[378] Bible, Science and Faith, p. 314, 315 (Baltimore, 1895). Cf. also Evolution and Dogma, Chap. VIII (by J. A. Zahm, Chicago, 1896).
[379] Babel und Bibel, p. 4 (Leipzig, 1903).
[380] A name which, as we have seen, is also applied to the Euphrates.
[381] Cf. R. I. Wilberforce in The Five Empires, Chaps. XV, XVIII (London, 1852).
[382] Alexander the Great, p. 368 (by B. I. Wheeler, New York, 1900).
[383] Creasy’s Decisive Battles of the World, p. 79 (New York, 1899).
It was at Arbela, where was to be settled once for all the question of world supremacy, that Alexander, when counseled by his generals to make a night attack on Darius, gave the famous answer οὐ κλέπτο τἠν νίκην—I steal no victory—words that were his motto during his eventful and brilliant career.
[384] Voyages en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes, Vol I, p. 185 (Paris, 1677).
[385] Die Bedeutung des heutigen Namen’s Kal. ‘at Schergat ist bis jetzt unaufgeklärt geblieben und durfte vielleicht eine Altassyrische Reminiscenz bergen. Vom Mittelmer zum Persischen Golf. Vol. II, p. 210 (by M. von Oppenheim, Berlin, 1900). His countryman, Baron Thielmann, writing of the same ruins a quarter of a century earlier, declares: “This great field of ruin with its pyramid looks truly venerable, but science has as yet made no discoveries here which could help us solve the mystery of this remnant of an ancient era.” Journey in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey in Asia, Vol. II, p. 136 (London, 1875).
[386] Cf. Sayce Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 122 (London, 1898).
[387] See Jastrow, op. cit., p. 229.
[388] See W. Andræ’s Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur (Leipsic, 1909); and his Die Festungswerke von Assur (Leipsic, 1913).
[389] Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 328.
[390] See Die Stelenreien in Assur, p. ii (by Walter Andræ, Leipsic, 1913).
[391] “Many other works of Semiramis,” writes Strabo, “besides those of Babylon, are extant in almost every part of this continent, as, for example, earth-works which are called mounds of Semiramis, walls and fortresses, aqueducts and cisterns for water, stair-like roads over mountains, canals communicating with rivers and lakes; roads and bridges.” Geography, Bk. XVI, Chap. II.
[392] Polyænus Strategemeta, VIII, 26.
[393] Cf. La Légende de Semiramis, pp. 22, 23 (by François Lenormant), in Mémoires de l’Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Tom. XL (1873).
[394] A. H. Sayce in Herodotos, with Notes, Introductions and Appendices, p. 105 (London, 1883).
[395] Ibid., p. 303.
[396] Ibid., p. 362.
[397] Mr. Robertson Smith in The English Historical Review, Vol. II, p. 305, April, 1887.
[398] Op. cit., p. 317.
[399] As many fantastic stories are related about Dietrich von Bern—Theodoric the Great, King of the East Goths—as there are about Semiramis. As the Assyrian queen was said to have been nursed by doves in her infancy and to have been transformed into a dove after her death so, the German legends have it, Dietrich von Bern was descended from a spirit and made his exit from the world on a black horse. In Lusatia the mythical Wild Huntsman who, during violent storms, rides furiously across the heavens is called Dietrich von Bern. Living so long after Semiramis it is more surprising that his life should be made the theme of Middle High German poems and Old Norse sagas than that the Assyrian queen should have been made the subject of oriental myth and Greek legend.
[400] Lehmann-Haupt in his interesting and illuminating lecture on Die historische Semiramis und ihre Zeit, which was delivered before the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in Berlin, February 6, 1910, declares: “Von der sagenhaften Ümhüllung befreit, sehen wir Semiramis vor uns als eine Herrschergestalt, die zu einer Zeit, da sonst der Frau eine Beteiligung am öffentlichen Leben versagt war, die Geschichte zweier, vornehmlich durch ihre Klugheit und Umsicht verbundener Reiche in Krieg und Frieden entscheidendend und durchgreifend geleitet hat.” P. 68 (Tübingen, 1910).
