[549] Herodot. i, 1. Φοίνικας—ἀπαγινέοντας φορτία Ἀσσύριά τε καὶ Αἰγύπτια.
[550] See the valuable chapter in Heeren (Ueber den Verkehr der Alten Welt i, 2, Abschn. 4, p. 96) about the land trade of the Phenicians.
The twenty-seventh chapter of the prophet Ezekiel presents a striking picture of the general commerce of Tyre.
[551] Herodot. i, 178. Τῆς δὲ Ἀσσυρίης ἐστὶ μέν κου καὶ ἄλλα πολίσματα μεγάλα πολλά· τὸ δὲ ὀνομαστότατον καὶ ἰσχυρότατον, καὶ ἔνθα σφι, τῆς Νίνου ἀναστάτου γενομένης, τὰ βασιλήϊα κατεστήκεε, ἦν Βαβυλών.
The existence of these and several other great cities is an important item to be taken in, in our conception of the old Assyria: Opis on the Tigris, and Sittakê on one of the canals very near the Tigris, can be identified (Xenoph. Anab. ii, 4, 13-25): compare Diodor. ii, 11.
[552] Herodot. i, 72; iii, 90-91; vii, 63; Strabo, xvi, p. 736, also ii, p. 84, in which he takes exception to the distribution of the οἰκουμένη (inhabited portion of the globe) made by Eratosthenês, because it did not include in the same compartment (σφραγὶς) Syria proper and Mesopotamia: he calls Ninus and Semiramis, Syrians. Herodotus considers the Armenians as colonists from the Phrygians (vii, 73).
The Homeric names Ἀρίμοι, Ἐρεμβοὶ (the first in the Iliad, ii, 783, the second in the Odyssey, iv, 84) coincide with the Oriental name of this race Aram; it seems more ancient, in the Greek habits of speech, than Syrians (see Strabo, xvi, p. 785).
The Hesiodic Catalogue too, as well as Stêsichorus, recognized Arabus as the son of Hermês, by Throniê, daughter of Bêlus (Hesiod, Fragm. 29, ed. Marktscheffel; Strabo, i, p. 42).
[553] Heeren, in his account of the Babylonians (Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part i, Abtheilung 2, p. 168), speaks of this conquest of Babylon by Chaldæan barbarians from the northern mountains as a certain fact, explaining the great development of the Babylonian empire under Nabopolasar and Nebuchadnezzar from 630-580 B. C.; it was, he thinks, the new Chaldæan conquerors who thus extended their dominion over Judæa and Phenicia.
I agree with Volney (Chronologie des Babyloniens, ch. x, p. 215) in thinking this statement both unsupported and improbable. Mannert seems to suppose the Chaldæans of Arabian origin (Geogr. der Gr. und Röm., part v, s. 2, ch. xii, p. 419). The passages of Strabo (xvi, p. 739) are more favorable to this opinion than to that of Heeren; but we make out nothing distinct respecting the Chaldæans except that they were the priestly order among the Assyrians of Babylon, as they are expressly termed by Herodotus—ὡς λέγουσι οἱ Χαλδαῖοι, ἐόντες ἱρέες τούτου τοῦ θεοῦ (of Zeus Bêlus) (Herodot. i, 181).
The Chalybes and Chaldæi of the northern mountains seem to be known only through Xenophon (Anab. iv, 3, 4; v, 5, 17; Cyrop. iii, 2, 1); they are rude barbarians, and of their exploits or history no particulars reach us.
[554] The earliest Chaldæan astronomical observation, known to the astronomer Ptolemy, both precise and of ascertained date to a degree sufficient for scientific use, was a lunar eclipse of the 19th March 721 B. C.—the 27th year of the era of Nabonassar (Ideler, Ueber die Astronomischen Beobachtungen der Alten, p. 19, Berlin, 1806). Had Ptolemy known any older observations conforming to these conditions, he would not have omitted to notice them: his own words in the Almagest testify how much he valued the knowledge and comparison of observations taken at distant intervals (Almagest, b. 3, p. 62, ap. Ideler, l. c. p. 1), and at the same time imply that he had none more ancient than the era of Nabonassar (Alm. iii, p. 77, ap. Idel. p. 169).
That the Chaldæans had been, long before this period, in the habit of observing the heavens, there is no reason to doubt; and the exactness of those observations cited by Ptolemy implies (according to the judgment of Ideler ib. p. 167) long previous practice. The period of two hundred and twenty-three lunations, after which the moon reverts nearly to the same positions in reference to the apsides and nodes, and after which eclipses return nearly in the same order and magnitude, appears to have been discovered by the Chaldæans (“Defectus ducentis viginti tribus mensibus redire in suos orbes certum est,” Pliny, H. N. ii, 13), and they deduced from hence the mean daily motions of the moon with a degree of accuracy which differs only by four seconds from modern lunar tables (Geminus, Isagoge in Arati Phænomena, c. 15; Ideler, l. c. pp. 153, 154, and in his Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i, Absch. ii, p. 207).
