Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/25

Rh ever produced. About 1900 B.C., or perhaps earlier, northern Babylonia was under the sway of a monarch named Sargon, whose capital was at Aganè, near Sippara. Here he established a library, which was afterwards very famous in the literary annals of the country. Works which became standard authorities on the subjects with which they dealt were compiled for it, and a large staff of scribes was kept busily employed in stocking it with books. The court was thronged with authors and learned men, among whom astronomers, astrologers, and soothsayers, occupied a prominent place.

But Sargon was not only a patron of learning, he was also a renowned legislator, and a successful general. He pushed his conquests to the shores of the Mediterranean, where he set up an image of himself on the Syrian coast, and he even crossed over to Cyprus, and introduced the culture of the far east for the first time into the islands of the Greeks.

It was little wonder, therefore, that Sargon I. became a hero of popular romance, more especially as he seems to have been an usurper, who had risen from the ranks. A text has been preserved to us which makes him thus recount the story of his life:

1. “Sargon, the mighty monarch, the King of Aganè, am I.

2. “My mother was a princess; my father I knew not; my father’s brother loved the mountain-land.

3. “In the city of Azupiranu, which on the bank of the Euphrates lies,

4. “My mother, the princess, conceived me; in an inaccessible spot she brought me forth.

5. “She placed me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen the door of my ark she closed.

6. “She launched me on the river, which drowned me not.

7. “The river bore me along, to Akki the irrigator it brought me.

8. “Akki, the irrigator, in the tenderness of his heart, lifted me up.

9. “Akki, the irrigator, as his own child brought me up.

10. “Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appointed me,

11. “And in my gardenership the goddess Istar loved me.

12. “For 45 years the kingdom I have ruled PART I.