ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS
CHALDEA
=The Land.=--From the high and snowy mountains of Armenia flow two
deep and rapid rivers, the Tigris to the east, the Euphrates to the
west. At first in close proximity, they separate as they reach the
plain. The Tigris makes a straight course, the Euphrates a great
detour towards the sandy deserts; then they unite before emptying into
the sea. The country which they embrace is Chaldea. It is an immense
plain of extraordinarily fertile soil; rain is rare and the heat is
overwhelming. But the streams furnish water and this clayey soil when
irrigated by canals becomes the most fertile in the world. Wheat and
barley produce 200-fold; in good years the returns are 300-fold. Palms
constitute the forests and from these the people make their wine, meal
and flour.[15]
=The People.=--For many centuries, perhaps as long as Egypt, Chaldea
has been the abode of civilized peoples. Many races from various lands
have met and mingled in these great plains. There were Turanians of
the yellow race, similar to the Chinese, who came from the north-east;
Cushites, deep brown in color, related to the Egyptians, came from the
east; Semites, of the white race, of the same stock as the Arabs,
descended from the north.[16] The Chaldean people had its origin in
this mixture of races.
=The Cities.=--Chaldean priests related that their kings had ruled for
150,000 years. While this is a fable, they were right in ascribing
great antiquity to the Chaldean empire. The soil of Chaldea is
everywhere studded with hills and each of these is a mass of debris,
the residue of a ruined city. Many of these have been excavated and
many cities brought to view, (Our, Larsam, Bal-ilou), and some
inscriptions recovered. De Sarsec, a Frenchman, has discovered the
ruins of an entire city, overwhelmed by the invader and its palace
destroyed by fire. These ancient peoples are still little known to us;
many sites remain to be excavated when it is hoped new inscriptions
will be found. Their empire was destroyed about 2,300 B.C.; it may
then have been very old.[17]
THE ASSYRIANS
=Assyria.=--The country back of Chaldea on the Tigris is Assyria. It
also is fertile, but cut with hills and rocks. Situated near the
mountains, it experiences snow in winter and severe storms in summer.
=Origins.=--Chaldea had for a long time been covered with towns while
yet the Assyrians lived an obscure life in their mountains. About the
thirteenth century B.C. their kings leading great armies began to
invade the plains and founded a mighty empire whose capital was
Nineveh.
=Ancient Accounts.=--Until about forty years ago we knew almost
nothing of the Assyrians--only a legend recounted by the Greek
Diodorus Siculus. Ninus, according to the story, had founded Nineveh
and conquered all Asia Minor; his wife, Semiramis, daughter of a
goddess, had subjected Egypt, after which she was changed into the
form of a dove. Incapable kings had succeeded this royal pair for the
space of 1,300 years; the last, Sardanapalus, besieged in his capital,
was burnt with his wives. This romance has not a word of truth in it.
=Modern Discoveries.=--In 1843, Botta, the French consul at Mossoul,
discovered under a hillock near the Tigris, at Khorsabad, the palace
of an Assyrian king. Here for the first time one could view the
productions of Assyrian art; the winged bulls cut in stone, placed at
the gate of the palace were found intact and removed to the Louvre
Museum in Paris. The excavations of Botta drew the attention of
Europe, so that many expeditions were sent out, especially by the
English; Place and Layard investigated other mounds and discovered
other palaces. These ruins had been well preserved, protected by the
dryness of the climate and by a covering of earth. They found walls
adorned with bas-reliefs and paintings; statues and inscriptions were
discovered in great number. It was now possible to study on the ground
the plan of the structures and to publish reproductions of the
monuments and inscriptions.
The palace first discovered, that of Khorsabad, had been built by King
Sargon at Nineveh, the site of the capital of the Assyrian kings. The
city was built on several eminences, and was encircled by a wall 25
to 30 miles[18] in length, in the form of a quadrilateral. The wall
was composed of bricks on the exterior and of earth within. The
dwellings of the city have disappeared leaving no traces, but we have
recovered many palaces constructed by various kings of Assyria.
Nineveh remained the residence of the kings down to the time that the
Assyrian empire was destroyed by the Medes and Chaldeans.
