Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/15

 INTRODUCTION.

history of one of the oldest civilized nations—viz., the Assyro-Babylonian—was, until quite recently, known only in meager and fragmentary accounts. The extensive native literature of this people, of which scarcely any one had a suspicion, lay buried underneath rubbish and ashes until the middle of the present century. Even the location of the sites of civilization in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys—e. g., Ur, Larsam, Eridu, Erech, Ashur, Calah, Nineveh—was undetermined.

Before the discovery and decipherment of the cuneiform documents, the information respecting the Assyro-Babylonian history was derived from two sources, the Old Testament and several Greek authors. Chief among the writings of the Old Testament are: the second book of Kings, the books of Chronicles, the books of the prophets Isaiah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Of the writings of the Greek authors, the most important is the work of the Chaldean priest Berossus, but only a few fragments of this remain. Berossus, who wrote about the end of the third century, B. C.—i. e., during the reign of Antiochus Soter—doubtless was acquainted with the native documents of the Babylonians, and consequently the extant fragments of his work are of great value. Another classical authority, which is likewise based on Babylonian documents, is the so-called Ptolemy canon; (9)