How different is this conclusion of the learned German, which is based on the brilliant discoveries of Andræ and his colleagues, from that of the distinguished Orientalist, F. Lenormant, who, as the result of an exhaustive study of Semiramis, makes the ex cathedra statement “ce personage divin ... doit être definitivement rayé de l’histoire—this divine personage ought to be definitely expunged from history.” Op. cit., p. 68.
[401] Geography, Bk. XVI, Chap. I, IX.
[402] Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander, Bk. VII, Chap. VII.
[403] Voyage au Levant, Tom. III, p. 200 (Amsterdam, 1727).
[404] Ibid., III, p. 183.
[405] So hot is it in Susa, the Greek geographer writes, that “lizards and serpents at midday in the summer ... cannot cross the streets quick enough to prevent their being burnt to death midway by the heat.” Op. cit., Bk. XV, Chap. III.
[406] “There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the ‘Zauba’ah,’ as the Arabs call it. Devils or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots, tearing up trees which are whirled like leaves and sticks in the air, and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three thousand feet above the earth, a gigantic cloud of yellow sand which obliterates not only the horizon but even the midday sun. These sand-spouts are the terror of travelers.” Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I, p. 114 (by Richard F. Burton, Benares, 1885).
[407] Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the Site of Ancient Nineveh with a Journal of a Voyage down the Tigris to Bagdad, Vol. II, p. 148 (London, 1836).
[408] Journey in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey in Asia, Vol. II, p. 138 (London, 1875).
[409] Convito, IV., 2.
[410] Divina Commedia, IV, v. 121, et seq.
[411] Moore’s Lalla Rookh, p. 181 (New York, 1890).
[412] Life and Letters of E. B. Cowell, p. 318 (by G. Cowell, London, 1904).
[413] Daniel, iii.
[414] Op. cit., II, 139.
[415] Gertrude L. Bell, in Amurath to Amurath, p. 246 (London, 1911).
[416] “Le Khalife, alors tout-puissant, vivait là au milieu de ses milices et de tous les grands scheiks de son royaume, plus entouré de courtisans que Louis XIV à Versailles. Il réservait d’ailleurs toutes ses faveurs à ceux qui venaient embellir Samara en coustruisant quelques belles residences dans le voisinage du palais.” Description du Palais de Al-Moutasim Fils d’Haroun-al-Raschid à Samara et de Quelques Monuments Arabs connus de la Mesopotamia, p. 23 and plate XIV (par M. H. Violet, Paris, 1909). Cf. Sarre und Herzfeld’s illuminating monograph on Samara.
[417] Cf. Von Oppenheim, op. cit., II, p. 221.
[418] Op. cit., p. 381.
[419] Cf. Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea and Armenia, Vol. II, p. 152 (by W. F. Ainsworth, London, 1842).
[420] Les Missions Catholiques Françaises au XIXe Siècle, Tom. I, p. 223, et seq. (Paris, 1900).
[421] Cf. Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, Tom. I, p. 172 et seq. (by the Vicomte De la Jonquière, Paris, 1914).
[422] Du Caucasus au Golfe Persique à travers l’Arménie, le Kurdistan et la Mesopotamie, p. 458 et seq. (by P. Müller-Simonis and H. Hyvernat, Washington, 1892).
[423] See the interesting work of Mme. Dieulafoy on La Perse, la Chaldée et la Susiane, p. 576 et seq. (Paris, 1887).
[424] Turquie Agonisante, p. 137 (Paris, 1913).
[425] Baghdad during the Abbassid Caliphate from Contemporary Arabic and Persian Sources, pp. 12–14 (by G. Le Strange, Oxford, 1900).
[426] Le Strange, op. cit., p. 64 et seq.
[427] Le Strange, op. cit., p. 71.
[428] The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Vol. I, p. 63 (translated and edited by H. Yule, London, 1903).
[429] Bibliothèque Orientale, Tom. I, p. 326 (The Hague, 1777).
[430] Op. cit., I, 72.
[431] History of the Mongols from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century, Part III, p. 127 (by H. H. Howorth, London, 1888).
