THE BABYLONIAN CHRONICLE AND BEROSSUS
This concludes our detailed study of the "histories" of the reigns
which were set forth with the official sanction. Before summing up our
conclusions as to their general character, it will be well to devote a
moment to the consideration of certain other sources for the Assyrian
period. Many minor inscriptions have been passed by without notice,
and a mere mention of the mass of business documents, letters, and
appeals to the sun god will here be sufficient, though in a detailed
history their help will be constantly invoked to fill in the sketch
secured by the study of the official documents, and not infrequently
to correct them. Of foreign sources, those of the Hebrews furnish too
complicated a problem for study in this place, [Footnote:
Cf. Olmstead, AJSL. XXX. Iff.; XXXI, 169 ff. for introduction to these
new problems.] and the scanty documents of the other peoples who used
the cuneiform characters hardly furnish source problems.
Even the Babylonians have furnished us with hardly a text which
demands source study. To the end, as is shown so conspiciously in the
case of Nebuchadnezzar, scores of long inscriptions could be devoted
to the building activities of the ruler while a tiny fragment is all
that is found of the Annals. Even his rock cut inscriptions in Syria,
those in the Wadi Brissa and at the Nahr el Kelb, are almost
exclusively devoted to architectural operations in far away Babylon!
[Footnote: It may be noted that the Cornell Expedition secured
squeezes of both these inscriptions.]
Yet if the Babylonians were so deficient in their appreciation of the
need of historical annals for the individual reigns, they seem to have
been, the superiors of the Assyrians when it came to the production of
actual histories dealing with long periods of time. While the
Babylonians have preserved to us numerous lists of kings and two
excellent works which we have every reason to call actual histories,
the Babylonian Chronicle and the Nabunaid-Cyrus Chronicle, the
Assyrians have but the Eponym Lists, the so called Assyrian Chronicle,
and the so called Synchronous History. The last has already been
discussed, and we have seen how little it deserved the title of a real
history, yet it marks the greatest advance the Assyrians made along
this line. The Eponym lists are merely lists of the officials who
dated each year in rotation, and they seem to have been compiled for
practical calendar purposes. The so called Assyrian Chronicle is in
reality nothing but a chronological table in three columns, the first
with the name of the eponym for the year, the second with his office,
and the third with the most important event, generally a campaign, of
the year. As a historical source, more can be made out of this dry
list than has previously been suspected, and this has been pointed out
elsewhere. [Footnote: Olmstead, _Jour. Amer. Or. 80c._,
XXXIV. 344 ff.] But, as a contribution to the writing of history, it
holds a distinctly low place.
On the other hand, the Babylonian Chronicle is a real, if somewhat
crude history. In fact, it can be said without fear of contradiction
that it is the best historical production of any cuneiform people. Our
present copy is dated in the twenty second year of Darius I of Persia,
500 B.C., but, as it was copied and revised from an earlier exemplar,
which could not always be read, its original must be a good bit
earlier. Only the first tablet has come down to us, but the mention of
the first proves that a second existed. What we have covers the period
745-668, a period of seventy-seven years. The second tablet would
cover a period nearer the time of the writer and would naturally deal
with the events more in detail, so that a smaller number of years
would be given on this tablet. If but two tablets were written, the
end of the work would be brought down close to the time when the
Assyrian Empire fell (608). It is a tempting conjecture, though
nothing more, that it was the fall of Assyria and the interest in the
relations between the now dominant Babylonia and its former mistress,
excited by this event, which led to the composition of the work. Be
that as it may, the author is remarkably fair, with no apparent
prejudice for or against any of the nations or persons named. The
events chosen are naturally almost exclusively of a military or
political nature, but within these limits he seems to have chosen
wisely. In general, he confines himself to those events which have an
immediate bearing on Babylonian history, but at times, as, for
example, in his narration of the Egyptian expeditions, he shows a
rather surprising range of interest. If we miss the picturesque
language which adds so much to the literary value of the Assyrian
royal annals, this can hardly be counted an objection by a generation
of historians which has so subordinated the art of historical writing
to the scientific discovery of historical facts. In its sobriety of
presentation and its coldly impartial statement of fact, it may almost
be called modern. [Footnote: Photograph, Rogers, 515, C. T. XXXIV 43
ff. Abstract, Pinches, PSBA. VI. 198 ff. Winckler, ZA. II. 148 ff.;
Pinches, JRAS. XIX. 655 ff. Abel-Winckler, 47 f. Duplicates, Bezold,
PSBA. 1889, 181; Delitzsch, _Lesestücke_, 137 ff. Schrader,
KB. II. 274 ff.; Delitzsch, _Bab. Chronik_; Rogers, 208 ff.;
Barta, in Harper, 200 ff. Sarsowsky, _Keilschriftliches
Urkundenbuch_, 49 ff.; Mercer, _Extra Biblical Sources_, 65
ff.]
