THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
EARLY LITERATURE—HISTORIC TABLETS—THE INSCRIPTIONS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR—THE
FALL OF BABYLON—CYRUS, THE ACHÆMENIAN—BEHISTUN INSCRIPTIONS—DARIUS
AT PERSEPOLIS—INSCRIPTIONS OF XERXES—ARTAXERXES—A LATER PERSIAN
TABLET—RÉSUMÉ.
The early literature of Persia takes root in ancient soil, and the
foundation of her world of letters must be sought for amidst the graven
stones of forgotten tribes. The Persian heritage was not only the land
of ancient Babylonia, but also the Chaldean and Semitic lore, which lay
in the vaults of her kings, or lived upon the marble walls of her ruined
palaces.
The story of a great civilization, and the poetry, as well as the prose
of human history, were recorded upon the rocks or buried beneath the
soil of Mesopotamia. It was even written in gold and alabaster, and
placed in the corner-stones of temples that have lain beneath the tread
of armies for three thousand years. When the stone is rolled away from
the sepulchre of a buried literature, and the records of forgotten ages
come with resurrection power into the living present, the heart of man
must listen to the voice of these historic witnesses.
One of the greatest triumphs of modern science is the solution of the
cuneiform inscriptions of antiquity. To the herculean labors of
Grotofend, Bournouf, Lassen, Rawlinson, Layard, Oppert, Rassam, Sayce,
Talbot, and others, the world owes a debt it can never pay. Their
solution of these obscure alphabets, and the language, grammar and
meaning of these old inscriptions rank with the grandest discoveries of
modern science. They have not hesitated to devote their lives to the
drudgery of cuneiform study, a score of years if necessary, being given
to the solution of a single inscription. Without their long, unceasing
labor many of the most valuable records of the past must have remained a
sealed book. In vain would the spade of the explorer have exhumed the
imperial libraries of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar if no light could
be thrown upon their strange inscriptions. In vain would the historic
tablets of Karnak, or the cylinders of Babylon be brought before the bar
of modern criticism, if no key could be found to their problems. It has
been necessary to bring to this formidable task an understanding of the
Chaldaic, and also of the old Accadian tongue. But even this did not
suffice, and it would have been impossible to do more than to decipher a
few proper names on the walls of Persian palaces without the aid of
other ancient languages. As Lassen remarks: “It seems indeed
providential that these inscriptions should be rescued from the dust of
centuries at the very time when the discovery of Zend and Sanskṛit had
enabled Europeans to successfully grapple with their difficulties, for
at any other period in the world’s history they could only have been a
strange combination of wedges[26] or arrow heads, even in the eyes of
Oriental scholars.” It is difficult to appreciate the long and tedious
processes by which these men were compelled to shape their own
intellectual tools, and test their own laborious methods; but even to
those who have not time to follow their intricate path of research, the
result of their labors is indeed marvelous. The accuracy of their work
has been sufficiently verified. At the suggestion of the Royal Asiatic
Society, four translations of several hundred lines of the inscription
of Tiglath-Pileser I. were made independently by Sir Henry Rawlinson,
Mr. Fox Talbot, Dr. Hincks and Dr. Oppert, and submitted under seal to
the secretary of that society. When opened and compared, it was found
that they exhibited a remarkable resemblance to each other, even in the
transliteration of proper names, and the rendering of individual
passages. This triumphant result abundantly proved the fact that their
method was a sound one, and that they were working on a solid basis.
Absolute certainty, of course, is unattainable at present, but the
decipherment of these inscriptions has reached a degree of accuracy
sufficient for all practical purposes. Scholars, perhaps, will always
dispute about the exact meaning of certain words or phrases, as they do
in reference to the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, but in either case it
is seldom that any important point turns upon the particular shade of
meaning. Still, it is evident that the Orientalists who have undertaken
to restore the early chronology of Assyria and Babylonia have a
difficult task in hand.
One of the points most surely settled by the deciphering of these
inscriptions is, that so far as certain peoples are concerned the world
of letters extends much farther back than has generally been supposed.
HISTORIC TABLETS.
There are philological tablets which are apparently designed, in some
cases, to give the manner in which the names of Semitic kings were
pronounced or written by their Accadian subjects.
