Persian Literature, by Elizabeth A. Reed

2. Mr. Theo. G. Pinches, in his notes on this chapter, says: “The Sumerians are generally regarded as of the same race as of the Accadians. Sumerian is a dialect of Akkadian. Sumer and Akkad both contained Semitic and non-Semitic inhabitants.”

3. Decouvertes en Chaldee par E. de Sarzec, Plate No. 29.

4. The catalogue of the astronomical works in the library of Sargon I instructs the reader to write down the number of the book that he needs, and the librarian will thereupon give him the tablet required.—Sayce, Bab. Lit., p. 9.

5. Diodorus, Sec. 23.

6. The word Nineveh is made up of signs which mean city, coach and Nana respectively, all of which means the resting place of the chief god, Nana. (E.A. Budge.) The great commerce of Nineveh—the fact that her merchants were greatly “multiplied”—is illustrated by the large collection of contract tablets in the British Museum.

7. The problem of the relative value of gold and silver had been solved to a certain extent in this ancient kingdom, a silver shekel being one-tenth the value of a gold shekel, and the silver half shekel one twentieth of the value of the gold shekel. The drachma, or silver half shekel, is supposed to be the most ancient type of the English shilling, as one-twentieth of the English gold sovereign.

8. For the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, the records of the Egebi family are invaluable—dated deeds extending, year by year, from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to the close of that of Darius Hystaspes.—Sayce, An. Emp., p. 105.

9. Sayce—An. Emp., p. 195.

10. Astarte or Ashtaroth.

11. Jer. li, 47; Isa. xxi, 2-9.

12. Ezekiel xxvii, 10; xxxviii, 5.

13. The Persians called wine Zeher-e-kushon, or “delightful poison.”

14. Scarcely a century has elapsed since the burnished shields and helmets of ancient Persian royalty were laid aside for the lighter military accoutrements of modern Europe.

17. Darmesteter, Sa. Bks. of the E., Vol. IV, Int., p. 3.

18. These appear to have been written upon the face of the Behistun rock about 515 B.C.

19. Max Müller—Chips, Vol. I, p. 91.

20. The Dihkans were the landed nobility of Persia. They kept up a certain independence, even under the sway of the Mohammedan Khalifs.

21. About 570 A.D. See Quartremére.

24. In Persian mythology the earth is surrounded by a mountain range of pure emerald.

25. “The Ausindom mountain is that which, being of ruby, of the substance of the sky, is in the midst of the sea Vouru-Kasha.”—Zend-Avesta—Tir Yast, VI, 32, n.

26. Cuneiform means “having the form of a wedge,” and is especially applied to the wedge-shaped or arrow-headed characters of ancient inscriptions.

27. Collection de Clercq, Pl. 5. No. 46.

29. Deluge Tablets in British Museum, Records of the Past, 1-133.

30. Marked K 3657 in British Museum. Trans. by Geo. Smith.

31. Inscriptions of Western Asia, Vol. 19. Trans. by Prof. Sayce, Records of Past, 11-119.

32. Brit. Mus. Ins., Plates 37-42. Trans. by Rawlinson.

33. Annals, Col. 3, line 24. Also 2 Chron. xxxii, 5.

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.

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.

36. The mythology of Nebuchadnezzar’s inscriptions will be briefly treated in the following chapter.

37. This devastation was accomplished during Sennacherib’s campaign of 694 to 692 B.C.

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.

39. Nebuchadnezzar reigned from about 605 to 562 B.C.

40. 2 Kings xxiv, 7. In the tablets the river Euphrates is called “the river of Sippara.”

42. Translated by Fox Talbot, F.R. S., Records of the Past, I, 69-73.

43. Translated by Fox Talbot, F.R. S., Records of the Past, 1-133.

44. Jerusalem captured 587 B.C. See also Jer. xxxix, 1, 2; 2 Kings xxv.

49. W. St. Chad Boscawen, Trans. Vic. Ins., Vol. XVIII, No. 70, p. 117.

50. Western Asia Inscriptions, Vol. I, pl. 68, col. lines 19.

51. Jeremiah li, 39-57; also Daniel v, 1.

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.”

53. W. St. Chad Boscawen, Trans. Vic. Ins., Vol. XVIII, page 131.

54. Herodotus, I, 107, 122.

55. Darius Hystaspes reigned from 549 to 486 B.C.

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.

58. The name of this province appears to be derived from Susun, signifying a “lily.”

59. Col. III, line 41.

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.

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.

62. Commentaire sur le livre d’Esther, p. 4.

63. The Chaldean mythology represented by the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth appears to have been an organized system demanding the erection of a temple to Merodach, as early as the seventeenth century B.C., while the earliest songs of the Vedas are ascribed to the period between 1500 to 1000 B.C. and the greater portion of Hindu mythology appears only in much later works.

64. Sayce, Rec. of P., Vol. I, pp. 123-130.

65. Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, who reigned from 668 to 625 B.C.

