bank of the Tigris and at its junction with the Upper Zab, Shalmaneser I built the city of Calah, which he made the capital of Assyria. It remained the royal residence down to the age of Sargon. The mound Nimroud marks its site, and this has been fairly but not completely dug over. The city was not an ancient and venerated shrine of any deity, but worship was paid to Asshur in its temple.

A little farther up the eastern bank of the Tigris the ruin heaps and squalid villages of Kuyunjik and Neby Yunus mark the site of Nineveh, which Sennacherib made the capital of the empire. The city was, however, much older than this, and may almost certainly be accounted one of the most ancient cities in the kingdom. It was the center of the worship of Ishtar, who was called Ishtar of Nineveh to distinguish her from Ishtar of Arbela. Ishtar of Nineveh was worshiped in a great temple on which generation after generation lavished extraordinary plunder. It was the dream of Sennacherib to make Nineveh surpass Babylon in size and magnificence, and, though he did not reach that ideal, he did make it a fine city, second only to the ancient mother city by the Euphrates. To all the world Nineveh stood as the representative city of the hated Assyrian empire, and that made its name a by-word among the peoples.

North of Nineveh, at the foot of the moantains, Sargon planted a new city, to which he gave his own name, Dur-Sharrukin (that is, Sargon's burg), which he probably designed not only to make a royal residence, but also the capital of the country and a rival of Nineveh. The remains of the city at Khorsabad were the first Assyrian ruins excavated, and these have shown that he made the city magnificent with a palace and other buildings, but it never became even an equal of Nineveh. It apparently did not long outlive its founder, but sank away into insignificance.

Far more important than this creation of the fancy of an Assyrian king was the city of Arbailu. How old this city was is not known. There is not in all the inscriptions any evidence that the Assyrian kings paid any attention to it. It certainly received at their hands no great palaces and no temples. It had no political weight in the development of Assyrian power, though it must have had an Assyrian populace. It lived a quiet life apart from the great tides of war or commerce during the Assyrian period, and survived the ruin which overwhelmed the empire. It was still an important city in Persian days, and continued to exist when the city of Nineveh was unknown save as a name in the memory. A great mound marks its site, and its name is retained in the modern Erbil. The mound has not yet been excavated, and may very probably contain important memorials of the city's long career.

Outside the strict limits of Assyria lay the city of Nagibina. It lay upon the Kharmis, a tributary of the Khabur, at the foot of the mountains. It was the center of an Assyrian province, and continued to live under the name of Nisibis after the empire had ended. Hadrian ceded it to the Parthians, but it returned to Roman rule and was flourishing at the time of Septimius Severus (Septimia Colonia Nisibis). Under the Seleucids it still continued prosperous and bore the name of Antiochia Mygdoniae. Its modern representative, a miserable collection of huts, has returned to the ancient name and is called Nisibin.

Farther west, on the left bank of the Balikh, was Harran, or Road-Town, through which passed the great highways from south and east toward the west. Harran was the center for the worship of Sin, the moon god, in the north, as Ur was in the south, and perhaps no sacred city in the land ever held so tenaciously to its ancient belief. When Christianity overran Mesopotamia this city remained the last center of paganism, and under the Mohammedan sway the sect of Sabeans here continued the worship of the moon. The history of Harran runs so far back that its origin is lost in the mists tliat surround the very beginnings of civilization. During the continuance of Assyrian power it was a constant factor in the life of the empire, and when Nineveh had ceased to vex mankind it was still a powerful city. The Parthians made a stronghold of it, and there Crassus was defeated. It later formed part of the Christian kingdom of Abgar, and became a city of the Roman empire. The mounds which mark its site must certainly contain memorials of its long history, but they have not been excavated. The classical name was Carrhae (which evidently contains a reminiscence of the ancient name), and it has still some importance as a road town.

 

The civilization of Assyria and Babylonia and their great sweep of history were not made by one people. Men of several different stocks contributed to the result, and here, as often after- ward in the world's history, the history bears the stamp not of a unity but of a diversity of races. Even in modern times, with all the resources at our command, it is often difficult to distinguish the different strains of races and to trace their influence in the movements of history. We need, therefore, feel no surprise that there should be great difficulty in tracing out the racial affinities of the peoples who made history in Assyria and Babylonia.