An instance of this is found in the name of Sargon of Accad, the ancient
hero of the Semitic population of Chaldea, who founded the first Semitic
empire in the country and established a great library in his capital
city, Accad, near Sippara. The seal of his librarian, which is of
beautiful workmanship, is now in Paris, and has been published by M. de
Clercq,[27] while a copy of his annals, together with those of his son
Naram-Sin, may be found in Western Asia Inscriptions.[28]
Among these early records we also find tablets[29] which have been
exhumed, placed in the British Museum and translated, bearing the old
Assyrian record of the flood, which is marvelously like the account
found in Genesis, even to the “building of the ship,” which contained
“the seed of all life,” and the raven and the dove which were sent forth
from its windows after the waters began to recede. Another tablet[30]
describes the building of some great tower or “stronghold,” apparently
by command of the king, but the gods are represented as being angry, for
it is stated that “Babylon corruptly to sin went, and small and great
mingled on the mound.... To their stronghold in the night he made an
end. In anger also the secret counsel he poured out—to scatter (them
abroad) his face he set. He gave a command to make strange their
speech.... Violently they wept—very much they wept.”
There is a fragment of a tablet,[31] on which was written an Accadian
poem; on being translated it was found to contain a description of
certain cities, of which the names were not given. It was recorded,
however, that they were destroyed by a rain of fire, and the legend
gives an account of a person who escaped the general destruction.
The inscriptions of ancient kings reveal to a certain extent the times
and the facts connected with their reigns, but in discussing the tablets
and monuments, the pillars and palace walls of these royal historians,
it must be borne in mind that these heathen kings were far from
infallible, and whatever resulted in their own aggrandizement was most
eagerly recorded, while their military defeats and political
humiliations were either passed over in silence or qualified to such an
extent as to virtually lose their force. This is especially true of
Sennacherib, who has the reputation among Assyriologists of being “the
least trustworthy of the royal historians of Assyria.” Nevertheless,
these records are of inestimable value as giving an account of their own
wars and achievements by interested participants.
A hexagonal prism of clay, which was found at Nineveh and carried to the
British Museum[32] contains an account of the first eight years of the
reign of Sennacherib and of his siege of Jerusalem under the reign of
King Hezekiah, when, according to the tablets, the king of Jerusalem
“had given command to strengthen the bulwarks of the great gate of the
city,” when it was found to be so strong that the Assyrian king
refrained from assaulting it.[33]
The strange libraries of Assyria and Babylon abounded also in
astronomical and astrological reports, the records of lawsuits, contract
tablets and other inscriptions, also a number of official dispatches
sent by the king of Jerusalem and other potentates to foreign courts.
There are also Assyrian deeds of real estate,[34] bills of sale of
Israelites for slaves, also a bill of sale of a woman to an Egyptian
lady (Nitocris), who made the purchase in order to obtain a wife for her
son, as well as the contract tablets of Belshazzar, and the “annals” of
other kings.
Hundreds of these historic tablets have been brought to light, for the
soil ruled over by Persian kings was indeed rich in this imperishable
literature. Manuscripts may fade beneath the touch of time, or be burned
by barbarian invaders, but these clay tablets have safely kept their
records beneath the dust of centuries, and the germs of their thought
lived, and were developed among other races, after they had lain for
ages in the valley of the Euphrates.
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
These annals begin by declaring him to be “the King of Babylon, the
exalted prince, the worshipper of the god Marduk, the prince supreme,
the beloved of the god Nebo.” This mighty king was the patron of all
forms of idolatry, and one of the principal objects of his reign appears
to have been the restoration of the idol temples, and the reconstruction
of their images. The first or “lofty-headed,” was the shrine of the god
Bel. The celebrated golden image which Nebuchadnezzar set up represented
this god.[35] There is but little genuine history[36] in his
inscriptions, as he seemed to consider the account of the rebuilding of
the city, and the restoration of the idol temples, of more importance
than the record of his military triumphs. The work of rebuilding Babylon
was surely a necessity, for the Babylonians having rebelled, Sennacherib
had almost wholly destroyed it.[37] The vengeance of the Assyrian king
must have been terrible, for in the Bavian inscription, he declares that
he swept the city from end to end—that he destroyed the houses, threw
down the wall and fortifications, and the ruins were, by his order,
thrown into the river. It is true that he and Assur-bani-pal
reconstructed many buildings, but Babylon[38] never regained her title
of “the Glory of the East” until the time of Nebuchadnezzar, who was
engaged throughout his long reign[39] in rebuilding the temples and
cities of his kingdom.