=Inscriptions on the Bricks.=--In these inscriptions every character
is formed of a combination of signs shaped like an arrow or wedge, and
this is the reason that this style of writing is termed cuneiform
(Latin _cuneus_ and _forma_). To trace these signs the writer used a
stylus with a triangular point; he pressed it into a tablet of soft
clay which was afterwards baked to harden it and to make the
impression permanent. In the palace of Assurbanipal a complete library
of brick tablets has been found in which brick serves the purpose of
paper.
=Cuneiform Writing.=--For many years the cuneiform writing has
occupied the labors of many scholars impatient to decipher it. It has
been exceedingly difficult to read, for, in the first place, it served
as the writing medium of five different languages--Assyrian, Susian,
Mede, Chaldean, and Armenian, without counting the Old Persian--and
there was no knowledge of these five languages. Then, too, it is very
complicated, for several reasons:
1. It is composed at the same time of symbolic signs, each of
which represents a word (sun, god, fish), and of syllabic signs,
each of which represents a syllable.
2. There are nearly two hundred syllabic signs, much alike and
easy to confuse.
3. The same sign is often the representation of a word and a
syllable.
4. Often (and this is the hardest condition) the same sign is used
to represent different syllables. Thus the same sign is sometimes
read "ilou," and sometimes "an." This writing was difficult even
for those who executed it. "A good half of the cuneiform monuments
which we possess comprises guides (grammars, dictionaries,
pictures), which enable us to decipher the other half, and which
we consult just as Assyrian scholars did 2,500 years ago."[19]
Cuneiform inscriptions have been solved in the same manner as the
Egyptian hieroglyphics--there was an inscription in three
languages--Assyrian, Mede, and Persian. The last gave the key to the
other two.
=The Assyrian People.=--The Assyrians were a race of hunters and
soldiers. Their bas-reliefs ordinarily represent them armed with bow
and lance, often on horseback. They were good knights--alert, brave,
clever in skirmish and battle; also bombastic, deceitful, and
sanguinary. For six centuries they harassed Asia, issuing from their
mountains to hurl themselves on their neighbors, and returning with
entire peoples reduced to slavery. They apparently made war for the
mere pleasure of slaying, ravaging, and pillaging. No people ever
exhibited greater ferocity.
=The King.=--Following Asiatic usage they regarded their king as the
representative of God on earth and gave him blind obedience. He was
absolute master of all his subjects, he led them in battle, and at
their head fought against other peoples of Asia. On his return he
recorded his exploits on the walls of his palace in a long inscription
in which he told of his victories, the booty which he had taken, the
cities burned, the captives beheaded or flayed alive. We present some
passages from these stories of campaigns:
Assurnazir-hapal in 882 says, "I built a wall before the great gates
of the city; I flayed the chiefs of the revolt and with their skins I
covered this wall. Some were immured alive in the masonry, others were
crucified or impaled along the wall. I had some of them flayed in my
presence and had the wall hung with their skins. I arranged their
heads like crowns and their transfixed bodies in the form of
garlands."
In 745 Tiglath-Pilezer II writes, "I shut up the king in his royal
city. I raised mountains of bodies before his gates. All his villages
I destroyed, desolated, burnt. I made the country desert, I changed it
into hills and mounds of debris."
In the seventh century Sennacherib wrote: "I passed like a hurricane
of desolation. On the drenched earth the armor and arms swam in the
blood of the enemy as in a river. I heaped up the bodies of their
soldiers like trophies and I cut off their extremities. I mutilated
those whom I took alive like blades of straw; as punishment I cut off
their hands." In a bas-relief which shows the town of Susa
surrendering to Assurbanipal one sees the chiefs of the conquered
tortured by the Assyrians; some have their ears cut off, the eyes of
others are put out, the beard torn out, while some are flayed alive.
Evidently these kings took delight in burnings, massacres, and
tortures.