66. Hindu Literature, Chaps. ii and iii.

68. There is an Assyrian bas-relief now in the British Museum which represents Tīamat with horns and claws, tail and wings.

69. Eridu—the Rata of Ptolemy, was near the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, on the Arabian side of the river. It was one of the oldest cities of Chaldea.

70. Cun. Ins. West Asia, Vol. IV, plate 15. Records of the Past.

71. This is one of the numerous bilingual texts, written in the original Accadian, with an interlinear Assyrian translation, which have been brought from the library of Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh.

72. Rimmon-Nirari III. Records of Past, Vol. IV, p. 88.

73. Ins. of Shalmanesar II. Records of P., Vol. IV, p. 66.

74. It is thought that the worship of Hea or Ea may have been a corruption of the worship of the God of Abraham, as Ea is another form of El, and the early followers of Ea were evidently monotheists.

Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, the eminent archæologist, who is a native of Assyria, claims that the early Assyrians worshipped the true God, but under peculiar names and attributes, and that instead of practicing the revolting sacrifices which were made by other gentile nations “they imitated the sacrifices of the Jewish rites.” He bases his proof largely upon his discovery of the bronze gate of Shalmanesar II, with its sculptured presentation of the sacrifice of rams and bullocks, and he says that “the same king, Shalmanesar, took tribute from Jehu, king of Israel, as an act of homage.”

Trans. Vic. Ins., Vol. XIII, pp. 190 and 214, also Vol. XXV, pp. 121.

75. This tablet is almost three inches long and two inches wide. It weighs about three drams (Troy). The inscription was translated by Dr. Oppert.

76. These inscriptions contain an account of a lunar eclipse mentioned by Ptolemy, which took place March 19th, 721 B.C. Sargon II probably ascended the throne about the year 722 B.C.

77. The fact that the “men of Cuth” worshipped Nergal is confirmed by 2 Kings xvii, 30.

78. An allusion to the destruction of the image of Merodach is found in Jeremiah: “Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces. Her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.” (Jeremiah 1, 2.)

79. 4th Col., lines 1-6.

81. This portion of Nebuchadnezzar’s inscription is confirmed by the following statement in the book of Daniel: “And the Lord gave the King of Judah into his (Nebuchadnezzar’s) hand with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god.“ (Daniel i, 2.)

82. Col. 3. lines 43-45.

83. Nebo is alluded to as one of the heathen gods in Isaiah xlvi, 1, and kindred passages.

84. Compare Judges xvi, 23; also 1 Samuel v.

85. Tablets of Tel-El-Armana, “Dispatches from Palestine in the century before the Exodus,” Rec. of P. Vol. I, p. 64.

86. Babylonian Literature, p. 64.

87. Compare Lev. xx, 2; Deut. xii, 31, and kindred passages.

88. The Moabite stone was about three feet and nine inches long, two feet and four inches in breadth and fourteen inches thick. The inscription contained many incidents concerning the wars of King Mesha with Israel; see also 2 Kings, 3d chap. The literature connected with this stone is very great, no less than forty-nine Orientalists having written in various languages upon this fascinating theme, and although many of these productions are merely papers or brochures, there are at least eight different volumes upon this subject.

The characters are Phœnician, and form a link between those of the Baal-Lebanon inscription of the tenth century B.C. and those of the Siloam text.

89. Chemosh, who is called “the abomination of the Moabites,” is alluded to in Numb. xxi, 29; also Jer. xlviii, 7, and various other passages.

90. Tablet K 4902 of the British Museum Collection, translated by Ernest A. Budge.

91. “They have builded also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal,” etc. (Jeremiah xix. 5. See also many kindred passages.)

92. This inscription was translated by Dr. Oppert, and Esmunazar is supposed to have lived in the fourth century B.C.

93. 2 Kings xvii. 16, and kindred passages.

94. Western Asia Inscriptions, Vol. IV. p. 32.

95. The prophet Ezekiel speaks of the fact that “there sat women weeping for Tammuz,” as even a “greater abomination” than burning incense to idols. (See Ezekiel viii, 13-14.)

96. The worship of Ashtaroth, which represented the grossest licentiousness and demanded human sacrifices, is strongly condemned in Judges ii, 12-13, and many other passages.

97. Annals of Assur-bani-pal, Cylinder B, Column 5.

98. Pliny, Nat. Hist., Vol. II, p. 619.

99. Pausanius, III, 25.

100. Literally “blue stone;” it was a brilliant dark blue.

101. The eagle, the lion, the horse, the king and the workman are supposed to represent the numerous bridegrooms of this treacherous goddess.

102. Inscriptions Western Asia, Vol. IV, p. 48, published by the British Museum, and translated by H. Fox Talbot, F.R. S.

103. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, VII, 234.

104. The great celebrity of this fable is well illustrated by the fact that Ovid in his Metamorphoses (III, 206), has preserved the individual names of all the dogs, thirty-five in number.