Chapter I: Ancient Chaldaea (2)

We know nothing of the efforts which the first inhabitants--Sumerians and Semites--had to make in order to control the waters and to bring the land under culture: the most ancient monuments exhibit them as already possessors of the soil, and in a forward state of civilization.* Their chief cities were divided into two groups: one in the south, in the neighbourhood of the sea; the other in a northern direction, in the region where the Euphrates and Tigris are separated from each other by merely a narrow strip of land. The southern group consisted of seven, of which Eridu lay nearest to the coast. This town stood on the left bank of the Euphrates, at a point which is now called Abu-Shahrein. A little to the west, on the opposite bank, but at some distance from the stream, the mound of Mugheir marks the site of Uru, the most important, if not the oldest, of the southern cities. Lagash occupied the site of the modern Telloh to the north of Eridu, not far from the Shatt-el-Hai; Nisin and Mar, Larsam and Uruk, occupied positions at short distances from each other on the marshy ground which extends between the Euphrates and the Shatt-en-Nil. The inscriptions mention here and there other less important places, of which the ruins have not yet been discovered--Zirlab and Shurippak, places of embarkation at the mouth of the Euphrates for the passage of the Persian Gulf; and the island of Dilmun, situated some forty leagues to the south in the centre of the Salt Sea,--“Nar-Marratum.” The northern group comprised Nipur, the “incomparable;” Barsip, on the branch which flows parallel to the Euphrates and falls into the Bahr-i-Nedjif; Babylon, the “gate of the god,” the “residence of life,” the only metropolis of the Euphrates region of which posterity never lost a reminiscence; Kishu, Kuta, Agade;** and lastly the two Sipparas, that of Shamash and that of Anunit. The earliest Chaldaean civilization was confined almost entirely to the two banks of the Lower Euphrates: except at its northern boundary, it did not reach the Tigris, and did not cross this river. Separated from the rest of the world--on the east by the marshes which border the river in its lower course, on the north by the badly watered and sparsely inhabited table-land of Mesopotamia, on the west by the Arabian desert--it was able to develop its civilization, as Egypt had done, in an isolated area, and to follow out its destiny in peace. The only point from which it might anticipate serious danger was on the east, whence the Kashshi and the Elamites, organized into military states, incessantly harassed it year after year by their attacks. The Kashshi were scarcely better than half-civilized mountain hordes, but the Elamites were advanced in civilization, and their capital, Susa, vied with the richest cities of the Euphrates, Uru and Babylon, in antiquity and magnificence.

* For an ideal picture of what may have been the beginnings
of that civilization, see Delitzsch, Die Entstehung des
altesten Schriflssystems, p. 214, et seq. I will not enter
into the question as to whether it did or did not come by
sea to the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris. The legend of
the fish-god Oannes (Berossus, frag. 1), which seems to
conceal some indication on the subject, is merely a
mythological tradition, from which it would be wrong to
deduce historical conclusions.

** Agade, or Agane, has been identified with one of the two
towns of which Sippara is made up, more especially with that
which was called Anunit Sippara; the reading Agadi, Agacle,
was especially assumed to lead to its identification with
the Accad of _Genesis x. 10_, and with the Akkad of native
tradition. This opinion has been generally abandoned by
Assyriologists, and Agane has not yet found a site. Was it
only a name for Babylon?

There was nothing serious to fear from the Guti, on the branch of the Tigris to the north-east, or from the Shuti to the north of these; they were merely marauding tribes, and, however troublesome they might be to their neighbours in their devastating incursions, they could not compromise the existence of the country, or bring it into subjection. It would appear that the Chaldseans had already begun to encroach upon these tribes and to establish colonies among them--El-Ashshur on the banks of the Tigris, Harran on the furthest point of the Mesopotamian plain, towards the sources of the Balikh. Beyond these were vague and unknown regions--Tidanum, Martu, the sea of the setting sun, the vast territories of Milukhkha and Magan.* Egypt, from the time they were acquainted with its existence, was a semi-fabulous country at the ends of the earth.

* The question concerning Milukhkha and Magan has exercised
Assyriologists for twenty years. The prevailing opinion
appears to be that which identifies Magan with the Sinaitic
Peninsula, and Milukhkha with the country to the north of
Magan as far as the Wady Arish and the Mediterranean; others
maintain, not the theory of Delitzsch, according to whom
Magan and Milukhkha are synonyms for Shumir and Akkad, and
consequently two of the great divisions of Babylonia, but an
analogous hypothesis, in which they are regarded as
districts to the west of the Euphrates, either in Chaldaean
regions or on the margin of the desert, or even in the
desert itself towards the Sinaitic Peninsula. What we know
of the texts induces me, in common with H. Rawlinson, to
place these countries on the shores of the Persian Gulf,
between the mouth of the Euphrates and the Bahrein islands;
possibly the Makse and the Melangitso of classical
historians and geographers were the descendants of the
people of Magan (Makan) and Milukhkha (Melugga), who had
been driven towards the entrance to the Persian Gulf by some
such event as the increase in these regions of the Kashdi
(Chaldaeans). The names, emigrated to the western parts of
Arabia and to the Sinaitic Peninsula in after-times, as the
name of India passed to America in the XVIth century of our
era.

