Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/110

 QO A HISTORY oi< ART IN CIIALD.EA AND ASSYRIA. were paid in its years of decadence. They seem to have been chiefly struck with the sort of sacerdotal caste to which they gave the name of XaXSa/o/. The origin of this priestly corps has been much discussed. Some see in it the descendants and heirs of the primitive popu- lation, of those whom they believe to have been Turanians ; others believe them to have been Semitic immigrants, coming o a from the north and bringing with them arts and doctrines of which they constituted themselves the guardians and expounders in the new country. We are hardly qualified to take part in the controversy. It is certain, on the one hand, that the influence of these quasi-clergy began to make itself felt at a remote period in the national history, and, on the other, that they had become, like the population that bowed before them, Semitic both in race and language at a very early date. The idiom employed by the Chaldaeans belongs to the same family of languages as Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaean ; their gods are to be found, with slight modifications of name and attributes, from Yemen in the south to the north of Syria and as far west as the table- land of Cappadocia. It is, no doubt, upon the authority of Ctesias, his favourite guide in matters of oriental history, that Diodorus talks of the C/ial- dceans. Ctesias may have seen them at Babylon, in the exercise of their functions, in the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon. " The Chaldaeans," writes the historian, " are the most ancient Babylonians .... (and) hold the same station and dignity in the commonwealth as the Egyptian priests do in Egypt ; for, being deputed to divine offices, they spend all their time in the study of philosophy, and are especially famous for the art of astrology. They are mightily given to divination, and foretell future events, and employ them- selves either by purifications, sacrifices, or other enchantments to avert evils, or procure good fortune and success. They are skilful, likewise, in the art of divination by the flying of birds, and inter- preting of dreams and prodigies ; and are reputed as the oracles (in declaring what will come to pass) by their exact and diligent viewing of the entrails of the sacrifices. But they attain not to this knowledge in the same manner as the Greeks ; for the Chaldaeans learn it by tradition from their ancestors, the son from the father, who are all in the meantime free from all other public offices and attendances ; and because their parents are their tutors, they both