Part 5 (1/2)
It is impossible to determine the age of the great Chaldean epic, but it must have been composed subsequently to the period when, through the precession of the equinoxes, Aries came to be the first sign of the Zodiac instead of Taurus, that is to say, about B.C. 2500. On the other hand, it is difficult to make it later than B.C. 2000, while the whole character and texture of the poem shows that it has been put together from older lays, which have been united into a single whole. The poem deservedly continued to be a favourite among the Babylonians and a.s.syrians, and more than one edition of it was made for the library of a.s.sur-bani-pal. A translation of all the portions of it that have been discovered will be found in George Smith's 'Chaldean Account of Genesis.'
It is difficult for the English reader to appreciate justly the real character of many of these old poems. The tablets on which they are inscribed were broken in pieces when Nineveh was destroyed, and the roof of the library fell in upon them. A text, therefore, has generally to be pieced together from a number of fragments, leaving gaps and lacunae which mar the pleasure of reading it. Then, again, the translator frequently comes across a word or phrase which is new to him, and which he is consequently obliged to leave untranslated or to render purely conjecturally. At times there is a lacuna in the original text itself.
When the a.s.syrian scribe was unable to read the tablet he was copying, either because the characters had been effaced by time or because their Babylonian forms were unknown to him, he wrote the word _khibi_, 'it is wanting,' and left a blank in his text. It is not wonderful, therefore, that what is really a fine piece of literature reads tamely and poorly in its English dress, more especially when we remember that the decipherer is compelled to translate literally, and cannot have recourse to those idiomatic paraphrases which are permissible when we are dealing with known languages.
But it must be confessed that many of the best compositions of Babylonia are spoilt for us by the references to a puerile superst.i.tion, and the ever-present dread of witchcraft and magic which they contain. A good example of this curious mixture of exalted thought and debasing superst.i.tion is the following hymn to the Sun-G.o.d:-
'O Sun-G.o.d, king of heaven and earth, director of things above and below, O Sun-G.o.d, thou that clothest the dead with life, delivered by thy hands, judge unbribed, director of mankind, supreme in mercy for him that is in trouble, bidding the child and offspring come forth, light of the world, creator of all thy land, the Sun-G.o.d art thou!
O Sun-G.o.d, when the bewitchment for many days is bound behind me and there is no deliverer, the expulsion of the curse and return of health are brought about (by thee).
Among mankind, the flock of the G.o.d Ner, whatever be their names, he selects me: after trouble he fills me with rest, and day and night I stand undarkened.
In the anguish of my heart and the sickness of my body there is ...
O father supreme, I am debased and walk to and fro.
In misery and affliction I held myself (?).
My littleness (?) I know not, the sin I have committed I knew not.
I am small and he is great: The walls of my G.o.d may I pa.s.s.
O bird stand still and hear the hound!
O Sun-G.o.d stand still and hear me!
The name of the evil bewitchment that has been brought about overpower, whether the bewitchment of my father, or the bewitchment of my begetter, or the bewitchment of the seven branches of the house of my father, or the bewitchment of my family and my slaves, or the bewitchment of my free-born women and concubines, or the bewitchment of the dead and the living, or the bewitchment of the adult and the suckling (?), or the bewitchment of my father and of him who is not my father.
To father and mother be thou a father, and to brother and child be thou a father.
To friend and neighbour be thou a father, and to handmaid and man be thou a father.
To the field thou hast made and thy ... be thou a father.
May the name of my G.o.d be a father where there is no justice.
To mankind, the flock of the G.o.d Ner, whatever be their names, who are in field and city, speak, O Sun-G.o.d, mighty lord, and bid the evil enchantment be at rest.'
Even the science of the Babylonians and their a.s.syrian disciples was not free from superst.i.tion. Astronomy was mixed with astrology, and their observation of terrestrial phenomena led only to an elaborate system of augury. The false a.s.sumption was made that an event was caused by another which had immediately preceded it; and hence it was laid down that whenever two events had been observed to follow one upon the other, the recurrence of the first would cause the other to follow again. The a.s.sumption was an ill.u.s.tration of the well-known fallacy: 'Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.' It produced both the pseudo-science of astrology and the pseudo-science of augury.
The standard work on astronomy, as has already been noted, was that called 'The Observations of Bel,' compiled originally for the library of Sargon I at Accad. Additions were made to it from time to time, the chief object of the work being to notice the events which happened after each celestial phenomenon. Thus the occurrences which at different periods followed a solar eclipse on a particular day were all duly introduced into the text and piled, as it were, one upon the other. The table of contents prefixed to the work showed that it treated of various matters-eclipses of the sun and moon, the conjunction of the sun and moon, the phases of Venus and Mars, the position of the pole-star, the changes of the weather, the appearance of comets, or, as they are called, 'stars with a tail behind and a corona in front,' and the like. The immense collection of records of eclipses indicates the length of time during which observations of the heavens had been carried on. As it is generally stated whether a solar eclipse had happened 'according to calculation' or 'contrary to calculation,' it is clear that the Babylonians were acquainted at an early date with the periodicity of eclipses of the sun. The beginning of the year was determined by the position of the star Dilgan (a Aurigae) in relation to the new moon at the vernal equinox, and the night was originally divided into three watches. Subsequently the _kasbu_ or 'double hour' was introduced to mark time, twelve _kasbu_ being equivalent to a night and day. Time itself was measured by a clepsydra or water-clock, as well as by a gnomon or dial. The dial set up by Ahaz at Jerusalem (2 Kings xx.
