 Section 1 of History of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 by Gaston Maspero. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT CALDEA. PART I. IN THE TIME WHEN NOTHING WHICH WAS CALLED HEAVEN EXISTED ABOVE, AND WHEN NOTHING BELOW HAD AS YET RECEIVED THE NAME OF EARTH, APSU, THE OCEAN, WHO FIRST WAS THEIR FATHER, AND KAOS TIAMAT, WHO Gave birth to them all, mingled their waters in one, READS WHICH WERE NOT UNITED, RUSSES WHICH BORE NO FRUIT. LIFE GERMINATED SLOWLY IN THIS INERT MASS, IN WHICH THE ELEMENTS OF OUR WORLD STILL LAY IN CONFUSION. When at length it did spring up, it was but feebly, and at rare intervals, through the hatching of divine couples devoid of personality and almost without form. In the time when the gods were not created, not one as yet, when they had neither been called by their names nor had their destinies been assigned to them by fate, gods manifested themselves. Lakamu and Lakamu were the first to appear, and waxed great for ages. Men Anshar and Kishar were produced after them. Days were added to days, and years were heaped upon years. Anu, Inlil, and Ia were born in their turn, for Anshar and Kishar had given them birth. As the generations emanated one from the other, their vitality increased, and the personality of each became more clearly defined. The last generation included none but beings of an original character, and clearly marked individuality. Anu, the sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night, Inlil Bell, the king of the earth, Ia, the sovereign of the waters, and the personification of wisdom. Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into Anat, Bell into Belit, Ia into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse whom he had deduced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these fruitful pairs, and the impulse once given the world was rapidly peopled by their descendants. Sin, Shamash, and Kaman, who presided respectively over the moon, the sun, and the air, were all three of equal rank. Next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodak, Nurgal, the warrior goddess Ishtar, and Nipo, then a whole army of lesser deities, who ranged themselves around Anu as a supreme master. Tiamat, finding her domain becoming more and more restricted owing to the activity of the others, desired to raise battalion against battalion, and set herself to create unceasingly. But her offspring, made in her own image, appeared like those incongruous phantoms which men see in dreams, and which are made up of members borrowed from a score of different animals. They appeared in the form of bulls with human heads, of horses with the snouts of dogs, of dogs with quadruple bodies springing from a single fish-like tail. Some of them had the beak of an eagle or a hawk, others four wings and two faces, others the legs and horns of a goat, others again the hindquarters of a horse and the whole body of a man. Tiamat furnished them with terrible weapons, placed them under the command of her husband Kingu, and set out to war against the gods. At first they knew not whom to send against her. Anshar dispatched his son Anu, but Anu was afraid and made no attempt to oppose her. He sent Ia, but Ia, like Anu, grew pale with fear and did not venture to attack her. Merodoc, the son of Ia, was the only one who believed himself strong enough to conquer her. The gods, summoned to a solemn banquet in the palace of Anshar, unanimously chose him to be their champion and proclaimed him king. Thou, thou art glorious among the great gods, thy will is second to none, thy bidding is Anu, Marduk, Merodoc, thou art glorious among the great gods, thy will is second to none, thy bidding is Anu. From this day, that which thou orderest may not be changed, the power to raise or obey shall be in thy hand, the word of thy mouth shall endure, and thy commandment shall not meet with opposition. None of the gods shall transgress thy law, but wheresoever a sanctuary of the gods is decorated, the place where they shall give their oracles shall be thy place. Marduk, it is thou who art our Avenger. To bestow on thee the attributes of a king, the whole of all that exists, thou has it, and everywhere thy word shall be exalted. Thy weapons shall not be turned aside, they shall strike thy enemy. O master, who trusts in thee, spare thou his life, but the God who hath done evil, put out his life like water. They clad their champion in a garment, and thus addressed him. Thy will, master, shall be that of the gods. Speak the word, let it be so, it shall be so. Thus open thy mouth, this garment shall disappear. Say unto it, Return, and the garment shall be there. He spoke with his lips, the garment disappeared. He said unto it, Return, and the garment was restored. Merodoc, having been once convinced by this evidence that he had the power of doing everything and of undoing everything at his pleasure, the gods handed to him the scepter, the throne, the crown, the insignia of supreme rule, and greeted him with their acclamations. Be king, go! cut short the life of Tiamat, and let the wind carry her blood to the hidden extremities of the universe. He equipped himself carefully for the struggle. He made a bow and placed his mark upon it. He had a spear brought to him and fitted a point to it. The god lifted the lance, brandished it in his right hand, then hung the bow and quiver at his side. He placed a thunderbolt before him, filled his body with a devouring flame, then made a net in which to catch the anarchic Tiamat. He placed the four winds in such a way that she could not escape, south and north, east and west, and with his own hand he brought them the net, the gift of his father Anu. He created the hurricane, the evil wind, the storm, the tempest, the four winds, the seven winds, the waterspout, the wind that is second to none. Then he let loose the winds he had created, all seven of them, in order to bewilder the anarchic Tiamat by charging behind her. And the master of the waterspout raised his mighty weapon. He mounted his chariot, a work without its equal, formidable. He installed himself therein, tied the four reins to the side, and darted forth, pitiless, torrent-like, swift. He passed through the seried ranks of the monsters and penetrated as far as Tiamat, and provoked her with his cries. Thou hast rebelled against the sovereignty of the gods. Thou hast plotted evil against them, and hast desired that my father should taste thy malevolence. Therefore thy host shall be reduced to slavery, thy weapon shall be torn from thee. Come then, thou and I must give battle to one another. Tiamat, when she heard him, flew into a fury. She became mad with rage. Then Tiamat howled. She raised herself savagely to her full height, and planted her feet firmly on the earth. She pronounced an incantation, recited her formula, and called to her aid the gods of the combat, both them and their weapons. They drew near one to another, Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of the gods. They flung themselves into the combat. They met one another in the struggle. Then the master unfolded his net and seized her. He caused the hurricane which waited behind him to pass in front of him, and when Tiamat opened her mouth to swallow him, he thrust the hurricane into it, so that the monster could not close her jaws again. The mighty wind filled her punch, her breasts swelled, her maw was split. Marduk gave a straight thrust with his lance, first opened the punch, pierced her interior, tore the breast, then bound the monster into privateer of life. When he had vanquished Tiamat, who had been their leader, her army was disbanded, her host was scattered, and the gods, her allies, who had marched beside her, trembled, were scared and fled. He seized hold of them, and of Kingu their chief, and brought them bound in chains before the throne of his father. He had saved the gods from ruin, but this was the least part of his task. He had still to sweep out of the space the huge carcass which encumbered it, and to separate its ill-assorted elements, and arrange them afresh for the benefit of the conquerors. He returned to Tiamat, whom he had bound in chains. He placed his foot upon her, with his unerring knife he cut into the upper part of her, then he cut the blood vessels, and caused the blood to be carried by the north wind to the hidden places. And the gods saw his face, they rejoiced, they gave themselves up to gladness, and sent him a present, a tribute of peace. Then he recovered his calm, he contemplated the corpse, raised it, and wrought marbles. He split it in two as one does a fish for drying, then he hung up one of the halves on high, which became the heavens, the other half he spread out under his feet to form the earth, and made the universe such as men have since known it. As in Egypt the world was a kind of enclosed chamber balanced on the bosom of the eternal waters. The earth, which forms the lower part of it, or floor, is something like an overturned boat in appearance, and hollow underneath, not like one of the narrow skiffs in use among other races, but a kufa, or kind of semicircular boat such as the tribes of the lower Euphrates have made use of from the earliest antiquity down to our own times. The earth rises gradually from the extremities to the center, like a great mountain, of which the snow region where the Euphrates finds its source approximately marks the summit. It was at first supposed to be divided into seven zones, placed one on the top of the other along its sides, like the stories of a temple. Later on it was divided into four houses, each of which, like the houses of Egypt, corresponded with one of the four cardinal points, and was under the rule of particular gods. Near the foot of the mountain, the edges of the so-called boat curve abruptly outwards, and surround the earth with a continuous wall of uniform height, having no opening. The waters accumulated in the hollow thus formed as in a ditch. It was a narrow and mysterious sea, an ocean stream, which no living man might cross save with permission from on high, and whose waves rigorously separated the domain of men from the regions reserved to the gods. The heavens rose above the mountain of the world like a boldly formed dome, the circumference of which rested on the top of the wall in the same way as the upper structures of a house rest on its foundations. Merodoc wrought it out of a hard, resisting metal which shone brilliantly during the day in the rays of the sun, and at night appeared only as a dark blue surface, strewn irregularly with luminous stars. He left it quite solid in the southern regions, but tunneled it in the north, by contriving within it a huge cavern which communicated with eternal space by means of two doors placed at the east and the west. The sun came forth each morning by the first of these doors. He mounted to the zenith, following the internal base of the cupola from east to south. Then he slowly descended again to the western door, and re-entered the tunnel in the firmament where he spent the night. Merodoc regulated the course of the whole universe on the movements of the sun. He instituted the year and divided it into twelve months. To each month he designed three decans, each of whom exercised his influence successively for a period of ten days. He then placed the procession of the days under the authority of Nibiru, in order that none of them should wander from his track and be lost. He lighted the moon that she might rule the night, and made her a star of night that she might indicate the days. From month to month without ceasing, shape thy disk, and at the beginning of the month kindle thyself in the evening, Bring up thy horns so as to make the heavens distinguishable. On the seventh day show to me thy disk, and on the fifteenth let thy two halves be full from month to month. He cleared a path for the planets, and four of them he entrusted to four gods. The fifth, our Jupiter, he reserved for himself, and appointed him to be shepherd of this celestial flock. In order that all the gods might have their image visible in the sky, he mapped out on the vault of heaven groups of stars which he allotted to them, and which seemed to men like representations of real or fabulous beings, fishes with the heads of rams, lions, bulls, goats, and scorpions. End of Part 1 The heavens having been put in order, he said about peopeling the earth, and the gods, who had so far passively and perhaps powerlessly watched him at his work, at length made up their minds to assist him. They covered the soil with verdure, and all collectively made living beings of many kinds. The cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the fields, the reptiles of the fields, they fashioned them and made them creatures of life. According to one legend, those first animals had hardly left the hands of their creators, when not being able to withstand the glare of the light, they fell dead one after the other. Then Merodoc, seeing that the earth was again becoming desolate, and that its fertility was of no use to anyone, begged his father Ia to cut off his head and mix clay with the blood which welled from the trunk, then from this clay to fashion newbies and men, to whom the virtues of his divine blood would give the necessary strength to enable them to resist the air and light. At first they led a somewhat wretched existence, and lived without rule after the manner of beasts. But in the first