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aboutanancientenquiry · 3 years ago

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The Babylonian “Nabonidus Chronicle” and the ancient Greek historians

The Nabonidus Chronicle. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabonidus_Chronicle

“ The Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7)9 is a different story. It has long been accepted (by me, among others) that this chronicle dates to the years immediately after the Persian conquest. Most scholars treat this as an example of the Babylonian chronicle genre, which is characterized by a detached treatment of historical facts, which I do too. Others consider it to be a part of pro-Cyrus propaganda, a point of view I reject. Caroline Waerzeggers (ch. 5 herein) gives a lengthy status quaestionis. She now offers a very intriguing new view of the chronicle: it is neither contemporary, nor a typical chronicle, nor a piece of propaganda. It is rather a document from the Hellenistic period (probably the period of Berossus), in which the scribe comes to terms with the Achaemenid Empire, and in particular the founder of that empire, as a response to Greek views on Cyrus. It is written in “an intertextual web” in “dialogue” with other Babylonian and Greek writers. It emerged in the circle of scholars who wrote astronomical diaries and chronicles (see BCHP), and were acquainted, like Berossus, with Greek historiographers such as Herodotus, Xenophon, and Ctesias. Although the document is not dated, the script points to the Hellenistic period, as do the circumstances of the recovery of the tablet as part of the late Achaemenid / early Hellenistic Esagil archive. The Esagil archive contained many copied / reworked / composed epics and chronicles of the past when Babylonian kings such as Nebuchadnezzar I and Nabopolassar successfully fought against foreign kings (cf. also ch. 4 by De Breucker). Hence, the Nabonidus Chronicle is not a reliable recording of facts from the recent past, nor is it a propaganda text, but a historiographical view on the Persian conquest of Babylon for a Hellenistic readership. All this is certainly a startling new approach. Waerzeggers rightly observes that the script and some of the points discussed suggest composition or redaction in the early Hellenistic period. The points discussed, such as the death of queens, point to a Hellenistic rather than early Persian interest. The Nabonidus Chronicle may have interacted with Herodotus’s account of the death of Cyrus’s wife Cassandane (2.1). The sequence of Cyrus’ conquests from Media, via Lydia to Babylonia, which it shares with Herodotus, may be intentional as a response to Herodotus (cf. Waerzeggers, n. 79), although it may also be accidental as it simply was the order of the campaigns.

Nevertheless, I have a somewhat different view as regards the nature of this text. Even if I accept that the document was written in the Hellenistic period (of which I am not certain: the queens do get attention in chronicles, as Waerzeggers admits, the particular mention of Nabonidus’s mother is not strange in view of her prominent place in history and in inscriptions of Nabonidus, while other parallels are simply due to the fact that they reflect historical reality), I do not accept that it is a completely new composition of this period. Waerzeggers assumes that the author’s sources were the Cyrus Cylinder, the royal inscriptions of Nabonidus, the “Royal Chronicle” (which is not a chronicle, but a pro-Nabonidus propaganda text),10 and perhaps the Verse Account, all of which were available to these scholars. This may be true, but that does not account for the numerous specific dates for events, which do not exist in these texts for his entire reign. So I believe that it is a necessary assumption that there was some “proto-Nabonidus Chronicle.” In addition, though the script may be Hellenistic or at least Late Babylonian, as may be assumed from the way the plural sign MEŠ is written, certain signs are certainly not Hellenistic such as the use of ša instead of šá in ABC 7: 2.2 and 21 in the expression DINGIR.MEŠ ša GN, “the gods of GN,” which we also encounter in the Babylonian Chronicle ABC 1: 3.1, 2 and 29, dated to the reign of Darius (I). This chronicle ends with the accession year of king Šamaš-šuma-ukīn (669 b.c.e.). It was written in the twenty-second year of Darius, and it expressly said that it was “the first section,” suggesting that it was followed by a second section, and perhaps even third section, that may have continued into the early Persian period, as Waerzeggers admits. It also explains why Cyrus could be described as “king of Parsu.”