How long did it take to bring this people out of savagery, and to build up so many flourishing cities? The learned did not readily resign themselves to a confession of ignorance on the subject. As they had depicted the primordial chaos, the birth of the gods, and their struggles over the creation, so they related unhesitatingly everything which had happened since the creation of mankind, and they laid claim to being able to calculate the number of centuries which lay between their own day and the origin of things. The tradition to which most credence was attached in the Greek period at Babylon, that which has been preserved for us in the histories of Berossue, asserts that there was a somewhat long interval between the manifestation of Oannes and the foundation of a dynasty. The first king was Aloros of Babylon, a Chaldaean of whom nothing is related except that he was chosen by the divinity himself to be a shepherd of the people. He reigned for ten sari, amounting in all to 36,000 years; for the saros is 3600 years, the ner 600 years, and the soss 60 years.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an intaglio in the British Museum.

After the death of Aloros, his son Alaparos ruled for three sari, after which Amillaros, of the city of Pantibibla, reigned thirteen sari. It was under him that there issued from the Bed Sea a second Annedotos, resembling Oannes in his semi-divine shape, half man and half fish. After him Ammenon, also from Pantibibla, a Chaldaean, ruled for a term of twelve sari; under him, they say, the mysterious Oannes appeared. Afterwards Amelagaros of Pantibibla governed for eighteen sari; then Davos, the shepherd from Pantibibla, reigned ten sari: under him there issued from the Red Sea a fourth Annedotos, who had a form similar to the others, being made up of man and fish. After him Bvedoranchos of Pantibibla reigned for eighteen sari; in his time there issued yet another monster, named Anodaphos, from the sea. These various monsters developed carefully and in detail that which Oannes had set forth in a brief way. Then Amempsinos of Larancha, a Chalaean, reigned ten sari; and Obartes, also a Chaldaean, of Larancha, eight sari. Finally, on the death of Obartes, his son Xisuthros held the sceptre for eighteen sari. It was under him that the great deluge took place. Thus ten kings are to be reckoned in all, and the duration of their combined reigns amounts to one hundred and twenty sari. From the beginning of the world to the Deluge they reckoned 691,200 years, of which 259,200 had passed before the coming of Aloros, and the remaining 432,000 were generously distributed between this prince and his immediate successors: the Greek and Latin writers had certainly a fine occasion for amusement over these fabulous numbers of years which the Chaldaeans assigned to the lives and reigns of their first kings.

Men in the mean time became wicked; they lost the habit of offering sacrifices to the gods, and the gods, justly indignant at this negligence, resolved to be avenged.* Now, Shamashnapishtim I was reigning at this time in Shurippak, the “town of the ship:” he and all his family were saved, and he related afterwards to one of his descendants how Ea had snatched him from the disaster which fell upon his people.** “Shurippak, the city which thou thyself knowest, is situated on the bank of the Euphrates; it was already an ancient town when the hearts of the gods who resided in it impelled them to bring the deluge upon it--the great gods as many as they are; their father Anu, their counsellor Bel the warrior, their throne-bearer Ninib, their prince Innugi. The master of wisdom, Ea, took his seat with them,*** and, moved with pity, was anxious to warn Shamashnapishtim, his servant, of the peril which threatened him;” but it was a very serious affair to betray to a mortal a secret of heaven, and as he did not venture to do so in a direct manner, his inventive mind suggested to him an artifice.

* The account of Bcrossus implies this as a cause of the
Deluge, since he mentions the injunction imposed upon the
survivors by a mysterious voice to be henceforward
respectful towards the gods, [Greek word]. The Chalaean
account considers the Deluge to have been sent as a
punishment upon men for their sins against the gods, since
it represents towards the end (cf. p. 52 of this History) Ea
as reproaching Bel for having confounded the innocent and
the guilty in one punishment.

** The name of this individual has been read in various
ways: Shamashnapishtim, “sun of life,” Sitnapishtim, “the
saved,” and Pirnapishtim. In one passage at least we find,
in place of Shamashnapishtim, the name or epithet of
Aclrakhasis, or by inversion Khasisadra, which appears to
signify “the very shrewd,” and is explained by the skill
with which he interpreted the oracle of Ea. Khasisadra is
most probably the form which the Greeks have transcribed by
Xisuthros, Sisuthros, Sisithes.

*** The account of the Deluge covers the eleventh tablet of
the poem of Gilgames. The hero, threatened with death,
proceeds to rejoin his ancestor Shamashnapishtim to demand
from him the secret of immortality, and the latter tells him
the manner in which he escaped from the waters: he had saved
his life only at the expense of the destruction of men. The
text of it was published by Smith and by Haupt, fragment by
fragment, and then restored consecutively. The studies of
which it is the object would make a complete library. The
principal translations are those of Smith, of Oppert, of
Lenor-mant, of Haupt, of Jensen, of A. Jeremias, of
Sauveplane, and of Zimmern.

Facsimile by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph published by
G. Smith, Chaldaean Account of the Deluge from terra-cotta
tablets found at Nineveh.