There seem to have been Chaldæan observations, both made and recorded, of much greater antiquity than the era of Nabonassar; though we cannot lay much stress on the date of 1903 years anterior to Alexander the Great, which is mentioned by Simplicius (ad Aristot. de Cœlo, p. 123) as being the earliest period of the Chaldæan observations sent from Babylon by Kallisthenês to Aristotle. Ideler thinks that the Chaldæan observations anterior to the era of Nabonassar were useless to astronomers from the want of some fixed era, or definite cycle, to identify the date of each of them. The common civil year of the Chaldæans had been from the beginning (like that of the Greeks) a lunar year, kept in a certain degree of harmony with the sun by cycles of lunar years and intercalation. Down to the era of Nabonassar, the calender was in confusion, and there was nothing to verify either the time of accession of the kings, or that of astronomical phenomena observed, except the days and months of this lunar year. In the reign of Nabonassar, the astronomers at Babylon introduced (not into civil use, but for their own purposes and records) the Egyptian solar year,—of three hundred and sixty-five days, or twelve months of thirty days each, with five added days, beginning with the first of the month Thoth, the commencement of the Egyptian year,—and they thus first obtained a continuous and accurate mode of marking the date of events. It is not meant that the Chaldæans then for the first time obtained from the Egyptians the knowledge of the solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days, but that they then for the first time adopted it in their notation of time for astronomical purposes, fixing the precise moment at which they began. Nor is there the least reason to suppose that the era of Nabonassar coincided with any political revolution or change of dynasty. Ideler discusses this point (pp. 146-173, and Handbuch der Chronol. pp. 215-220). Syncellus might correctly say—Ἀπὸ Ναβονασάρου τοὺς χρόνους τῆς τῶν ἄστρων παρατηρησέως Χαλδαῖοι ἠκρίβωσαν (Chronogr. p. 207).
We need not dwell upon the back reckonings of the Chaldæans for periods of 720,000, 490,000, 470,000 years, mentioned by Cicero, Diodorus, and Pliny (Cicero, De Divin. ii, 46; Diod. ii, 31; Pliny, H. N. vii, 57), and seemingly presented by Berosus and others as the preface of Babylonian history.
It is to be noted that Ptolemy always cited the Chaldæan observations as made by “the Chaldæans,” never naming any individual; though in all the other observations to which he alludes, he is very scrupulous in particularizing the name of the observer. Doubtless he found the Chaldæan observations registered just in this manner; a point which illustrates what is said in the text respecting the collective character of their civilization, and the want of individual development or prominent genius.
The superiority of the Chaldæan priests to the Egyptian, as astronomical observers, is shown by the fact that Ptolemy, though living at Alexandria, never mentions the latter as astronomers, and cites no Egyptian observations while he cites thirteen Chaldæan observations in the years B. C. 721, 720, 523, 502, 491, 383, 382, 245, 237, 229: the first ten being observations of lunar eclipses; the last three, of conjunctions of planets and fixed stars (Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i, Ab. ii, pp. 195-199).
[555] Herodot. ii, 109.
[556] The ancient Ninus or Nineveh was situated on the eastern bank of the Tigris, nearly opposite the modern town of Mousul or Mosul. Herodotus (i, 193) and Strabo (xvi, p. 737) both speak of it as being destroyed; but Tacitus (Ann. xii, 13) and Ammian. Marcell. (xviii, 7) mention it as subsisting. Its ruins had been long remarked (see Thevenot, Voyages, lib. i, ch. xi, p. 176, and Niebuhr, Reisen, vol. ii, p. 360), but have never been examined carefully until recently by Rich, Ainsworth, and others: see Ritter, West-Asien, b. iii, Abtheil. iii, Abschn. i, s. 45, pp. 171-221.
Ktêsias, according to Diodorus (ii, 3), placed Ninus or Nineveh on the Euphrates, which we must presume to be an inadvertence,—probably of Diodorus himself, for Ktêsias would be less likely than he to confound the Euphrates and the Tigris. Compare Wesseling ad Diodor. ii, 3, and Bähr ad Ktesiæ Fragm. ii, Assyr. p. 392.
