Part 171

"It is with the reign of Hammurabi that the importance of Babylonia—the country owning Babel as its capital—begins. … Hammurabi (circ. 2250 B. C.) is the sixth on the Babylonian list [i. e. a list of kings found among the inscriptions recovered from the mounds of ruined cities in Mesopotamia]. The great majority of the inscriptions of his long reign of fifty-five years refer to peaceful works." As, for example, "the famous canal inscription: 'I am Hammurabi, the mighty king, king of Ka-dingirra (Babylon), the king whom the regions obey, the winner of victory for his lord Merodach, the shepherd, who rejoices his heart. When the gods Anu and Bel granted me to rule the people of Sumer and Akkad, and gave the sceptre into my hand, I dug the canal called "Hammurabi, the blessing of the people," which carries with it the overflow of the water for the people of Sumer and Akkad. I allotted both its shores for food. Measures of corn I poured forth. A lasting water supply I made for the people of Sumer and Akkad. I brought together the numerous troops of the people of Sumer and Akkad, food and drink I made for them; with blessing and abundance I gifted them. In convenient abodes I caused them to dwell. Thenceforward I am Hammurabi, the mighty king, the favourite of the great gods. With the might accorded me by Merodach I built a tall tower with great entrances, whose summits are high like … at the head of the canal "Hammurabi, the blessing of the people." I named the tower Sinmuballit tower, after the name of my father, my begetter. The statue of Sinmuballit, my father, my begetter, I set up at the four quarters of heaven.' … Rings bearing the legend 'Palace of Hammurabi' have been found in the neighbourhood of Bagdad, and presumably indicate the existence of a royal residence there."

_E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, volume 1, pages 282-283._

"The canal to which this king boasts of having given his name, the 'Nahar-Hammourabi,' was called in later days the royal canal, 'Nahar Malcha.' Herodotus saw and admired it, its good condition was an object of care to the king himself, and we know that it was considerably repaired by Nebuchadnezzar. When civilization makes up its mind to re-enter upon that country, nothing more will be needed for the re-awakening in it of life and reproductive energy, than the restoration of the great works undertaken by the contemporaries of Abraham and Jacob."

_G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, History of Art in Chaldæa and Assyria, volume 1, page 40._

"After a reign of fifty-five years, Chammurabi [or Hammurabi] bequeathed the crown of Babylon and the united kingdoms of Babylonia to his son Samsu-iluna (B. C. 2209-2180). This ruler, reigning in the spirit of his father, developed still further the national system of canalization. … Five kings after Chammurabi, till 2098 B. C., complete the list of the eleven kings of this first dynasty, who reigned in all 304 years. The epoch made memorable by the deeds and enterprise of Chammurabi is followed by a period of 368 years, of the occurrences of which absolutely nothing is known, except the names and regnal years of another list of eleven kings reigning in the city of Babylon. … The foreign non-Semitic race, which for nearly six centuries (c. 1730-1153), from this time onward, held a controlling place in the affairs of Babylonia, are referred to in the inscriptions by the name Kassē. These Kasshites came from the border country between Northern Elam and Media, and were in all probability of the same race as the Elamites. The references to them make them out to be both mountaineers and tent-dwellers. … The political sway of the foreign masters was undisputed, but the genius of the government and the national type of culture and forms of activity were essentially unchanged. … Through century after century, and millennium after millennium, the dominant genius of Babylonia remained the same. It conquered all its conquerors, and moulded them to its own likeness by the force of its manifold culture, by the appliances as well as the prestige of the arts of peace. … The Babylonians were not able to maintain perpetually their political autonomy or integrity, not because they were not brave or patriotic," but because "they were not, first and foremost, a military people. Their energies were mainly spent in trade and manufacture, in science and art. … The time which the native historiographers allow to the new [Kasshite] dynasty is 577 years. … This Kasshite conquest of Babylonia … prevented the consolidation of the eastern branch of the Semites, by alienating from Babylonia the Assyrian colonists. … Henceforth there was almost perpetual rivalry and strife between Assyria and the parent country. Henceforth, also, it is Assyria that becomes the leading power in the West."