[432] See Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, on a Greek Embassy to Bagdad 917, A. D. (January, 1897).
[433] Cf. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. LII.
[434] At this period, Sir Richard Burton tells us, London and Paris were in a state of quasi-savagery and “their palatial halls were spread with rushes.”
[435] Bagdad, at the zenith of its grandeur under Harun-al-Rashid, was the worthy successor of Babylon and Nineveh. It “had outrivalled Damascus, ‘the Smile of the Prophet,’” and “was essentially a city of pleasure, a Paris of the ninth century.” “Thither flocked from all parts of the oriental world the most noted and capable poets, musicians and artificers of the time; and the first thought of the Arabian or Persian craftsman who had completed some specially curious or attractive specimen of his art was to repair to the capital of the Muslim world, to submit it to the Commander of the Faithful from whom he rarely failed to receive a rich reward for his labors. Surrounded by pleasure-gardens and groves of orange, tamarisk, and myrtle, refreshed by an unfailing luxuriance of running streams, supplied either by art or nature, the great city on the Tigris is the theme of many an admiring ode or laudatory ghazel; and the poets of the time all agree in describing it as being, under the rule of the great Caliph, a sort of terrestrial paradise of idlesse and luxury, where, to use their own expressions, the ground was irrigated with rose-water and the dust of the roads was musk, where flowers and verdure overhung the ways and the air was perpetually sweet with the many-voiced song of birds, and where the chirp of lutes, the dulcet warble of flutes and the silver sound of singing houris rose and fell in harmonious cadence from every corner of the streets of palaces that stood in vast succession in the midst of their gardens and orchards, gifted with perpetual verdure by the silver abundance of the Tigris, as it sped its arrowy flight through the thrice-blest town.” Thousand and One Nights, Vol. IX, pp. 333, 334 (translated by John Payne, London, 1884).
[436] Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe, Vol. I, p. 30 (New York, 1827).
[437] Haroun-Al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad, p. 53 (by E. H. Palmer, London, 1881).
[438] Palmer, op. cit., p. 83.
[439] This crime, declares Sir Richard Burton, “stands out in ghastly prominence as one of the most terrible tragedies recorded in history and its horrible details make men write passionately on the subject to this our day.” Thousand and One Nights, Vol. X, p. 142 (Benares, 1885).
[440] Sismondi, op. cit., I, 30.
[442] Gibbon, op. cit., Chap. LII.
[443] See D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale, s. v. “Honain.”
[444] Cf. A History of Greece, Vol. II, p. 224 (by G. Finlay, Oxford, 1877).
[445] The History and Conquests of the Saracens, p. 157 (London, 1877).
[446] Longfellow has chosen the grim episode said to have been connected with the tragic death of Al-Mostassem at the hands of Hulagu Khan for one of his well-known poems in which he makes his victor and executioner address the avaricious Caliph in the following words:
[447] Freeman, op. cit., p. 132.
[448] “Tamerlan fit passer au fil de l’epée tous sea Habitants, n’ epargnant ni age, ni sexe, ni condition et fit raser rez pied, rez terre tous ses principaux bätimens.” D’Herbelot, op. cit., s. v. “Timour.”
[449] Cf. Gibbon, op. cit., Chap. LXV. “The ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by his”—Timour’s—“abominable trophies—by columns or pyramids of human heads.” Ibid., Chap. LXV. “The people of Ispahan supplied seventy thousand human skulls for the structure of several lofty towers.” Ibid., Chap. XXXIV.
[450] Howorth, op. cit., Part III, p. 1.
[451] Cf. Benjamin of Tudela, op. cit., p. 98 et seq. According to the Babylonian Talmud which “became the main factor in the history and development of Judaism,” the Jews of Babylon passed for a purer race than those of Palestine.
[452] “Tous les pays,” it is said in the French translation of the Babylonian Talmud, “sont comme de la pâte relativement à la Palestine, mais ce pays l’est relativement à la Babylonie.” Cf. Géographie du Talmud, p. 320 (by A. Neubauer, Paris, 1868).