He confided to a hedge of reeds the resolution that had been adopted:* “Hedge, hedge, wall, wall! Hearken, hedge, and understand well, wall! Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu, construct a wooden house, build a ship, abandon thy goods, seek life; throw away thy possessions, save thy life, and place in the vessel all the seed of life. The ship which thou shalt build, let its proportions be exactly measured, let its dimensions and shape be well arranged, then launch it in the sea.” Shamashnapishtim heard the address to the field of reeds, or perhaps the reeds repeated it to him. “I understood it, and I said to my master Ea ‘The command, O my master, which thou hast thus enunciated, I myself will respect it, and I will execute it: but what shall I say to the town, the people and the elders?’” Ea opened his mouth and spake; he said to his servant: “Answer thus and say to them: ‘Because Bel hates me, I will no longer dwell in your town, and upon the land of Bel I will no longer lay my head, but I will go upon the sea, and will dwell with Ea my master. Now Bel will make rain to fall upon you, upon the swarm of birds and the multitude of fishes, upon all the animals of the field, and upon all the crops; but Ea will give you a sign: the god who rules the rain will cause to fall upon you, on a certain evening, an abundant rain. When the dawn of the next day appears, the deluge will begin, which will cover the earth and drown all living things.’” Shamashnapishtim repeated the warning to the people, but the people refused to believe it, and turned him into ridicule. The work went rapidly forward: the hull was a hundred and forty cubits long, the deck one hundred and forty broad; all the joints were caulked with pitch and bitumen. A solemn festival was observed at its completion, and the embarkation began.** “All that I possessed I filled the ship with it all that I had of silver, I filled it with it; all that I had of gold I filled it with it, all that I had of the seed of life of every kind I filled it with it; I caused all my family and my servants to go up into it; beasts of the field, wild beasts of the field, I caused them to go up all together. Shamash had given me a sign: ‘When the god who rules the rain, in the evening shall cause an abundant rain to fall, enter into the ship and close thy door.’ The sign was revealed: the god who rules the rain caused to fall one night an abundant rain. The day, I feared its dawning; I feared to see the daylight; I entered into the ship and I shut the door; that the ship might be guided, I handed over to Buzur-Bel, the pilot, the great ark and its fortunes.”

* The sense of this passage is far from being certain; I
have followed the interpretation proposed, with some
variations, by Pinches, by Haupt, and by Jensen. The
stratagem at once recalls the history of King Midas, and the
talking reeds which knew the secret of his ass’s ears. In
the version of Berossus, it is Kronos who plays the part
here assigned to Ea in regard to Xisuthros.

** The text is mutilated, and does not furnish enough
information to follow in every detail the building of the
ark. From what we can understand, the vessel of
Shamashnapishtim was a kind of immense kelek, decked, but
without masts or rigging of any sort. The text identifies
the festival celebrated by the hero before the embarkation
with the festival Akitu of Merodach, at Babylon, during
which “Nebo, the powerful son, sailed from Borsippa to
Babylon in the bark of the river Asmu, of beauty.” The
embarkation of Nebo and his voyage on the stream had
probably inspired the information according to which the
embarkation of Shamashnapishtim was made the occasion of a
festival Akitu, celebrated at Shurippak; the time of the
Babylonian festival was probably thought to coincide with
the anniversary of the Deluge.

“As soon as the morning became clear, a black cloud arose from the foundations of heaven. Bamman growled in its bosom; Nebo and Marduk ran before it--ran like two throne-bearers over hill and dale. Nera the Great tore up the stake to which the ark was moored. Ninib came up quickly; he began the attack; the Anunnaki raised their torches and made the earth to tremble at their brilliancy; the tempest of Ramman scaled the heaven, changed all the light to darkness, flooded the earth like a lake.* For a whole day the hurricane raged, and blew violently over the mountains and over the country; the tempest rushed upon men like the shock of an army, brother no longer beheld brother, men recognized each other no more.

* The progress of the tempest is described as the attack of
the gods, who had resolved on the destruction of men. Ramman
is the thunder which growls in the cloud; Nebo, Merodach,
Nera the Great (Nergal), and Ninib, denote the different
phases of the hurricane from the moment when the wind gets
up until it is at its height; the Anunnaki represent the
lightning which flashes carelessly across the heaven.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chalaean intaglio.

In heaven, the gods were afraid of the deluge;* they betook themselves to flight, they clambered to the firmament of Anu; the gods, howling like dogs, cowered upon the parapet.** Ishtar wailed like a woman in travail; she cried out, “the lady of life, the goddess with the beautiful voice: ‘The past returns to clay, because I have prophesied evil before the gods! Prophesying evil before the gods, I have counselled the attack to bring my men to nothing; and these to whom I myself have given birth, where are they? Like the spawn of fish they encumber the sea! ‘The gods wept with her over the affair of the Anunnaki;’ the gods, in the place where they sat weeping, their lips were closed.” It was not pity only which made their tears to flow: there were mixed up with it feelings of regret and fears for the future. Mankind once destroyed, who would then make the accustomed offerings? The inconsiderate anger of Bel, while punishing the impiety of their creatures, had inflicted injury upon themselves. “Six days and nights the wind continued, the deluge and the tempest raged. The seventh day at daybreak the storm abated; the deluge, which had carried on warfare like an army, ceased, the sea became calm and the hurricane disappeared, the deluge ceased. I surveyed the sea with my eyes, raising my voice; but all mankind had returned to clay, neither fields nor woods could be distinguished.*** I opened the hatchway and the light fell upon my face; I sank down, I cowered, I wept, and my tears ran down my cheeks when I beheld the world all terror and all sea. At the end of twelve days, a point of land stood up from the waters, the ship touched the land of Nisir:**** the mountain of Nisir stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer. One day, two days, the mountain of Nisir stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer.

* The gods enumerated above alone took part in the drama of
the Deluge: they were the confederates and emissaries of
Bel. The others were present as spectators of the disaster,
and were terrified.