_J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, book 2, chapter 3, and book 4, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

"The Kassites gave a dynasty to Babylonia which lasted for 576 years (B. C. 1806-1230). The fact that the rulers of the country were Kassites by race, and that their army largely consisted of Kassite troops, caused the neighbouring populations to identify the Babylonians with their conquerors and lords. Hence it is that in the tablets of Tel el-Amarna, the Canaanite writers invariably term the Babylonians the 'Kasi.' The 'Kasi' or Cush, we are told, had overrun Palestine in former years and were again threatening the Egyptian province. In calling Nimrod, therefore, a son of Cush the Book of Genesis merely means that he was a Babylonian. But the designation takes us back to the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It was not a designation which could have belonged to that later age, when the Babylonians were known to the Israelites as the 'Kasdim' only. Indeed there is a passage in the Book of Micah (chapter 5) which proves plainly that in that later age 'the land of Nimrod' was synonymous not with Babylonia but with Assyria. The Nimrod of Genesis must have come down to us from the time when the Kassite dynasty still reigned over Babylonia. … {2891} Nimrod was not satisfied with his Babylonian dominions. 'Out of that land he went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and Rehoboth 'Ir (the city boulevards), and Calah and Resen.' … The city of Asshur had been long in existence when Nimrod led his Kassite followers to it, and so made its 'high-priests' tributary to Babylon. It stood on the high-road to the west, and it is not surprising, therefore, that the Kassite kings, after making themselves masters of the future kingdom of Assyria, should have continued their victorious career as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. We may conjecture that Nimrod was the first of them who planted his power so firmly in Palestine as to be remembered in the proverbial lore of the country, and to have introduced that Babylonian culture of which the Tel el-Amarna tablets have given us such abundant evidence."

_A. H. Sayce, The Higher Criticism, and the Verdict of the Monuments, chapter 3._

It was during the Kasshite domination in Babylonia that Ahmes, founder of the eighteenth dynasty in Egypt, expelled the Hyksos intruders from that country; and "his successors, returning upon Asia the attack which they had thence received, subjugating, or rather putting to ransom, all the Canaanites of Judea, Phœnicia, and Syria, crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris.

See EGYPT: ABOUT B. C. 1700-1400.

Nineveh twice fell into their power, and the whole Semitic world became vassal to the Pharaohs. The influence of Egypt was real though temporary, but in the reciprocal dealings which were the result of the conquests of the Tutnes [or Thothmes] and the Amenhoteps, the share of the Semites was on the whole the larger. Marriages with the daughters of kings or vassal governors brought into Egypt and established Asiatic types, ideas, and customs on the Theban throne. Amenhotep IV. was purely Semitic; he endeavoured to replace the religion of Ammon by the sun-worship of Syria. In 1887 were discovered the fragments of a correspondence exchanged between the kings of Syria, Armenia, and Babylonia, and the Pharaohs Amenhotep III. and IV.

See EGYPT: ABOUT B. C. 1500-1400.

All these letters are written in cuneiform character and in Semitic or other dialects; it is probable that the answers were drawn up in the same character and in the same languages. For the rest, the subjugated nations had soon recovered. Saryoukm I. had reconstituted the Chaldean empire; the Assyrians, ever at war on their eastern and western frontiers, had more than once crossed the Upper Euphrates and penetrated Asia Minor as far as Troad, where the name Assaracus seems to be a relic of an Assyrian dynasty. The Hittites or Khetas occupied the north of Syria; and when Ramses II., Sesostris, desired in the 15th century to renew the exploits of his ancestors, he was checked at Kadech by the Hittites and forced to retreat after an undecided battle. The great expansion of Egypt was stopped, at least towards the north. The Semitic peoples, on the contrary, were everywhere in the ascendant."

_A. Lefèvre, Race and Language, pages 205-206._

SEMITES: The Assyrian Empire.

