which forms no part of scientific annals. It was the kings of
Assyria, issuing from their palaces in Nineveh, who dominated the
civilization of Western Asia during the heyday of Hebrew history,
and whose deeds are so frequently mentioned in the Hebrew
chronicles. Later on, in the year 606 B.C., Nineveh was
overthrown by the Medes[1] and Babylonians. The famous city was
completely destroyed, never to be rebuilt. Babylon, however,
though conquered subsequently by Cyrus and held in subjection by
Darius,[2] the Persian kings, continued to hold sway as a great
world-capital for some centuries. The last great historical event
that occurred within its walls was the death of Alexander the
Great, which took place there in the year 322 B.C.

In the time of Herodotus the fame of Babylon was at its height,
and the father of history has left us a most entertaining account
of what he saw when he visited the wonderful capital.
Unfortunately, Herodotus was not a scholar in the proper
acceptance of the term. He probably had no inkling of the
Babylonian language, so the voluminous records of its literature
were entirely shut off from his observation. He therefore
enlightens us but little regarding the science of the
Babylonians, though his observations on their practical
civilization give us incidental references of no small
importance. Somewhat more detailed references to the scientific
attainments of the Babylonians are found in the fragments that
have come down to us of the writings of the great Babylonian
historian, Berosus,[3] who was born in Babylon about 330 B.C.,
and who was, therefore, a contemporary of Alexander the Great.
But the writings of Berosus also, or at least such parts of them
as have come down to us, leave very much to be desired in point
of explicitness. They give some glimpses of Babylonian history,
and they detail at some length the strange mythical tales of
creation that entered into the Babylonian conception of
cosmogony--details which find their counterpart in the allied
recitals of the Hebrews. But taken all in all, the glimpses of
the actual state of Chaldean[4] learning, as it was commonly
called, amounted to scarcely more than vague wonder-tales. No one
really knew just what interpretation to put upon these tales
until the explorers of the nineteenth century had excavated the
ruins of the Babylonian and Assyrian cities, bringing to light
the relics of their wonderful civilization. But these relics
fortunately included vast numbers of written documents, inscribed
on tablets, prisms, and cylinders of terra-cotta. When
nineteenth-century scholarship had penetrated the mysteries of
the strange script, and ferreted out the secrets of an unknown
tongue, the world at last was in possession of authentic records
by which the traditions regarding the Babylonians and Assyrians
could be tested. Thanks to these materials, a new science
commonly spoken of as Assyriology came into being, and a most
important chapter of human history was brought to light. It
became apparent that the Greek ideas concerning Mesopotamia,
though vague in the extreme, were founded on fact. No one any
longer questions that the Mesopotamian civilization was fully on
a par with that of Egypt; indeed, it is rather held that
superiority lay with the Asiatics. Certainly, in point of purely
scientific attainments, the Babylonians passed somewhat beyond
their Egyptian competitors. All the evidence seems to suggest
also that the Babylonian civilization was even more ancient than
that of Egypt. The precise dates are here in dispute; nor for our
present purpose need they greatly concern us. But the
Assyrio-Babylonian records have much greater historical accuracy
as regards matters of chronology than have the Egyptian, and it
is believed that our knowledge of the early Babylonian history is
carried back, with some certainty, to King Sargon of Agade,[5]
for whom the date 3800 B.C. is generally accepted; while somewhat
vaguer records give us glimpses of periods as remote as the
sixth, perhaps even the seventh or eighth millenniums before our
era.

At a very early period Babylon itself was not a capital and
Nineveh had not come into existence. The important cities, such
as Nippur and Shirpurla, were situated farther to the south. It
is on the site of these cities that the recent excavations have
been made, such as those of the University of Pennsylvania
expeditions at Nippur,[6] which are giving us glimpses into
remoter recesses of the historical period.

Even if we disregard the more problematical early dates, we are
still concerned with the records of a civilization extending
unbroken throughout a period of about four thousand years; the
actual period is in all probability twice or thrice that.
Naturally enough, the current of history is not an unbroken
stream throughout this long epoch. It appears that at least two
utterly different ethnic elements are involved. A preponderance
of evidence seems to show that the earliest civilized inhabitants
of Mesopotamia were not Semitic, but an alien race, which is now
commonly spoken of as Sumerian. This people, of whom we catch
glimpses chiefly through the records of its successors, appears
to have been subjugated or overthrown by Semitic invaders, who,
coming perhaps from Arabia (their origin is in dispute), took
possession of the region of the Tigris and Euphrates, learned
from the Sumerians many of the useful arts, and, partly perhaps
because of their mixed lineage, were enabled to develop the most
wonderful civilization of antiquity. Could we analyze the details
of this civilization from its earliest to its latest period we
should of course find the same changes which always attend racial
progress and decay. We should then be able, no doubt, to speak of
certain golden epochs and their periods of decline. To a certain
meagre extent we are able to do this now. We know, for example,
that King Khammurabi, who lived about 2200 B.C., was a great


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