The Historians' History of the World 01

[35] For a description of these monuments and the history of their discovery, as well as for the conclusions which are to be drawn from them for the history of art in Mesopotamia, the reader is referred to De Sarsac’s album of reproductions [l’Art Chaldéen], also to L. Heerzey, Les fouilles de Chaldée in the Revue Archæologique, 1881, new series, vol. xlii, p. 56 ff. and 257.

[36] Here of course only architecture and sculpture in general are intended, without denying that the Semites, also those of Babylonia and Assyria have accomplished original things in single cases, in execution, and in certain genres, as, for example, in the reproduction of animal forms.

Babylonian King Lion Hunting

APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS

Such is the fate of empire: Asshur rose

Where elder thrones and prouder warriors stood;

Before the Memphian priest his precepts chose,

Men reasoned greatly of the highest good;

Before Troy was, or Xanthus rolled in blood,

Armies were ranged in battles’ dread array:

They fought—their glory withered in its bud;

They perished—with them ceased their tyrants’ sway;

New wars, new heroes came—their story passed away.—James Gates Percival.

It is a curious paradox that our knowledge of this oldest civilisation should be the very newest and most novel record with which present-day history has to deal. The Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Babylonians, of whose accomplishments we speak so confidently to-day, lived out their national life, and vanished from the earth, as nations, mostly before civilisation had its dawning in Europe; and for two thousand years they were but a reminiscence.

It was reserved for nineteenth century investigators literally to dig from the earth their lost records, and to read the secrets of their forgotten history. Marvellous secrets they were, as we shall see; but before we turn to them, it will be of interest to recall the reminiscences that did service as the history of these wonderful peoples for so many centuries. In a few extracts we may set forth the substance of all that the world remembered of that marvellous civilisation from the days of Herodotus and Diodorus till the middle of the nineteenth century. A mixture of fact and fable, it still has absorbing interest, the more so that we may now compare it with the surer records brought to light in our own time. Aside from their intrinsic interest, the classical records have, in this regard, a unique importance.

As to the precise classical authorities in question, we have already become acquainted with Diodorus and Ælianus in the earlier portion of this work. Another author we shall now have occasion to quote is Berosus. As to this author and the exact status of his work, we cannot do better than quote the following critical estimate from the Babylone et la Chaldée of Joachim Menant.

“Berosus came of a priestly family and was born in Babylon, about 330 B.C. He himself is authority for the information that he was a contemporary of Alexander the Great. According to Tatian, he is the most learned of all Asiatic historians. He was deeply versed in the ancient traditions of his country and taught them to the Greeks, through whom they have come down to us. Vitruvius informs us that he left Babylon and went to live on the island of Cos, where he opened a school of astrology. He invented, or at least introduced among the Greeks, a particular kind of time-keeping. There still exist fragments of astrological works to which Berosus has attached his name, and owing to the special interests of the writers who have borrowed from his works, the fame of the astrologer perhaps outshines that of the historian. Pliny (VII. 37) declares that the Athenians erected a golden-tongued statue to him in the Gymnasium, on account of his wonderful predictions.

“He wrote in Greek, about 280 B.C., a history of ancient Chaldea and dedicated it to Antiochus Soter. The work consisted of three volumes, of which we possess now but a few excerpts preserved in the chronicles of several historiographers who have lived at different periods and whom it may be well to mention. First of all there is Flavius Josephus, the great historian of the Jews, born at Jerusalem 33 A.D.; then there are St. Clement, the Alexandrian catechist (born early in the second century A.D., died 217), Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea (author of the Symbol of Nice, who lived from 267 to 338), and finally, George Syncellus (so called from the office he filled under the Bishop of Constantinople, and who died about the year 800). These writers took from Berosus only just what was needed for their purposes, and none in fact seems to have been personally acquainted with the work of the learned Chaldean.