We know the name of our other Babylonian historian, and we also know
his date, though unfortunately we do not know his work in its
entirety. This was Berossus, the Babylonian priest, who prepared a
Babyloniaca which was dedicated to Antiochus I. When we remember that
it is this same Antiochus who is the only one of the Seleucidae to
furnish us with an inscription in cuneiform and to the honor of one of
the old gods, [Footnote: Best in Weissbach, _Achämeniden
Inschriften_, 132 ff., cf. xxx for bibliography.] it becomes clear
that this work was prepared at the time when fusion of Greek and
Babylonian seemed most possible, and with the desire to acquaint the
Macedonian conquerors with the deeds of their predecessors in the rule
of Babylonia. The book was characteristically Babylonian in that only
the last of the three books into which it was divided, that beginning
with the time of Nabonassar, can be considered historical in the
strictest sense, and even of this only the merest fragments,
abstracts, or traces, have come down to us. And the most important of
these fragments have come down through a tradition almost without
parallel. Today we must consult a modern Latin translation of an
Armenian translation of the lost Greek original of the Chronicle of
Eusebius, [Footnote: A, Schoene, "_Eusebii Chronicorum libri
duo_, 1866 ff.; cf. Rogers, _Parallels_, 347 ff.; J. Karst,
_Eusebius Werke_, V.] who borrowed in part from Alexander
Polyhistor who borrowed from Berossus direct, in part from Abydenus
who apparently borrowed from Juba who borrowed from Alexander
Polyhistor and so from Berossus. To make a worse confusion, Eusebius
has in some cases not recognized the fact that Abydenus is only a
feeble echo of Polyhistor, and has quoted the accounts of each side by
side! And this is not the worst. Although his Polyhistor account is in
general to be preferred, Eusebius seems to have used a poor manuscript
of that author. Furthermore, there is at least one case, that of the
name of one of Sennacharib's sons, which can be secured only by
assuming a mistake in the Armenian alphabet.
It is in Eusebius that we find our most useful information, some of
the facts being very real additions to our knowledge. But Berossus was
also used by the early Apollodorus Chronicle, some time after 144
B. C., from which some of his information may have drifted into other
chronological writings. Alexander Polyhistor was used by Josephus, and
Abydenus by Cyrillus, Syncellus, and the Armenian historian, the
pseudo Moses of Chorene. So in these too, or even in others not here
named, may lurk stray trifles from the work of Berossus. Perhaps from
this, or from a similar source, comes the Babylonian part of the list
of Kings known as the Canon of Ptolemy, which begins, as does the
Babylonian Chronicle, with the accession of Nabonassar. [Footnote: The
most convenient edition Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in das Studium der
alten Geschichte_, 304 ff.; cf. Rogers, 239.] Though directly of
Egyptian origin, as is shown by the system of dating, it undoubtedly
goes back to a first class Babylonian source, as do the astronomical
data in the Almagest of the same author, though here too the Egyptian
calendar is used. [Footnote: Cf. Olmstead, _Sargon_, 34 f.]