year appeared a monster endowed with human reason named Oannas, who rose from out of the Eurythrion Sea, at the point where it borders Babylonia. He had the whole body of a fish, but above his fish's head he had another head, which was that of a man, and human feet emerged from beneath his fish's tail. He had a human voice, and his image is preserved to this day. He passed the day in the midst of men without taking any food. He taught them the use of letters, sciences, and arts of all kinds, the rules for the founding of cities, and the construction of temples, the principles of law and of surveying. He showed them how to sow and reap. He gave them all that contributes to the comforts of life. Since that time nothing excellent has been invented. At sunset this monster Oannas plunged back into the sea, and remained all night beneath the waves, for he was amphibious. He wrote a book on the origin of things and of civilization, which he gave to men. These are a few of the fables which were current among the races of the lower Euphrates with regard to the first beginnings of the universe. That they possessed many other legends of which we now know nothing is certain, but either they have perished forever, or the works in which they were recorded still await discovery. It may be under the ruins of a palace, or in the cupboards of some museum. They do not seem to have conceived the possibility of an absolute creation, by means of which the gods or one of them should have evolved out of nothing all that exists. The creation was for them merely the setting in motion of pre-existing elements, and the creator only an organizer of the various materials floating in chaos. Popular fancy in different towns varied the names of the creators and the methods employed by them. As centuries passed on, a pile of vague, confused and contradictory traditions were amassed. No one of which was held to be quite satisfactory, though all found partisans to support them. Just as in Egypt the theologians of local priesthoods endeavored to classify them and bring them into a kind of harmony. Many they rejected and others they recast in order to better reconcile their statements. They arranged them in systems from which they undertook to unravel, under inspiration from on high, the true history of the universe. That which I have tried to set forth above is very ancient. If, as it is said to be the case, it was in existence two or even three thousand years before our era, but the versions of it which we possess were drawn up much later, perhaps not until about the seventh century B.C. It had been accepted by the inhabitants of Babylonia because it flattered their religious vanity by attributing the credit of having evolved order out of chaos to Maradok, the protector of their city. He it was whom the Assyrian scribes had raised to a position of honor at the court of the last kings of Nineveh. It was Maradok's name which Berosis inscribed at the beginning of his book, when he said about relating to the Greeks the origin of the world according to the Chaldeans, and the dawn of Babylonian civilization. Like the Egyptian civilization it had had its birth between the sea and the dry land on a low marshy alluvial soil, flooded annually by the rivers which traverse it, devastated at long intervals by tidal waves of extraordinary violence. The Euphrates and the Tigris cannot be regarded as mysterious streams like the Nile, whose source so long defied exploration that people were tempted to place it beyond the regions inhabited by man. The former rise in Armenia, on the slopes of the Nefates, one of the chains of mountains which lie between the Black Sea and Mesopotamia, and the only range which at certain points reaches the line of eternal snow. At first they flow parallel to one another, the Euphrates from the east to west as far as Malatia, the Tigris from the west towards the east in the direction of Assyria. Beyond Malatia the Euphrates bends abruptly to the southwest, and makes its way across the Taurus as though desirous of reaching the Mediterranean by the shortest route, but it soon alters its intention and makes for the southeast in search of the Persian Gulf. The Tigris runs in an oblique direction towards the south from the point where the mountains open out and gradually approaches the Euphrates. Near Baghdad the two rivers are only a few leagues apart. However they do not yet blend their waters. After proceeding side by side for some twenty or thirty miles they again separate and only finally unite at a point some eighty leagues lower down. At the beginning of our geological period their course was not such a long one. The sea then penetrated as far as latitude thirty three degrees, and was only arrested by the last unendations of the great plateau of secondary formation, which descend from the mountain group of Armenia. The two rivers enter the sea at a distance of about twenty leagues apart, falling into a gulf founded on the east by the last spurs of the mountains of Iran, on the west by the sandy hides which border the margin of the Arabian desert. They filled up this gulf with their alluvial deposit, founded by the Atam, the Diyala, the Kirkha, the Karun, and other rivers, which at the end of long independent courses become tributaries of the Tigris. The present beds of the two rivers, connected by numerous canals, at length meet near the village of Korna and form one single river, the Shat al-Arab, which carries their waters to the sea. The mud with which they are charged is deposited when it reaches their mouth and accumulates rapidly. It is said that the coast advances about a mile every seventy years. In its upper reaches the Euphrates collects a number of small affluence, the most important of which, the Karasu, has often been confounded with it. Near the middle of its course, the Sajir on the right bank carries into it the waters of the Taurus and the Amonus. On the left bank, the Balik and the Qabur contribute those of the Karaja Daug. From the mouth of the Qabur to the sea, the Euphrates receives no further affluent. The Tigris is fed on the left by the Bitlis Kai, the two Zabs, the Adhem and the Diyala. The Euphrates is navigable from Sumi Esit, the Tigris from Mosul, both of them almost as soon as they leave the mountains. They are subject to annual floods, which occur when the winter snow melts on the higher ranges of Armenia. The Tigris, which rises from the southern slope of the Nifatis and has the more direct course, is the first to overflow its banks, which it does at the beginning of March, and reaches its greatest height about the tenth or twelfth of May. The Euphrates rises in the middle of March, and does not attain its highest level to the close of May. From June onwards it falls with increasing rapidity. By September all the water which has not been absorbed by the soil has returned to the riverbed. The inundation does not possess the same importance for the regions covered by it, that the rise of the Nile does for Egypt. In fact it does more harm than good, and the riverside population have always worked hard to protect themselves from it, and to keep it away from their lands rather than facilitate its access to them. They regard it as a sort of necessary evil to which they resign themselves while trying to minimize its effects. The Traveler Olivier noticed this and writes as follows. The land there is rather less fertile than in Egypt, because it does not receive the alluvial deposits of the rivers with the same regularity as that of the Delta. It is necessary to irrigate it in order to render it productive, and to protect it sedulously from the inundations which are too destructive in their action and too irregular. End of Part 2. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Section III of History of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume III, by Gaston Maspero. Read for LibreVox.org into the public domain. Chapter I. Ancient Caldea, Part III. The first races to colonize this country of rivers, or at any rate the first of which we can find traces, seemed to have belonged to three different types. The most important were the Semites, who spoke a dialect akin to Aramaic, Hebrew, and Phoenician. It was for a time supposed that they came down from the north, and traces of their occupation have been pointed out in Armenia in the vicinity of Ararat, or half way down the course of the Tigris, at the foot of the Gurdasean mountains. It has recently been suggested that we ought rather to seek for their place of origin in southern Arabia, and this view is gaining ground among the learned. Side by side with the Semites, the monuments give evidence of a race of ill-defined character, which some have sought without much success, to connect with the tribes of the Ural or Alti. These people are for the present provisionally called Sumerians. They came, it would appear, from some northern country. They brought with them from their original home a curious system of writing, which modified, transformed, and adopted by ten different nations, has preserved for us all that we know in regard to the majority of the empires which rose and fell in western Asia before the Persian conquest. Semite, or Sumerian, it is still doubtful which proceeded the other at the mouth of the Euphrates. The Sumerians, who were for a time all powerful in the centuries before the dawn of history, had already mingled closely with the Sumites when we first hear of them. Their language gave way to the Semitic, and tended gradually to become a language of ceremony and ritual, which was at last learnt for everyday use, then for the drawing up of certain royal inscriptions, or for the interpretation of very ancient texts of a legal or sacred character. Their religion became assimilated to the religion, and their gods identified with the gods of the Semites. The process of fusion commenced at such an early date, that nothing has really come down to us from the time when the two races were strangers to each other. We are therefore unable to say with certainty how much each borrowed from the other, what each gave, or relinquished, of its individual instincts and customs. We must take and judge them as they come before us, as forming one single nation, imbued with the same ideas, influenced in all their acts by the same civilization, and possessed of such strongly marked characteristics that only in the last days of their existence do we find any appreciable change. In the course of the ages they had to submit to the invasions and dominations of some dozen different races, of which some, Assyrians and Chaldeans, were descended from a Semitic stock, while the others, Elamites, Cossians, Persians, Macedonians, and Parthians, either were not connected with them by any tie of blood, or traced their origin in some distant manner to the Sumerian branch. They got quickly rid of a portion of these superfluous elements, and absorbed or assimilated the rest. Like the Egyptians they seemed to have been one of those races which, once established, were incapable of ever undergoing modification, and remained unchanged from one end of their existence to the other. Their country must have presented at the beginning very much the same aspect of disorder and neglect which it offers to modern eyes. It was a flat, interminable moorland stretching away to the horizon, there to begin again seemingly more limitless than ever, with no rise or fall in the ground to break the dull monotony. Clumps of palm trees and slender mimosas, intersected by lines of water gleaming in the distance, then long patches of warm wood and mallow, endless vistas of burnt-up plain, more palms and more mimosas, make up the picture of the land, whose uniform soil consists of rich, stiff, heavy clay, split up by the heat of the sun into a network of deep, narrow fissures, from which the shrubs and wild herbs shoot forth each year in springtime. By an almost imperceptible slope it falls gently away from north to south towards the Persian Gulf, from east to west towards the Arabian Plateau. The Euphrates flows through it with unstable and changing course, between shifting banks which it shapes and reshapes from season to season. The slightest impulse of its current encroaches on them, breaks through them and makes openings for streamlets, the majority of which are clogged up and obliterated by the washing away of their margins almost as rapidly as they are formed. Others grow wider and longer, and sending out branches are transformed into permanent canals or regular rivers, navigable at certain seasons. They meet on the left bank detached offshoots of the Tigris, and after wandering capriciously in the space between the two rivers, at last rejoin their parent's stream. Such are the Shot El Hai and the Shot N Neil. The overflowing waters on the right bank, owing to the fall of the land, run toward the low-line stone hills which shut in the basin of the Euphrates in the direction of the desert. They are arrested at the foot of those hills and are diverted onto the low-line ground, where they lose themselves in the marassas or hollow out a series of lakes along its borders, the largest of which, Bar-i-Nijif, is shut in on three sides by steep cliffs and rises or falls periodically with the floods. That canal, which takes its origin in the direction of Hit at the beginning of the alluvial plain, bears with it the overflow, and skirting the lowest terraces of the Arabian chain, runs