1 (p. 57). The Medes. Some difference of opinion exists among historians
as to the exact ethnic relations of the conquerors; the precise date of
the fall of Nineveh is also in doubt.
2 (p. 57). Darius. The familiar Hebrew narrative ascribes the first
Persian conquest of Babylon to Darius, but inscriptions of Cyrus and of
Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, make it certain that Cyrus was the real
conqueror. These inscriptions are preserved on cylinders of baked clay,
of the type made familiar by the excavation of the past fifty years, and
they are invaluable historical documents.
3 (p. 58). Berosus. The fragments of Berosus have been translated by L.
P. Cory, and included in his Ancient Fragments of Phenician, Chaldean,
Egyptian, and Other Writers, London, 1826, second edition, 1832.
4 (p. 58). Chaldean learning. Recent writers reserve the name Chaldean
for the later period of Babylonian history--the time when the Greeks
came in contact with the Mesopotamians--in contradistinction to the
earlier periods which are revealed to us by the archaeological records.
5 (p. 59) King Sargon of Agade. The date given for this early king must
not be accepted as absolute; but it is probably approximately correct.
6 (p. 59). Nippur. See the account of the early expeditions as recorded
by the director, Dr. John P. Peters, Nippur, or explorations and
adventures, etc., New York and London, 1897.
7 (p. 62). Fritz Hommel, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, Berlin,
1885.
8 (p. 63). R. Campbell Thompson, Reports of the Magicians and
Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon, London, 1900, p. xix.
9 (p. 64). George Smith, The Assyrian Canon, p. 21.
10 (p. 64). Thompson, op. cit., p. xix.
11 (p. 65). Thompson, op. cit., p. 2.
12 (p. 67). Thompson, op. cit., p. xvi.
13 (p. 68). Sextus Empiricus, author of Adversus Mathematicos, lived
about 200 A.D.
14 (p. 68). R. Campbell Thompson, op. cit., p. xxiv.
15 (p. 72). Records of the Past (editor, Samuel Birch), Vol. III., p.
139.
16 (p. 72). Ibid., Vol. V., p. 16.
17 (p. 72). Quoted in Records of the Past, Vol. III., p. 143, from the
Translations of the Society of Biblical Archeology, vol. II., p. 58.
18 (p. 73). Records of the Past, vol. L, p. 131.
19 (p. 73). Ibid., vol. V., p. 171.
20 (p. 74). Ibid., vol. V., p. 169.
21 (p. 74). Joachim Menant, La Bibliotheque du Palais de Ninive, Paris,
1880.
22 (p. 76). Code of Khamurabi. This famous inscription is on a block of
black diorite nearly eight feet in height. It was discovered at Susa by
the French expedition under M. de Morgan, in December, 1902. We quote
the translation given in The Historians' History of the World, edited by
Henry Smith Williams, London and New York, 1904, Vol. I, p. 510.
23 (p. 77). The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus, p. 519.
24 (p. 82). George S. Goodspeed, Ph.D., History of the Babylonians and
Assyrians, New York, 1902.
25 (p. 82). George Rawlinson, Great Oriental Monarchies, (second
edition, London, 1871), Vol. III., pp. 75 ff.
Of the books mentioned above, that of Hommel is particularly full in
reference to culture development; Goodspeed's small volume gives an
excellent condensed account; the original documents as translated in
the various volumes of Records of the Past are full of interest; and
Menant's little book is altogether admirable. The work of excavation
is still going on in old Babylonia, and newly discovered texts add
from time to time to our knowledge, but A. H. Layard's Nineveh and its
Remains (London, 1849) still has importance as a record of the most
important early discoveries. The general histories of Antiquity of
Duncker, Lenormant, Maspero, and Meyer give full treatment of Babylonian
and Assyrian development. Special histories of Babylonia and Assyria,
in addition to these named above, are Tiele's Babylonisch-Assyrische
Geschichte (Zwei Tiele, Gotha, 1886-1888); Winckler's Geschichte
Babyloniens und Assyriens (Berlin, 1885-1888), and Rogers' History of
Babylonia and Assyria, New York and London, 1900, the last of which,
however, deals almost exclusively with political history. Certain phases
of science, particularly with reference to chronology and cosmology, are
treated by Edward Meyer (Geschichte des Alterthum, Vol. I., Stuttgart,
1884), and by P. Jensen (Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, Strassburg,
1890), but no comprehensive specific treatment of the subject in its
entirety has yet been attempted.