There are in the British Museum some thirty or forty inscriptions of
this king, which record the structure of great buildings. There are also
a few fragments pertaining to his historical career, but the account
thus given is so incomplete, that while it agrees with the Biblical
record of his campaigns, it is far less definite in detail.
Nebuchadnezzar III, son of Nabupolasser, came to the throne in the
latter part of the seventh century B. C, having taken command of the
Babylonian army during the war between his father and Necho, the king of
Egypt. He routed the Egyptian troops at Carchemish, “and took all that
pertained to the king of Egypt, from the river of Egypt unto the river
Euphrates.”[40]
No royal penman ever took greater delight in recording his achievements
than did Nebuchadnezzar in describing the glories of his capital city:
“Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the
kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?”[41]
Upon the cylinders found at Senkereh in the ruins of the temple of the
sun, upon tablets taken from the ruins of Birs Nimrud,[42] which still
rise one hundred and fifty-three feet above the level of the plain, and
elsewhere, we find the boastful records of this haughty monarch, and in
one instance a single inscription consists of six hundred and nineteen
lines. Thus writes the great king:
“The fanes of Babylon I built, I adorned. Four thousand cubits complete,
the walls of Babylon, whose banner is invincible, as a high fortress by
the ford of the rising sun, I carried around Babylon its fosse which I
dug. With cement and brick I reared up a tall tower at its side like a
mountain. I built the great gates, whose walls I constructed with pine
woods and covering of copper. I overlaid them to keep off enemies from
the front of the wall of unconquered Babylon. Those large gates for the
admiration of multitudes of men, with wreathed work I filled—the
invincible castle of Babylon, which no king had previously effected, the
city of Babylon I fitted to be a treasure city,”[43] etc.
These few lines indicate the style and general character of the
chronicles found upon many cylinders and slabs. During his reign
Jerusalem was besieged, and captured[44] after a siege of a year and a
half. King Zedekiah fled by night “by the way of the gate between the
two walls which is in the king’s garden,” but was overtaken in the
plains of Jericho, and brought before the king of Babylon at Riblah,
where his sons were slain before him and his eyes were destroyed. A few
years later Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre, with doubtful success. He had
left Gedaliah in charge of Judah, but the new ruler was slain by
Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah. Again the king of Babylon came to take
vengeance, and carried the Jews away to Babylon. He afterward turned his
attention to the capture of Egypt, whose king had incited Palestine to
rebellion. Nebuchadnezzar defeated and deposed him, swept over Egypt and
installed a king who was tributary to Babylon.[45] After this he devoted
himself to the rebuilding of his city, using thousands of captives as
laborers and drawing upon all his provinces for his supplies.
All the writers of this period give their testimony to the glory of his
city, his palaces, temples, hanging gardens, and the golden images of
his gods. He builded the shrines of multitudes of gods at Babylon, and
Jeremiah alludes to this fact when he says: “For it is a land of graven
images, and they confide in their idols.”[46] The prophets of Israel
never stayed in their denunciation of this idolatrous king, even though
they and their people were within the grasp of his mailed hand.
The land of Palestine has been called “the Piedmont of Western Asia;”
being situated midway between the two great empires of Egypt and
Assyria, it became the battle-field of the Orient, and it was here that
the fiercest conflict was waged. But during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar
the Chaldean supremacy in Asia remained unshaken, for the active policy
of that iron-handed ruler, with his mighty army kept all Western Asia
under his control.
THE FALL OF BABYLON.