Mannert (Geographie der Gr. und Röm. part v, c. 14, pp. 439-448) disputes the identity of these ruins with the ancient city of Ninus or Nineveh, because, if this had been the fact, Xenophon and the Ten Thousand Greeks must have passed directly over them in the retreat along the eastern bank of the Tigris upward: and Xenophon, who particularly notices the deserted cities of Larissa and Mespila, says nothing of the great ruin of this once flourishing Assyrian capital. This argument once appeared to me so forcible, that I came to the same negative conclusion as Mannert, though his conjectures, as to the real site of the city, never appeared to me satisfactory. But Ritter has removed the difficulty, by showing that the ruins opposite Mosul exactly correspond to the situation of that deserted city which Xenophon calls Mespila: the difference of name in this case is not of very great importance (Ritter, ut sup. p. 175). Consult also Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie, sect. 96, p. 612.
The situation of Nineveh here pointed out is exactly what we should expect in reference to the conquests of the Median kings: it lies in that part of Assyria bordering on Media, and in the course of the conquests which the king Kyaxarês afterwards extended farther on to the Halys. (See Appendix at the end of this chapter.)
[557] Herodot. i, 193. Ἡ γῆ τῶν Ἀσσυρίων ὕεται μὲν ὀλίγῳ—while he speaks of rain falling at Thebes in Egypt as a prodigy, which never happened except just at the moment when the country was conquered by Cambysês,—οὐ γὰρ δὴ ὕεται τὰ ἄνω τῆς Αἰγύπτου τὸ παράπαν (iii, 10). It is not unimportant to notice this distinction between the little rain of Babylonia, and the no rain of Upper Egypt,—as a mark of measured assertion in the historian from whom so much of our knowledge of Grecian history is derived.
It chanced to rain hard during the four days which the traveller Niebuhr spent in going from the ruins of Babylon to Bagdad, at the end of November 1763 (Reisen, vol. ii, p. 292).
[558] Herodot. i, 193; Xenophon, Anab. i, 7, 15; ii, 4, 13-22.
[559] About the date-palms (φοίνικες) in the ancient Babylonia, see Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. ii, 6, 2-6; Xenoph. Cyrop. vii, 5, 12; Anab. ii, 3, 15; Diodor. ii, 53: there were some which bore no fruit, but which afforded good wood for house-purposes and furniture.
Theophrastus gives the same general idea of the fertility and produce of the soil in Babylonia as Herodotus, though the two hundred-fold, and sometimes three hundred-fold, which was stated to the latter as the produce of the land in grain, appears in his statement cut down to fifty-fold, or one hundred-fold (Hist. Plant. viii, 7, 4).
Respecting the numerous useful purposes for which the date-palm was made to serve (a Persian song enumerated three hundred and sixty), see Strabo, xiv, p. 742; Ammian. Marcell. xxiv, 3.
[560] Herodot. i, 178, Strabo, xiv, p. 738; Arrian, E. A. vii, 17, 7. Strabo does not say that it was a stadium in perpendicular height: we may suppose that the stadium represents the entire distance in upward march from the bottom to the top. He as well as Arrian say that Xerxês destroyed both the temple of Bêlus and all the other temples at Babylon (καθεῖλεν, κατέσκαψεν, iii, 16, 6; vii, 17, 4); he talks of the intention of Alexander to rebuild it, and of his directions given to level new foundations, carrying away the loose earth and ruins. This cannot be reconciled with the narrative of Herodotus, nor with the statement of Pliny (vi, 30), nor do I believe it to be true. Xerxês plundered the temple of much of its wealth and ornaments, but that he knocked down the vast building and the other Babylonian temples, is incredible. Babylon always continued one of the chief cities of the Persian empire.
[561] What is stated in the text respecting Babylon, is taken almost entirely from Herodotus: I have given briefly the most prominent points in his interesting narrative (i, 178-193), which well deserves to be read at length.
Herodotus is in fact our only original witness, speaking from his own observation and going into details, respecting the marvels of Babylon. Ktêsias, if his work had remained, would have been another original witness; but we have only a few extracts from him by Diodorus. Strabo seems not to have visited Babylon, nor can it be affirmed that Kleitarchus did so. Arrian had Aristobulus to copy, and is valuable as far as he goes; but he does not enter into many particulars respecting the magnitude of the city or its appurtenances. Berosus also, if we possessed his book, would have been an eye-witness of the state of Babylon more than a century and a half later than Herodotus, but the few fragments remaining are hardly at all descriptive (see Berosi Fragm. pp. 64-67, ed. Richter).
