Ancient History from the Monuments

Abstract

THE Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has been doing a very useful work in acquainting the public with the historical results of recent Oriental research in a cheap and handy shape. The work has been wisely placed in the hands of those who have themselves been pioneers in the task of discovery, and the reader has thus been secured against the errors and unfounded conclusions almost inseparable from second-hand information. The histories of Egypt, Assyria, and Persia, have now been followed up by those of Babylonia and Asia Minor, and the fact that the history of Babylonia was the last literary work which Mr. George Smith, the indefatigable Assyrian explorer, lived to accomplish, gives a melancholy interest to it over and above that of its subject matter. Indeed, the materials for reconstructing Babylonian history are still but scanty, and must remain so until systematic excavations can be made among the buried cities and libraries of ancient Chaldea. With the exception of a few early bricks and a few dedicatory inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, it is from the clay tablets of Nineveh that almost all cur knowledge of the sister kingdom has been derived. Even Babylonian chronology is still in an uncertain and tentative condition, and the fragments of the Babylonian historian, Berosus, help us but little. Whole periods must still be left blank, and though one or two dates, like the conquest of the Elamite king, Cudur-nankhundi, in B C. 2280, can be fixed by the aid of later monuments, the relative position of even whole dynasties has not yet been settled. Our acquaintance with the mythical epoch is quite as great as with the historical epoch; the Assyrians preferred the legends of the rival monarchy to a record of its glories, and while, therefore, we now have in detail the stories of the creation, of the flood, or of the hero Izdubar, we know comparatively little of the political changes which passed over the Babylonia of history. Compared, however, with what we knew of them a few years back, even this limited knowledge seems large and accurate, and the best evidence of this is the volume which Mr. Smith has written, and which would have been an impossibility but a short time ago. Those who wish to learn what light has been thrown by cuneiform discovery on this important section of ancient history cannot do better than refer to his book. The importance of Babylonia for the history of culture and civilisation is daily becoming more manifest; the early Accadian population of the country, who spoke an agglutinative language and invented writing, left a rich inheritance of art; science, mythology, and religious ideas to their Semitic successors, and through them to the Jews and Greeks. The latter were influenced partly through the Phoenicians, partly through the nations of Asia Minor. Mr. Vaux's volume on the Greek cities of Asia Minor is therefore a suitable companion to Mr. Smith's “History of Babylonia.” His difficulty in compiling it must have been the converse of Mr. Smith's, as here it was not the meagreness but the superabundance of materials which was likely to cause embarrassment. His selection, however, is good and judicious, and the book he has produced is at once instructive and readable. He has not forgotten to invoke the assistance of the latest discoveries; the first few pages are devoted to an account of Dr. Schlie-mann's life and discoveries, and the researches of Newton, Wood, and Fellows, have been largely drawn upon. Considering the space at his command, Mr. Vaux must be congratulated upon the amount he has been able to cram into it, and, so far as we can see, no city or fact of importance has been omitted. Both volumes are appropriately illustrated, and the “History of Babylonia” contains a copy of a bronze image of an ancient Chaldean monarch recently brought to the British Museum, and interesting on account of the rarity of such early monuments. Their value is further increased by the addition of indices, and the editor of Mr. Smith's volume has added a chronological table of the Babylonian kings, and an explanatory list of proper names.

Ancient History from the Monuments. The History of Babylonia.

George Smith A. H. Sayce. The Greek Cities and Islands of Asia Minor. By W. S. W. Vaux. (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1877.)