There are several tablets pertaining to the fall of Babylon which throw
additional light upon that event. It appears from these chronicles that
Belshazzar reigned in connection with his father Nabonidus, Belshazzar
being the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar on the maternal side. Under the
date of the ninth year of Nabonidus,[47] the record says: “Nabonidus,
the king, was in the city of Teva, the son of the king (Belshazzar), the
chieftains, and the soldiers were in the land of Accad (North
Babylonia).... The king until the month Nisan (first month) to Babylon
went not, Nebo to Babylon came not, Bel went not forth.... In the month
Nisan, Cyrus, king of Persia, his army gathered, and below Arbela the
river Tigris he crossed.” The chronicle is here mutilated, and it can be
seen only that Cyrus, marching across the northern part of the
Euphratean valley, levied tribute upon some distant king. This may have
been one of the campaigns in the war against Crœsus, king of Lydia,
and the rising power of the now united Medes and Persians was anxiously
watched by the rulers of Babylonia. Nabonidus appears from the record to
have been a weak ruler, leaving the government and command of the army
largely in the hands of his son. Says Boscawen, the eminent
Assyriologist: “From the seventh year[48] of his father’s reign until
the fall of the empire, Belshazzar appears to have been the leading
spirit and ruler of the kingdom, and this may account, in some measure,
for his prominence in the book of Daniel.”[49] In the cylinder
inscription of Nabonidus, found in the temple of the Moon-god at Ur, the
king thus prays for his son:
1. “As for me, Nabonidus, king of Babylon,
2. In the fullness of thy
3. Great divinity, (grant me)
4. Length of life
5. To remote days.
6. And for Belshazzar,
7. My first-born son,
8. The offspring of my heart,
9. Reverence for thy great divinity
10. Establish thou in his heart.”[50]
Another tablet, by a contemporary scribe, gives a brief account of the
fall of Babylon, which throws a most important light upon this great
event, enabling historians to fix the year, month and day of the capture
of the city, and as proving its agreement with the statements of
classical writers, and the author of the book of Daniel. The ancient
writers all agree, that the fall of Babylon took place by a surprise,
the attack being made on the night of a great festival. Herodotus thus
describes it: “The outer part of the city had already been taken, while
those in the centre, who, as the Babylonians say, knew nothing of the
matter, owing to the extent of the city, were dancing and making merry,
for it so happened that a festival was being celebrated.”
Xenophon claims that the attack was made “when Cyrus perceived that the
Babylonians celebrated a festival at a fixed time, at which they feasted
for the whole night.” The Hebrew prophets,[51] also, were not unaware of
this surprise upon the “Lady of Kingdoms,” and among the inscriptions
taken from Babylon is a large tablet, containing, when complete, the
calendar of the year, with notes appended to each day, specifying
whether it was lucky or unlucky, whether it was a fast or a feast day.
The calendar of the month Duza, or Tammuz, the month in which Babylon
was taken, is fortunately complete, and contains a record of the
festivals which were celebrated therein. The month opens with a festival
of the Sun-god, or Tammuz, as the summer sun, restored in all his beauty
(after his death in winter) to his bride, who is Ishtar, the moon. This
festival is the same as that of Atys, the Phyrgian Adonis, which is
celebrated at the same time. The festivals of Tammuz and Ishtar, his
wife, extended over all the first half of the month, the second being
the day of lamentation, and the sixth, the procession. On the fifteenth
day of the month they celebrated the great marriage feast of Tammuz and
his bride, and it consisted of wild orgies, such as can only be found in
the lascivious East. It was this festival which Belshazzar was
celebrating on the night in which Babylon was taken, and it was probably
the only one in which not only the king, but also his “wives and
concubines,” would be present. There may have been an air of desperation
imparted to the conduct of Belshazzar by the knowledge that, by the
flight of his father and defeat of his army, the kingdom was virtually
lost, and that this was probably his last festival as a Babylonian
ruler. The gold and silver vessels which were brought forth at this
reckless feast had been captured at the sacking of the temple at
Jerusalem, and stored in the temple of Bel Merodach, and were brought
from there in obedience to the command of Belshazzar, who was the last
of the line of Nimrod. It is evident from the tablets and other
authorities that the army of Cyrus, commanded by Gobyras,[52] entered
the city “without fighting” on the night of the fifteenth of the month
Tammuz, and the outposts were captured while the revelers were
unconscious of the near approach of the foe. But within the walls and at
the scene of festivity, surrounding the king, there was not only the
tramp of armed men, but also the clash of swords and spears, a short but
decisive combat, and Babylon, “the glory of kingdoms,” became the
victor’s prize.[53]
The walls of the Chaldean palace were rich with gorgeous draperies on
that fatal night. The golden cups were filled with costly wines, and
long festoons of flowers were hung from wall and ceiling; there were
beautiful faces, and the flashing of jewels, with music and mirth in the
royal hall, but that festal scene was the back-ground of the death of an
empire. “Babylon the Great” had fallen in the midst of her splendor—had
fallen with her temples and palaces, into the hand of the Persian king.
