Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/46

24 notice must, however, be taken of it here, in order to show the reasons for the dates and epochs fixed upon for the Genesis legends.

In this case the later chronology is not in question, and. it is best to start with the generally received date of about 1300 for the conquest of Babylonia by Tugultininip, king of Assyria. Before this date we have a period of about 250 years, during which a foreign race ruled at Babylon. Berosus calls these foreigners Arabs, but nothing is known as to their original home or race. It is supposed that this race came into Babylonia, or obtained dominion there under a king named Hammurabi, whose date is thus fixed about 1550. Many scholars do not agree to this, and consider Hammurabi much more ancient; no one, however, fixes him later than the sixteenth century, so that the date 1550 may be accepted as the most moderate one possible for the epoch of Hammurabi. The date of Hammurabi is of consequence in the question, because there is no evidence of these legends being written after his epoch.

This circumstance may be accounted for by the fact that during the period following the conquest of Hammurabi the government was in the hands of foreigners, and was much more centralized than it had been before, Babylon being, so far as we know, the sole capital, the great cities which had been centres of literature suffering a decline.

Before the time of Hammurabi, there ruled several