The magnitude of the works described by Herodotus naturally provokes suspicions of exaggeration; but there are good grounds for trusting him, in my judgment, on all points which fell under his own vision and means of verification, as distinguished from past facts, on which he could do no more than give what he heard. He had bestowed much attention on Assyria and its phenomena, as is evident from the fact that he had written (or prepared to write, if the suspicion be admissible that the work was never completed,—Fabricius, Biblioth. Græc. ii, 20, 5) a special Assyrian history, which has not reached us (Ἀσσυρίοισι λόγοισι, i, 106-184). He is very precise in the measures of which he speaks; thus having described the dimensions of the walls in “royal cubits,” he goes on immediately to tell us how much that measure differs from an ordinary cubit. He designedly suppresses a part of what he had heard respecting the produce of the Babylonian soil, from the mere apprehension of not being believed.
To these reasons for placing faith in Herodotus we may add another, not less deserving of attention. That which seems incredible in the constructions which he describes, arises simply from their enormous bulk, and the frightful quantity of human labor which must have been employed to execute them. He does not tell us, like Berosus (Fragm. p. 66), that these wonderful fortifications were completed in fifteen days,—nor like Quintus Curtius, that the length of one stadium was completed on each successive day of the year (v, 1, 26). To bring to pass all that Herodotus has described, is a mere question of time, patience, number of laborers, and cost of maintaining them,—for the materials were both close at hand and inexhaustible.
Now what would be the limit imposed upon the power and will of the old kings of Babylonia on these points? We can hardly assign that limit with so much confidence as to venture to pronounce a statement of Herodotus incredible, when he tells us something which he has seen, or verified from eye-witnesses. The Pyramids and other works in Egypt are quite sufficient to make us mistrustful of our own means of appreciation; and the great wall of China (extending for twelve hundred English miles along what was once the whole northern frontier of the Chinese empire,—from twenty to twenty-five feet high,—wide enough for six horses to run abreast, and furnished with a suitable number of gates and bastions) contains more material than all the buildings of the British empire put together, according to Barrow’s estimate (Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i, p. 7, t. v.; and Ideler, Ueber die Zeitrechnung der Chinesen, in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy for 1837, ch. 3, p. 291).
Ktêsias gave the circuit of the walls of Babylon as three hundred and sixty stadia; Kleitarchus, three hundred and sixty-five stadia; Quintus Curtius, three hundred and sixty-eight stadia; and Strabo, three hundred and eighty-five stadia; all different from Herodotus, who gives four hundred and eighty stadia, a square of one hundred and twenty stadia each side. Grosskurd (ad Strabon. xvi, p. 738), Letronne, and Heeren, all presume that the smaller number must be the truth, and that Herodotus must have been misinformed; and Grosskurd further urges, that Herodotus cannot have seen the walls, inasmuch as he himself tells us that Darius caused them to be razed after the second siege and reconquest (Herodot. iii, 159). But upon this we may observe: First, the expression (τὸ τεῖχος περιεῖλε) does not imply that the wall was so thoroughly and entirely razed by Darius as to leave no part standing,—still less, that the great and broad moat was in all its circuit filled up and levelled. This would have been a most laborious operation in reference to such high and bulky masses, and withal not necessary for the purpose of rendering the town defenceless; for which purpose the destruction of certain portions of the wall is sufficient. Next, Herodotus speaks distinctly of the walls and ditch as existing in his time, when he saw the place, which does not exclude the possibility that numerous breaches may have been designedly made in them, or mere openings left in the walls without any actual gates, for the purpose of obviating all idea of revolt. But, however this latter fact may be, certain it is that the great walls were either continuous, or discontinuous only to the extent of these designed breaches, when Herodotus saw them. He describes the town and its phenomena in the present tense: κέεται ἐν πεδίῳ μεγάλῳ, μέγαθος ἐοῦσα μέτωπον ἕκαστον 120 σταδίων, ἐούσης τετραγώνου· οὗτοι στάδιοι τῆς περιόδου τῆς πόλιος γίνονται συνάπαντες 480. Τὸ μὲν νῦν μέγαθος τοσοῦτόν ἐστι τοῦ ἄστεος τοῦ Βαβυλωνίου. Ἐκεκόσμητο δὲ ὡς οὐδὲν ἄλλο πόλισμα τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν· ταφρὸς μὲν πρῶτά μιν βαθέα τε καὶ εὔρεα καὶ πλέη ὕδατος περιθέει· μετὰ δὲ, τεῖχος πεντήκοντα μὲν πηχέων βασιληΐων ἐὸν τὸ εὖρος, ὕψος δὲ, διηκοσίων πηχέων. Ὁ δὲ βασιλήϊος πηχὺς τοῦ μετρίου ἐστὶ πήχεος μέζων τρισὶ δακτυλίοισι (c. 178). Again (c. 181),—Τοῦτο μὲν δὴ τὸ τεῖχος θώρηξ ἐστί· ἕτερον δὲ ἔσωθεν τεῖχος περιθεῖ, οὐ πολλῷ τέῳ ἀσθενέστερον τοῦ ἑτέρου τείχους, στεινότερον δέ. Then he describes the temple of Zeus Bêlus, with its vast dimensions,—καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ τοῦτο ἔτι ἐὸν, δύο σταδίων πάντη, ἐὸν τετράγωνον,—in the language of one who had himself gone up to the top of it. After having mentioned the striking present phenomena of the temple, he specifies a statue of solid gold, twelve cubits high, which the Chaldæans told him had once been there, but which he did not see, and he carefully marks the distinction in his language,—ἦν δὲ ἐν τῷ τεμένεϊ τούτῳ ἔτι τὸν χρόνον ἐκεῖνον καὶ ἀνδριὰς δυώδεκα πήχεων, χρύσεος στέρεος. Ἐγὼ μέν μιν οὐκ εἶδον· τὰ δὲ λέγεται ὑπὸ Χαλδαίων, ταῦτα λέγω (c. 183).