CYRUS—THE ACHÆMENIAN.
The numerous inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and the three
Artaxerxes found at Persepolis, at Mount Elvend, at Susa, and Suez, are
the most important of the historical inscriptions of Persian kings,
except that at Behistun. The Persian texts have been repeatedly and
carefully edited. Following the preparatory labors of Grotofend, Rask,
Beer and Jacquet, the documents have been carefully examined and
explained by MM. Burnouf, Lassen, Sir H. Rawlinson, Benfey, Spiegel and
Dr. Oppert.
The Median versions appeared afterward, coming from the competent hands
of MM. Westergaard, De Saulcy, Holtzmann, Norris and Mardtmann, while
the Assyrian translations have been examined by scholars whose work is
equally careful, therefore, no doubt can be entertained concerning its
general accuracy.
The supposed tomb of Cyrus merely bears in three languages—Persian,
Median and Assyrian—the simple statement that “I am Cyrus, the King, the
Achæmenian.” There is, however, an Assyrian inscription on a Babylonian
brick which was brought over to England by Loftus and translated by Sir
Henry Rawlinson, which declares that “Cyrus, King of Babylon, Priest of
the Pyramid and of the Tower (was) son of Cambyses, the Mighty Prince.”
This apparently simple legend is of great historical importance, as it
proves that Herodotus[54] was right in calling Cyrus’s father Cambyses,
a name which was afterward borne also by the successor of Cyrus. The
inscription also states, in harmony with Herodotus, that the former
Cambyses was not a king, but merely a private individual.
BEHISTUN INSCRIPTIONS.
Not only is the soil of Persia rich in historic lore, but even the
cliffs of her mountains were “graven with an iron pen” where her records
were “laid in the rock forever.” At Behistun, far above the plain, is
found an imperishable record of the reign of Darius Hystaspes.[55]
Major Rawlinson at last succeeded in scaling the heights and making
casts of the mystic characters to be taken away and translated. The
great inscription is written in three languages, and extends to nearly a
thousand lines of cuneiform writing. It is at least four hundred feet
above the plain, and this intrepid soldier, during the space of several
years, made the perilous ascent a multitude of times, always bringing
away, at the peril of his life, some portion of this great historic
record. After thirteen years of persistent effort he succeeded in
copying the whole inscription, and placing it in such a form that other
scholars could assist him in the translation of it. The casts of the
Scythic version were given into the care of Mr. E. Norris, the well-
known Oriental scholar, who published from them an independent
translation in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. The Persian
text was translated by Major Rawlinson, and Dr. Julius Oppert states
that he devoted twenty years of his own life to the Median version.
In the subject-matter of this long inscription, King Darius follows the
custom of other potentates, and records only his triumphs, though he
boastingly tells of the barbarities he practiced upon would-be usurpers.
The record opens with a long line of genealogies, giving the names of
the kings who reigned before him. “And Darius the king says, on that
account we called ourselves Achæmenian of race; from ancient times we
have been mighty, from ancient times we have been kings.”[56]
The royal historian then recites the countries over which he reigned,
including Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt, besides minor
provinces, twenty-three in all, and he says, “These are the provinces
that called themselves mine; they brought tribute to me, what was
ordered by me unto them, in the night time as well as in the day time,
that they executed.”[57]
The history is then given of various pretenders who led revolts against
him. The whole account of these rebellions occupies many lines of
cuneiform writing, but victory was always gained by the crown, and the
usurpers were put to death in the most barbarous manner. Their noses and
ears and tongues were cut off, their eyes were put out, and in this
pitiable condition they were chained to the palace where “all the people
saw” them, and afterward they were carried away and placed upon crosses.