Summing up, practically all the authentic knowledge that the classical
world has of the Assyrians and Babylonians came from
Berossus. [Footnote: Of the literature on Berossus, we may quote here
only Müller, _Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_, II. 495 ff.; and
the various articles by Schwartz, on Abydenus, Alexandros 88, and
Berossus, in the Pauly-Wissowa _Real-encyclopädie_.] Herodotus
may furnish a bit and something may be secured from the fragments of
the Assyriaca of Ctesias, but it is necessary to test each fact from
other sources before it can be accepted.
And now what shall we say by way of summing up the Assyrian writing of
history? First of all, it was developed from the building inscription
and not from the boast of the soldier. That this throws a new light on
the Assyrian character must be admitted, though here is not the place
to prove that the Assyrian was far more than a mere man of war. All
through the development of the Assyrian historiography, the building
operations play a large part, and they dominate some even of the so
called Annals. But once we have Annals, the other types of
inscriptions may generally be disregarded. The Annals inscriptions,
then, represent the height of Assyrian historical writing. From the
literary point of view, they are often most striking with their bold
similes, and that great care was devoted to their production can
frequently be proved. But in their utilization, two principles must
constantly be kept in mind. One is that the typical annals inscription
went through a series of editions, that these later editions not only
omitted important facts but "corrected" the earlier recitals for the
greater glory of the ruler, real or nominal, and that accordingly only
the earliest edition in which an event is narrated should be at all
used. Secondly, we should never forget that these are official
documents, and that if we can trust them in certain respects the more
because they had better opportunities for securing the truth, all the
greater must be our suspicion that they have concealed the truth when
it was not to the advantage of the monarch glorified. Only when we
have applied these principles in detail to the various documents can
we be sure of our Assyrian history and only then shall we understand
the mental processes of the Assyrian historians.
ABBREVIATIONS
Abel-Winckler:
L. Abel, H. Winckler, Keilschrifttexte, 1890.
AJSL
American Journal of Semitic Languages.
Amiaud-Scheil
A. Amiaud, V. Scheil, Les inscriptions de Salmanassar II, 1890.
AOF
H. Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen, 1893 ff.
BM
British Museum number; special collections are marked K., S., Rm.,
DT., or by the year, month, and day, as 81-2-3, 79.
Budge
E. A. W. Budge, History of Esarhaddon, 1880.
Budge-King
E. A. W. Budge, L. W. King, Annals of Kings of Assyria, I. 1902.
G. Smith
G. Smith, History of Assurbanipal, 1871.
Harper
R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, 1901.
JA
Journal Asiatique.
JRAS
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
KB
E. Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, 1889 ff.
KTA
L. Messerschmidt, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur, I. 1911.
L
A. H. Layard, Inscriptions in the Cuneiform Character, 1851.
Le Gac
Y. le Gac, Les inscriptions d'Assur-nasir-apal III, 1907.
MDOQ
Mittheilungen der Deutschen Orient Gesellschaft.
Menant
Menant, Annales dee rois d'Assyrie, 1874.
NR
A. H. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, 1851.
OLZ
Orientalistische Literaturzeitung.
PSBA
Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.
R
H. C. Rawlinson, Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, 1861 ff.
Rasmussen
N. Rasmussen, Salmanasser den IPs Indskriften.
Rogers
R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament, 1912.
Rost
P. Rost, Keilschrifttexte Tiglat-Pilesers, 1893.
RP
Records of the Past, Ser. I. 1875 ff.; Ser. II. 1889 ff.
RT
Recueil de Travaux.
S. A. Smith
S. A. Smith, Keilschrifttexte Asurbanipals, 1887 ff.
Smith-Sayce
G. Smith, A. H. Sayce, History of Sennacherib, 1878.
TSBA
Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.
Ungnad
A. Ungnad, in H. Gressmann, Altorientalische Texte, 1909.
ZA
Zeitschrift für Assyriologie.