[453] The clever Ottoman author, Halil Halid, pertinently writes in reference to this subject: “In the language of diplomacy the French term ‘action civilisatrice’ may still have an impressive sound, but owing to the free use made of it by every politician and journalist, the sense of the term has been much contaminated with vulgarity. The dignified charm of the English political literature dealing with the affairs of the East has also begun to degenerate into something like a commonplace. The notion intended by the term is this, that when one of the mighty Powers of Christendom finds it incumbent upon itself to take under its patronizing ægis the internal affairs of a Muslim nation, which is incapable of holding its own, freedom, justice and the spread of civilization will either immediately or gradually follow the introduction of its good rule and signs of the public well-being will spring up here, there and everywhere.
“There is no necessity to cite here any examples of the astounding work which the civilizing Powers are doing in Eastern countries, as any one who studies the political settlement of these countries can find ample instances for himself. It should only be remarked that all the pains taken in this direction are at the expense of the sovereign rights and national independence of the people which submit to the civilizing tutelage.” The Crescent versus the Cross, pp. 184, 185 (London, 1907).
[454] “Neejdee horses are especially esteemed for great speed and endurance of fatigue; indeed in this latter quality none can come up to them. To pass twenty-four hours on the road without drink and without flagging is certainly something; but to keep up the same abstinence and labor conjoined under the burning Arabian sky for forty-eight hours at a stretch is, I believe, peculiar to animals of the breed.” Personal Narrative of a Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia, p. 310 (by W. G. Palgrave, London, 1869).
[455] The most prized horses in Arabia belong, it is said, to the Khamsa, namely, to one of the Kehilan breeds, which, according to tradition, are descended from Mohammed’s five favorite mares.
[456] Cf. E. Reclus, Asia, Vol. IV, p. 466 (New York, 1855).
[457] Op. cit., pp. 25, 26.
[458] See La Province de Bagdad, p. 108 (by Habib K. Chicha, Cairo, 1908).
[459] “Who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise, in Eden towards the East, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life?” De Principiis, Bk. IV, Chap. I.
[460] De Genesi ad Litteram, Lib. VIII, Cap. I.
[461] Wo lag das Paradies, p. 44 (Leipsic, 1881).
[462] Lib. II, dist. 17, c. 5, “Unde volunt in orientali parte esse paradisum, longo interjacente spatio vel maris vel terræ a regionibus quas incolant hominea secretum, et in alto situm, usque ad lunarem circulum pertingentem, unde nec aquæ diluvii illuc pervenerunt.”
[463] Cf. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 255 et seq. (by S. Baring Gould, London, 1892).
[464] The Voyage and Travaile of Sir John Mandeville, Chap. XXX.
[465] See Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, pp. 141–147 (translated by R. H. Major and printed for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1870).
[466] La Nouvelle Revue, April 15, 1893.
[467] Atlantis, The Antediluvian World, p. 455 (New York, 1884).
[468] Popular Science Monthly, p. 678, September, 1883.
[469] Paradise Found, p. 433 (by W. F. Warren, Boston, 1885).
[470] The Human Species, p. 175–177 (New York, 1890).
[471] Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient, Tom. I, p. 96 et seq. (Paris, 1881).
[472] See chapter on The Site of the Garden of Eden, in Science and the Church (by J. A. Zahm, Chicago, 1896), from which I have extensively drawn for the present treatment of the subject.
[473] Cf. Dictionnaire de la Bible, Tom. IV, Col. 2121 (pub. by F. Vigoroux, Paris, 1908).
[474] See Reise der K. preussichen Gesellschaft nach Persia, Tom. I, p. 146 (by H. Brugsch, Leipsic, 1862).
[475] Cf. Dom Calmet, Commentaire littéral sur la Genèse, p. 61 (Paris, 1715).
[476] Duo sunt amnes qui in unum coeunt deinde abeunt in diversas partes. Ita flumen unum est in confluente; duo autem inferioribus alveis sunt capita, et duo versus mare postquam rursus longius dividi incipiunt. See his Commentarius in Genesin. The map of Babylonia, which accompanies the text renders the author’s view quite clear, although it does not specify the site of the Garden of Eden.