The penalty inflicted upon each one is given in detail, but there is a
great uniformity in the accounts, although the punishment was sometimes
varied by hanging the leader of the revolt, together with his principal
followers. Often a decree of extermination was issued against all the
people engaged in the rebellion. The great inscription is finished with
a pictorial representation of the nine kings which Darius took in
battle, one of whom claimed to be Bardes, the son of Cyrus. Another
claimed to be the king of Susiana;[58] another led the revolt of the
Babylonians; the fourth caused the rebellion of the Medians; the fifth,
like the second, proclaimed himself the king of Susiana, while the sixth
led the Sagartians in an attack upon their king. “The seventh was a
Persian who lied and said, ’I am Smerdis, son of Cyrus, and he caused
the revolt of Persia.’”[59] The eighth proclaimed himself king of
Babylon, and the ninth claimed to exercise kingly power over the
Margians. The first of these is represented by a prostrate figure, upon
which the victorious king is trampling, the others are standing in the
position of captives, and are branded as imposters by the inscriptions
beneath them. The king also recorded the names of the warriors who
assisted him in his campaigns, and requested those who might succeed him
upon the Persian throne, to “remember to show favor to the descendants
of these men.”
DARIUS AT PERSEPOLIS.
Afar in the mountains of Persia stand the ruins of the capital city of
her ancient kings. Porch and temple, hall and palace, lie together
amidst the desolation wrought by the ages. The long stairway still leads
to the great plateau, while the gray marble pillars stand like sentinels
above the ruins at their feet, and the moonlight gleams upon sepulchres
of Persian monarchs. But even here, on panel and column, we find symbols
graven by a forgotten hand—the desert voice of the past, still boasting
of the grandeur of her fallen kings.
An inscription on the door of a ruined palace, written in Persian,
Median, and Assyrian, recounts the greatness of “Darius the great king,—
the king of kings,—the king of the lands,—the son of Hystaspes, the
Achæmenian (who) has built the palace.” The “lands which are numerous”
over which he holds sway are declared to be “Susiana, Media, Babylon,
Arabia, Assyria, Egypt, Armenia, Cappadocia, Lycia, the Ionians, those
of the continent and those of the sea, and the Eastern lands, Sagartia,
Parthia, Sarangia, Aria, Bactria, Sogdiana, Chorasmia, Sattagydia,
Arachotis, India, Gandaria, the Maxyans, Karka (Carthage), Sacians, and
the Maka.”[60]
Darius the king says “If thou say it may be so I shall not fear the
other Ahriman.[61] Protect the Persian people. If the Persian people are
protected by thee, Ormazd, the Good Principle, which has always
destroyed the demon, will descend as ruler on this house. The great
Ormazd, who is the greatest among all the gods, is he who created the
heaven, and created the earth, who created the men and the Good
Principle, and who made Darius king, and gave to Darius the king, the
royalty over this wide earth, which contains many lands; Persia and
Media, and other lands and other tongues, on the mountains, and in the
plains, of this side of the sea, and on the side beyond the sea; of this
side of the desert, and on the side beyond the desert.” The inscriptions
of Darius at Mount Elvend, at Susa, and at Suez, are merely repetitions
of the greatness of Darius and of Ormazd.
INSCRIPTIONS OF XERXES.
These are engraved upon the staircase and columns at Persepolis, and
like the texts of Darius, they are employed chiefly to represent the
greatness of the king, and the greatness of Ormazd. Says Dr. Oppert,
“The texts of Xerxes are very uniform, and not very important. The real
resulting fact is the name of the king, Khsayarsa, which proves to be
identical with Ahasuerus”[62] of the Book of Esther. There are also
legends on vases which were found in Egypt, at Susa and Halicarnassus.
The vase found at Halicarnassus is now in the gold room of the British
Museum, bearing the inscription of “Xerxes the great king.”
ARTAXERXES.
The texts of this monarch, which are written in Persian, Median and
Assyrian, are found on the bases of columns at Susa, and also at
Persepolis, as well as upon vases. They comprise the records of three
kings—Artaxerxes I, II and III.
We are indebted to the excavations of Loftus at Susa for the records of
Artaxerxes II; these are far more important than the inscriptions of his
predecessor, which merely illustrate the egotism of their author. The
text which is borne upon these columns brings down to us a new
historical statement, to the effect that the palace at Susa was burned
under the reign of Artaxerxes I, and restored by his grandson. During
this period the Persian monarchs resided principally at Babylon, and
Darius II died there.