In my discussion of the chronicles with the help of a “ladder” of characteristics classifying historiographical texts in the widest sense, I have argued that chronicles deviate from true historiography in the fullest sense as they are “not narrative; there is no story, no plot, no introduction or conclusion, nor is there any attempt to explain, to find causes and effects, to see relations between recorded events.”11 According to Waerzeggers “none of this applies to the Nabonidus Chronicle. It narrates, it values, it compares, it explains and it argues. Its format may be that of a chronicle, but it breaks free of the limitations of the genre.” This I can hardly follow. It may be a matter of taste, but I still find this a dull enumeration of facts, year-by-year; to call this “narrative” implies a very wide definition of storytelling. I agree, of course, that objectivity does not exist: the selection of the recorded facts is the choice of the author who shapes the information, and the concerns of the Hellenistic period will have shaped the choices, and I agree that omission of facts colors the information. I still maintain that the text gives no value judgments, nor arguments, nor explanations. We do not find any judgments such as “the king brought evil to the land,” nor is any cause given: there are no words such as “because” or “consequently.” Commentators of chronicles often mistakenly assume that sentences are meaningfully connected, but usually this is not the case. Every new sentence may be regarded as new information with no relation to the preceding sentence. Explicit mention of the anger of a god or king, as frequently used in royal inscriptions, is missing. Though I admit that the chronicle has an interest in comparing Nabonidus with Cyrus, I see no value judgments. Thus the text, even if Hellenistic in final redaction, sticks to the genre of the chronicle by abstaining from value judgments. The reader may make his or her own judgment. It is true that it is reported that the Akītu festival did not take place, but this derived easily from the fact that the king was in Tayma. No value judgment is given that the king was in Tayma. A king on campaign can also be positively evaluated, especially as he had organized the government well in Babylon and had the šešgallu (high priest) oversee the ritual “properly” (kī šalmu12) as far as was possible in absence of the king. When Nabonidus returned, the Akītu festival in its entirety was conducted “properly,” that is, according to the rules (kī šalmu, 3.).

Text from the study of R. J. van der Spek “ Coming to terms with the Persian Empire: some concluding remarks and responses “ from the collective work Political Memory in and after the Persian Empire, Jason M. Silverman, Caroline Waerzeggers (editors), SBL Press, 2015.

The study is available on https://research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/1378318/Coming+to+Terms+Silverman-Waerzeggers+Political+Memory+Persian+Empirech18.pdf

Robartus Johannes (Bert) van der Spek (born 18 September 1949 in Zoetermeer) is a Dutch ancient historian, specializing in the Seleucid Empire. He was a full professor in Ancient Studies at VU University Amsterdam from 1993 to his retirement in 2014, and is currently working on the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Age (a collection of cuneiform tablets in the British Museum). He is also the author of the best-selling first-year book for ancient history: An introduction to the Ancient World.

Van der Spek studied History beginning in 1967 at Leiden University. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_van_der_Spek )

A translation of the Nabonidus Chronicle on line can be found on https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/abc-7-nabonidus-chronicle/ . Its text is badly damaged, but it is clear that it narrates the reign of the last king of Babylon Nabonidus, the conquest of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus the Great and the immediate aftermath of the Persian conquest.

I am not Assyriologist of course, but the truth is that I always thought that the Nabonidus Chronicle was the product of some Babylonian (priestly) milieus dissatisfied with Nabonidus for religious and other reasons and eager to collaborate with the Persian conquerors, a point of view that is held by not few specialists, but is rejected by Pr. van der Spek.

I find very interesting and thought provoking the thesis of Caroline Waerzeggers for a much later date of composition of the Nabonidus Chronicle and its character as a response to the Greek historiography, but I don’t think that there is in the text of this chronicle an unambiguously clear Greek influence which would permit to date it with certainty in the Hellenistic era.

