Part 9

BAB'YLON, the capital of Babylonia, on the left of the Euphrates, one of the largest and most splendid cities of the ancient world, now a scene of ruins, and earth-mounds containing them. Babylon was a royal city sixteen hundred years before the Christian era; but the old city was almost entirely destroyed in 683 B.C. A new city was built by Nebuchadnezzar nearly a century later. This was in the form of a square, each side 15 miles long, with walls of such immense height and thickness as to constitute one of the wonders of the world. It contained splendid edifices, large gardens and pleasure-grounds, especially the 'hanging-gardens', a sort of lofty terraced structure supporting earth enough for trees to grow, and the celebrated Tower of Babel or Temple of Belus, rising by stages to the height of 625 feet. (See _Babel, Tower of_.) After the city was taken by Cyrus in 538 B.C., and Babylonia made a Persian province, it began to decline, and had suffered severely by the time of Alexander the Great. He intended to restore it, but was prevented by his death, which took place here in 323 B.C., from which time its decay was rapid. Interesting discoveries have been made on its site, more especially of numerous and valuable inscriptions in the cuneiform or arrow-head character. The modern town of Hillah is believed to represent the ancient city, and the plain here for miles round is studded with vast mounds of earth and brick and imposing ruins. The greatest mound is Birs Nimrud, about 6 miles from Hillah. It rises nearly 200 feet, is crowned by a ruined tower, and is commonly believed to be the remains of the ancient Temple of Belus. Another great ruin-mound, called Mujellibeh, has also been assigned as its site.

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. These ancient seats of Mesopotamian civilization lay across the western Asian trade-routes, Babylonia being in the south and Assyria in the north. The area, in which they flourished is embraced by the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and extends from the head of the Persian Gulf to the frontiers of Armenia and Northern Syria, is bordered on the east by Persia and on the west by the Syro-Arabian desert. 'Mesopotamia' is a term borrowed by the ancient Greeks from the Semites, and was first applied to the north-western region. There was a Roman province of that name. The northern area of the Tigro-Euphrates valley is partly mountainous and partly steppe land, with wide stretches of elevated grazing-lands and fertile districts on the banks of rivers. Assyria, derived from A-usar ('the river-bank region'), had origin in north-eastern Mesopotamia. Its most ancient capital, Asshur (modern Kal'at Sherkat), was situated on the western bank of the River Tigris, between the tributaries the Upper Zab and the Lower Zab. Nineveh, the last capital of all, lay farther north on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and right opposite modern Mosul. The Assyrians called themselves Asshurai, and their national god was Ashur (earlier Ashir), written A-Shur, but confused in time with Ash-Shur, the name of the capital. The southern area of Mesopotamia, below Bagdad, where the Tigris and Euphrates come within 35 miles of one another, is a flat alluvial plain. Babylonia proper is that fish-shaped region between the rivers, which broadens out to about 100 miles and gradually narrows to the point at Kurnah where the rivers meet and form the Shatt-el-Arab. From Kurnah to the head of the Persian Gulf is the ancient area of Chaldea, which means 'Sea-land'. The inhabitants called themselves Kaldu (Sea-landers) and were known to the Hebrews as the Kasdim, and to the Greeks as the Chaldaioi. Babylonia, and the rest of the alluvial plain, is the 'gift' of the rivers which rise in flood each year when the snow melts on the Armenian mountains. Both the Tigris and the Euphrates bring down enormous quantities of sediment--indeed five times as much as does the Egyptian Nile--and they have withal more destructive tendencies. The accumulating silt tends to divert the flow of the rivers in the south, and a process of land-making which began at the close of the Ice Age is still in progress, thrusting back the head of the Persian Gulf. At one time the Tigris and Euphrates entered the gulf by separate mouths, and Chaldea was then a narrow fringe of steppe land, plain, and marshes. The River Tigris is about 1146 miles long, and begins to rise early in March, reaching its height in May, and subsiding before the end of June. The Euphrates is a slower river, about 1780 miles in length. It begins to rise a fortnight later than the Tigris, is longer in flood, and does not reach its lowest level until September. As there is a drop of only 120 feet between Bagdad and the sea, a distance, as the crow flies, of about 300 miles, the ancient Babylonians did their utmost to conserve the water which came down in such abundance and was rapidly drained away, after doing much damage. Near Bagdad the Tigris is on a higher level than the Euphrates, and could be run into it through a canal; farther south the Euphrates, being on the higher level, could be run by canal into the Tigris. The ancient engineers cut these and other canals; indeed, they covered the whole valley with a network of them. To store the Euphrates water for the season of drought and great heat, they formed canals which carried the roaring flood into two depressions in the western desert between the modern towns of Kerbela and Ram[.a]di. These depressions are utilized for the British irrigation scheme. The Babylonians did their utmost to control the Tigris by erecting earthen dams so as to hold up as much of the water as possible. Earthen dykes were also erected to raise its banks. The right bank protected the farms from disastrous flooding. These ancient irrigation works made Babylonia the greatest grain-yielding area in the ancient world. Its vast surplus of food stimulated trade and brought Babylonia immense wealth, while its strategic situation made it very powerful. Its cultural influence flowed along the trade routes, eastward across Persia and the Iranian plateau, northward through Assyria to Armenia (ancient Urartu) and beyond, and north-westward along the Euphrates banks into Syria and Palestine, and into Asia Minor, the land of the Hittites, and then along the highway to Europe, called later by the Persians 'the royal road'. The road to Egypt ran southward from North Syria through Palestine, skirting the maritime valley by 'the way of the Philistines'. The merchants of many nations met in the city of Babylon, the London of the ancient western Asian world, and in the trading centres of North Syria, including Carchemish.