** The upper part of the mountain wall is here referred to,
upon which the heaven is supported. There was a narrow space
between the escarpment and the place upon which the vault of
the firmament rested: the Babylonian poet represented the
gods as crowded like a pack of hounds upon this parapet, and
beholding from it the outburst of the tempest and the
waters.

***The translation is uncertain: the text refers to a legend
which has not come down to us, in which Ishtar is related to
have counselled the destruction of men.

**** The Anunnaki represent here the evil genii whom the
gods that produced the deluge had let loose, and whom
Ramman, Nebo, Merodach, Nergal, and Ninib, all the followers
of Bel, had led to the attack upon men: the other deities
shared the fears and grief of Ishtar in regard to the
ravages which these Anunnaki had brought about (cf. below,
pp. 141-143 of this History).

Three days, four days, the mountain of Nisir* stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer. Five days, six days, the mountain of Nisir stopped the ship and permitted it to float no longer. The seventh day, at dawn, I took out a dove and let it go: the dove went, turned about, and as there was no place to alight upon, came back. I took out a swallow and let it go: the swallow went, turned about, and as there was no place to alight upon, came back. I took out a raven and let it go: the raven went, and saw that the water had abated, and came near the ship flapping its wings, croaking, and returned no more.” Shamashnapishtim escaped from the deluge, but he did not know whether the divine wrath was appeased, or what would be done with him when it became known that he still lived.** He resolved to conciliate the gods by expiatory ceremonies. “I sent forth the inhabitants of the ark towards the four winds, I made an offering, I poured out a propitiatory libation on the summit of the mountain. I set up seven and seven vessels, and I placed there some sweet-smelling rushes, some cedar-wood, and storax.” He thereupon re-entered the ship to await there the effect of his sacrifice.

* I have adopted, in the translation of this difficult
passage, the meaning suggested by Haupt, according to which
it ought to be translated, “The field makes nothing more
than one with the mountain;” that is to say, “mountains and
fields are no longer distinguishable one from another.” I
have merely substituted for mountain the version wood, piece
of land covered with trees, which Jensen has suggested.

** The mountain of Nisir is replaced in the version of
Berossus by the Gordyaean mountains of classical geography; a
passage of Assur-nazir-pal informs us that it was situated
between the Tigris and the Great Zab, according to Delitzsch
between 35 deg. and 36 deg. N. latitude. The Assyrian-speaking
people interpreted the name as _Salvation_, and a play upon
words probably decided the placing upon its slopes the
locality where those _saved_ from the deluge landed on the
abating of the waters. Fr. Lenormant proposes to identify it
with the peak Rowandiz.

The gods, who no longer hoped for such a wind-fall, accepted the sacrifice with a wondering joy. “The gods sniffed up the odour, the gods sniffed up the excellent odour, the gods gathered like flies above the offering. “When Ishtar, the mistress of life, came in her turn, she held up the great amulet which Anu had made for her.” * She was still furious against those who had determined upon the destruction of mankind, especially against Bel: “These gods, I swear it on the necklace of my neck! I will not forget them; these days I will remember, and will not forget them for ever. Let the other gods come quickly to take part in the offering. Bel shall have no part in the offering, for he was not wise: but he has caused the deluge, and he has devoted my people to destruction.” Bel himself had not recovered his temper: “When he arrived in his turn and saw the ship, he remained immovable before it, and his heart was filled with rage against the gods of heaven. ‘Who is he who has come out of it living? No man must survive the destruction!’” The gods had everything to fear from his anger: Ninib was eager to exculpate himself, and to put the blame upon the right person. Ea did not disavow his acts: “he opened his mouth and spake; he said to Bel the warrior: ‘Thou, the wisest among the gods, O warrior, why wert thou not wise, and didst cause the deluge? The sinner, make him responsible for his sin; the criminal, make him responsible for his crime: but be calm, and do not cut off all; be patient, and do not drown all. What was the good of causing the deluge? A lion had only to come to decimate the people. What was the good of causing the deluge? A leopard had only to come to decimate the people. What was the good of causing the deluge? Famine had only to present itself to desolate the country. What was the good of causing the deluge? Nera the Plague had only to come to destroy the people. As for me, I did, not reveal the judgment of the gods: I caused Khasisadra to dream a dream, and he became aware of the judgment of the gods, and then he made his resolve.’” Bel was pacified at the words of Ea: “he went up into the interior of the ship; he took hold of my hand and made me go up, even me; he made my wife go up, and he pushed her to my side; he turned our faces towards him, he placed himself between us, and blessed us: ‘Up to this time Shamashnapishtim was a man: henceforward let Shamashnapishtim and his wife be reverenced like us, the gods, and let Shamashnapishtim dwell afar off, at the mouth of the seas, and he carried us away and placed us afar off, at the mouth of the seas.’” Another form of the legend relates that by an order of the god, Xisuthros, before embarking, had buried in the town of Sippara all the books in which his ancestors had set forth the sacred sciences--books of oracles and omens, “in which were recorded the beginning, the middle, and the end. When he had disappeared, those of his companions who remained on board, seeing that he did not return, went out and set off in search of him, calling him by name. He did not show himself to them, but a voice from heaven enjoined upon them to be devout towards the gods, to return to Babylon and dig up the books in order that they might be handed down to future generations; the voice also informed them that the country in which they were was Armenia. They offered sacrifice in turn, they regained their country on foot, they dug up the books of Sippara and wrote many more; afterwards they refounded Babylon.” It was even maintained in the time of the Seleucido, that a portion of the ark existed on one of the summits of the Gordyaean mountains.** Pilgrimages were made to it, and the faithful scraped off the bitumen which covered it, to make out of it amulets of sovereign virtue against evil spells.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by G. Smith, _Assyrian
Discoveries_, p. 108.

