Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/455

 NINUS. fairlj presume to have been, in an especial sense, the city of Nineveh) compreliends about 1800 Eng- lish acres, and is in form an irregular trapezium, about 7 2 miles round. The two mounds occupy respectively 100, and 40 acres of this space, and were doubtless the palaces and citadels of the place. Capt. Jones calculates that, allowing 50 square yards to each inhabitant, the population may have amounted to about 174,000 souls. From an elaborate examination of the inscriptions preserved on slabs, on cylinders, and on tablets, Colonel Rawlinson has arrived at the following general conclusions and identifications in the history of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. He considers that the historical dates preserved by Berosus, and substantiated by Callisthencs (who sent to Aristotle the astronomical observations he had found at Babylon, extending as far back as 1 903 years before the time of Ale.xander, i. e. to B. c. 2233), are, in the main, correct; and hence that authentic Babylonian chronology ascends to the twenty-third century b. c. The Chaldaean monarchy which followed was established in b. c. 1976, and continued to B. c. 1518; and to this interval of 458 years we must assign the building of all the great cities of Babylonia, in the ruins of which we now find bricks stamped with the names of the Chaldaean founders. At the present time, the names of about twenty monarchs have been recovered from the bricks found at Sipjmra, Niffer, Warha, Senhereh, and Muqueyer (Ur), belonging to the one genuine Chaldaean dynasty of Berosus, which reigned from B.C. 1976 — 1518. Among the Scriptural or his- torical names in this series, may be noticed those of Amraphel and Arioch, Belus and Horus, and pos- sibly the Thilgamus of Aelian. An Arab family succeeded from b. c. 1518 to b. c. 1273, of whom, at present, no certain remains have been found. The independence of Assyria, or what is usually called the Ninus dynasty, commenced. Colonel Rawlinson believes, in b. c. 1273, 245 years after the extinc- tion of the first Chaldaean line, and 526 years before the aera of Nabonassar in b. c. 747. Of the kings of this series, we have now nearly a complete list; and, though there is some difference in the reading of parts of some of the names, we may state that the identifications of Dr. Hincks and Colonel Raw- linson agree in all important particulars. To the kings of this race is attributable the foundation of the principal palaces at Nimrud. The series com- prehends the names of Ashurbanipal, probably the warlike Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the founder of Tarsus and Anchiale (Schol. ad Aristoph. Aves, 1021), and the contemporary of Ahab, about B.C. 930 ; and Phal-ukha, the *aA.cox of the LXX., and the Pul of 2 Kings (xv. 19), who received a tribute from Menahem, king of Israel; and Semiramis, the wife of Phal-ukha, whose name with her husband's has been lately found on a statue of the god Nebo, excavated from the SE. palace at Nimrud^ Colonel Rawlinson considers the line of the family of Ninus to have terminated with Phal- ukha or Pul in B.C. 747, and that the celebrated aera of Nabo- nassar, which dates from this year, was established by Semiramis, cither as a refugee or as a conqueror, in that year, at Babylon. The last or Scrip- tural dynasty, according to this system, com- mences with Tiglath Pileser in B. c. 747. It is probable that he represents the Baletar of Poly- histor and Ptolemy's Canon, and possibly the Belesis of Ctesias, who is said (Diod. ii. 27) to have NIPHATES. 439 been the actual taker of Nineveh. From this iieriod the names on the Assyrian inscriptions are coinci- dent with those in the Bible, though, naturally, many additional particulars are noticed on them, which are not recorded in Sacred History. Some of the indi- vidual facts the inscriptions describe are worthy of notice : thus, the campaigns with the king of Samaria (Hoshea) and with a son of Rezin, king of Syria, are mentioned in those published by the Bntish Museum (pp. 66 — 72); the names of Jehu and of Hazael have been read (independently) by Colonel Rawlinson and Dr. Hincks on tlie black obelisk from Nimrud, the date of which, therefore, must be early in the ninth century b. c. ; and the latter scholar has detected on other monuments the names of Wenahem and Sla- nasseh, kings respectively of Israel and Judah. Lastly, the same students have discovered in the Annals of Sennacherib (which are preserved partly on slabs and partly on cylinders) an account of the celebrated campaign against Hezekiah (described in 2 Kings sviii. 14), in which Sennacherib states that he took from the Jewish king " 30 talents of gold," the precise amount mentioned in Scripture, besides much other treasure and spoil. There is still considerable doubt as to the exact year of the final destruction of Nineveh, and as to the name of the monarch then on the throne. From the narratives in Tobit and Judith (if indeed these can be allowed to have any historical value), compared with a prophecy in Jeremiah written in the first year of the Jewish captivity, b. c. 605 (Jertm. xxv. 18 — 26), it might be inferred that Nineveh was still standing in b. c. 609, but had fallen in B.C. 605. Colonel Rawlinson, however, now thinks (and his view is confirmed by the opinion of many of the elder chronologists) that it was overthrown B.C. 625, the Assyrian sovereignty being from that time merged in the empire of Babylon, and the Canon of Ptolemy giving the exact dates of the various succeeding Babylonian kings down to its cajiture by Cyrus in B. c. 536, in conformity with what we now know from the inscriptions. We may add, in conclusion, that among the latest of the discoveries of Colonel Rawlinson is the undoubted identification of the name of Belshazzar as the son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon; and the finding the names ot the Greek kings Seleucus and Antiocinis written in the cuneiform character on tablets procured by Jlr. Loftus from Warha. (Rawlinson, As. Journ. 1850, 1852, 1855; Athenaeum, Nos. 1377, 1381, 1383, 1 388 ; Hincks, i?o!/. Soc. of Liter, vol. iv. ; Trans. Roy. Irish Acad. 1850, 1852, 1855; Layard, A'meye/t and Babylon; and, for an entirely new view of the As.syrian chronology, Bosanquet, Sacred and Profane Chro- nology, Lond. 8vo. 1853.) [V] NINUS river. [Daedala.] NIPHA'TES (^l^!l(pdTvs, Strab. xi. pp. 522, 523, 527, 529; Ptol. v. 13. § 4, vi. 1. § 1; Mela, i. 15. § 2; Plin. v. 27; Amm. Marc, xxiii. 6. § 13; Virg. ijeog. iii. 30; Herat. Cam. h. 9. 20: the later Roman poets, by a curious mistake, made Niphates a river; comp. Lucan, iii. 245; Sil. Ital. xiii. 775; Juven. vi. 409), the "snowy range" of Armenia, called by the native writers Ntbad or Nladagan (St. Martin, Miim. sur I'Armenie, vol. i. p. 49). Taurus, stretching E. of Commagcne {Ain Tiib) separates Sophene {Kharptit JJawassi), which is contained between Taurus and Anti-Taurus (Strab. xi. p. 521), from Osroene {Urfah), and then divides itself into three portions. The most northerly, and liighest, are the Niphates (^Asi Kur) in Acilisene. F F 4