almost parallel to the Euphrates. In proportion as the canal proceeds southward, the ground sinks still lower, and becomes saturated with the overflowing waters. Until the banks gradually disappearing, the whole neighborhood is converted into a morass. The Euphrates and its branches do not, at all times, succeed in reaching the sea. They are lost for the most part in vast lagoons to which the tide comes up, and in its ebb bears their waters away with it. Reeds grow there luxuriously in enormous beds, and reach sometimes a height of from thirteen to sixteen feet. Banks of black and putrid mud emerge amidst the green growth, and give off deadly emanations. Winter is scarcely felt here. Lago is unknown, whorefrost is rarely seen, but sometimes in the morning a thin film of ice covers the marshes, to disappear under the first rays of the sun. For six weeks in November and December there is much rain. After this period there are only occasional showers, occurring longer and longer intervals until May, when they entirely cease, and the summer sets in, till last until the following November. There are almost six continuous months of depressing and moist heat, which overcomes both men and animals and makes them incapable of any constant effort. Sometimes a south or east wind suddenly arises, and bearing with it across the fields and canals whirlwinds of sand, burns up in its passage the little verdure which the sun had spared. Swarms of locusts follow in its train, and complete the work of devastation. A sound as of distant rain is at first heard, increasing in intensity as the creatures approach. Soon their thickly concentrated battalions fill the heavens on all sides, flying with slow and uniform motion at a great height. They at length alight, cover everything, devour everything, and propagating their species die within a few days. Nothing, not a blade of vegetation, remains on the region where they alighted. Notwithstanding these drawbacks the country was not lacking in resources. The soil was almost as fertile as the loam of Egypt, and like the latter rewarded a hundredfold the labor of the inhabitants. Among the wild herbage which spreads over the country in the spring and clothes it for a brief season with flowers, it was found that some plants, with a little culture, could be rendered useful to men and beasts. There were ten or twelve different species of pulse to choose from—beans, lentils, chickpeas, betches, kidney beans, onions, cucumbers, eggplants, gombo, and pumpkins. From the seed of the sesame an oil was expressed, which served for food, while the castor oil plant furnished that required for lighting. The safflower and henna supplied the women with dyes for the stuffs which they manufactured from hemp and flats. Aquatic plants were more numerous than on the banks of the Nile, but they did not occupy such an important place among foodstuffs. The lily-bread of the pharaohs would have seemed meager fare to people accustomed from early times to wheat and bread. Wheat and barley are considered to be indigenous on the plains of the Euphrates. It was supposed to be here that they were first cultivated in Western Asia, and that they spread from hence to Syria, Egypt, and the whole of Europe. The soil there is so favourable to the growth of cereals that it yields usually two hundred fold, and in places of exceptional fertility three hundred fold. The leaves of the wheat and barley have a width of four digits. As for the millet and sesame, which in altitude are as great as trees, I will not state their height, although I know it from experience, being convinced that those who have not lived in Babylonia would regard my statement with incredulity. Herodotus and his enthusiasm exaggerated the matter, or perhaps as a general rule he selected as examples the exceptional instances which had been mentioned to him. At present wheat and barley give a yield to the husbandmen of some thirty or forty fold. The date palm meets all other needs of the population. They make from it a kind of bread, wine, vinegar, honey, cakes, and numerous kinds of stuff. The smiths use the stones of its fruit for charcoal. These same stones, broken and macerated, are given as fattening food to cattle and sheep. Such a useful tree was tended with a loving care. The vicissitudes in its growth were observed, and its reproduction was facilitated by the process of shaking the flowers of the male palm over those of the female. The gods themselves had taught this artifice to men, and they were frequently represented with a bunch of flowers in their right hand, in the attitude assumed by a peasant in fertilizing a palm tree. Fruit trees were everywhere mingled with ornamental trees—the fig, apple, almond, walnut, apricot, pistachio, vine, with the plain tree, cypress, tamarisk, and acacia. In the prosperous period of the country the Plain of the Euphrates was a great orchard which extended uninterruptedly, from the plateau of Mesopotamia to the shores of the Persian Gulf. And of Part 3. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 4 of History of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 by Gaston Maspero. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Chapter 1. Ancient Caldea, Part 4. The flora would not have been so abundant if the fauna had been sufficient for the supply of a large population. A considerable proportion of the tribes on the lower Euphrates lived for a long time on fish only. They consumed them either fresh, salted, or smoked. They dried them in the sun, crushed them in a mortar, strained the pulp through linen, and worked it up into a kind of bread or cakes. The barbel and carp attained a great size in these sluggish waters, and if the Caldeans, like the Arabs who have succeeded them in these regions, clearly preferred these fish above others. They did not despise at the same time less delicate species as the eel, marina, celurus, and even that singular grunard whose habits are an object of wonder to our naturalists. This fish spends its existence usually in the water, but a life in the open air has no terrors for it. It leaps out on the bank, climbs trees without much difficulty, finds a congenial habitat on the banks of mud exposed by the falling tide, and vasts there in the sun, prepared to vanish in the ooze in the twinkling of an eye if some approaching bird should catch sight of it. Pelicans, herons, cranes, storks, cormorants, hundreds of varieties of seagulls, ducks, swans, wild geese, secure in the possession of an inexhaustible supply of food, sport and prosper among the reeds. The ostrich, greater bustard, the common and red-legged partridge and quail, find their habitat on the borders of the desert, while the thrush, blackbird, ortolan, pigeon, and turtledub abound on every side, in spite of daily onslaughts from eagles, hawks, and other birds of prey. Snakes are found here and there, but they are for the most part of innocent species. Three poisonous varieties only are known, and their bite does not produce such terrible consequences as that of the horned viper or Egyptian ureas. There are two kinds of lion, one without mane and the other hooded, with a heavy mass of black and tangled hair. The proper signification of the old Chaldean name was the great dog, and they have indeed a greater resemblance to large dogs than to the red lions of Africa. They fly at the approach of man, they betake themselves in the daytime to retreats among the marches or in the thickets which border the rivers, sallying forth at night like the jackal to scour the country. Even to bay they turn upon the assailant and fight desperately. The Chaldean kings, like the pharaohs, did not shrink from entering into a close conflict with them, and boasted of having rendered a service to their subjects by the destruction of many of these beasts. The elephant seems to have roamed for some time over the steps of the Middle Euphrates. There is no indication of its presence after the thirteenth century before our era, and from that time forward it was merely an object of curiosity brought at great expense from distant countries. This is not the only instance of animals which have disappeared in the course of centuries. The rulers of Nineveh were so addicted to the pursuit of the Eurus that they ended by exterminating it. Several sorts of panthers and smaller filidae had their layers in the thickets of Mesopotamia. The wild ass and onager roamed in small herds between the Balik and the Tigris. Attempts were made, it would seem, at a very early period to tame them and make use of them to draw chariots. But this attempt either did not succeed at all or issued in such uncertain results that it was given up as soon as other less refractory animals were made the object of successful experiment. The wild boar and his relative, the domestic hog, inhabited the morasses. Assyrian sculptors amused themselves sometimes by representing long gaunt sows making their way through the cane-breaks, followed by their interminable offspring. The hog remained here as an Egypt in a semi-tamed condition, and the people were possessed of only a small number of domesticated animals besides the dog, namely the ass, ox, goat, and sheep. The horse and camel were at first unknown and were introduced at a later period. We know nothing of the efforts which the first inhabitants, Sumerians and Semites, had to make in order to control the waters and to bring the land under culture. The most ancient monuments exhibit them as already possessors of the soil and in a forward state of civilization. Their chief cities were divided into two groups, one in the south, in the neighborhood of the sea, the other in a northern direction, in the region where the Euphrates and Tigris are separated from each other by merely a narrow strip of land. The southern group consisted of seven, of which Erudu lay nearest to the coast. This town stood on the left bank of the Euphrates, at a point which is now called Abu-Shireen. A little to the west, on the opposite bank, but at some distance from the stream, the mound of Mughir marks the site of Uru, the most important, if not the oldest, of the southern cities. Lagash occupied the site of the modern Tello to the north of Erudu, not far from the Shat-Al-Ha'i. Nisin and Mar, Larsum and Uruk occupied positions at short distances from each other on the marshy ground, which extends between the Euphrates and the Shat and Neel. The inscriptions mentioned here and there are the less important places, of which the ruins have not yet been discovered. Zerlab and Shura-Pak, places of embarkation at the mouth of the Euphrates for the passage of the Persian Gulf, and the island of Dilmun, situated some forty leagues to the south in the center of the Salt Sea, Nar Maratum. The northern group comprised Nipur, the incomparable, Barsip, on the branch which flows parallel to the Euphrates and falls into the Bar El-Nidjif, Babylon, the Gate of the God, the Residence of Life, the only metropolis of the Euphrates region for which posterity never lost a reminiscence, Kishu, Kuda, Agide, and lastly the two Siparas, that of Shamash and that of Anunate. The earliest Caldean civilization was confined almost entirely to the two banks of the lower Euphrates, except at its northern boundary it did not reach the Tigris and did not cross this river. Located from the rest of the world, on the east by the marshes which boarded the river in its lower course, on the north by the badly watered and sparsely inhabited table-end of Mesopotamia, on the west by the Arabian Desert, it was able to develop its civilization, as Egypt had done, in an isolated area, and to follow out its destiny in peace. The only point from which it might anticipate serious danger was on the east, whence the Qashi and the Elamites, organized into military states, incessantly harassed it year after year by their attacks. The Qashi were scarcely better than half-civilized mountain-hords, but the Elamites were advanced in civilization, and their capital, Susa, vied with the richest cities of the Euphrates, Uru and Babylon, in antiquity and magnificence. There was nothing serious to fear from the Guti, on the branch of the Tigris to the northeast, or from the Shiti to the north of these. They were merely marauding tribes, and however troublesome they might be to their neighbors in their devastating incursions, they could not compromise the existence of the country, or bring it into subjection. It would appear that the Chaldeans had already begun to encroach upon these tribes, and to establish colonies among them. El Ashur on the banks of the Tigris, Heron on the furthest point of the Mesopotamian plain, towards the sources of the Balique. Beyond these were vague and unknown regions, Tidanim, Martu, the Sea of the Setting Sun, the vast territories of Malukha and Magan. Egypt, from the time they were acquainted with its existence, was a semi-fabulous country at the ends of the earth. How long did it take to bring this people out of savagery, and to build up so many flourishing cities? The learned did not readily resign themselves to a confession of ignorance on the subject, as they had depicted the primordial chaos, the birth of the gods, and their struggles over the So they related, unhesitatingly, everything which had happened since the creation of mankind. And they laid claim to being able to calculate the number of centuries which lay between their own day and the origin of things. The tradition to