* We are ignorant of the object which the goddess lifted up:
it may have been the sceptre surmounted by a radiating star,
such as we see on certain cylinders. Several Assyriologists
translate it arrows or lightning. Ishtar is, in fact, an
armed goddess who throws the arrow or lightning made by her
father Anu, the heaven.

** Bekossus, fragm. xv. The legend about the remains of the
ark has passed into Jewish tradition concerning the Deluge.
Nicholas of Damascus relates, like Berossus, that they were
still to be seen on the top of Mount Baris. From that time
they have been continuously seen, sometimes on one peak and
sometimes on another. In the last century they were pointed
out to Chardin, and the memory of them has not died out in
our own century. Discoveries of charcoal and bitumen, such
as those made at Gebel Judi, upon one of the mountains
identified with Nisir, probably explain many of these local
traditions.

The chronicle of these fabulous times placed, soon after the abating of the waters, the foundation of a new dynasty, as extraordinary or almost as extraordinary in character as that before the flood. According to Berossus it was of Chaldaean origin, and comprised eighty-six kings, who bore rule during 34,080 years; the first two, Evechous and Khomasbelos, reigned 2400 and 2700 years, while the later reigns did not exceed the ordinary limits of human life. An attempt was afterwards made to harmonize them with probability: the number of kings was reduced to six, and their combined reigns to 225 years. This attempt arose from a misapprehension of their true character; names and deeds, everything connected with them belongs to myth and fiction only, and is irreducible to history proper. They supplied to priests and poets material for scores of different stories, of which several have come down to us in fragments. Some are short, and serve as preambles to prayers or magical formulas; others are of some length, and may pass for real epics. The gods intervene in them, and along with kings play an important part. It is Nera, for instance, the lord of the plague, who declares war against mankind in order to punish them for having despised the authority of Anu. He makes Babylon to feel his wrath first: “The children of Babel, they were as birds, and the bird-catcher, thou wert he! thou takest them in the net, thou enclosest them, thou decimatest them--hero Nera!” One after the other he attacks the mother cities of the Euphrates and obliges them to render homage to him--even Uruk, “the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar--the town of the priestesses, of the _almehs_, and the sacred courtesans; “then he turns upon the foreign nations and carries his ravages as far as Phoenicia. In other fragments, the hero Etana makes an attempt to raise himself to heaven, and the eagle, his companion, flies away with him, without, however, being able to bring the enterprise to a successful issue. Nimrod and his exploits are known to us from the Bible.* “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” Almost all the characteristics which are attributed by Hebrew tradition to Nimrod we find in G-ilgames, King of Uruk and descendant of the Shamashnapishtim who had witnessed the deluge.**

* Genesis x. 9, 10. Among the Jews and Mussulmans a complete
cycle of legends have developed around Nimrod. He built the
Tower of Babel; he threw Abraham into a fiery furnace, and
he tried to mount to heaven on the back of an eagle. Sayce
and Grivel saw in Nimrod an heroic form of Merodach, the god
of Babylonia: the majority of living Assyriologists prefer
to follow Smith’s example, and identify him with the hero
Gilgames.

** The name of this hero is composed of three signs, which
Smith provisionally rendered Isdubar--a reading which,
modified into Gishdhubar, Gistubar, is still retained by
many Assyriologists. There have been proposed one after
another the renderings Dhubar, Namrudu, Anamarutu, Numarad,
Namrasit, all of which exhibit in the name of the hero that
of Nimrod. Pinches discovered, in 1890, what appears to be
the true signification of the three signs,Gilgamesh,
Gilgames; Sayce and Oppert have compared this name with that
of Gilgamos, a Babylonian hero, of whom. AElian has preserved
the memory. A. Jeremias continued to reject both the reading
and the identification.

Several copies of a poem, in which an unknown scribe had celebrated his exploits, existed about the middle of the VIIth century before our era in the Royal Library at Nineveh; they had been transcribed by order of Assur-banipal from a more ancient copy, and the fragments of them which have come down to us, in spite of their lacunae, enable us to restore the original text, if not in its entirety, at least in regard to the succession of events. They were divided into twelve episodes corresponding with the twelve divisions of the year, and the ancient Babylonian author was guided in his choice of these divisions by something more than mere chance. Gilgames, at first an ordinary mortal under the patronage of the gods, had himself become a god and son of the goddess Aruru: “he had seen the abyss, he had learned everything that is kept secret and hidden, he had even made known to men what had taken place before the deluge.” The sun, who had protected him in his human condition, had placed him beside himself on the judgment-seat, and delegated to him authority to pronounce decisions from which there was no appeal: he was, as it were, a sun on a small scale, before whom the kings, princes, and great ones of the earth humbly bowed their heads.* The scribes had, therefore, some authority for treating the events of his life after the model of the year, and for expressing them in twelve chants, which answered to the annual course of the sun through the twelve months.

* The identity of Gilgames with the Accadian fire-god, or
rather with the sun, was recognized from the first by H.
Rawlinson, and has been accepted since by almost all
Assyriologists. A tablet brought back by G. Smith, called
attention to by Fr. Delitzsch, and published by Haupt,
contains the remains of a hymn addressed to Gilgames, “the
powerful king, the king of the Spirits of the Earth.”