=Ruin of the Assyrian Empire.=--The Assyrian regime began with the
capture of Babylon (about 1270). From the ninth century the Assyrians,
always at war, subjected or ravaged Babylonia, Syria, Palestine, and
even Egypt. The conquered always revolted, and the massacres were
repeated. At last the Assyrians were exhausted. The Babylonians and
Medes made an alliance and destroyed their empire. In 625 their
capital, Nineveh, "the lair of lions, the bloody city, the city gorged
with prey," as the Jewish prophets call it, was taken and destroyed
forever. "Nineveh is laid waste," says the prophet Nahum, "who will
bemoan her?"
THE BABYLONIANS
=The Second Chaldean Empire.=--In the place of the fallen Assyrian
empire there arose a new power--in ancient Chaldea. This has received
the name Babylonian Empire or the Second Chaldean Empire. A Jewish
prophet makes one say to Jehovah, "I raise up the Chaldeans, that
bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the
land to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Their horses are
swifter than leopards. Their horsemen spread themselves; (their
horsemen) shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat." They were a
people of knights, martial and victorious, like the Assyrians. They
subjected Susiana, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Jordan. But their regime
was short: founded in 625, the Babylonian Empire was overthrown by the
Persians in 538 B.C.
=Babylon.=--The mightiest of its kings, Nebuchadrezzar (or
Nebuchadnezzar), 604-561, who destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews
into captivity, built many temples and places in Babylon, his capital.
These monuments were in crude brick as the plain of the Euphrates has
no supply of stone; in the process of decay they have left only
enormous masses of earth and debris. And yet it has been possible on
the site of Babylon to recover some inscriptions and to restore the
plan of the city. The Greek Herodotus who had visited Babylon in the
fifth century B.C., describes it in detail. The city was surrounded by
a square wall cut by the Euphrates; it covered about 185 square miles,
or seven times the extent of Paris. This immense space was not filled
with houses; much of it was occupied with fields to be cultivated for
the maintenance of the people in the event of a siege. Babylon was
less a city than a fortified camp. The walls equipped with towers and
pierced by a hundred gates of brass were so thick that a chariot might
be driven on them. All around the wall was a large, deep ditch full of
water, with its sides lined with brick. The houses of the city were
constructed of three or four stories. The streets intersected at right
angles. The bridge and docks of the Euphrates excited admiration; the
fortified palace also, and the hanging gardens, one of the seven
wonders of the world. These gardens were terraces planted with trees,
supported by pillars and rows of arches.
=Tower of Babylon.=--Hard by the city Nebuchadnezzar had aimed to
rebuild the town of Babel. "For the admiration of men," he says in an
inscription: "I rebuilt and renovated the wonder of Borsippa, the
temple of the seven spheres of the world. I laid the foundations and
built it according to its ancient plan." This temple, in the form of a
square, comprised seven square towers raised one above another, each
tower being dedicated to one of the seven planets and painted with the
color attributed by religion to this planet. They were, beginning with
the lowest: Saturn (black), Venus (white), Jupiter (purple), Mercury
(blue), Mars (vermilion), the moon (silver), the sun (gold). The
highest tower contained a chapel with a table of gold and magnificent
couch whereon a priestess kept watch continually.
CUSTOMS AND RELIGION
=Customs.=--We know almost nothing of these peoples apart from the
testimony of their monuments, and nearly all of these refer to the
achievements of their kings. The Assyrians are always represented at
war, hunting, or in the performance of ceremonies; their women never
appear on the bas-reliefs; they were confined in a harem and never
went into public life. The Chaldeans on the contrary, were a race of
laborers and merchants, but of their life we know nothing. Herodotus
relates that once a year in their towns they assembled all the girls
to give them in marriage; they sold the prettiest, and the profits of
the sale of these became a dower for the marriage of the plainest.
"According to my view," he adds, "this is the wisest of all their
laws."
=Religion.=--The religion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans was the same,
for the former had adopted that of the latter. It is very obscure to
us, since it originated, like that of the Chaldean people, in a
confusion of religions very differently mingled. The Turanians, like
the present yellow race of Siberia, imagined the world full of demons
(plague, fever, phantoms, vampires), engaged in prowling around men to
do them harm; sorcerers were invoked to banish these demons by magical
formulas. The Cushites adored a pair of gods, the male deity of force
and the female of matter. The Chaldean priests, united in a powerful
guild, confused the two religions into a single one.