The argument, therefore, by which Grosskurd justifies the rejection of the statement of Herodotus is not to be reconciled with the language of the historian: Herodotus certainly saw both the walls and the ditch. Ktêsias saw them too, and his statement of the circuit, as three hundred and sixty stadia, stands opposed to that of four hundred and eighty stadia, which appears in Herodotus. But the authority of Herodotus is, in my judgment, so much superior to that of Ktêsias, that I accept the larger figure as more worthy of credit than the smaller. Sixty English miles of circuit is, doubtless, a wonder, but forty-five miles in circuit is a wonder also: granting means and will to execute the lesser of these two, the Babylonian kings can hardly be supposed inadequate to the greater.
To me the height of these artificial mountains, called walls, appears even more astonishing than their length or breadth. Yet it is curious that on this point the two eye-witnesses, Herodotus and Ktêsias, both agree, with only the difference between royal cubits and common cubits. Herodotus states the height at two hundred royal cubits: Ktêsias, at fifty fathoms, which are equal to two hundred common cubits (Diod. ii, 7),—τὸ δὲ ὕψος, ὡς μὲν Κτησίας φησὶ, πεντήκοντα ὀργυιῶν, ὡς δὲ ἔνιοι τῶν νεωτώρων ἔγραψαν, πηχῶν πεντήκοντα. Olearius (ad Philostratum Vit. Apollon. Tyan. i, 25) shows plausible reason for believing that the more recent writers (νεώτεροι) cut down the dimensions stated by Ktêsias simply because they thought such a vast height incredible. The difference between the royal cubit and the common cubit, as Herodotus on this occasion informs us, was three digits in favor of the former; his two hundred royal cubits are thus equal to three hundred and thirty-seven feet eight inches: Ktêsias has not attended to the difference between royal cubits and common cubits, and his estimate, therefore, is lower than that of Herodotus by thirty-seven feet eight inches.
On the whole, I cannot think that we are justified, either by the authority of such counter-testimony as can be produced, or by the intrinsic wonder of the case, in rejecting the dimensions of the walls of Babylon as given by Herodotus.
Quintus Curtius states that a large proportion of the inclosed space was not occupied by dwellings, but sown and planted (v, 1, 26: compare Diodor. ii, 9).
[562] Herodot. i, 196.
[563] Arrian, Exp. Al. iii, 16, 6; vii, 17, 3; Quint. Curtius, iii, 3, 16.
[564] Xenoph. Anab. i, 4, 11; Arrian. Exp. Al. iii. 16, 3. καὶ ἅμα τοῦ πολέμου τὸ ἆθλον ἡ Βαβυλῶν καὶ τὰ Σοῦσα ἐφαίνετο.
[565] See the statement of the large receipts of the satrap Tritantæchmes and his immense establishment of horses and Indian dogs (Herodot. i 192).
[566] There is a valuable examination of the lower course of the Euphrates, with the changes which it has undergone, in Ritter, West-Asien, b. iii. Abtheil. iii, Abschnitt i, sect. 29, pp. 45-49, and the passage from Abydenus in the latter page.
For the distance between Terêdon or Diridôtis, at the mouth of the Euphrates (which remained separate from that of the Tigris until the first century of the Christian era), to Babylon, see Strabo, ii, p. 80; xvi, p. 739.
It is important to keep in mind the warning given by Ritter, that none of the maps of the course of the river Euphrates, prepared previously to the publication of Colonel Chesney’s expedition in 1836, are to be trusted. That expedition gave the first complete and accurate survey of the course of the river, and led to the detection of many mistakes previously committed by Mannert, Reichard, and other able geographers and chartographers. To the immense mass of information contained in Ritter’s comprehensive and laborious work, is to be added the farther merit, that he is always careful in pointing out where the geographical data are insufficient and fall short of certainty. See West-Asien, B. iii, Abtheilung iii, Abschnitt i, sect. 41, p 959.