I find also very enlightening the remarks of Pr. van der Spek comparing more generally the chronicles of the Babylonians with historiography as invented by Herodotus and the Greeks.

#nabonidus chronicle #nabonidus #babylon #assyriology #ancient greek historians #herodotus #r. j. van der spek #caroline waerzeggers

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uncrcow · 8 years ago

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Q: Why Do People Crave Sugar When They Are Tired?

A: Well, to put it simply, it’s because you’re tired and hungry! For the more complex answer, read on…

A set of complex processes called circadian rhythms govern the body’s drive for eating and sleeping. These rhythms describe patterns in our brains, metabolic cycles, and physiological responses like tiredness and hunger. Usually, these patterns follow a 24-hour cycle, corresponding to the day/night cycle. Based on a variety of signals like temperature and light, circadian rhythms help coordinate our bodies’ functions to occur at the same times as other related processes. For example, when we are feeling hungry, our body’s circadian rhythms help coordinate our salivary glands to make more saliva, our pancreas to send out digestive hormones, and stomach and intestines to prepare for digestion, as well as the physical feelings of being hungry that alert our brain to tell us to eat. And that is just when you’re feeling hungry!

With such a complex system that is dependent on correct timing, what can happen if it goes wrong? Such as…if you stay up late? Or miss meals?

Feeling sleepy yet?

Any changes to your daily routines of sleeping and eating, also called the fast/feed cycle and rest/activity cycle, disrupt your peripheral clocks (things like hormones in tissues and light receptors in your eyes), which in turn disrupts your larger internal clock (located in your brain) that keeps track of your circadian rhythms. These disruptions have been used to explain a whole host of phenomena, such as jet lag and prevalent nausea in night-shift workers, and recently the finding that people tend to crave sugary or high-caloric foods at night. While the exact reason why sugary and high-caloric foods are favored over lower-calorie foods like green veggies is still being debated, there are a variety of studies that point to the disruption of circadian rhythms as being the catalyst for this craving. It could be due to loss of sleep or the timing of eating throughout the day. It’s not so much the fact that eating lots of sugary or high-calorie foods during the day decreases your need to eat until later, but more that eating at inconsistent times makes it harder for your body to run its metabolic and digestive systems. This makes it more likely for your body to crave food at odd times since your body has been de-synched from its 24-hour rhythm.

But where in the process does that desynching occur? While circadian rhythms are still not fully-understood, there is growing evidence that two areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex and the SCN (short for suprachiasmatic nucleus), play a major role in starting food cravings/hunger and managing your internal clock. While the prefrontal cortex is largely responsible for helping us make decisions, it also plays a role in making decisions about what to eat, and fires along with the amygdala, or reward/pleasure center of our brain, when we are tired. This, along with the SCN’s large control over our circadian rhythms, may suggest that the body is responding to tiredness by eating more energy-rich food to compensate.

Conclusion: If you want to get rid of midnight sugar cravings, try to have a consistent schedule for your meals and sleep. Rearranging your schedule can be pretty difficult to do as a college student, but small, routine changes to your sleep and eating cycles can help your body keep better track of its metabolic systems and make you feel better as a whole too. However, the exact relation between our circadian rhythms and sleep/hunger is still under study, so better advice may be coming soon! 😊

Resources

Colman, A.(2015). prefrontal cortex. In A Dictionary of Psychology. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 14 Feb. 2017, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199657681.001.0001/acref-9780199657681-e-6555.