At the earliest period to which direct monumental records go back we find a people in possession of Babylonia who are called by us Babylonians. Their written records are found to be in part a Semitic language, a language closely related in forms and vocabulary to the northern branch of the Semitic family, of which Hebrew and Aramaic are well-known examples. But when these earliest records are all gathered together it appears that large numbers of them are bilingual; that is to say, side by side with the Semitic Babylonian is found another language. This other language appears in these inscriptions in the form of two dialects, one called "the language of the land of Accad" and the other "the language of the land of Sumer". As the latter contains the older forms it is now called the Sumerian language, and the other is regarded as a dialect of it. In this Sumerian language, written though it be in part at least by Semitic Babylonians, lies the proof of the existence of a Sumerian people. They belong distinctly, as yet, to the prehistoric period in Babylonian life. Of their racial connections we know only the single negative fact that they were not Semites. Their language is agglutinative, and they have been connected on linguistic grounds both with Indo-Europeans and especially with Turanians. But the evidence is slight in itself and of doubtful weight even if it were more extensive, for language is, after all, proof not of race but of social contact.

But, though we are unable to say who these Sumerians were, we are in a position to aver some facts concerning their work in the world and their relations to the Semitic Babylonians. It was they who invented the cuneiform system of writing, a cumbrous and artificial system indeed, and yet a wonderful advance upon the still more cumbrous picture writing out of which it was developed. When the Semitic Babylonians conquered the Sumerians and possessed their lands they adopted at once this system of writing and took over with it the literature which it enshrined. This literature was especially devoted to the setting forth of forms of worship, of hymns of praise to gods, of prayers for forgiveness from sins, and of incantations for delivery from disease. It was natural that the Babylonians should desire to retain this religious material in its ancient tongue, as it was not to be expected that it would be so efficacious if translated into their own Semitic speech. There arose, therefore, a custom of providing these reli- gious texts with interlinear translations into the Semitic speech. Sumerian had now come into the same position as did Latin in the religious life of the Middle Ages. It remained only that it should advance into a position similar to that held by Latin in general life in the same period. This also came about, for not only were religious texts so written, but also historical texts as well. Gradually this custom ceased and the Sumerian language was no longer mentioned or used; but the system of writing which the Sumerians had devised continued in full use to the fall of the Babylonian commonwealth, and even lived on in the hands of the Indo-Europeans who came after them.

The Babylonians had indeed conquered the Sumerians, but in a higher sense they had been conquered by them, and their civilization in general and their religion in particular owed a deep debt to this strange, almost unknown people who stand on the very confines of human history.

At about the beginning of the fourth millennium before Christ the Sumerian people, who had already attained a high civilization, found their land invaded by a vast horde of barbarians, for so these must have appeared to them. These were Semites, closely related in blood to the Arabs who once overran Spain and the Hebrews who once came pouring across the Jordan into Canaan. Whence these invaders came is not certain. It has been thought by some that they came from the northeast through the passes of the Kurdistan mountains, and that Babylonia was the land in which they had their first national development and from which they spread over western Asia to make great careers as Arabians, Canaanites, and Aramaeans. This view, once stated and supported with surpassing learning, is now almost abandoned, and but few great names may be cited among its modern adherents. A second view finds the original home of the Semites in Africa, either in the northeastern or northwestern part of the great continent. It were idle to deny that strong linguistic support for this view may be found in the recognized affinity between the Semitic languages and Egyptian, Coptic, Berber, and the Kushite (Bisharee, Galla, Somali, etc.) languages. But when all has been said in favor of this view there still remain more potent considerations in favor of a third view, that the original home of the Semites was in Arabia, out of which they came in successive waves of migration to find larger and more bountiful lands in Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and even in the far western land of Canaan. This latter view seems ever to win new adherents and may be said now to be generally accepted by modern scholars. The Babylonians conquered the Sumerians, drove some of them out, destroyed others, and assimilated the rest. During the long course of their history they remained as unchanged and unchangeable as the Egyptians. They were powerful in warfare at first, but gradually cast aside the warlike spirit and became so devoted to the arts of peace as to be unable to defend their country from invasion, which happened again and again during their long history. Yet so great was their vitality and so marked their racial individuality that they always triumphed in the end and absorbed their conquerors. Just as their type, the distinctive Semitic type, prevailed over the Sumerian, so also did it prevail over the Kassites, Elamites, and that long line of lesser peoples who conquered them in part or settled among them peaceably.