[567] Strabo, xiii, p. 617, with the mutilated fragment of Alkæus, which O Müller has so ingeniously corrected (Rhenisch. Museum, i, 4, p. 287).
[568] Strabo, xvi, p. 740.
[569] Diodor. (i. 31) states this point justly with regard to the ancient kings of Egypt—ἔργα μεγάλα καὶ θαυμαστὰ διὰ τὰς πολυχειρίας κατασκευάσαντας, ἀθάνατα τῆς ἑαυτῶν δόξες καταλιπεῖν ὑπομνήματα.
[570] See the description of this desert in Xenoph. Anab. i, 5, 1-8.
[571] The Ten Thousand Greeks passed from the outside to the inside of the wall of Media: it was one hundred feet high, twenty feet wide, and was reported to them as extending twenty parasangs or six hundred stadia (= seventy miles) in length (Xenoph. Anab. ii, 4, 12). Eratosthenês called it τὸ Σεμιράμιδος διατείχισμα (Strabo, ii, p. 80): it was seemingly about twenty-five miles north of Bagdad.
There is some confusion about the wall of Media: Mannert (Geogr. der G. und R. v. 2, p. 280) and Forbiger also (Alte Geogr. sect. 97, p. 616, note 94) appear to have confounded the ditch dug by special order of Artaxerxês to oppose the march of the younger Cyrus, with the Nahar-Malcha or Royal canal between the Tigris and the Euphrates: see Xenoph. Anab. i, 7, 15.
It is singular that Herodotus makes no mention of the wall of Media, though his subject (i, 185) naturally conducts him to it: he seems to have sailed down the Euphrates to Babylon, and must, therefore, have seen it, if it had really extended to the Euphrates, as some authors have imagined. Probably, however, it was not kept up with any care, even in his time, seeing that its original usefulness was at an end, after the whole of Asia, from the Euxine to the Persian gulf, became subject to the Persians.
[572] Strabo, xvi, p. 744.
[573] Strabo, xvi, pp. 766, 776, 778; Pliny, H. N. vi, 32. “Arabes, mirum dictu, ex innumeris populis pars æqua in commerciis aut latrociniis degunt: in universum gentes ditissimæ, ut apud quas maximæ opes Romanorum Parthorumque subsistant,—vendentibus quæ a mari aut sylvis capiunt, nihil invicem redimentibus.”
The latter part of this passage of Pliny presents an enunciation sufficiently distinct, though by implication only, of what has been called the mercantile theory in political economy.
[574] To give one example: Herodotus mentions an opinion given to him by the γραμματιστὴς (comptroller) of the property of Athênê at Sais, to the effect that the sources of the Nile were at an immeasurable depth in the interior of the earth, between Syênê and Elephantinê, and that Psammetichus had vainly tried to sound them with a rope many thousand fathoms in length (ii, 28). In mentioning this tale (perfectly deserving of being recounted at least, because it came from a person of considerable station in the country), Herodotus expressly says: “This comptroller seemed to me to be only bantering, though he professed to know accurately,”—οὗτος δ᾽ ἐμοίγε παίζειν ἐδόκεε, φάμενος εἰδέναι ἀτρεκέως. Now Strabo (xvii, p. 819), in alluding to this story, introduces it just as if Herodotus had told it for a fact,—Πολλὰ δ᾽ Ἡρόδοτός τε καὶ ἄλλοι φλυαροῦσιν, οἷον, etc.
Many other instances might be cited, both from ancient and modern writers, of similar carelessness or injustice towards this admirable author.
[575] Οἱ ἱρέες τοῦ Νείλου, Herod. ii, 90.
[576] The seven mouths of the Nile, so notorious in antiquity, are not conformable to the modern geography of the country: see Mannert, Geogr. der Gr. und Röm. x, 1, p. 539.
The breadth of the base of the Delta, between Pelusium and Kanôpus, is overstated by Herodotus (ii, 6-9) at three thousand six hundred stadia; Diodorus (i, 34) and Strabo, at thirteen hundred stadia, which is near the truth, though the text of Strabo in various passages is not uniform on this matter, and requires correction. See Grosskurd’s note on Strabo, ii, p. 64 (note 3, p. 101), and xvii, p. 186 (note 9, p. 332). Pliny gives the distance at one hundred and seventy miles (H. N. v, 9).