=The Gods.=--The supreme god at Babylon is Ilou; in Assyria, Assur. No
temple was raised to him. Three gods proceed from him: Anou, the "lord
of darkness," under the figure of a man with the head of a fish and
the tail of an eagle; Bel, the "sovereign of spirits," represented as
a king on the throne; Nouah, the "master of the visible world," under
the form of a genius with four extended wings. Each has a feminine
counterpart who symbolizes fruitfulness. Below these gods are the Sun,
the Moon, and the five planets, for in the transparent atmosphere of
Chaldea the stars shine with a brilliancy which is strange to us; they
gleam like deities. To these the Chaldeans raised temples, veritable
observatories in which men who adored them could follow all their
motions.
=Astrology.=--The priests believed that these stars, being powerful
deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man
comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment
decides his destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under
which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What
occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a
comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens
the Chaldean priests believed they could predict events. This is the
origin of Astrology.
=Sorcery.=--The Chaldeans had also magical words; these were uttered
to banish spirits or to cause their appearance. This custom, a relic
of the Turanian religion, is the origin of sorcery. From Chaldea
astrology and sorcery were diffused over the Roman empire, and later
over all Europe. In the formulas of sorcery of the sixteenth century
corrupted Assyrian words may still be detected.[20]
=Sciences.=--On the other hand it is in Chaldea that we have the
beginning of astronomy. From this land have come down to us the
zodiac, the week of seven days in honor of the seven planets; the
division of the year into twelve months, of the day into twenty-four
hours, of the hour into sixty minutes, of the minute into sixty
seconds. Here originated, too, the system of weights and measures
reckoned on the unit of length, a system adopted by all the ancient
peoples.
ARTS
=Architecture.=--We do not have direct knowledge of the art of the
Chaldeans, since their monuments have fallen to ruin. But the Assyrian
artists whose works we possess imitated those of Chaldea, and so we
may form a judgment at the same time of the two countries. The
Assyrians like the Chaldeans built with crude, sun-dried brick, but
they faced the exterior of the wall with stone.
=Palaces.=--They constructed their palaces[21] on artificial mounds,
making these low and flat like great terraces. The crude brick was not
adapted to broad and high arches. Halls must therefore be straight and
low, but in compensation they were very long. An Assyrian palace,
then, resembled a succession of galleries; the roofs were flat
terraces provided with battlements. At the gate stood gigantic winged
bulls. Within, the walls were covered now with panelling in precious
woods, now with enamelled bricks, now with plates of sculptural
alabaster. Sometimes the chambers were painted, and even richly
encrusted marbles were used.
=Sculpture.=--The sculpture of the Assyrian palaces is especially
admirable. Statues, truly, are rare and coarse; sculptors preferred to
execute bas-reliefs similar to pictures on great slabs of alabaster.
They represented scenes which were often very complicated--battles,
chases, sieges of towns, ceremonies in which the king appeared with a
great retinue. Every detail is scrupulously done; one sees the files
of servants in charge of the feast of the king, the troops of workmen
who built his palace, the gardens, the fields, the ponds, the fish in
the water, the birds perched over their nests or flitting from tree to
tree. Persons are exhibited in profile, doubtless because the artist
could not depict the face; but they possess dignity and life. Animals
often appeared, especially in hunting scenes; they are ordinarily made
with a startling fidelity. The Assyrians observed nature and
faithfully reproduced it; hence the merit of their art.
The Greeks themselves learned in this school, by imitating the
Assyrian bas-reliefs. They have excelled them, but no people, not even
the Greeks, has better known how to represent animals.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] A Persian song enumerates 300 different uses of the palm.
[16] Or perhaps from the east (Arabia).--ED.
[17] Recent discoveries confirm the view of a very ancient
civilization--ED.
[18] Somewhat exaggerated. See Perrot and Chipiez, "History of Art in
Assyria and Chaldea," ii., 60; and Maspero, "Passing of the Empires," p.
468.--ED.
[19] Lenormant, "Ancient History."
[20] For example, hilka, hilka, bescha, bescha (begone! begone! bad!
bad!)
[21] The temples were pyramidal, of stones or terraces similar to the
tower of Borsippa.