"According to all appearance it was the Egyptian conquest about sixteen centuries B. C., that led to the partition of Mesopotamia. Vassals of Thothmes and Rameses, called by Berosus the 'Arab kings,' sat upon the throne of Babylon. The tribes of Upper Mesopotamia were farther from Egypt, and their chiefs found it easier to preserve their independence. At first each city had its own prince, but in time one of these petty kingdoms absorbed the rest, and Nineveh became the capital of an united Assyria. As the years passed away the frontiers of the nation thus constituted were pushed gradually southwards until all Mesopotamia was brought under one sceptre. This consummation appears to have been complete by the end of the fourteenth century, at which period Egypt, enfeebled and rolled back upon herself, ceased to make her influence felt upon the Euphrates. Even then Babylon kept her own kings, but they had sunk to be little more than hereditary satraps receiving investiture from Nineveh. Over and over again Babylon attempted to shake off the yoke of her neighbour; but down to the seventh century her revolts were always suppressed, and the Assyrian supremacy re-established after more or less desperate conflicts. During nearly half a century, from about 1060 to 1020 B. C., Babylon seems to have recovered the upper hand. The victories of her princes put an end to what is called the First Assyrian Empire. But after one or two generations a new family mounted the northern throne, and, toiling energetically for a century or so to establish the grandeur of the monarchy, founded the Second Assyrian Empire. The upper country regained its ascendency by the help of military institutions whose details now escape us, although their results may be traced throughout the later history of Assyria. From the tenth century onwards the effects of these institutions become visible in expeditions made by the armies of Assyria, now to the shores of the Persian Gulf or the Caspian, and now through the mountains of Armenia into the plains of Cappadocia, or across the Syrian desert to the Lebanon and the coast cities of Phœnicia. The first princes whose figured monuments—in contradistinction to mere inscriptions—have come down to us, belonged to those days. The oldest of all was Assurnazirpal, whose residence was at Calach (Nimroud). The bas-reliefs with which his palace was decorated are now in the Louvre and the British Museum, most of them in the latter. … To Assurnazirpal's son Shalmaneser III. belongs the obelisk of basalt which also stands in the British Museum. … Shalmaneser was an intrepid man of war. The inscriptions on his obelisk recall the events of thirty-one campaigns waged against the neighbouring peoples under the leadership of the king himself. … Under the immediate successors of Shalmaneser the Assyrian prestige was maintained at a high level by dint of the same lavish bloodshed and truculent energy; but towards the eighth century it began to decline. There was then a period of languor and decadence, some echo of which, and of its accompanying disasters, seems to have been embodied by the Greeks in the romantic tale of Sardanapalus. No shadow of confirmation for the story of a first destruction of Nineveh is to be found in the inscriptions, and, in the middle of the same century, we again find the Assyrian arms triumphant under the leadership of Tiglath Pileser II., a king modelled after the great warriors of the earlier days. This prince seems to have carried his victorious arms as far east as the Indus, and west as the frontiers of Egypt. {2892} And yet it was only under his second successor, Saryoukin, or, to give him his popular name, Sargon, the founder of a new dynasty, that Syria, with the exception of Tyre, was brought into complete submission after a great victory over the Egyptians (721-704). … His son Sennacherib equalled him both as a soldier and as a builder. He began by crushing the rebels of Elam and Chaldæa with unflinching severity; in his anger he almost exterminated the inhabitants of Babylon, the perennial seat of revolt; but, on the other hand, he repaired and restored Nineveh. Most of his predecessors had been absentees from the capital, and had neglected its buildings. … He chose a site well within the city for the magnificent palace which Mr. Layard has been the means of restoring to the world. This building is now known as Kouyoundjik, from the name of the village perched upon the mound within which the buildings of Sennacherib were hidden. Sennacherib rebuilt the walls, the towers, and the quays of Nineveh at the same time, so that the capital, which had never ceased to be the strongest and most populous city of the empire, again became the residence of the king—a distinction which it was to preserve until the fast approaching date of its final destruction. The son of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and his grandson, Assurbanipal [long identified with the Sardanapalus of the Greeks; but Prof. Sayce now finds the Sardanapalus of Greek romance in a rebel king, Assur-dain-pal, who reigned B. C. 827-820, and whose name and history fit the tale], pushed the adventures and conquests of the Assyrian arms still farther. They subdued the whole north of Arabia, and invaded Egypt more than once. … There was a moment when the great Semitic Empire founded by the Sargonides touched even the Ægæan, for Cyges, king of Lydia, finding himself menaced by the Cimmerians, did homage to Assurbanipal, and sued for help against those foes to all civilization."

_G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, A History of Art in Chaldæa and Assyria, chapter 1, section 5 (volume 1)._

"The power of Assurbanipal was equal to the task of holding under control the subjects of Assyria at all points. He boasts of having compelled the king of Tyre to drink sea-water to quench his thirst. The greatest opposition he met with was in Elam, but this too he was able to suppress. … Assurbanipal says that he increased the tributes, but that his action was opposed by his own brother, whom he had formerly maintained by force of arms in Babylon, This brother now seduced a great number of other nations and princes from their allegiance. … The king of Babylon placed himself, so to speak, at their head. … The danger was immensely increased when the king set up by Assurbanipal in Elam joined the movement. It was necessary to put an end to this revolt, and this was effected for once without much difficulty. … Thereupon the rebellious brother in Babylon has to give way. The gods who go before Assurbanipal have, as he says, thrust the king of Babylon into a consuming fire and put an end to his life. His adherents … are horribly punished. … The provinces which joined them are subjected to the laws of the Assyrian gods. Even the Arabs, who have sided with the rebels, bow before the king, whilst of his power in Egypt it is said that it extended to the sources of the Nile. His dominion reached even to Asia Minor. … Assyria is the first conquering power which we encounter in the history of the world. The most effective means which she brought to bear in consolidating her conquests consisted in the transportation of the principal inhabitants from the subjugated districts to Assyria, and the settlement of Assyrians in the newly acquired provinces. … The most important result of the action of Assyria upon the world was perhaps that she limited or broke up the petty sovereignties and the local religions of Western Asia. … It was … an event which convulsed the world when this power, in the full current of its life and progress, suddenly ceased to exist. Since the 10th century every event of importance had originated in Assyria; in the middle of the 7th she suddenly collapsed. … Of the manner in which the ruin of Nineveh was brought about we have nowhere any authentic record. … Apart from their miraculous accessories, the one circumstance in which … [most of the accounts given] agree, is that Assyria was overthrown by the combination of the Medes and Babylonians. Everything else that is said on the subject verges on the fabulous; and even the fact of the alliance is doubtful, since Herodotus, who lived nearest to the period we are treating of, knows nothing of it, and ascribes the conquest simply to the Medes."