[577] Herod, i, 193. Παραγίνεται ὁ σῖτος (in Babylonia) οὐ, κατάπερ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, αὐτοῦ τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἀναβαίνοντος ἐς τὰς ἀρούρας, ἀλλὰ χερσί τε καὶ κηλωνηΐοισι ἀρδόμενος· ἡ γὰρ Βαβυλωνίη χώρη πᾶσα, κατάπερ ἡ Αἰγυπτίη, κατατέτμηται ἐς διώρυχας, etc.
Herodotus was informed that the canals in Egypt had been dug by the labor of that host of prisoners whom the victorious Sesostris brought home from his conquests (ii, 108). The canals in Egypt served the purpose partly of communication between the different cities, partly of a constant supply of water to those towns which were not immediately on the Nile: “that vast river, so constantly at work,” (to use the language of Herodotus—ὑπὸ τοσούτου τε ποτάμου καὶ οὕτως ἐργατικοῦ, ii, 11), spared the Egyptians all the toil of irrigation which the Assyrian cultivator underwent (ii, 14).
Lower Egypt, as Herodotus saw it, though a continued flat, was unfit either for horse or car, from the number of intersecting canals,—ἄνιππος καὶ ἀναμάξευτος (ii, 108). But lower Egypt, as Volney saw it, was among the countries in the world best suited to the action of cavalry, so that he pronounces the native population of the country to have no chance of contending against the Mamelukes (Volney, Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. i, ch. 12, sect. 2, p. 199). The country has reverted to the state in which it was (ἱππασίμη καὶ ἁμαξευομένη πᾶσα) before the canals were made,—one of the many striking illustrations of the difference between the Egypt which a modern traveller visits, and that which Herodotus and even Strabo saw,—ὅλην πλωτὴν διωρύγων ἐπὶ διώρυξι τμηθεισῶν (Strabo, xvii, p. 788).
Considering the early age of Herodotus, his remarks on the geological character of Egypt as a deposit of the accumulated mud by the Nile, appear to me most remarkable (ii, 8-14). Having no fixed number of years included in his religious belief as measuring the past existence of the earth, he carries his mind back without difficulty to what may have been effected by this river in ten or twenty thousand years, or “in the whole space of time elapsed before I was born,” (ii, 11).
About the lake of Mœris, see a note a little farther on.
[579] Herodot. ii, 35. Αἰγύπτιοι ἅμα τῷ οὐρανῷ τῷ κατὰ σφέας ἐόντι ἑτεροίῳ, καὶ τῷ ποτάμῳ φύσιν ἀλλοίην παρεχομένῳ ἢ οἱ ἄλλοι πόταμοι, τὰ πολλὰ πάντα ἔμπαλιν τοῖσι ἄλλοισι ἀνθρώποισι ἐστήσαντο ἤθεα καὶ νόμους.
[580] Theokritus (Idyll, xvii, 83) celebrates Ptolemy Philadelphus king of Egypt as ruling over thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three cities: the manner in which he strings these figures into three hexameter verses is somewhat ingenious. The priests, in describing to Herodotus the unrivalled prosperity which they affirmed Egypt to have enjoyed under Amasis, the last king before the Persian conquest, said that there were then twenty thousand cities in the country (ii, 177). Diodorus tells us that eighteen thousand different cities and considerable villages were registered in the Egyptian ἀναγραφαὶ (i, 31) for the ancient times, but that thirty thousand were numbered under the Ptolemies.
[581] Respecting the monuments of ancient Egyptian art, see the summary of O. Müller, Archäologie der Kunst, sects. 215-233, and a still better account and appreciation of them in Carl Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Alten, Düsseldorf, 1843, vol. i, book ii, chs. 1 and 2.
In regard to the credibility and value of Egyptian history anterior to Psammetichus, there are many excellent remarks by Mr. Kenrick, in the preface to his work, “The Egypt of Herodotus,” (the second book of Herodotus, with notes.) About the recent discoveries derived from the hieroglyphics, he says: “We know that it was the custom of the Egyptian kings to inscribe the temples and obelisks which they raised with their own names or with distinguishing hieroglyphics; but in no one instance do these names, as read by the modern decipherers of hieroglyphics on monuments said to have been raised by kings before Psammetichus, correspond with the names given by Herodotus.” (Preface, p. xliv.) He farther adds in a note, “A name which has been read phonetically Mena, has been found at Thebes, and Mr. Wilkinson supposes it to be Menes. It is remarkable, however, that the names which follow are not phonetically written, so that it is probable that this is not to be read Mena. Besides, the cartouche, which immediately follows, is that of a king of the eighteenth dynasty; so that, at all events, it cannot have been engraved till many centuries after the supposed age of Menes; and the occurrence of the name no more decides the question of historical existence than that of Cecrops in the Parian Chronicle.”