The great importance of these texts arises from the fact that they give
the genealogy of the Achæmenidæ, and confirm the statements transmitted
to us on this subject by the Greeks, which are in direct opposition to
the traditions of the modern Persians. The text of Artaxerxes III
contains the genealogy of that king upward to the names of Hystaspes and
Arsames, who were the father and grandfather of Darius Hystaspes of the
Achæmenian line.
A LATER PERSIAN TABLET.
A much later tablet is merely a note of hand given by a Persian king
(Pacorus II), with a promise to pay “in the month of Iyar (April) in the
Temple of the sun in Babylon,” and it also bears the names of four
witnesses. This little clay tablet was discovered by Dr. Oppert in the
Museum of the Society of Antiquarians at Zurich, and has been carefully
translated by him. It is interesting mostly from the fact of its
comparatively modern origin, King Pacorus II having been contemporary
with the Emperor Titus and Domitian. Some of the names mentioned upon it
are Babylonish, and some of them Persian. All the witnesses, however,
bear Persian names which may even be called modern. King Pacorus II
commenced his reign A.D. 77, and hence this is the only tablet, so far
as known, which belongs to the Christian era.
RÉSUMÉ.
These sculptured temples and graven stones have lain in the path of the
ages with silent lips, but the questioning hand of the nineteenth
century has broken the spell and wrested the story of the past even from
the “heaps” of Nineveh and Babylon. From mountain cliff, from palace
wall, from corner-stone and fallen pillar comes the same historic voice
that speaks to us from the forgotten libraries of buried kings.
The literature of the tablets comes into our own age, leading a splendid
retinue of historic figures—Sargon, the early king of Accad, with his
imperishable library, with the monuments and tablets of Assyria, then
Nineveh, “that great city,” with her temples and palaces, where the
gilded tiles of many a a dome flashed back the glory of the setting sun—
Babylon, “the joy of the whole earth,” and “the beauty of the Chaldee’s
excellency,” who for centuries held her position as the queen of the
world’s commerce, and through whose hands the wealth of the Euphrates
flowed down to the Persian Gulf. Babylon, with her maze of life and
color, with her silver vases and golden vessels, with her princely halls
and gorgeous hangings, with the breath of the myrtle and the bay, borne
upward from her terraced gardens and moonlight meads.
Then the scene changes, and the kingly Cyrus is riding at the head of
his Medo-Persian cohorts, and the crown of the Orient is within his
grasp. “Bel boweth down—Nebo stoopeth,” and the seat of government is
removed, and “the daughter of the Chaldeans” sits in the dust beneath
the foot of the invader.
Later still, Darius the Great is enthroned on Persian soil; haughtily he
wears the imperial purple, and the crown of many kingdoms, while upon
the face of Persia’s mountains, he writes himself “The king of kings.”
But a reckless policy led the Persian host to a sure defeat upon the
plains of Marathon, and prepared the way for the humiliation of Xerxes,
and the later triumphs of Alexander. Then the sons of the desert poured
like a mountain torrent over the plains of Īrān, and the star and
crescent flashed everywhere from banners on Persian soil, while to-day
the Arab pitches his tent amidst the ruins of ancient cities, and only
the spade of the explorer reveals their buried treasures.
-----
Footnote 26:
Cuneiform means “having the form of a wedge,” and is especially
applied to the wedge-shaped or arrow-headed characters of ancient
inscriptions.
Footnote 27:
Collection de Clercq, Pl. 5. No. 46.
Footnote 28:
4-34.
Footnote 29:
Deluge Tablets in British Museum, Records of the Past, 1-133.
Footnote 30:
Marked K 3657 in British Museum. Trans. by Geo. Smith.
Footnote 31:
Inscriptions of Western Asia, Vol. 19. Trans. by Prof. Sayce, Records
of Past, 11-119.
Footnote 32:
Brit. Mus. Ins., Plates 37-42. Trans. by Rawlinson.
Footnote 33:
Annals, Col. 3, line 24. Also 2 Chron. xxxii, 5.
Footnote 34:
These deeds are attested by the seal impressions, or in lieu thereof
by the nail marks of the parties to whom they belonged. Many of them
have been translated.—_W. St. Chad Boscawen._
Footnote 35:
Concerning the statue of Bel, see Daniel, chap. iii; Herodotus, bk. I;
Strabo, XIV; Pliny, VI, chap. xxvi; Q. Curtius, lib. V; Arrianus, lib.