Goldman, R., Borckardt, J., Frohman, H., O’Neil, P., Madan, A., Campbell, L., Budak, A., et al. (2011). Prefrontal cortex transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) temporarily reduces food cravings and increases the self-reported ability to resist food in adults with frequent food craving. Appetite, 56(3), 741–746. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2011.02.013

Greer, S. M., Goldstein, A. N., & Walker, M. P. (2013). The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain. Nature Communications, 4. doi:10.1038/ncomms3259

Gumz, M. L. (2016). Circadian Clocks: Role in Health and Disease. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4939-3450-8

Hegarty, S. (2012). The myth of the eight-hour sleep. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783

Hunsberger, M., Mehlig, K., Bornhorst, C., Hebestreit, A., Moreno, L., Veidebaum, T., Kourides, Y., et al. (2015). Dietary Carbohydrate and Nocturnal Sleep Duration in Relation to Children’s BMI: Findings from the IDEFICS Study in Eight European Countries. Nutrients, 7(12), 10223–10236. doi:10.3390/nu7125529

Liu, X., Hairston, J., Schrier, M., & Fan, J. (2011). Common and distinct networks underlying reward valence and processing stages: A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(5), 1219–1236. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.12.012

McEown, K., Takata, Y., Cherasse, Y., Nagata, N., Aritake, K., & Lazarus, M. (2016). Chemogenetic inhibition of the medial prefrontal cortex reverses the effects of REM sleep loss on sucrose consumption. International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine. doi:10.7554/eLife.20269.001

Oosterman, J., Kalsbeek, A., la Fleur, S. E., & Belsham, D. D. (2014). Impact of nutrients on circadian rhythmicity. American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00322.2014

Oosterman, J., Foppen, E., van der Spek, R., Fliers, E., Kalsbeek, A., & la Fleur, S. (2014). Timing of fat and liquid sugar intake alters substrate oxidation and food efficiency in male Wistar rats. Chronobiology International The Journal of Biological and Medical Rhythm Research, 32(2), 289–298. doi:10.3109/07420528.2014.971177

Scheer, F. A. J. L., Morris, C. J., & Shea, S. A. (2013). The Internal Circadian Clock Increases Hunger and Appetite in the Evening Independent of Food Intake and Other Behaviors. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 21(3), 421–423. http://doi.org/10.1002/oby.20351

Shechter, A., O’Keeffe, M., Roberts, A. L., Zammit, G. K., RoyChoudhury, A., & St-Onge, M.-P. (2012). Alterations in sleep architecture in response to experimental sleep curtailment are associated with signs of positive energy balance. American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 303(9), R883–R889. doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00222.2012

Squire, L. R. (2012). Fundamental Neuroscience. Retrieved from https://www.clinicalkey.com/#!/browse/book/3-s2.0-C20100650358

St-Onge, M.-P., Roberts, A., Shechter, A., & Choudhury, A. (2016). Fiber and Saturated Fat Are Associated with Sleep Arousals and Slow Wave Sleep. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine , 12(1). doi:10.5664/jcsm.5384

Yetish, G., Kaplan, H., Gurven, M., Wood, B., Pontzer, H., Manger, P. R., Wilson, C., et al. (2015). Natural Sleep and Its Seasonal Variations in Three Pre-industrial Societies. Current Biology, 25(21), 2862–2868. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.09.046

Image Resources

Birthday Bot Animated Gif. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://gph.is/1zbeU4A

Cheezburger Animated GIF. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://gph.is/1ndQ0Ro

Ice Cream Animated Gif. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://gph.is/2axyd5k

Written by Devon Murphy

#UNC Chapel Hill #UNC Libraries #uncRCOW #ask a librarian #sugar craving #circadian rhythm #hunger pangs #tasty treats #sleepy #university of north carolina #carolina #Chapel Hill

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aboutanancientenquiry · 2 years ago

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Babylonian and Greek sources on the fall of Babylon to the Persians- a text of R. J. van der Spek