The earliest agriculturists and traders of Babylonia were the Sumerians, a non-Semitic people, who built a number of cities in the irrigated valley and founded colonies in Assyria. No trace has been found of a Neolithic Age in Babylonia. Its civilization, so far as our knowledge goes, began after copper was introduced. At an early period Semites filtered into the valley. They absorbed Sumerian civilization, and ultimately became politically predominant in the northern part of the valley, which was called Akkad (the biblical Accad). The southern part was then known as Sumer or Sumeria (the biblical 'Plain of Shinar'). Akkad embraced the city States of Agade, Babylon, Borsippa, Sippar, Kish, Opis, and Kutha. The Sumerian city States included Eridu, Ur (later 'of the Chaldees' and the birthplace of Abraham), Lagash, Shuruppak, Erech, Umma, and Adab. Inter-state wars resulted time and again in the formation of confederacies which were more of political than racial character, and the predominance of one city or another. Religious ideas were fused, and local pantheons appear to have reflected local politics. The chief seat of early Sumerian civilization was the city of Eridu, a name signifying 'on the seashore'. Its site is marked by modern Abu-Shahrein on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and south-east of Ur, modern Mukayyar. Eridu was originally a seaport on the Persian Gulf, from which it is now separated by about 125 miles of land formed by river silt. The chief god of Eridu was Ea, a name also rendered Ae and Aa, and apparently meaning 'waters' or 'house (region) of waters'. That the term 'waters' had a special significance for the inhabitants of a water-formed land is evident by the fact that the Semitic equivalent of Ea is Enki, which means 'lord of earth'. Other titles of the god were 'lord of Heaven and Earth', 'ruler of the land', 'the deep', 'god of the abyss', and 'king of the river'. He was withal the 'Creator', water having created Sumeria, and Nadimmud, 'lord of everything', as the Egyptian Osiris in his character of god of the Nile was 'Neb-er-Zer', also 'lord of everything'. Ea had a ship with a crew including his son Marduk (Merodach or Marad, the Ni-marad or Nimrod of legend) and In-ab, 'the pilot of Eridu'. The ship was hailed, in religious literature, as the bringer of fertility and joy. Evidently the beginning of Sumerian civilization had some connection with ancient seafarers. Of special interest in this connection are the references made by the Greek writer Berosus to Oannes, a sea-dweller who came daily from the Persian Gulf to instruct the early Babylonians how to irrigate the land, grow crops, erect houses, make laws, write, calculate and measure, and engage in trade. Texts have been discovered which tend to identify Oannes with the god Ea. As the early Sumerians bore a strong physical resemblance to the ancient Egyptians, and there were links between the early religious beliefs and customs of the two peoples, it is suspected that they represented two branches of the same ancient stock. Some think Sumerian civilization was founded by colonists from Egypt, while others believe that Egyptian civilization was stimulated by settlers from Sumeria. The question as to who first invented ships has an important bearing in this connection. When we turn to Sumero-Babylonian religious myths we find that some reflect local natural phenomena. In one the Euphrates is hailed as the River (god) "who didst create all things". Another, referring to the creation of man, says that Marduk (earlier the god Gilimma) "tied reeds on the face of the waters, he formed dust and poured it out beside the reeds ... he formed mankind". Another version is that man was created from the god's blood and bone, or, as Berosus has it, from the god's blood and earth. The oldest Sumerian creation myth states that all things came from primeval water. Then many deities were created by the pre-existing triad of gods, Anu (the sky-god), Enlil ('the elder Bel', the earth-god, and 'lord of grain'), and Ea, who was associated with the goddess Ninkharsagga. Ea had several other wives, including Ninshar or Ninkurra, Ninella, Nintu, and Damkina. These goddesses were ultimately all absorbed by Ishtar, the Semitic name of the love and mother goddess. In the later Babylonian 'Seven Tablets' version of the creation myth a conflict is introduced. The female chaos-dragon Tiamat is slain by Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, 'the later Bel', who cuts up her body and uses part to form the sky and part to keep the waters in their place. After a time a deluge took place. In the Sumerian myth a priest-king called Ziusudu (earlier named Tatug or Uttu) corresponds both to Adam and to Noah, and builds a large vessel, having been warned by Ea of the approaching disaster. The Gilgamesh Epic refers to the hero as Ut-na-pishtim (or Pir-na-pishtim). He and his wife afterwards become immortal, and they are visited on their island by Gilgamesh (the Babylonian