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Assyrian bas-relief from
Khorsabad, in the Museum of the Louvre

The whole story is essentially an account of his struggles with Ishtar, and the first pages reveal him as already at issue with the goddess. His portrait, such as the monuments have preserved it for us, is singularly unlike the ordinary type: one would be inclined to regard it as representing an individual of a different race, a survival of some very ancient nation which had held rule on the plains of the Euphrates before the arrival of the Sumerian or Semitic* tribes.

* Smith (The Chaldaean Account of Genesis, p. 194) remarked
the difference between the representations of Gilgames and
the typical Babylonian: he concluded from this that the hero
was of Ethiopian origin. Hommel declares that his features
have neither a Sumerian nor Semitic aspect, and that they
raise an insoluble question in ethnology.

His figure is tall, broad, muscular to an astonishing degree, and expresses at once vigour and activity; his head is massive, bony, almost square, with a somewhat flattened face, a large nose, and prominent cheek-bones, the whole framed by an abundance of hair, and a thick beard symmetrically curled. All the young men of Uruk, the well-protected, were captivated by the prodigious strength and beauty of the hero; the elders of the city betook themselves to Ishtar to complain of the state of neglect to which the young generation had relegated them. “He has no longer a rival in their hearts, but thy subjects are led to battle, and Gilgames does not send one child back to his father. Night and day they cry after him: ‘It is he the shepherd of Uruk, the well-protected, he is its shepherd and master, he the powerful, the perfect and the wise.’” Even the women did not escape the general enthusiasm: “he leaves not a single virgin to her mother, a single daughter to a warrior, a single wife to her master. Ishtar heard their complaint, the gods heard it, and cried with a loud voice to Aruru: ‘It is thou, Aruru, who hast given him birth; create for him now his fellow, that he may be able to meet him on a day when it pleaseth him, in order that they may fight with each other and Uruk may be delivered.’When Aruru heard them, she created in her heart a man of Anu. Aruru washed her hands, took a bit of clay, cast it upon the earth, kneaded it and created Babani, the warrior, the exalted scion, the man of Ninib, whose whole body is covered with hair, whose tresses are as long as those of a woman; the locks of his hair bristle on his head like those on the corn-god; he is clad in a vestment like that of the god of the fields; he browses with the gazelles, he quenches his thirst with the beasts of the field, he sports with the beasts of the waters.” Frequent representations of Eabani are found upon the monuments; he has the horns of a goat, the legs and tail of a bull.* He possessed not only the strength of a brute, but his intelligence also embraced all things, the past and the future: he would probably have triumphed over Gilgames if Shamash had not succeeded in attaching them to one another by an indissoluble tie of friendship. The difficulty was to draw these two future friends together, and to bring them face to face without their coming to blows; the god sent his courier Saidu, the hunter, to study the habits of the monster, and to find out the necessary means to persuade him to come down peaceably to Uruk. “Saidu, the hunter, proceeded to meet Eabani near the entrance of the watering-place. One day, two days, three days, Eabani met him at the entrance of the watering-place. He perceived Saidu, and his countenance darkened: he entered the enclosure, he became sad, he groaned, he cried with a loud voice, his heart was heavy, his features were distorted, sobs burst from his breast. The hunter saw from a distance that his face was inflamed with anger,” and judging it more prudent not to persevere farther in his enterprise, returned to impart to the god what he had observed.

* Smith was the first, I believe, to compare his form to
that of a satyr or faun; this comparison is rendered more
probable by the fact that the modern inhabitants of Chaldaea
believe in the existence of similar monsters. A. Jeremias
places Eabani alongside Priapus, who is generally a god of
the fields, and a clever soothsayer. Following out these
ideas, we might compare our Eabani with the Graico-Roman
Proteus, who pastures the flocks of the sea, and whom it was
necessary to pursue and seize by force or cunning words to
compel him to give oracular predictions.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean intaglio in the
Museum at the Hague. The original measures about 1 7/10 inch
in height.

“I was afraid,” said he, in finishing his narrative,* “and I did not approach him. He had filled up the pit which I had dug to trap him, he broke the nets which I had spread, he delivered from my hands the cattle and the beasts of the field, he did not allow me to search the country through.” Shamash thought that where the strongest man might fail by the employment of force, a woman might possibly succeed by the attractions of pleasure; he commanded Saidu to go quickly to Uruk and there to choose from among the priestesses of Ishtar one of the most beautiful.** The hunter presented himself before Grilgames, recounted to him his adventures, and sought his permission to take away with him one of the sacred courtesans. “‘Go, my hunter, take the priestess; when the beasts come to the watering-place, let her display her beauty; he will see her, he will approach her, and his beasts that troop around him will be scattered.’”*** The hunter went, he took with him the priestess, he took the straight road; the third day they arrived at the fatal plain. The hunter and the priestess sat down to rest; one day, two days, they sat at the entrance of the watering-place from whose waters Eabani drank along with the animals, where he sported with the beasts of the water.

* Haupt, Das Babylonische Nimrodepos, p. 9, 11. 42-50. The
beginning of each line is destroyed, and the translation of
the whole is only approximate.

** The priestesses of Ishtar were young and beautiful women,
devoted to the service of the goddess and her worshippers.
Besides the title _qadishtu,_ priestess, they bore various
names, _kizireti, ukhati, kharimati_; the priestess who
accompanied Saidu was an _ukhat_.