_L. von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations, chapter 3._

SEMITES: The last Babylonian Empire and its overthrow.

The story, briefly told, of the alliance by which the Assyrian monarchy is said to have been overthrown, is as follows: About 626 or 625, B. C., a new revolt broke out in Babylonia, and the Assyrian king sent a general named Nabu-pal-usur or Nabopolassar to quell it. Nabu-pal-usur succeeded in his undertaking, and seems to have been rewarded by being made governor of Babylon. But his ambition aimed higher, and he mounted the ancient Babylonian throne, casting off his allegiance to Assyria and joining her enemies. "He was wise enough to see that Assyria could not be completely crushed by one nation, and he therefore made a league with Pharaoh Necho, of Egypt, and asked the Median king, Cyaxares, to give his daughter, Amytes, to Nebuchadnezzar, his son, to wife. Thus a league was made, and about B. C. 609 the kings marched against Assyria. They suffered various defeats, but eventually the Assyrian army was defeated, and Shalman, the brother of the king of Assyria, [was] slain. The united kings then besieged Nineveh. During the siege the river Tigris rose and carried away the greater part of the city wall. The Assyrian king gathered together his wives and property in the palace, and setting fire to it, all perished in the flames. The enemies went into the city and utterly destroyed all they could lay their hands upon. With the fall of Nineveh, Assyria as a power practically ceased to exist." About 608 B. C. Nebuchadnezzar succeeded his father on the throne. "When he had become established in the kingdom he set his various captives, Jews, Phœnicians, Syrians, and Egyptians, at work to make Babylon the greatest city in the world. And as a builder he remains almost unsurpassed."

_E. A. Wallis Budge, Babylonian Life and History, chapter 5._

{2893}

"The Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar occupied a square of which each side was nearly fifteen miles in length, and was bisected by the Euphrates diagonally from northwest to southeast. This square was enclosed by a deep moat, flooded from the river. The clay excavated in digging the moat, moulded into bricks and laid in bitumen, formed the walls of the city. These walls, more than 300 feet high and more than 70 thick, and protected by parapets, afforded a commodious driveway along their top of nearly 60 miles, needing only aerial bridges over the Euphrates river. The waters of the river were forced to flow through the city between quays of masonry which equaled the walls in thickness and height. The walls were pierced at equal intervals for a hundred gates, and each gateway closed with double leaves of ponderous metal, swinging upon bronze posts built into the wall. Fifty broad avenues, crossing each other at right angles, joined the opposite gates of the city, and divided it into a checkerboard of gigantic squares. The river quays were pierced by 25 gates like those in the outer walls. One of the streets was carried across the river upon an arched bridge, another ran in a tunnel beneath the river bed, and ferries plied continually across the water where the other streets abutted. The great squares of the city were not all occupied by buildings. Many of them were used as gardens and even farms, and the great fertility of the soil, caused by irrigation, producing two and even three crops a year, supplied food sufficient for the inhabitants in case of siege. Babylon was a vast fortified province rather than a city. … There is a curious fact which I do not remember to have seen noticed, and of which I will not here venture to suggest the explanation. Babylon stands in the Book of Revelation as the emblem of all the abominations which are to be destroyed by the power of Christ. But Babylon is the one city known to history which could have served as a model for John's description of the New Jerusalem: 'the city lying four square,' 'the walls great and high,' the river which flowed through the city, 'and in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits;' 'the foundations of the wall of the city garnished with all manner of precious stones,' as the base of the walls inclosing the great palace were faced with glazed and enameled bricks of brilliant colors, and a broad space left that they might be seen,—these characteristics, and they are all unique, have been combined in no other city."

_W. B. Wright, Ancient Cities, pages 41-44._