[582] Heeren, Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part ii, 1, p. 403. The opinion given by Parthey, however (De Philis Insulâ, p. 100, Berlin, 1830), may perhaps be just: “Antiquissimâ ætate eundem populum, dicamus Ægyptiacum, Nili ripas inde a Meroë insulâ usque ad Ægyptum inferiorem occupâsse, e monumentorum congruentiâ apparet: posteriore tempore, tabulis et annalibus nostris longe superiore, alia stirps Æthiopica interiora terræ usque ad cataractam Syenensem obtinuit. Ex quâ ætate certa rerum notitia ad nos pervenit, Ægyptiorum et Æthiopum segregatio jam facta est. Herodotus cæterique scriptores Græci populos acute discernunt.”
At this moment, Syênê and its cataract mark the boundary of two people and two languages,—Egyptians and Arabic language to the north, Nubians and Berber language to the south. (Parthey, ibid.)
[583] Compare Herodot. ii, 30-32; iii, 19-25; Strabo, xvi, p. 818. Herodotus gives the description of their armor and appearance as part of the army of Xerxês (vii, 69); they painted their bodies: compare Plin. H. N. xxxiii, 36. How little Ethiopia was visited in his time, may be gathered from the tenor of his statements: according to Diodorus (i, 37), no Greeks visited it earlier than the expedition of Ptolemy Philadelphus,—οὕτως ἄξενα ἦν τὰ περὶ τοὺς τόπους τούτους, καὶ παντελῶς ἐπικίνδυνα. Diodorus, however, is incorrect in saying that no Greek had ever gone as far southward as the frontier of Egypt: Herodotus certainly visited Elephantinê, probably other Greeks also.
The statements respecting the theocratical state of Meroê and its superior civilization come from Diodorus (iii, 2, 5, 7), Strabo (xvii, p. 822), and Pliny (H. N. vi, 29-33), much later than Herodotus. Diodorus seems to have had no older informants before him, about Ethiopia, than Agatharchidês and Artemidôrus, both in the second century B. C. (Diod. iii, 10.)
[584] Wesseling ad Diodor. iii, 3.
[585] Herodot. ii, 37. Θεοσεβέες δὲ περισσῶς ἐόντες μάλιστα πάντων ἀνθρώπων, etc. He is astonished at the retentiveness of their memory; some of them had more stories to tell than any one whom he had ever seen (ii, 77-109; Diodor. i, 73).
The word priest conveys to a modern reader an idea very different from that of the Egyptian ἱερεῖς, who were not a profession, but an order comprising many occupations and professions,—Josephus the Jew was in like manner an ἱερεὺς κατὰ γένος (cont. Apion. c. 3).
[586] Diodorus (i, 70-73) gives an elaborate description of the monastic strictness with which the daily duties of the Egyptian king were measured out by the priests: compare Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. p. 353, who refers to Hekatæus (probably Hekatæus of Abdêra) and Eudoxus. The priests represented that Psammetichus was the first Egyptian king who broke through the priestly canon limiting the royal allowance of wine: compare Strabo, xvii, p, 790.
The Ethiopian kings at Meroê are said to have been kept in the like pupillage by the priestly order, until a king named Ergamenês, during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt, emancipated himself and put the chief priests to death (Diodor. iii, 6).
[587] Herodot. ii, 82-83.
[588] Herodot. ii, 143.
[589] Herodot. ii, 113; στίγματα ἱρά.
[590] Herodot. ii, 30.
[591] Herodot. i, 165-166; Diodor. i, 73.
[592] Diodor. i, 73.
[593] Besides this general rent or land-tax received by the Egyptian kings, there seem, also, to have been special crown-lands. Strabo mentions an island in the Nile (in the Thebaid) celebrated for the extraordinary excellence of its date-palms; the whole of this island belonged to the kings, without any other proprietor: it yielded a large revenue, and passed into the hands of the Roman government in Strabo’s time (xvii, p. 818).
[594] Herodot. ii, 30-141.
[595] Herodot. ii, 164.
[596] Diodor. i, 74. About the Egyptian castes generally, see Heeren, Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part ii, 2, pp. 572-595.
[597] See the citation from Maillet’s Travels in Egypt, in Heeren, Ideen, p. 590; also Volney’s Travels, vol. i, ch. 6, p. 77.
The expression of Herodotus—οἱ περὶ τὴν σπειρομένην Αἴγυπτον οἰκέουσι—indicates that the portion of the soil used as pasture was not inconsiderable.
The inhabitants of the marsh land were the most warlike part of the population (Thucyd. i, 110).