[477] See The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, pp. 95, 96 (by A. H. Sayce, London, 1894). Cf. The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, Chaps. I, II (by T. G. Pinches, London, 1908); The Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 305 (by George Smith, London, 1876).
[478] Ibid., p. 97.
[479] Op. cit., pp. 97, 98.
[480] Modern Science and Bible Lands, pp. 197, 198 (New York, 1889).
[481] Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Propheten Muhammed, Vol. II, p. 317, et seq. (Berlin, 1890).
[482] Aufsätze und Abhandlungen, p. 273 et seq. (Munich, 1901).
[483] “E chiaro che il narratore nel detto brano della Genesi ha avuto, dinazi agli occhi un luogo ben noto, e si e data la pena di discriverlo mimutamente, affinche non potessero surgere dubbi sul paese che egli voleva indicare.” Studi di Storia Orientale, Vol. I, p. 121 (Milan, 1911).
[484] Referring to the discovery of the word Eden—Edina—in cuneiform inscriptions the distinguished Assyriologist, T. G. Pinches, op. cit., p. 72, writes: “That we shall ultimately find other instances of Eden as a geographical name, occurring by itself and not in composition with another word, as in the expression Sipar Edina, and even a reference to gannat Edinni, ‘the Garden of Eden,’ is to be expected.”
[485] Purgatorio, XXXIII, 145.
[486] So called because of an Eastern tradition that it was the plantain and not the apple which was the forbidden fruit in Paradise. It is also known as Adam’s fig.
[487] Paradise Lost, Bk. IV.
[488] Nature herself confesses to have given the tenderest hearts to the human race, as she gave them tears; this is the best part of our faculties. Satire XV, vv. 131–133.
[489] According to Dr. Fries, an eminent German scholar, all games of ball are traceable back to an old light myth which was presumably Babylonian in origin: “Alles Ballspiel,” he writes, “ja bis herab zum Lawn-Tenis auf denselben Gedanken-den Lichtkampf-zurückgeht.” Studien zur Odyssee, Vol. I, p. 324 (Leipsic, 1910).
[490] The Excavations at Babylon, p. 15 (London, 1914).
[491] “But the devils believed not, they taught men sorcery and that which was sent down to the two angels at Babel, Harut and Marut.” The Koran, Sura II, 96.
[492] Chap. XIII, vv. 19–21. In lieu of the word “satyrs” the Vulgate has pilosi—the hairy ones—which is more in keeping with the original Hebrew text.
[493] Genesis xi: 4.
[494] Ερημία μεγάλη ἐστιν ἡ μεγάλη πόλις, Bk. XVI, I, 5.
[495] The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, Vol. X, Part I, p. 63 (collected by Richard Hakluyt, Edinburgh, 1889).
[496] “The inhabitants of these parts are as fond of attributing every vestige of antiquity to Nimrod as those of Egypt are to Pharaoh.” Rich, Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon (London, 1818).
[497] Op. cit., Tom. I, p. 382 et seq.
[498] That Della Valle had no doubt that the mound of Babil was really the ruin of the Tower of Babel is quite evident from the positive statement which he makes to this effect: “che sia quella Babel antica è la torre di Nembrotto, non c’è dubbio, secondo me, perche oltre che il sito lo dimostra, da’ paesani ancora oggidi è conisciuta per tale, ed in Arabico è chiamata volgarmente Babel.” Op. cit., p. 384.
[499] Koldewey, op. cit., p. 11, et seq.
[500] Op. cit., p. 101.
[501] Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, Vol. II, p. 365 (by Robert Ker Porter, London, 1822).
[502] Op. cit., p. 317. The Jews of Babylonia call the tower of Birs-Nimrud “Nebuchadnezzar’s prison,” for what reason is not clear.
[503] The Old Testament in the Light of Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, p. 138 (by T. G. Prinches, London, 1908).
[504] Observations Connected with the Astronomy and Ancient History, Sacred and Profane, on the Ruins of Babylon, p. 2 (by T. Maurice, London, 1816).