Literature

Babylonian and Assyrian. Since Babylonia and Assyria form geographically one country, their history has, naturally enough, been closely connected; and it is convenient to consider their literatures together, especially as the literature of both nations is preserved in the cuneiform inscription on tablets which took the place of books. As only comparatively few of these inscriptions have been translated, little is known of the literature of these countries.

The Babylonians possessed, it is evident, a mass of legends concerning the centuries that elapsed before their genuine history begins. Astronomy seems to have been regarded as the subject of most importance. The chief astronomical work, called the Illumination of Bel, fills seventy tablets. It is almost entirely of an astrological nature, the astronomer's chief duties being the casting of horoscopes and foretelling the weather. Other tablets reveal hymns to the gods, some of them strikingly like the Hebrew, formulae for the use of magicians, and mythological poems. Of the latter The Deluge and The Descent of Istar into Hades may be mentioned. These two poems form part of the great Babylonian epic which is written in praise of the sun god. It consists of twelve books, each containing some legend appropriate to one of the signs of the zodiac.

The Assyrians were long content to translate Babylonian writings. When they began original work it was in imitation of that done by their neighbors. Their libraries were numerous, every large city possessing at least one. In the ruins of the Palace of Sardanapalus, who reigned 650 years before Christ, an enormous number of cuneiform tablets have been found. Some of these are very small, the inscriptions being in such fine characters as to necessitate the use of a microscope in deciphering them. Among them are epics, and chronological historical, and legal works. The Assyrians possessed also grammars, rhetorics, and dictionaries, which have proved of great value in the study of comparative philology. The work of deciphering and translating the cuneiform inscriptions is necessarily slow. Scholars are engaged upon it continually, and in time the literature of these ancient nations will be available as a whole.