which most credence was attached in the Greek period at Babylon, that which has been preserved for us in the histories of Borosu, asserts that there was a somewhat long interval between the manifestation of Oanes and the foundation of a dynasty. The first king was Allorus of Babylon, a Chaldean of whom nothing is related except that he was chosen by the divinity himself to be a shepherd of the people. He reigned for Ten Sari, amounting in all to thirty-six thousand years, for the Sauros is thirty-six hundred years, the Nuer six hundred years, and the Sos sixty years. After the death of Allorus, his son Allopaurus ruled for three Sari, after which Amalorus, of the city of Pantabibla, reigned for thirteen Sari. It was under him that they are issued from the Red Sea a second anodotus, resembling Oanes in his semi-divine shape, half man and half fish. After him Amennon, also from Pantabibla, a Chaldean, ruled for a term of twelve Sari, under him they say the mysterious Oanes appeared. Afterwards Amalagauros of Pantabibla governed for eighteen Sari. Then Davos, the shepherd from Pantabibla, reigned ten Sari. Under him they are issued from the Red Sea a fourth anodotus, who had a form similar to the others, being made up of man and fish. After him Ved Doranchos of Pantabibla reigned for eighteen Sari, and in this time they are issued yet another monster, named Anodophus, from the sea. These various monsters developed carefully and in detail that which Oanes had set forth in a brief way. Then Amempsinos of Lorancha, a Chaldean, reigned ten Sari, and Obartes, also a Chaldean, of Lorancha, eight Sari. Finally on the death of Obartes his son Zisithros held the scepter for eighteen Sari. It was under him that the great Deluge took place. Thus ten kings are to be reckoned in all, and the duration of their combined reigns amounts to one hundred and twenty Sari. From the beginning of the world to the Deluge they reckoned six hundred and ninety-one thousand two hundred years, of which two hundred and fifty-nine thousand two hundred had passed before the coming of Allorus, and the remaining four hundred and thirty-two thousand were generously distributed between this prince and his immediate successors. The Greek and Latin riders had certainly a fine occasion for amusement over these fabulous number of years which the Chaldeans assigned to the lives and reigns of their first kings. End of Part Four Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Section 5 of History of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 by Gaston Maspero. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT CALDEA. PART V Men in the meantime became wicked. They lost the habit of offering sacrifices to the gods. And the gods, justly indignant at this negligence, resolved to be avenged. Now, Shannam Shna-Pishtim I was reigning at this time in Shuripak, the town of the ship. He and all his family were saved, and he related afterwards to one of his descendants how Ea had snatched him from the disaster which fell upon his people. Shuripak, the city which thou thyself knowest, is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. It was already an ancient town when the hearts of the gods who resided in it impelled them to bring a deluge upon it. The great gods, as many as they are, their father Anu, their counsellor Bell the Warrior, their throne-bearer Nidib, their prince Enugi. The master of wisdom Ea took his seat with them, and moved with pity, was anxious to warn Shama Shna-Pishtim, his servant, of the peril which threatened him. But it was a very serious affair to betray to a mortal a secret of heaven. And as he did not venture to do so in a direct manner, his inventive mind suggested to him an artifice. He confided to a hedge of reeds the resolution that had been adopted. Hedge, hedge, wall, wall, harken, hedge, and understand well, wall. Man of Shuripak, son of Ubaratutu, construct a wooden house, build a ship, abandon thy goods, seek life, throw away thy possessions, save thy life, and place in the vessel all the seat of life. The ship which thou shalt build, let its proportions be exactly measured, let its dimensions and shape be well arranged, then launch it in the sea. Shama Shna-Pishtim heard the address to the field of reeds, or perhaps the reeds repeated it to him. I understood it, and I said to my master Ea, the command, O my master, which thou hast thus enunciated, I myself will respect it, and I will execute it. But what shall I say to the town, the people, and the elders? Ea opened his mouth and spake. He said to his servant, answer thus and say to them, Because Bell hates me, I will no longer dwell in your town, and upon the land of Bell I will no longer lay my head, but I will go upon the sea, and will dwell with Ea, my master. Now Bell will make rain to fall upon you, upon the swarm of birds and the multitude of fishes, upon all the animals of the field, and upon all the crops. But Ea will give you a sign. The God who rules the rain will cause to fall upon you on a certain evening and abundant rain. When the dawn of the next day appears, the deluge will begin, which will cover the earth and drown all living things. Shama Shnapishtim repeated the warning to the people, but the people refused to believe it, and turned him into ridicule. The work went rapidly forward. The whole was a hundred and forty cubits long, the deck one hundred and forty broad, all the joints were cocked with pitch and bitumen. A solemn festival was observed at its completion, and the embarkation began. All that I possessed I filled the ship with it, all that I had of silver, I filled it with it, and all that I had of gold I filled it with it. All that I had of the seed of life of every kind I filled it with it. I caused all my family and my servants to go up into it. Beasts of the field, wild beasts of the field, I caused them to go up all together. Shama Shnapishtim had given me a sign. When the God who rules the rain in the evening shall cause an abundant rain to fall, enter into the ship and close thy door. The sign was revealed, the God who rules the rain costs to fall one night an abundant rain. The day I feared its dawning, I feared to see the daylight. I entered into the ship, and I shut the door. That the ship might be guided, I handed over to Boozer Bell the pilot, the great ark and its fortunes. As soon as the morning became clear, a black cloud arose from the foundations of heaven. Vaman growled in its bosom. Nebo and Marduk ran before it, ran like two throne-bearers over Hillendale. Nera the Great tore up the stake to which the ark was moored. Ninib came up quickly, he began the attack. The Anunnaki raised their torches and made the earth to tremble at their brilliancy. The tempest of Vaman scaled the heaven, changed all the light to darkness, flooded the earth like a lake. For a whole day the hurricane raged, and blew violently over the mountains and over the country. The tempest rushed upon men like the shock of an army. Brother no longer beheld brother, men recognized each other no more. In heaven the gods were afraid of the deluge. They betook themselves to flight. They clamored over the firmament of Anu. The gods, howling like dogs, cowered upon the parapet. Ishtar wailed like a woman in travail. He cried out, The Lady of Life, the goddess with the beautiful voice. The past returns to clay, because I have prophesied evil before the gods. Prophecying evil before the gods I have counseled the attack to bring my men to nothing, and these to whom I myself have given birth, where are they? Like the spawn of fish they encumber the sea. The gods wept with her over the affair of the Anunnaki. The gods, in the place where they sat weeping, their lips were closed. It was not pity only which made their tears to flow. There were mixed up with it feelings of regret and fears for the future. Mankind once destroyed, who would then make the accustomed offerings? The inconsiderate anger of Belle, while punishing the impiety of their creatures, had inflicted injury upon themselves. Six days and nights the wind continued. The deluge and the tempest raged. The seventh day at daybreak the storm abated. The deluge, which had carried on warfare like an army, ceased. The sea became calm and the hurricane disappeared. The deluge ceased. I surveyed the sea with my eyes, raising my voice, but all mankind had returned to clay. Neither fields nor woods could be distinguished. I opened the hatchway and the light fell upon my face. I sank down, I cowered, I wept, and my tears ran down my cheeks when I beheld the world all terror and sea. At the end of twelve days a point of land stood up from the waters. The ship touched the land of Niser. The mountain of Niser stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer. One day, two days, the mountain of Niser stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer. Three days, four days, the mountain of Niser stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer. Five days, six days, the mountain of Niser stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer. The seventh day at dawn I took out a dove and let it go. The dove went, turned about, and as there was no place to alight upon came back. I took out a swallow and let it go. The swallow went, turned about, and as there was no place to alight upon came back. I took out a raven and let it go. The raven went, and saw that the water had abated, and came near the ship flapping its wings, croaking, and returned no more. Shama Shnat Pishitim escaped from the deluge, but he did not know whether the divine wrath was appeased, or what would be done with him when it became known that he still lived. He resolved to conciliate the guides by expiatory ceremonies. I sent forth the inhabitants of the ark toward the four winds. I made an offering. I poured out a propitiary libation on the summit of the mountain. I set up seven and seven vessels, and I placed there some sweet-smelling rushes, some cedar wood, and storacks. He thereupon re-entered the ship to await there the effect of his sacrifice. The gods, who no longer hoped for such a windfall, accepted the sacrifice with a wondering joy. The gods sniffed up the odor. The gods sniffed up the excellent odor. The gods gathered like flies above the offering. When Ishtar, the mistress of life, came in her turn, she held up the great amulet which Anu had made for her. She was still furious against those who had determined upon the destruction of mankind, especially against Bel. These gods, I swear it on the necklace of my neck. I will not forget them. These days I will remember, and will not forget them forever. Let the other gods come quickly to take part in the offering. Bel shall have no part in the offering, for he was not wise. But he has caused the deluge, and he has devoted my people to destruction. Bel himself had not recovered his temper. When he arrived in his turn and saw the ship, he remained immovable before it, and his heart was filled with rage against the gods of heaven. Who is he who has come out of it living? No man must survive the destruction. The gods had everything to fear from his anger. Ninib was eager to exculpate himself, and to put the blame upon the right person. Ia did not disavow his acts. I opened his mouth unspake, he said, to Bel the warrior. Thou the wisest among gods, O warrior, why work thou not wise, and didst cause the deluge? The sinner make him responsible for his sin. The criminal make him responsible for his crime. But be calm, and do not cut off all. Be patient, and do not drown all. What was the good of causing the deluge? A lion had only come to decimate the people. What was the good of causing the deluge? A leopard had only come to decimate the people. What was the good of causing the deluge? Famine had only to present itself to desolate the country. What was the good of causing the deluge? Nera, the plague, had only come to destroy the people. As for me, I did not reveal the judgment of the gods. I caused Casisadra to dream a dream, and he became aware of the judgment of the gods, and then he made his resolve. Bel was pacified at the words of Ia. He went up into the interior of the ship, took hold of my hand, and made me go up, even me. He made my wife go up, and he pushed her to my side. He turned our faces towards him. He placed himself between us, and blessed us. Up to this time, Shama Shana Pishitim was a man. Henceforward, let Shama Shana Pishitim and his wife be reverenced like us, the gods, and let Shama Shana Pishitim dwell a far off at the mouth of the seas, and he carried us away and placed us a far off at the mouth of the seas. Another form of the legend relates that by an order of the God, Zisathras, before embarking, had buried in the town of Sipara all the books in which his ancestors had set forth the sacred sizes, books of oracles and omens in which were recorded the beginning, the middle, and the end. When he had disappeared, those of his companions who remained on board, seeing that he did not return, went out and set off in search of him, calling him by name. He did not show himself to them, but a voice from heaven and joined upon them to be devout towards the gods, to return to Babylon and dig up the books in order that they might be handed down to future generations. The voice also informed them that the country in which they were was Armenia. They offered sacrifice in turn. They were gained their country on foot. They dug up the books of Sipara and wrote many more. Afterwards they refounded Babylon. It was even maintained in the time of the Celusido that a portion of the ark existed on one of the summits of the Gordean mountains. Pilgrimages were made to it, and the faithful scraped off the bitumen which covered it, to make out of it amulets of sovereign virtue against evil spells. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT KALDIA PART VI. The chronicle of these fabulous times placed, soon after the abating of the waters, the foundation of a new dynasty, as extraordinary or almost as extraordinary in character as that before the flood. According to Borosis it was of Chaldean origin, and comprised eighty-six kings, who bore rule during thirty-four thousand eighty years. The first two, Avetius and Camabellus, ranged twenty-four hundred and twenty-seven hundred years, while the latter reigns did not exceed the ordinary limits of human life. An attempt was afterwards made to harmonize them with probability. The number of kings was reduced to six, and their combined reigns to two hundred and twenty-five years. This attempt arose from a misapprehension of their true character, names and deeds. Everything connected with them belongs to myth and fiction only, and is irreducible to history proper. They supplied to priests and poets material for scores of different stories, of which several have come down to us in fragments. Some are short, and serve as preambles to prayers or magical formulas. Others are of some length, and may pass for real ethics. The gods intervene in them, and along with kings play an important part. It is Nera, for instance, the Lord of the Plague, who declares war against mankind in order to punish them for having despised the authority of Anu. He makes Babylon to feel his wrath first. The children of Babel, they were as birds, and the bird-catcher, thou were he. Thou takest him in the net, thou encloses him, thou decimates them, hero Nera. One after the other he attacks the mother-cities of the Euphrates, and obliges them to render homage to him, even Uruk, the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar, the town of the priestesses, of the Almas, and the sacred courtesans. Then he turns upon the foreign nations and carries his ravages as far as Phoenicia. In other fragments the hero Atana makes an attempt to raise himself to heaven, and the eagle, his companion, flies away with him, without, however, being able to bring the enterprise to his successful issue. Nimrod and his exploits are known to us from the Bible. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord, and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erich, and Akkad, and Kalna, in the land of Shinar. Almost all the characteristics which are attributed by Hebrew tradition to Nimrod we find in Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and descendant of the Shamash Shannat Pishitim, who had witnessed the deluge. Several copies of a poem, in which an unknown scribe had celebrated his exploits, existed about the middle of the seventh century before our era in the royal library at Nineveh. They had been transcribed by order of Asher Bhanipal from a more ancient copy, and the fragments of them which have come down to us, in spite of their lacuna, enable us to restore the original text, if not in its entirety, at least in regard to the succession of events. They were divided into twelve episodes corresponding with the twelve divisions of the year, and the ancient Babylonian author was guided in his choice of these divisions by something more than mere chance. Gilgamesh, at first an ordinary mortal under the patronage of the gods, had himself become a god and son of the goddess Aruru. He had seen the abyss, he had learned everything that is kept secret and hidden. He had even made known to men what had taken place before the deluge. The son, who had protected him in his human condition, had placed him beside himself on the judgment seat, and delegated to him authority to pronounce decisions from which there was no appeal. He was, as it were, a son on a small scale, before whom the kings, princes, and great ones of the earth humbly bowed their heads. The scribes had, therefore, some authority for treating the events of his life after the model of the year, and for expressing them in twelve chance, which answered the annual course of the sun through the twelve months. The whole story is essentially an account of his struggles with Ishtar, and the first pages reveal him as already at issue with the goddess. His portrait, such as the monuments have preserved it for us, is singularly unlike the ordinary type. One would be inclined to regard it as representing an individual of a different race, survival of some very ancient nation which had held rule on the plains of the Euphrates before the arrival of the Sumerian or Semitic tribes. His figure is tall, broad, muscular to an astonishing degree, and expresses at once figure and activity. His head is massive, bony, almost square, with a somewhat flattened face, a large nose, and prominent cheekbones. The whole framed by an abundance of hair, and a thick beard symmetrically curled. All the young men of Uruk, the well-protected, were captivated by the prodigious strength and beauty of the hero. The elders of the city betook themselves to Ishtar to complain of the state of neglect to which the young generation had relegated them. He has no longer a rival in their hearts, but thy subjects are led to battle, and Gilgamesh does not send one child back to his father. Night and day they cry after him. It is he, the shepherd of Uruk, the well-protected. He is its shepherd and master. He the powerful, the perfect, and the wise. Even the women did not escape the general enthusiasm. He leaves not a single virgin to her mother, a single daughter to a warrior, a single wife to her master. Ishtar heard their complaint. The gods heard it, and cried with a loud voice to Aruru. It is thou Aruru who has given him birth. Create for him now his fellow, that he may be able to meet him on a day when it pleases him, in order that they may fight with each other, and Uruk may be delivered. When Aruru heard them, she created in her heart a man of anin. Aruru washed her hands, took a bit of clay, cast it upon the earth, kneaded it, and created Babani, the warrior, the exalted Saiyan, the man of Naniib, whose whole body is covered with hair, whose tresses are as long as those of a woman. The locks of his hair bristle on his head like those on the corn-god. He is clad in a vestment like that of the God of the fields. He browses with the gazelles. He quenches his thirst with the beasts of the field. He sports with the beasts of the waters. Frequent representations of Babani are found upon the monuments. He has the horns of a goat, the legs and tail of a bull. He possessed not only the strength of a brute, but his intelligence also embraced all things, the past and the future. He would probably have triumphed over Gilgamesh if Shamash had not succeeded in attaching them to one another by an indissoluble tie of friendship. The difficulty was to draw these two future friends together, and to bring them face to face without their coming to blows. The God sent his courier, Sadhu, the hunter, to study the habits of the monster, and to find out the necessary means to persuade him to come down peaceably to Uruk. Sadhu, the hunter, proceeded to meet Ibani near the entrance of the watering-place. One day, two days, three days, Ibani met him at the entrance of the watering-place. He perceived Sadhu and his countenance darkened. He entered the enclosure. He became sad. He groaned. He cried with a loud voice. His heart was heavy. His features were distorted. This burst from his breast. The hunter saw from a distance that his face was inflamed with anger, and, judging it more prudent not to persevere farther in his enterprise, returned to impart to the God what he had observed. I was afraid, said he, in finishing his narrative, and I did not approach him. He had filled up the pit which I had dug to track him. He broke the nets which I had spread. He delivered from my hands the cattle and the beasts of the field. He did not allow me to search the country through. Gilgamesh thought that where the strongest man might fail by the employment of force, a woman might possibly succeed by the attractions of pleasure. He commanded Sadhu to go quickly to Uruk and there choose from among the priestesses of Ishtar one of the most beautiful. The hunter presented himself before Gilgamesh, recounted to him his adventures, and sought his permission to take away with him one of the sacred courtesans. Go, my hunter, take the priestess. When the beasts come to the watering-place, let her display her beauty. He will see her, he will approach her, and his beast, that troop around him, will be scattered. The hunter went. He took with him the priestess, he took the straight road. The third day they arrived at the fatal plain. The hunter and the priestess sat down to rest. One day, two days, they sat at the entrance of the watering-place from whose waters Ibane drank along with the animals, where he sported with the beasts of the water. When Ibane arrived, he who dwells in the mountains, and who browses upon the grass like gazelles, who drinks with the animals, who sports with the beasts of the water, the priestess saw the Satur. She was afraid and blushed, but the hunter recalled her to her duty. It is he, priestess, undo thy garment, show him thy form, that he may be taken with thy beauty. Be not ashamed, but deprive him of his soul. He perceives thee, he is rushing towards thee. Arrange thy garment, he is coming upon thee, and receive him with every art of woman. His beasts which troop around him will be scattered, and he will press thee to thy breast. The priestess did as she was commanded. She received him with every art of woman, and he pressed her to his breast. Six days and seven nights Ibane remained near the priestess, his well-beloved. When he got tired of pleasure he turned his face towards his cattle, and he saw that the gazelles had turned aside and that the beasts of the field had fled far from him. Ibane was alarmed. He fell into a swoon. His knees became stiff because his cattle had fled from him. While he lay as if dead he heard the voice of the priestess. He recovered his senses. He came to himself full of love. He seated himself at the feet of the priestess. He looked into her face, and while the priestess spoke his ears listened. For it was to him the priestess spoke, to him Ibane. Thou who art superb, Ibane, as a God, why dost thou live among the beasts of the field? Come I will conduct thee to Uruk, the well-protected, to the glorious house, the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar, to the place where is Gilgamesh, who strengtheth supreme, and who, like a Eurus, excels the heroes in strength. While she thus spoke to him he hung upon her words. He the wise of heart he realized by anticipation of friend. Ibane said to the priestess, Let us go, priestess. Lead me to the glorious and holy abode of Anu and Ishtar, to the place where is Gilgamesh, who strengtheth supreme, and who, like a Eurus, prevails over the heroes by his strength. I will fight with him and manifest to him my power. I will send forth a panther against Uruk, and he must struggle with it. The priestess conducted her prisoner to Uruk, but the city at that moment was celebrating the festival of Thamuz, and Gilgamesh did not care to interrupt his solemnities in order to face the task to which Ibane had invited him. What was the use of such trials, since the gods themselves had ordained to point out to him in a dream the line of conduct he was to pursue, and had taken up the cause of their children? Shamash, in fact, began the introduction of the monster, and sketched an alluring picture of the life which awaited him if he would agree not to return to his mountain home. Not only would the priestess belong to him forever, having none other than him for husband, but Gilgamesh would shower upon him riches and honors. He will give thee wherein to sleep a great bed cunningly wrought. He will seat thee on his divan. He will give thee a place on his left hand. And the princes of the earth shall kiss thy feet. The people of Uruk shall gravel on the ground before thee. It was by such flatteries and promises for the future that Gilgamesh gained the affection of his servant Ibane, whom he loved forever. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT KALDIA PART VII. Shamash had reasons for being urgent. Zumbaba, king of Elam, had invaded the country of the Euphrates, destroyed the temples, and substituted for the national worship the cult of foreign deities. The two heroes in concert could alone check his advance and kill him. They collected their troops, set out on the march, having learned from a female magician that the enemy had concealed himself in a sacred grove. They entered it in disguise, and stopped in rapture for a moment before the cedar trees. They contemplated the height of them. They contemplated the thickness of them. The place where Kumbaba was accustomed to walk up and down with rapid strides, alleys were made in it, paths kept up with great care. They saw at length the hill of cedars, the abode of the gods, the sanctuary of Irnini, and before the hill, a magnificent cedar, and pleasant, grateful shade. They surprised Kumbaba at the moment when he was about to take his outdoor exercise, cut off his head, and came back in triumph to Uruk. Gilgamesh brightened his weapons, he polished his weapons, he put aside his war-harness, he put on his white garments, he adorned himself with the royal insignia, and bound on the diadem. Gilgamesh put his tiara on his head, and bound on his diadem. Ishtar saw him thus adorned, and the same passion consumed her which inflames mortals. To the love of Gilgamesh she raised her eyes, the mighty Ishtar, and she said, Come, Gilgamesh, be my husband, thou. Thy love give it to me as a gift to me, and thou shalt be my spouse, and I shall be thy wife. I will place thee in a chariot of lapis and gold, with golden wheels and mountings of onyx. Thou shalt be drawn in it by great lions, and thou shalt enter our house with the odorous incense of cedar wood. When thou shalt have entered our house, all the country by the sea shall embrace thy feet. Kings shall bow down before thee, the nobles and the great ones, the gifts of the mountains and of the plain they will bring to thee as tribute. Thy oxen shall prosper, thy sheep shall be doubly fruitful, thy mules shall spontaneously come under the yoke, thy chariot horse shall be strong and shall gallop, thy bull under the yoke shall have no rival. Gilgamesh repels this unexpected declaration with a mixed feeling of contempt and apprehension. He abuses the goddess, and insolently questions her as to what has become of her mortal husbands during her long divine life. Thomas, the spouse of thy youth, thou hast condemned him to weep from year to year. Nilala, the spotted sparrow-hawk, thou lovest him, and afterwards thou didst strike him and break his wing. He continues in the wood and cries, Oh, my wings! Thou didst afterwards love a lion of mature strength, and then didst cause him to be rent by blows, seven at a time. Thou lovest also a stallion magnificent in the battle. Thou didst devote him to death by the goat and whip. Thou didst compel him to gallop for ten leagues. Thou didst devote him to exhaustion and thirst. Thou didst devote tears to his mother Zillili. Thou didst also love the shepherd Tabulu, who lavished incessantly upon thee the smoke of sacrifices, and daily slaughtered goats to thee. Thou didst strike him and turn him into a leopard. His own servants went in pursuit of him, and his dogs followed his trail. Thou didst love Ishulani, the father's gardener, who ceaselessly brought thee presents of fruit, and decorated every day thy table. Thou raisedest thine eyes to him, Thou seizedest him. My Ishulani, we shall eat melons, then shalt thou stretch forth thy hand and remove that which separates us. Ishulani said to thee, I, what dost thou require from me? Oh, my mother, prepare no food for me, I myself will not eat. Anything I should eat would be for me a misfortunate curse, and my body would be stricken by immortal coldness. Then thou didst hear him, and didst become angry. Thou didst strike him. Thou didst transform him into a dwarf. Thou didst set him up in the middle of a couch. He could not rise up. He could not get down from where he was. Thou lovest me now. Afterwards thou wilt strike me as thou didst these. When Ishtar heard him she fell into a fury. She ascended into heaven. The mighty Ishtar presented herself before her father Anu. Before her mother Anatu she presented herself and said, My mother, Gilgamesh has despised me. Gilgamesh has enumerated my unfaithfulnesses, my unfaithfulnesses, and my ignomies. Anu opened his mouth and spake to the mighty Ishtar. Canst thou not remain quiet now that Gilgamesh has enumerated to thee thy unfaithfulness, thy unfaithfulness and ignomies? But she refused to allow the outrage to go unpunished. She desired her father to make a celestial urus who would execute her vengeance on the hero. And as he hesitated she threatened to destroy every living thing in the entire universe by suspending the impulses of desire and the effect of love. Anu finally gives way to her rage. He creates a frightful urus whose ravages soon rendered uninhabitable the neighborhood of Uruk the well-protected. The two heroes, Gilgamesh and Ibane, touched by the miseries and terror of the people, sat out on the chase, and hastened to rouse the beast from its lair on the banks of the Euphrates in the marshes. To which it resorted after each murderous onslaught. A troop of three hundred valiant warriors penetrated into the thickets in three lines to drive the animal towards the heroes. The beast, with head lowered, charged them, but Ibane seized it with one hand by the right horn, and with the other by the tail, and forced it to rear. Gilgamesh at the same instant, seizing it by the leg, plunged his dagger into its heart. The beast being dispatched they celebrated their victory by a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and poured out a libation to Shamash, whose protection had not failed them in this last danger. Ishtar, her pursuits of vengeance having been defeated, ascended the ramparts of Uruk the well-protected. She sent forth a loud cry, she hurled forth a malediction. Cursed be Gilgamesh, who has insulted me, and who has killed the celestial urus. Ibane heard these words of Ishtar. He tore a limb from the celestial urus and threw it in the face of the goddess. Thou also I will conquer, and I will treat thee like him. I will fasten the curse upon thy sides. Ishtar assembled her priestesses, her female votaries, her frenzied women, and together they intoned dirge over the limb of the celestial urus. Gilgamesh assembled all the turners in ivory, and the workmen were astonished at the enormous size of the horns. They were worth thirty mime of lapis. Their diameter was a half-cubit, and both of them should contain six measures of oil. He dedicated them to Shamash and suspended them on the corners of the altar. Then he washed his hands in the Euphrates, re-entered Uruk, and passed through the streets in triumph. A riotous banquet ended the day, but on that very night Ibane felt himself haunted by an inexplicable and baleful dream, and fortune abandoned the two heroes. Gilgamesh had cried in the intoxication of success to the woman of Uruk, who shines forth among the valiant, who is glorious above all men. Gilgamesh shines forth among the valiant. Gilgamesh is glorious above all men. Ishtar made him feel her vengeance in the destruction of that beauty of which he was so proud. She covered him with leprosy from head to foot, and made him an object of horror to his friends of the previous day. A life of pain and a frightful death. He alone could escape them who dared to go into the confines of the world in quest of the fountain of youth and the tree of life, which were said to be there hidden. But the road was rough, unknown, beset by dangers, and no one of those who had ventured upon it had ever returned. Gilgamesh resolved to brave every peril rather than submit to his fate, and proposed this fresh adventure to his friend Ibane, who notwithstanding his sad forebodings consented to accompany him. They killed a tiger on the way, but Ibane was mortally wounded in a struggle in which they engaged in the neighborhood of Nipper, and breathed his last after an agony of twelve days' duration. Gilgamesh wept bitterly over his friend Ibane, groveling on the bare earth. The selfish fear of death struggled in his spirit with regret it having lost so dear a companion, a tried friend in so many encounters. I do not wish to die like Ibane. Sorrow has entered my heart. The fear of death has taken possession of me, and I am overcome. But I will go with rapid steps to the strong Shama-Shinat Pishitim, son of Ubaratutu, to learn from him how to become immortal. He leaves the plain of the Euphrates. He plunges boldly into the desert. He loses himself for a whole day amid frightful solitudes. I reached at nightfall a ravine in the mountain. I beheld lions and trembled, but I raised my face toward the moon-god, and I prayed. My supplication ascended even to the father of the gods, and he extended over me his protection. A vision from on high revealed to him the road he was to take. With axe and dagger in hand he reached the entrance of a dark passage leading into the mountains of Mashu, whose gate is guarded day and night by supernatural beings. The scorpion men, of whom the stature extends upwards as far as the supports of heaven, and of whom the beast to send as low as Hades, guard the door. The terror which they inspire strikes down like a thunderbolt. Their look kills, their splendor confounds and overturns the mountains. They watch over the sun at his rising and setting. Gilgamesh perceived them, and his features were distorted with fear and horror. Their savage appearance disturbed his mind. The scorpion man said to his wife, He who comes towards us, his body is marked by the gods. The scorpion woman replied to him, In his mind he is a god, in his mortal covering he is a man. The scorpion man spoke and said, It is as the father of the gods has commanded he has traveled over distant regions before joining us, thee and me. Gilgamesh learns that the guardians are not evilly disposed towards him, and becomes reassured, tells them his misfortunes, and implores permission to pass beyond them, so as to reach Shamashinat Pishitim, his father, who is translated to the gods, and who has at his disposal both life and death. The scorpion man in vain shows to him the perils before him, of which the horrible darkness enveloping the Machu mountains is not the least. Gilgamesh proceeds through the depths of the darkness for long hours, and afterwards comes out in the neighborhood of a marvelous forest upon the shores of the ocean which encircles the world. One tree especially excites his wonder. As soon as he sees it he runs toward it. Its fruits are so many precious stones, its boughs are splendid to look upon, for the branches are weighed down with lapis, and their fruits are superb. When his astonishment had calmed down, Gilgamesh begins to grieve, and to curse the ocean which stays his steps. Sabitu, the virgin who is seated on the throne of the seas, perceiving him from a distance, retires at first to her castle, and barricades herself within it. He calls out to her from the strand, implores her and threatens her in turn, adores her to help him in his voyage. If it can be done, I will cross the sea. If it cannot be done, I will lay me down on the land to die. The goddess is at length touched by his tears. Gilgamesh, there has never been a passage hither. No one from time immemorial has been able to cross the sea. Gilgamesh the valiant crossed the sea. After Shamash, who can cross it? The crossing is troublesome, the way difficult, perilous the water of death, which like a bolt is drawn between thee and thy aim. Even if, Gilgamesh, thou didst cross the sea, what would as thou do on arriving at the water of death? Arad, you, Shamash, who not pitched him's mariner, can alone bring the enterprise to a happy ending. If it is possible, thou shalt cross the sea with him. If it is not possible, thou shalt retrace thy steps. End of Part 7 Red by Professor Heather and Bye. For more free audiobooks were to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 8 of History of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 by Gaston Mass Barrow. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Chapter 1 Ancient Caldea, Part 8 But Ea and the hero took ship. Forty days tempestuous cruising brought them to the waters of death, which with a supreme effort they passed. Beyond these they rested on their oars and loosed their girdles. The happy island rose up before them, and Shamash, not pitched him, stood upon the shore, ready to answer the questions of his grandson. None but a god dare enter his mysterious paradise. The bark bearing an ordinary mortal must stop at some distance from the shore, and the conversation is carried on from on board. Gilgamesh narrated once more the story of his life, and makes known the object of his visit. Shamash, not pitched him, answers him stoically that death follows from an inexorable law, to which it is better to submit with a good grace. However long the time we shall build houses, however long the time we shall put our seal to contracts, however long the time brothers shall quarrel with each other, however long the time there shall be hostility between kings, however long the time rivers shall overflow their banks, we shall not be able to portray any image of death. When the spirit salute a man at his birth, then the genie of the earth, the great gods, Mamitu, the molder of destinies, all of them together assign a fate to him. They determined for him his life and death, but the day of his death remains unknown to him. Gilgamesh thinks doubtless that his forefather is amusing himself at his expense, in preaching resignation, seeing that he himself had been able to escape this destiny. I look upon thee, Shamash, not pitched him, and thy appearance has not changed. Thou art like me and not different. Thou art like me and I am like thee. Thou wouldest be strong enough of heart to enter upon a combat, to judge by thy appearance. Tell me, then, how thou hast obtained this existence among the gods to which thou hast aspired. Shamash not pitched him, yields to his wish, if only to show him how abnormal his own case was, and to indicate the merits which had marked him out for a destiny superior to that of the common herd of humanity. He