*** As far as can be guessed from the narrative, interrupted
as it is by so many lacunae, the power of Eabani over the
beasts of the field seems to have depended on his
continence. From the moment in which he yields to his
passions the beasts fly from him as they would do from an
ordinary mortal; there is then no other resource for him but
to leave the solitudes to live among men in towns. This
explains the means devised by Shamash against him: cf. in
the _Arabian Nights_ the story of Shehabeddin.

“When Eabani arrived, he who dwells in the mountains, and who browses upon the grass like the gazelles, who drinks with the animals, who sports with the beasts of the water, the priestess saw the satyr.” She was afraid and blushed, but the hunter recalled her to her duty. “It is he, priestess. Undo thy garment, show him thy form, that he may be taken with thy beauty; be not ashamed, but deprive him of his soul. He perceives thee, he is rushing towards thee, arrange thy garment; he is coming upon thee, receive him with every art of woman; his beasts which troop around him will be scattered, and he will press thee to his breast.” The priestess did as she was commanded; she received him with every art of woman, and he pressed her to his breast. Six days and seven nights, Eabani remained near the priestess, his well-beloved. When he got tired of pleasure he turned his face towards his cattle, and he saw that the gazelles had turned aside and that the beasts of the field had fled far from him. Eabani was alarmed, he fell into a swoon, his knees became stiff because his cattle had fled from him. While he lay as if dead, he heard the voice of the priestess: he recovered his senses, he came to himself full of love; he seated himself at the feet of the priestess, he looked into her face, and while the priestess spoke his ears listened. For it was to him the priestess spoke--to him, Eabani. “Thou who art superb, Eabani, as a god, why dost thou live among the beasts of the field? Come, I will conduct thee to Uruk the well-protected, to the glorious house, the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar--to the place where is Gilgames, whose strength is supreme, and who, like a Urus, excels the heroes in strength.” While she thus spoke to him, he hung upon her words, he the wise of heart, he realized by anticipation a friend. Eabani said to the priestess: “Let us go, priestess; lead me to the glorious and holy abode of Anu and Ishtar--to the place where is Gilgames, whose strength is supreme, and who, like a Urus, prevails over the heroes by his strength. I will fight with him and manifest to him my power; I will send forth a panther against Uruk, and he must struggle with it.” * The priestess conducted her prisoner to Uruk, but the city at that moment was celebrating the festival of Tammuz, and Gilgames did not care to interrupt the solemnities in order to face the tasks to which Eabani had invited him: what was the use of such trials since the gods themselves had deigned to point out to him in a dream the line of conduct he was to pursue, and had taken up the cause of their children. Shamash, in fact, began the instruction of the monster, and sketched an alluring picture of the life which awaited him if he would agree not to return to his mountain home. Not only would the priestess belong to him for ever, having none other than him for husband, but Gilgames would shower upon him riches and honours. “He will give thee wherein to sleep a great bed cunningly wrought; he will seat thee on his divan, he will give thee a place on his left hand, and the princes of the earth shall kiss thy feet, the people of Uruk shall grovel on the ground before thee.” It was by such flatteries and promises for the future that Gilgames gained the affection of his servant Eabani, whom he loved for ever.

* I have softened down a good deal the account of the
seduction, which is described with a sincerity and precision
truly primitive.

Shamash had reasons for being urgent. Khumbaba, King of Elam, had invaded the country of the Euphrates, destroyed the temples, and substituted for the national worship the cult of foreign deities;* the two heroes in concert could alone check his advance, and kill him. They collected their troops, set out on the march, having learned from a female magician that the enemy had concealed himself in a sacred grove. They entered it in disguise, “and stopped in rapture for a moment before the cedar trees; they contemplated the height of them, they contemplated the thickness of them; the place where Khumbaba was accustomed to walk up and down with rapid strides, alleys were made in it, paths kept up with great care. They saw at length the hill of cedars, the abode of the gods, the sanctuary of Irnini, and before the hill, a magnificent cedar, and pleasant grateful shade.” They surprised Khumbaba at the moment when he was about to take his outdoor exercise, cut off his head, and came back in triumph to Uruk.** “Gilgames brightened his weapons, he polished his weapons. He put aside his war-harness, he put on his white garments, he adorned himself with the royal insignia, and bound on the diadem: Gilgames put his tiara on his head, and bound on his diadem.”

* Khumbaba contains the name of the Elamite god, Khumba,
whichenters into the composition of names of towns, like Ti-
Khumbi; or into those of princes, as Khumbanigash,
Khumbasundasa, Khumbasidh. The comparison between Khumbaba
and Combabos, the hero of a singular legend, current in the
second century of our era, does not seem to be admissible,
at least for the present. The names agree well in sound,
but, as Oppert has rightly said, no event in the history of
Combabos finds a counterpart in anything we know of that of
Khumbaba up to the present.

** G. Smith places at this juncture Gilgames’s accession to
the throne; this is not confirmed by the fragments of the
text known up to the present, and it is not even certain
that the poem relates anywhere the exaltation and coronation
of the hero. It would appear even that Gilgames is
recognized from the beginning as King of Uruk, the well-
protected.