Hercules), when, smitten by disease, he searches for the Plant of Life, which he finds and afterwards loses. Ishtar, the goddess who plays a part in this epic, is also the heroine of the poetic legend which tells of her descent to Hades in quest of Tammuz, whose story resembles somewhat that of Adonis and has Osirian characteristics. The Babylonian Persephone was Eresh-ki-gal with whom Tammuz dwelt in her underworld for part of the year. Associated with her was Nergal, chief god of Kutha, whose planet was Mars. He conquered Hades. He and other city gods appear to have been developed from attributes vaguely shared by the earlier triad Anu, Bel-Enlil, and Ea. The moon-god of Ur was Sin (Sumerian Nannara), whose name clings to the desert of Sinai. Shamash was the Semitic name of the sun-god of Sippar, the Sumerian being Utu; Gishnu, the Light, and Ma-banda-anna, 'the boat of heaven' (like the Egyptian Ra), and Mitra were among his other non-Semitic names. Dagan, the god of the Euphrates, is regarded as a form of Ea, and as probably the same deity as Dagon of the Philistines. In later times the astrologers coloured with their doctrines the religious beliefs of Babylonia.

Among the early empire-builders of Babylonia were Lugal-zaggisi of Sumerian Erech, who claimed to have subdued all lands from the Lower Sea (Persian Gulf) to the Upper Sea (the Mediterranean). He flourished about 2800 B.C. Another was Sargon of Akkad, who lived about a century and a half later. He must not be confused with the much later biblical Sargon of Assyria. His son or grandson, Naram-Sin, recorded his great trading activities and victories over his enemies, including the Elamites, whose chief stronghold was Susa in south-western Persia. Elam was a rival power of considerable strength. About 2200 B.C. it had overrun a great part of Sumeria, and Akkad fell to the invading bands of Amorites. These Amorites founded the Hammurabi Dynasty, of which the king of that name was sixth in succession; Hammurabi extinguished the last sparks of Elamite power in Sumeria, which, with Akkad, was united to form the kingdom of Babylonia, named after Babylon, the capital. It was during this period that Abraham migrated from Ur to Palestine. Hammurabi (_c._ 2123-2081 B.C.) codified the ancient Sumerian laws and did much to develop trade. The chief god of his kingdom was Marduk, 'the later Bel', whose temple was called Esagilla. Babylon became the greatest trading centre in Western Asia and a rival of the Egyptian Memphis. Sumerian gradually ceased to be a spoken language, being supplanted by Semitic, but remained, like Latin, in mediaeval Europe, the language of law, culture, and religion, while the Babylonian language became the language of trade and diplomacy, and was used in international correspondence by all the great Powers. The Hammurabi dynasty came to an end about 1926 B.C., when the Hittites raided Babylonia and carried off the statues of Marduk and his consort. Kassites, assisted by Elamites, had been attacking Babylonia from the east, and the Sea-landers, who were Arabians mixed with Sumerians, established their independence. In the end the Kassites, who were probably Aryan by race, conquered Babylonia and established a new dynasty. Like the Trojans they were 'tamers of horses'. Their military successes are believed to have been due to the use of the horse, which was a rarity in Babylonia before their time, but became common as a beast of burden as soon as the Kassite dynasty was established. Kassite supremacy lasted for over 570 years, and during that period Babylonia was known as Karduniash. One of its early kings brought back from Khani (Mitanni) the statues of Marduk and his consort which had been carried off by the Hittites. Babylonian civilization was not changed by Kassite conquest, and its trade went on as of yore. The Kassites formed an aristocracy like the Normans in England. During the Kassite period Assyria was a growing power. It had origin as a Sumerian colony, but above the relics of the Sumerians at Asshur have been found those of a people whose kings had such non-Semitic and probably Aryan names as Ushpia, Kikia, and Adasi. The Amorites afterwards swept into Assyria, which they Semitized. During the Hammurabi dynasty it was subject to Babylonian overlordship. It grew independent during the latter period of the Kassite dynasty, and its kings formed compacts with the Kassites. Their western neighbours were by this time the Mitannians. An Aryan military aristocracy had formed a powerful State in north-western Mesopotamia, where they worshipped Indra, Varuna, and Mitra, gods which figure in the mythology of the Aryan invaders of India. Egypt, under Thothmes III, extended her Syrian empire to the borders of Mitannia and a friendship sprang up between the two Powers. Assyria was during the period subject to Mitanni. The Tell-el-Amarna letters reveal the fact that Egyptian monarchs had married princesses from Mitanni, and the famous Akhenaton had Mitannian blood in his veins.