describes the deluge to him, and relates how he was able to escape from it by the favour of Ia, and how by that of Bel he was made, while living, a member of the army of the gods. And now, he adds, as far as thou art concerned, which one of the gods will bestow upon thee the strength to obtain the life which thou seekest. Come, go to sleep. Six days and seven nights he is as a man whose strength appears suspended, for sleep has fallen upon him like a blast of wind. Shamash not pitched him, spoke to his wife. Behold this man who asks for life, and upon whom sleep has fallen like a blast of wind. The wife answers Shamash not pitched him, the man of distant lands, cast a spell upon him this man, and he will eat of the magic broth, and the road by which he has come he will retrace it in health of body, and the great gate through which he has come forth he will return by it to his own country. Shamash not pitched him, spoke to his wife. The misfortunes of this man distress thee. Very well cook the broth, and place it by his head. And while Gilgamesh still slept on board his vessel, the material for the broth was gathered. On the second day it was picked, on the third it was steeped. On the fourth Shamash not pitched him prepared his pot. On the fifth he put into it senility. On the sixth the broth was cooked. On the seventh he cast his spell suddenly on his man, and the latter consumed the broth. Then Gilgamesh spoke to Shamash not pitched him, the inhabitant of distant lands. I hesitated, slumber laid hold of me. Thou hast cast a spell upon me. Thou hast given me the broth. The effect would not have been lasting if other ceremonies had not followed in addition to this spell from the sorcerer's kitchen. Shamash, after this preparation, could now land upon the shore of the happy island and purify himself there. Shamash not pitched him confided this business to his mariner Aradiyah. The man whom thou hast brought, his body, is covered with ulcers. The leprous scabs have spoiled the beauty of his body. Take him, Aradiyah, lead him to the place of purification. Let him wash his ulcers white as snow in the water. Let him get rid of his scabs, and let the sea bear them away so that at length his body may appear healthy. He will then change the fillet which binds his brows, and the loincloth which hides his nakedness, until he returns to his country, until he reaches the end of his journey. Let him by no means put off the loincloth, however ragged. Then only shall he have always a clean one. Then Aradiyah took him and conducted him to the place of purification. He washed his ulcers white as snow in the water. He got rid of his scabs, and the sea carried them away. So that at length his body appeared healthy. He changed the fillet which bound his brows, the loincloth which hid his nakedness, until he should reach the end of his journey he was not to put off the loincloth, however ragged. Then alone he was to have a clean one. The cure affected, Gilgamesh goes again on board his bark, and returns to the place where Shamashnapishitim was awaiting him. Shamashnapishitim would not send his descendant back to the land of the living without making him a princely present. His wife spoke to him. To him Shamashnapishitim, the inhabitant of distant lands, Gilgamesh has come. He is comforted. He is cured. What wilt thou give to him, now that he is about to return to his country? He took the oars, Gilgamesh. He brought the bark near the shore, and Shamashnapishitim spoke to him. To Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, thou art going from here comforted. What shall I give thee, now that thou art about to return to thy country? I am about to reveal to thee, Gilgamesh, a secret, and the judgment of the gods I am about to tell it thee. There is a plant similar to the Hawthorne in its flower, and whose thorns prick like the viper. If thy hand can lay hold of that plant without being torn, break from it a branch, and bear it with thee. It will secure for thee an eternal youth. Gilgamesh gathers the branch, and in his joy plans with Erediya future enterprises. Erediya, this plant is the plant of renovation, by which a man obtains life. I will bear it with me to Urek, the well-protected. I will cultivate a bush from it. I will cut some of it, and its name shall be, the old man becomes young by it. I will eat of it, and I shall repossess the vigor of my youth. He reckoned without the gods, whose jealous minds will not allow men to participate in their privilege. The first place on which they set foot on shore, he perceived a well of fresh water, and went down to it. And whilst he was drawing water, a serpent came out of it, and snatched from him the plant. Yea, the serpent rushed out and bore away the plant, and while escaping uttered a malediction. That day Gilgamesh sat down, he wept, and his tears streamed down his cheeks. He said to the mariner, Erediya, What is the youth, Erediya, of my renewed strength? What is the use of my hearts rejoicing in my return to life? It is not myself I have served. It is this earthly lion I have served. Hardly twenty leagues on the road, and he for himself alone has already taken possession of the plant. As I opened the well, the plant was lost to me, and the genius of the fountain took possession of it. Who am I that I should tear it from him? He reembarks in sadness, he reenters Uruk the well protected, and that length begins to think of celebrating the funeral solemnities of Ibane, to whom he was not able to show respect at the time of his death. He supervises them, fulfills the rites, intones the final chant. The temples, thou shalt enter them no more. The white vestments, thou shalt no longer put them on. The sweet-smelling ointments, thou shalt no longer anoint thyself with them to envelop thee with their perfume. Thou shalt no longer press thy bow to the ground to bend it, but those that the bow has wounded shall surround thee. Thou no longer holdest thy scepter in thy hand, but scepters fascinate thee. Thou no longer adornest thy feet with wings. No longer givest forth a sound upon the earth. Thy wife, whom thou lovest, thou embraces her no more. Thy wife, whom thou hateest, thou betest her no more. Thy daughter, whom thou lovest, thou embraces her no more. Thy daughter, whom thou hateest, thou betest her no more. The resounding earth lies heavy upon thee. She who is dark, she who is dark. Jajanah zoo the mother. She who is dark, whose side is not veiled with splendid vestments, whose bosom, like a newborn animal, is not covered. Ibane has descended from the earth to Hades. It is not the messenger of Nurgle the Implacable who has snatched him away. It is not the plague which has carried him off. It is not consumption that has carried him off. It is the earth which has carried him off. It is not the field of battle which has carried him off. It is the earth which has carried him off. Gilgamesh dragged himself along from temple to temple, repeating his complaint before bell and before sin, and at length threw himself at the feet of the God of the dead, Nurgle. Burst opened the sepulchre cavern, opened the ground, that the spirit of Ibane may issue from the soil like a blast of wind. As soon as Nurgle the valiant heard him, he burst open the sepulchre vault. He opened the earth. He caused the spirit of Ibane to issue from the earth like a blast of wind. Gilgamesh interrogates him, and asked him with anxiety what the state of the dead may be. Tell, my friend, tell, my friend, open the earth, and what thou seest, tell it. I cannot tell thee, my friend, I cannot tell it thee. If I should open the earth before thee, if I were to tell thee that which I have seen, terror would overthrow thee, thou wouldest faint away, thou wouldest weep. Terror will overthrow me, I shall faint away, I shall weep, but tell it to me. And the ghost depicts for him the sorrows of the abode and the miseries of the shades. Those only enjoy some happiness who have fallen with arms in their hands, and who have been solemnly buried after the fight. The mains neglected by their relatives succumb to hunger and thirst. On a sleeping couch he lies, drinking pure water, he who has been killed in battle. Thou hast seen him? I have seen him. His father and his mother support his head, and his wife bends over him wailing. But he whose body remains forgotten in the fields. Thou hast seen him? I have seen him. His soul has no rest at all in the earth. He whose soul no one cares for, thou hast seen him? I have seen him. The dregs of the cup, the remains of the repast, that which is thrown among the refuse of the street, that is what he has to nourish him. This poem did not proceed in its entirety, or at any one time, from the imagination of a single individual. Each episode of it answers to some separate legend concerning Gilgamesh, or the origin of Uruk the well-protected. The greater part preserves, under a later form, an air of extreme antiquity. And if the events dealt with have not a precise sparing on the life of a king, they paint in a lively way the vicissitudes of the life of the people. These lions, leopards, or gigantic uruses with which Gilgamesh and his faithful Ibn Iqariyan-Sophirso warfare are not, as is sometimes said, mythological animals. END OF PART VIII. Similar monsters, it was believed, appeared from time to time in the marshes of Kaldia, and gave proof of their existence to the inhabitants of neighboring villages by such ravages as real lions and tigers commit in India or the Sahara. It was the duty of chiefs on the borderlands of the Euphrates, as on the banks of the Nile, as among all peoples still sunk in semi-barbarism, to go forth to the attack of these beasts single-handed, and to sacrifice themselves one after the other, until one of them more fortunate or stronger than the rest should triumph over these mischievous brutes. The kings of Babylon and Nineveh in later times converted into a pleasure that which had been an official duty of their early predecessors. Gilgamesh had not yet arrived at that stage, and the seriousness, not to speak of the fear, with which he entered on the fight with such beasts, is an evidence of the early date of the portions of history which are concerned with his hunting exploits. The scenes are represented on the seals of princes who reigned prior to the year 3000 B.C., and the work of the ancient engraver harmonizes so perfectly with the description of the comparatively modern scribe that it seems like an anticipated illustration of the latter. The engravings represent so persistently, and with so little variation, the images of the monsters and those of Gilgamesh and his faithful Ibani, that the corresponding episodes in the poem must have already existed as we know them, if not in form, at least in their main drift. Other portions of the poem are more recent, and it would seem that the expedition against Kumbaba contains allusions to the Elamite invasions from which Kaldia had suffered so much towards the twentieth century before our era. The traditions which we possess of the times following the deluge embody, like the adventures of Gilgamesh, very ancient elements which the scribes or narrators wove together in a more or less skillful manner around the name of some king or divinity. The fabulous chronicle of the cities of the Euphrates existed, therefore, in a piecemeal condition, in the memory of the people or in the books of the priests, before even their primitive history began. The learned who collected it later on had only to select some of the materials with which it furnished them, in order to form out of them a connected narrative in which the earliest ages were distinguished from the most recent only in the assumption of more frequent and more indirect interpositions of the powers of heaven in the affairs of men. Every city had naturally its own version, in which its own protecting deities, its heroes and princes, played the most important parts. That of Babylon threw all the rest into the shade, not that it was superior to them, but because this city had speedily become strong enough to assert its political supremacy over the whole region of the Euphrates. Its scribes were accustomed to see their master treat the lords of other towns as subjects or vassals. They fancied that this must have always been the case, and that from its origin Babylon had been recognized as the queen's city to which its contemporaries rendered homage. They made its individual annals the framework for the history of the entire country, and from the succession of its princely families on the throne, diverse as they were in origin, they constructed a complete canon of the kings of Caldea. But the manner of grouping the names and of dividing the dynasties varied according to the period in which the lists were drawn up, and at the present time we are in possession of at least two systems which the Babylonian historians attempted to construct. Barassus, who communicated one of them to the Greeks about the beginning of the second century B.C., would not admit more than eight dynasties in the period of 36,000 years between the Deluge and the Persian invasion. The lists, which he had copied from originals in the cuneiform character, have suffered severely at the hands of his abbreviators, who omitted the majority of the names which seemed to them very barbarous in form, while those who copied these abbreviated lists have made such further havoc with them that they are now for the