11) was doubtless one of the fruits of his intercourse with the a.s.syrians.
The Zodiacal signs had been marked out and named at that remote period when the sun was still in Taurus at the beginning of spring, and the equator had been divided into sixty degrees. The year was correspondingly divided into twelve months, each of thirty days, intercalary months being counted in by the priests when necessary. The British Museum possesses fragments of a planisphere from Nineveh, representing the sky at the time of the vernal equinox, the constellation of Tammuz or Orion being specially noticeable upon it.
Another tablet contains a table of lunar longitudes.
With all this attention to astronomical matters it is not surprising that every great city boasted of an observatory, erected on the summit of a lofty tower. Astronomers were appointed by the state to take charge of these observatories, and to send in fortnightly reports to the king.
Here are specimens of them, the first of which is dated B.C. 649:-'To the king, my lord, thy servant Istar-iddin-pal, one of the chief astronomers of Arbela. May there be peace to the king, my lord, may Nebo, Merodach, and Istar of Arbela, be favourable to the king, my lord.
On the twenty-ninth day we kept a watch. The observatory was covered with cloud: the moon we did not see. (Dated) the month Sebat, the first day, the eponymy of Bel-kharran-Sadua.' 'To the king, my lord, thy servant Abil-Istar. May there be peace to the king, my lord. May Nebo and Merodach be propitious to the king, my lord. May the great G.o.ds grant unto the king, my lord, long days, soundness of body, and joy of heart. On the twenty-seventh day (of the month) the moon disappeared. On the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth days, we kept a watch for the eclipse of the sun. But the sun did not pa.s.s into eclipse. On the first day the moon was seen during the day. During the month Tammuz (June) it was above the planet Mercury, as I have already reported to the king. During the period when the moon is called Anu (_i.e._, from the first to the fifth days of the lunar month), it was seen declining in the orbit of Arcturus. Owing to the rain the horn was not visible.
Such is my report. During the period when the moon was Anu, I sent to the king, my lord, the following account of its conjunction:-It was stationary and visible below the star of the chariot. During the period when the moon is called Bel (_i.e._, from the tenth to the fifteenth day), it became full; to the star of the chariot it approached. Its conjunction (with the star) was prevented; but its conjunction with Mercury, during the period when it was Anu, of which I have already sent a report to the king, my lord, was not prevented. May the king, my lord, have peace!'
Astronomical observations imply a knowledge of mathematics, and in this the Babylonians and a.s.syrians seem to have excelled. Tables of squares and cubes have been found at Senkereh, the ancient Larsa, and a series of geometrical figures used for augural purposes presupposes a sort of Babylonian Euclid. The mathematical unit was 60, which was understood as a multiple when high numbers had to be expressed, IV, for example, standing for (4 60 =) 240. Similarly, 60 was the unwritten denominator of fractional numbers. The plan of an estate outside the gate of Zamama at Babylon, and belonging to the time of Nebuchadnezzar, has been discovered, while the famous Hanging Gardens of that city were watered by means of a screw.
Medicine also was in a more advanced state than might have been expected. Fragments of an old work on medicine have been found, which show that all known diseases had been cla.s.sified, and their symptoms described, the medical mixtures considered appropriate to each being compounded and prescribed quite in modern fas.h.i.+on. Here is one of them: 'For a diseased gall-bladder, which devours the top of a man's heart like a ring(?) ... within the sick (part), we prepare cypress-extract, goats' milk, palm-wine, barley, the flesh of an ox and bear, and the wine of the cellarer, in order that the sick man may live. Half an ephah of clear honey, half an ephah of cypress-extract, half an ephah of _gamgam_ herbs, half an ephah of linseed, half an ephah of ..., half an ephah of _imdi_ herbs, half an ephah of the seed of _tarrati_, half an ephah of calves' milk, half an ephah of _senu_ wood, half an ephah of _tik_ powder, half an ephah of the ... of the river-G.o.d, half an ephah of _usu_ wood, half an ephah of mountain medicine, half an ephah of the flesh(?) of a dove, half an ephah of the seed of the ..., half an ephah of the corn of the field, ten measures of the juice of a cut herb, ten measures of the tooth of the sea (sea-weed), one ephah of putrid flesh(?), one ephah of dates, one ephah of palm-wine and _insik_, and one ephah of the flesh(?) of the entrails; slice and cut up; or mix as a mixture, after first stirring it with a reed. On the fourth day observe (the sick man's) countenance. If it shows a white appearance his heart is cured; if it shows a dark appearance his heart is still devoured by the fire; if it shows a yellow appearance during the day, the patient's recovery is a.s.sured; if it shows a black appearance he will grow worse and will not live. For the swelling(?), slice (the flesh of) a cow which has entered the stall and has been slaughtered during the day. Seethe it in water and calves' milk. Drink the result in palm-wine. Drink it during the day.'