Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/321

 to call on his cities to mourn with him for his friend. This tablet is remarkable for the number of cities mentioned as already existing in the time of Izdubar. Combining this notice with other parts of the legends, the statements of Berosus and the notice of the cities of Nimrod in Genesis, we get the following list of the oldest known cities in the Euphrates valley.

So far as the various statements go, all these cities and probably many others were in existence in the time of Nimrod, and some of them even before the Flood; the fact, that the Babylonians four thousand years ago believed their cities to be of such antiquity, shows that they were not recent foundations, and their attainments at that time in the arts and sciences proves that their civilization had already known ages of progress. The epoch of Izdubar must be considered at present as the commencement of the united monarchy in Babylonia, and as marking the first of the series of great conquests in Western Asia, but how far back we have to go from our