most part unintelligible. Modern criticism has frequently attempted to restore them, with varying results. The reconstruction here given, which passes for the most probable, is not equally certain in all its parts. It was not without reason that Barassus and his authorities had put the sum total of reigns at 36,000 years. This number falls in with a certain astrological period, during which the gods had granted to the Chaldeans glory, prosperity, and independence, and whose termination coincided with the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. Others before them had employed the same artifice, but they reckoned ten dynasties in the place of the Eight accepted by Barassus. Attempts have been made to bring the two lists into harmony, with varying results. In my opinion a waste of time and labour. For even comparatively recent periods of their history, the Chaldeans, like the Egyptians, had to depend upon a collection of certain abbreviated, incoherent, and often contradictory documents, from which they found it difficult to make a choice. They could not, therefore, always come to an agreement when they wished to determine how many dynasties had succeeded each other during those doubtful epics, how many kings were included in each dynasty, and what length of reigns was to be assigned to each king. We do not know the motives which influenced Barassus in his preference of one tradition over others. Perhaps he had no choice in the matter, and that of which he constituted himself the interpreter was the only one which was then known. In any case, the tradition he followed forms a system which we cannot modify without misinterpreting the intentions of those who dreared up, or who have handed it down to us. We must accept or reject it just as it is, in its entirety and without alteration. To attempt to adapt it to the testimony of the monuments would be equivalent to the creation of a new system, and not to the correction simply of the old one. The right course is to put it aside for the moment, and confine ourselves to the original lists whose fragments have come down to us. They do not furnish us it is true with a history of Chaldea such as it unfolded itself from age to age, but they teach us what the later Chaldeans knew or thought they knew of that history. Still, it is wise to treat them with some reserve, and not to forget that if they agree with each other in the main they differ frequently in details. Thus the small dynasties which are called the sixth and seventh include the same number of kings on both the tablets which establish their existence, but the number of years assigned to the names of the kings and the total years of each dynasty vary a little from one another. Is the difference in the calculations the fault of the scribes, who in mechanically copying and recopying, ended by fatally altering the figures? Or is it to be explained by some circumstance of which we are ignorant, an association on the throne of which the duration is at one time neglected with regard to one of the co-regions, and at another time with regard to the other? Or was it owing to a question of legitimacy, by which, according to the decision arrived at, a reign was prolonged or abbreviated? Contemporaneous monuments will some day, perhaps, enable us to solve the problem which the later Chaldeans did not succeed in clearing up. While awaiting the means to restore a rigorously exact chronology, we must be content with the approximate information furnished by the tablets as to the succession of the Babylonian kings. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT CALDEA PART X Actual history occupied but a small space in the lists. Only twenty centuries, out of a whole of three hundred and sixty, beyond the historic period the imagination was given a free reign, and the few facts which were known disappeared almost completely under the accumulation of mythical narratives in popular stories. It was not that the documents were entirely wanting, for the Chaldeans took a great interest in their past history, and made a diligent search for any memorials of it. Each time they succeeded in disinterring an inscription from the ruins of a town, they were accustomed to make several copies of it, and to deposit them among the archives, where they would be open to the examination of their archaeologists. When a prince undertook the rebuilding of a temple, he always made excavations under the first courses of the ancient structure, in order to recover the documents which preserved the memory of its foundation. If he discovered them, he recorded on the new cylinders in which he boasted of his own work, the name of the first builder, and sometimes the number of years which had elapsed since its erection. We act in a similar way today, and our excavations, like those of the Chaldeans, end in singularly disconnected results. The materials which the earth yields for the reconstruction of the first centuries consists almost entirely of mutilated records of local dynasties, isolated names of sovereigns, dedications of temples to gods, on sites no longer identifiable, of whose nature we know nothing, and two brief illusions to conquest their victories over vaguely designated nations. The population was dense and active in the planes of the lower Euphrates. The cities in this region formed at their origin so many individual, and for the most part petty states, whose kings and patron gods claimed to be independent of all the neighboring kings and gods. One city, one god, one lord. This was the rule here as in the ancient feudal districts from which the nomes of Egypt arose. The strongest of these principalities imposed its laws upon the weakest, formed into unions of two or three under a single ruler, they came to constitute a dozen kingdoms of almost equal strength on the banks of the Euphrates. On the north we are acquainted with those of Agadei, Babylon, Kuta, Karsag Kalama, and that of Kishu, which comprised a part of Mesopotamia and possibly the distant fortress of Haran. Petty as these states were, their rulers attempted to conceal their weakness by assuming such titles as Kings of the Four Houses of the World, Kings of the Universe, Kings of Shumur at Akkad. Northern Babylonia seems to have possessed a supremacy amongst them. We are probably wise in not giving too much credit to the fragmentary tablet which assigns to it a dynasty of kings, of which we have no confirmatory information from other sources, Amoghula, Shama Shnazir, Amalsin, and several others. This list, however, places among these phantom rulers one individual at least, Shargina Sharukin, who has left us material evidence of his existence. This Sargon the Elder, whose complete name is Shargoni Sharali, was the son of a certain Itabel, who does not appear to have been king. At first his possessions were confined to the city of Agade and some undetermined portions of the environs of Babylon, but he soon succeeded in annexing Babylon itself, Sipara, Kishu, Uruk, Kutu, and Nipur. The contemporary records attest his conquest of Elam, Guti, and even of the far off land of Syria, which was already known to him under the name of Amaru. His activity as a builder was in no way behind his warlike zeal. He built Ekur, the sanctuary of Bel in Nipur, and the great temple Ulbur in Agade, in honor of Anunit, the goddess presiding over the morning star. He erected in Babylon a palace which afterwards became a royal burying place. He founded a new capital, a city which he peopled with families brought from Kishu and Babylon, for a long time after his day it bore the name which he bestowed upon it, Dur Shahr Kin. This sums up all the positive knowledge we have about him, and the later Chaldeans seem not to have been much better informed than ourselves. They filled up the Lakuna of his history with legends. As he seemed to them to have appeared suddenly on the scene, without any apparent connection with the king who preceded him, they assumed that he was a usurper of unknown origin, irregularly introduced by the favor of the gods into the lawful series of kings. An inscription engraved, it was said, on one of his statues, and afterwards, in the seventh century B.C., copied and deposited in the library of Nineveh, related at length the circumstances of his mysterious birth. Shahr Kin, the mighty king, the king of Agade, am I. My mother was a princess. My father I did not know him. The brother of my father lived in the mountains. My town was Azup Hirani, which is situated on the bank of the Euphrates. My mother, the princess, conceived me, and secretly gave birth to me. She placed me in a basket of reeds. She shut up the mouth of it with bitumen. She abandoned me to the river which did not overwhelm me. The river bore me. It brought me to Aki, the drawer of water. Aki, the drawer of water, received me in the goodness of his heart. Aki, the drawer of water, made me a gardener. As gardener the goddess Ishtar loved me, and during forty-four years I held royal sway. I commanded the black heads and ruled them. This is no unusual origin for the founders of empires and dynasties. Witness the cases of Cyrus and Balmeles. Sargon, like Moses, and many other heroes of history or fable, is exposed to the waters. He owes his safety to a poor fellow who works his Shadoof on the banks of the Euphrates to water the fields, and he passes his infancy in obscurity if not in misery. Having reached the age of manhood, Ishtar falls in love with him as she did with his fellow craftsman, the gardener Isulanu, and he becomes king, we know not by what means. The same inscription which reveals the romance of his youth recounts the various successes of his manhood, and boasts of the uniformly victorious issue of his warlike exploits. Owing to Likuna the end of the account is in the main wanting, and we are thus prevented from following the development of his career, but other documents come to the rescue and claim to furnish its most important vicissitudes. He had reduced the cities of the lower Euphrates, the island of Dilmun, Dirilu, Elam, the country of Kazala. He had invaded Syria, conquered Phoenicia, crossed the arm of the sea which separates Cyprus from the coast, and only returned to his palace after an absence of three years, and after having erected his statues on the Syrian coast. He had hardly settled down to rest when a rebellion broke out suddenly. The chiefs of Kaldia formed a league against him and blockaded him in Agade. Ishtar, exceptionally faithful to the end, obtains for him the country, and he comes out of a crisis in which he might have been utterly ruined, with a more secure position than ever. All these events are regarded as having occurred sometime about 3800 BC, at a period when the Sixth Dynasty was flourishing in Egypt. Some of them have been proved to be true by recent discoveries, and the rest are not at all improbable in themselves, though the work in which they are recorded is a later astrological treatise. The writer was anxious to prove, by examples drawn from the Chronicles, the use of portents of victory or defeat, of civic peace or rebellion, portents which he deduced from the configuration of the heavens on the various days of the month. By going back as far as Sargon of Agade for his instances he must have at once increased the respect for himself on account of his knowledge of antiquity, and the difficulty which the common herd must have felt in verifying his assertions. His zeal in collecting examples was probably stimulated by the fact that some of the exploits which he attributes to the ancient Sargon had been recently accomplished by a king of the same name. The brilliant career of Sargon of Agade would seem to have been, in his estimation, something like an anticipation of the still more glorious life of the Sargon of Nineveh. What better proof of the high veneration in which the learned men of Assyria held the memory of the ancient Chaldean conqueror? Naram Singh, who succeeded Sargon about 3750 BC, inherited his authority, and to some extent his renown. The astrological tablets assert that he attacked the city of Apparec, on the borders of Elam, killed the king, Rish Ramon, and led the whole people away into slavery. He conquered at least part, if not the whole, of Elam, and one of the few monuments which have come down to us was raised at Separa in commemoration of his prowess against the mountaineers of the Zagros. He is represented on it overpowering their chief. His warriors follow after him in charge of the hill, carrying everything before their steady onslaught. Another of his warlike expeditions is said to have had, as its field of operations, a district of Maghan, which in the view of the rider, undoubtedly represented the Sinitic Peninsula and perhaps Egypt. This expedition against Maghan no doubt took place, and one of the few monuments of Naram Sin which have reached us refers to it. Other inscriptions tell us incidentally that Naram Sin reigned over the four houses of the world, Babylon, Separa, Nippur, and Lagash. Like his father, he had worked at the building of the Ekhur of Nippur and the Bulbar of Agade. He erected, moreover, at his own cost, the Temple of the Sun at Separa. The latter passed through many and varied vicissitudes. Restored, enlarged, ruined on several occasions, the date of its construction and the name of its founder were lost in the course of ages. End of Part 10, read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org.