VII.
Footnote 36:
The mythology of Nebuchadnezzar’s inscriptions will be briefly treated
in the following chapter.
Footnote 37:
This devastation was accomplished during Sennacherib’s campaign of 694
to 692 B.C.
Footnote 38:
The city of Babylon was founded in very early times. It became the
capital under Khammuragas (about 1700 B.C., who built a temple to
Merodach there), and held this position for twelve hundred years. It
was conquered by Tukulti-Ninip, 1271 B. C.; by Tiglath-Pileser II, 731
B.C.; by Merodach Baladan, 722 B.C.; by Sargon, 721 B.C. It was sacked
and destroyed by Sennacherib, 692 B.C.: restored by Esarhaddon, 675
B.C.; captured by Assur-bani-pal, 648 B.C.; rebuilt in great splendor
by Nebuchadnezzar during his long reign, and taken at last by the
Medes and Persians about 539 B.C.—_Ernest A. Budge, Trans. Vic. Ins._,
V. 18, p. 147.
Footnote 39:
Nebuchadnezzar reigned from about 605 to 562 B.C.
Footnote 40:
2 Kings xxiv, 7. In the tablets the river Euphrates is called “the
river of Sippara.”
Footnote 41:
Dan. iv, 30.
Footnote 42:
Translated by Fox Talbot, F.R. S., Records of the Past, I, 69-73.
Footnote 43:
Translated by Fox Talbot, F.R. S., Records of the Past, 1-133.
Footnote 44:
Jerusalem captured 587 B.C. See also Jer. xxxix, 1, 2; 2 Kings xxv.
Footnote 45:
572 B.C.
Footnote 46:
Jer. 1, 38.
Footnote 47:
547 B.C.
Footnote 48:
549 B.C.
Footnote 49:
W. St. Chad Boscawen, Trans. Vic. Ins., Vol. XVIII, No. 70, p. 117.
Footnote 50:
Western Asia Inscriptions, Vol. I, pl. 68, col. lines 19.
Footnote 51:
Jeremiah li, 39-57; also Daniel v, 1.
Footnote 52:
The newly acquired evidence of the tablets seems to indicate that
Gobyras, who commanded the armies of Cyrus, was Darius the Median, who
acted as the viceroy of Cyrus on the throne of Babylon. Gobyras, the
Ugbaru of the inscriptions, being formerly prefect of Gutium, or
Kurdistan, was ruler of a district which embraced Ecbatana, the Median
capital, and the province of the Medes, and was also, as his name
indicates, a Proto-Mede, or Kassite, by birth. Xenophon states that
the capture of Babylon was effected by Gobyras, and that his division
was the first to reach the palace. Cyrus himself did not enter Babylon
until later in the year, namely, on the third day of Marchesvan, four
months after, when he “proclaimed peace, to all Babylon, and Gobyras
his governor, and governors, he appointed.”
Footnote 53:
W. St. Chad Boscawen, Trans. Vic. Ins., Vol. XVIII, page 131.
Footnote 54:
Herodotus, I, 107, 122.
Footnote 55:
Darius Hystaspes reigned from 549 to 486 B.C.
Footnote 56:
Column I, line 3. Achæmenes was the last king independent of Persia,
and therefore the kings after Cyrus declared that they were his
descendants. It is supposed that he was superseded by Phraortes, the
Median king (657-635) as it was he who first subdued the Persians.
Phraortes was the great grandfather of Cyrus, who was born 599 B.C.
Footnote 57:
Col. I, line 7.
Footnote 58:
The name of this province appears to be derived from Susun, signifying
a “lily.”
Footnote 59:
Col. III, line 41.
Footnote 60:
This list of nations and provinces found at Persepolis is of great
importance. It was executed after the first expedition of Darius to
the Greek nations 496, B. C, or still later, and many Hellenic nations
are enumerated as being subdued to the Persian power.
Footnote 61:
If Dr. Oppert’s version is correct this text gives us the first
mention of the name of Ahriman to be found in the inscriptions,
although the warring of the evil elements against the good is
introduced in a Chaldean legend of the creation, which will be noticed
in the following chapter.
Footnote 62:
Commentaire sur le livre d’Esther, p. 4.