The Babylonians were devoted chiefly to religion and to literature, as their remains would seem to indicate. It was they who erected the largest temples that the world has ever seen, and as the materials used were perishable, ever reerected and restored them. It was they who provided these temples with books, liturgies, hymns, and prayers, and heaped up thousands of tablets recording all these building operations and giving glory and honor to the gods who had inspired the work.

Out of the Babylonian people sprang the Assyrians, for Assyria was colonized from Babylonia. Though of the same blood, the Assyrians gradually became a very different people. Less exposed to invasion during a large part of their history than the Babylonians, they remained of much purer Semitic blood. In religion, in language, and in literature they continued to the end ever dependent upon the southern people. Their climate belonged to the temperate rather than to the subtropical zone, and the inclemency of winters over at least part of their little kingdom served to toughen their fiber, while their early efforts at conquest gradually hardened them into the form which they bore during all their history. They became a military people on the one hand, and a commercial people on the other. Early accustomed to blood and fire, they became totally unlike the peace-loving Babylonians, and their history is filled with deeds of almost unparalleled savagery. Wherever their armies marched women were ravished, men were mutilated or flayed alive, houses and cities and fields of grain were given to the torch, and desolation and ruin were left behind. Yet out of this conquest they achieved empire, and sobered by its burdens, learned to govern as well as to destroy, and devised methods of subjection and of rule, which were afterward applied by a people who in certain respects much resembled them, the Romans.

Along with this development in the arts of war and the practice of government there went a great growth in trade. The Assyrian traders invaded the whole East and took gain both from buying and from selling, from transport and from storage. They influenced the king to conquest in more than one instance that the field of their operations and the extent of their money getting might be increased. That they contributed to civilization by their barter and trade there is no doubt, and this result affords a bright contrast to the weary details of blood and fire which otherwise would fill the whole canvas. Yet, though thus given over in large measure to war and commerce, the Assyrians knew their lack and ever looked with envy to the superior civilization of Babylonia. Some of their kings imitated the Babylonians in the founding and storing of libraries with books of religion and literature and not merely with boastful narratives of bloody conquest. Others bore witness to the attractiveness of the Babylonian culture by conquering parts of that country that they might worship at its ancient shrines and add to their names royal titles, bestowed by an hereditary priesthood, which had come down from an immemorial past. Thus were mixed up in the Assyrian nature elements both of barbarism and of civilization, and now one and now the other is manifested in the work which they did in the world.

But when the whole history is surveyed, as in a panorama, the barbarism must be admit- ted to prevail over the civilization and the total impression to be less favorable than that which the Babylonians make upon us.

Long after the Babylonians and Assyrians had risen to power in the world the great valley came to know another people who called themselves Kaldu, and were known to the Hebrews as Kasdim, to the Greeks as Chaldaioi, from whom we have called them Chaldeans. They were un- doubtedly Semites, for not only are their names purely Semitic, but their religion, manner of life, and adaptation to Semitic usages all bear the same stamp as those of the Semitic Babylonians.

The origin of the Chaldeans is, like that of the Babylonians, lost in the past. They also probably came out of the heart of Arabia and settled first along the western shore of the Persian Gulf, pushing gradually northward until they held the country about the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. From that district they begin the long series of incursions which finally won for them the control of Babylonia, and made them the heirs of the Babylonian people in civilization and in empire. In the beginning they were nomads and tillers of the soil, but became men of the city and formed little city kingdoms similar to those which had existed in the early days of Babylonian civilization. The lines of their development were, however, more similar to those of the Assyrians than to those of the Babylonians. They developed military prowess and founded a great empire by the sword. Its extension toward the west was marked by bloodshed and the destruction of ancient centers of civilization. But later the objects of civi- lization were furthered by them and their kings became patrons of learning. In this latter stage they are perhaps to be regarded as having lost their national life and character and as trans- formed by the Babylonian civilization which they had conquered.

The Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Chaldeans — these were the peoples who wrought out the history here to be narrated. Besides these there were many other lesser peoples who contributed to the movements which are to be told, but their characterization may best be left to the time of their appearance in the narrative, as they were secondary rather than primary actors in the great drama.