Ishtar saw him thus adorned, and the same passion consumed her which inflames mortals.* “To the love of Gilgames she raised her eyes, the mighty Ishtar, and she said, ‘Come, Gilgames, be my husband, thou! Thy love, give it to me, as a gift to me, and thou shalt be my spouse, and I shall be thy wife. I will place thee in a chariot of lapis and gold, with golden wheels and mountings of onyx: thou shalt be drawn in it by great lions, and thou shalt enter our house with the odorous incense of cedar-wood. When thou shalt have entered our house, all the country by the sea shall embrace thy feet, kings shall bow down before thee, the nobles and the great ones, the gifts of the mountains and of the plain they will bring to thee as tribute. Thy oxen shall prosper, thy sheep shall be doubly fruitful, thy mules shall spontaneously come under the yoke, thy chariot-horse shall be strong and shall galop, thy bull under the yoke shall have no rival.’” Gilgames repels this unexpected declaration with a mixed feeling of contempt and apprehension: he abuses the goddess, and insolently questions her as to what has become of her mortal husbands during her long divine life. “Tammuz, the spouse of thy youth, thou hast condemned him to weep from year to year.** Nilala, the spotted sparrow-hawk, thou lovedst him, afterward thou didst strike him and break his wing: he continues in the wood and cries: ‘O, my wings!’ *** Thou didst afterwards love a lion of mature strength, and then didst cause him to be rent by blows, seven at a time.**** Thou lovedst also a stallion magnificent in the battle; thou didst devote him to death by the goad and whip: thou didst compel him to galop for ten leagues, thou didst devote him to exhaustion and thirst, thou didst devote to tears his mother Silili.

* Ishtar’s declaration to Gilgames and the hero’s reply have
been frequently translated and summarized since the
discovery of the poem. Smith thought to connect this episode
with the “Descent of Ishtar to Hades,” which we shall meet
with further on in this History, but his opinion is no
longer accepted. The “Descent of Ishtar” in its present
condition is the beginning of a magical formula: it has
nothing to do with the acts of Gilgames.

** Tammuz-Adonis is the only one known to us among this long
list of the lovers of the goddess. The others must have been
fairly celebrated among the Chaldaeans, since the few words
devoted to each is sufficient to recall them to the memory
of the reader, but we have not as yet found anything
bearing upon their adventures in the table of the ancient
Chaldaeo-Assyrian classics, which had been copied out by a
Ninevite scribe for the use of Assur-bani-pal, the title of
the poems is wanting.

*** The text gives _kappi_, and the legend evidently refers
to a bird whose cry resembles the word meaning “my
wings.” The spotted sparrow-hawk utters a cry which may be
strictly understood and interpreted in this way.

**** This is evidently the origin of our fable of the
“Amorous Lion.”

Thou didst also love the shepherd Tabulu, who lavished incessantly upon thee the smoke of sacrifices, and daily slaughtered goats to thee; thou didst strike him and turn him into a leopard; his own servants went in pursuit of him, and his dogs followed his trail.* Thou didst love Ishullanu, thy father’s gardener, who ceaselessly brought thee presents of fruit, and decorated every day thy table. Thou raisedst thine eyes to him, thou seizedst him: ‘My Ishullanu, we shall eat melons, then shalt thou stretch forth thy hand and remove that which separates us.’ Ishullanu said to thee: ‘I, what dost thou require from me? O my mother, prepare no food for me, I myself will not eat: anything I should eat would be for me a misfortune and a curse, and my body would be stricken by a mortal coldness.’ Then thou didst hear him and didst become angry, thou didst strike him, thou didst transform him into a dwarf, thou didst set him up on the middle of a couch; he could not rise up, he could not get down from where he was. Thou lovest me now, afterwards thou wilt strike me as thou didst these.” **

* The changing of a lover, by the goddess or sorceress
who loves him, into a beast, occurs pretty frequently in
Oriental tales; as to the man changed by Ishtar into a
brute, which she caused to be torn by his own hounds, we may
compare the classic story of Artemis surprised at her bath
by Actseon.

** As to the misfortune of Ishullanu, we may compare the
story in the _Abrabian Nights_ of the Fisherman and the
Genie shut up in the leaden bottle. The king of the Black
Islands was transformed into a statue from the waist to the
feet by the sorceress, whom he had married and afterwards
offended; he remained lying on a bed, from which he could
not get down, and the unfaithful one came daily to whip him.

“When Ishtar heard him, she fell into a fury, she ascended to heaven. The mighty Ishtar presented herself before her father Anu, before her mother Anatu she presented herself, and said: ‘My father, Grilgames has despised me. Grilgames has enumerated my unfaithfulnesses, my unfaithfulnesses and my ignominies.’ Anu opened his mouth and spake to the mighty Ishtar: ‘Canst thou not remain quiet now that Gilgames has enumerated to thee thy unfaithfulnesses, thy unfaithfulnesses and ignominies?’” But she refused to allow the outrage to go unpunished. She desired her father to make a celestial urus who would execute her vengeance on the hero; and, as he hesitated, she threatened to destroy every living thing in the entire universe by suspending the impulses of desire, and the effect of love. Anu finally gives way to her rage: he creates a frightful urus, whose ravages soon rendered uninhabitable the neighbourhood of Uruk the well-protected. The two heroes, Gilgames and Eabani, touched by the miseries and terror of the people, set out on the chase, and hastened to rouse the beast from its lair on the banks of the Euphrates in the marshes, to which it resorted after each murderous onslaught.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean intaglio in the New
York Museum. The original is about an inch and a half in
height.