“ As we pointed out in the introduction, the Persian conquest inaugurated an important new episode in the history of Babylonia. It is impossible for us to know how the average Babylonian felt about this event. Many will have expected business as usual, but the practices of their own imperial past (deportation of conquered people and imposition of heavy tributes) did not set a comfortable precedent. What we can do is study a number of scholarly texts and observe the political situation. It is clear that many people were prepared to resist. If we believe the Nabonidus Chronicle from Babylon (but see the discussion by Caroline Waerzeggers in ch. 5 and below n. 9), the Babylonian army tried to resist the invasion in the battle of Opis in October 539 b.c.e., but was defeated. It was only after this defeat that the cities of Sippar and Babylon could be taken without battle on 10 and 12 October and that Cyrus, on 9 November, could enter in person. The fact that there was no battle for these cities does not mean that the people welcomed the conqueror. After the defeat they had no choice. According to Herodotus (1.190–191), the Babylonians feared Cyrus very much and prepared for siege.2 Cyrus took the city by a stratagem (diverting the Euphrates) rather than through fighting. Herodotus adds the well-known detail that the people in the center did not notice its capture, due to the size of the city and the fact that a festival was going on, a detail that we find again in Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.5, and in Dan 5. The chronicle declares that Cyrus ordered peace and the continuation of the cult, but it was of course an imposed peace, a pax Cyriaca. That at least not all Babylonians were happy about Persian rule is further demonstrated by many revolts, two in the first years of Darius I, two in 484 b.c.e. under Xerxes, the latter with horrible effects for the local clergy, as was demonstrated by Waerzeggers.3

Apart from resistance there were certainly all kinds of cooperation or acceptance. A hotly debated question is whether or not the clergy of Babylon was fed up with Nabonidus, because he would have promoted the moon god Sîn (to what extent is also debated) and neglected the New Year’s festival for ten years, and so welcomed Cyrus as a restorer of order. The main issue in this is how we have to value our main sources: the Cyrus Cylinder, the Verse Account, and the Nabonidus Chronicle, all this in combination with Greek and Biblical evidence.

Let us first of all get rid of a concept of “the” Babylonian clergy. We have no evidence that the Babylonian temple officials were uniformly opposed to or in favor of anyone. It may well be that certain parts of the clergy were indeed critical of Nabonidus. His neglect of the Akītu (New Year) festival was apparently a point of discussion at least, as is also demonstrated by many other chronicles that pay attention to this festival (see below). The Verse Account is another exemplum of criticism.4 It is much too easy to dispose of this document as a piece of propaganda ordained by the new king. It is a satirical literary document that involves in-depth knowledge of cuneiform documents like the royal inscriptions of Nabonidus, the En��ma Anu Enlil texts, and other literary texts.5 This cannot have been conceived by any Persian official; it must have come from learned circles. The former temple officials from the time of Nabonidus were not dismissed at the accession of Cyrus. We know that the high officials Zēria (šatammu, “chief temple administrator”) and Rēmūt (zazakku, “chief secretary”) stayed in office and hailed Cyrus, if we follow Waerzeggers’s reconstruction of this part of the Verse Account (5.8–28).6 Nevertheless, we have no reason to assume that Zēria and Rēmūt had not been loyal to Nabonidus. In any case, they surrendered and somehow came to terms with the new regime.

The same holds true for the Cyrus Cylinder. 7 This document is more likely to have been produced at Persian instigation as can be surmised from the openly propagandistic tone, specific expressions as “King of Anšan” and the genealogy of Cyrus. But also this document cannot have been written without the help of Babylonian scholars and scribes (although the scribe of this document seems to have been second rank in view of his many errors and mediocre Akkadian). These scholars, as Waerzeggers elsewhere observes, expressed their hopes that Cyrus would take his duties as king of Babylon and protector of the temple cult more seriously than his predecessor. These hopes, however, were soon destroyed. Cyrus (or his son Cambyses) only once took part in the New Year festival (if at all) and Babylonia became one of the many provinces of the Persian Empire.8

The Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7)9 is a different story. It has long been accepted (by me, among others) that this chronicle dates to the years immediately after the Persian conquest. Most scholars treat this as an example of the Babylonian chronicle genre, which is characterized by a detached treatment of historical facts, which I do too. Others consider it to be a part of pro-Cyrus propaganda, a point of view I reject. Caroline Waerzeggers (ch. 5 herein) gives a lengthy status quaestionis. She now offers a very intriguing new view of the chronicle: it is neither contemporary, nor a typical chronicle, nor a piece of propaganda. It is rather a document from the Hellenistic period (probably the period of Berossus), in which the scribe comes to terms with the Achaemenid Empire, and in particular the founder of that empire, as a response to Greek views on Cyrus. It is written in “an intertextual web” in “dialogue” with other Babylonian and Greek writers. It emerged in the circle of scholars who wrote astronomical diaries and chronicles (see BCHP), and were acquainted, like Berossus, with Greek historiographers such as Herodotus, Xenophon, and Ctesias. Although the document is not dated, the script points to the Hellenistic period, as do the circumstances of the recovery of the tablet as part of the late Achaemenid / early Hellenistic Esagil archive. The Esagil archive contained many copied / reworked / composed epics and chronicles of the past when Babylonian kings such as Nebuchadnezzar I and Nabopolassar successfully fought against foreign kings (cf. also ch. 4 by De Breucker). Hence, the Nabonidus Chronicle is not a reliable recording of facts from the recent past, nor is it a propaganda text, but a historiographical view on the Persian conquest of Babylon for a Hellenistic readership. All this is certainly a startling new approach. Waerzeggers rightly observes that the script and some of the points discussed suggest composition or redaction in the early Hellenistic period. The points discussed, such as the death of queens, point to a Hellenistic rather than early Persian interest. The Nabonidus Chronicle may have interacted with Herodotus’s account of the death of Cyrus’s wife Cassandane (2.1). The sequence of Cyrus’ conquests from Media, via Lydia to Babylonia, which it shares with Herodotus, may be intentional as a response to Herodotus (cf. Waerzeggers, n. 79), although it may also be accidental as it simply was the order of the campaigns.

The repetitious recording of the absence of the Akītu festival indeed demonstrates the interest of chroniclers, as this topic is recorded in many other chronicles, such as the Akītu Chronicle (ABC 16), the Esarhaddon Chronicle (ABC 14), the Šamaš-šuma-ukīn Chronicle (ABC 15) and the Religious Chronicle (ABC 17). ABC 7 thus stands in a firm chronicle tradition. Our author may have seen the Ehulhul Cylinder of Nabonidus, but he probably did not use this source for naming Cyrus king of Anšan (KUR An-šá-an, 2.1 and 4), as it was written KUR An-za-an (I 27) there. The chronicler may have seen a copy of the Cyrus Cylinder, but he did not take his information from that document concerning Nabonidus’s removal of the gods of Marad, Kish, and Hursagkalamma, with the note that the gods of Borsippa, Cuthah and Sippar were not deported (3.8–12). Cyrus reports that he brought back the statues of the gods of Aššur, Susa, Akkad, Eshnunna, Zamban, Me-Turnu, Der, and Gutium (30–32) and refers to the gods that were removed by Nabonidus only as “the gods of Sumer and Akkad,” with a value judgment indeed (“to the anger of the gods,” 33), an addition that is conspicuously missing in the Nabonidus Chronicle. There is no reason to assume that the chronicler valued the removal of the gods to Babylon as bad. As was observed by Beaulieu and myself, the removal may be regarded a pious deed, as it defends the statues against the attacks of the enemy, and in so doing the king hoped to acquire the support of these gods.13 If the chronicler used the Cyrus Cylinder and the Verse Account and wanted to depict Nabonidus in dark colors, he would certainly mention the latter’s preference for Sîn, which is not the case.14

Another point of interest is the report on the death of two important women, the death of the mother of Nabonidus (2.13–15) and the wife of Cyrus (3.22–24). The fact that these women get so much attention may indeed be due to Hellenistic influence, as Waerzeggers observes. We see this interest in many Greek inscriptions and in the Ezida inscription of Antiochus I, mentioning his wife Stratonice. On the other hand, as Waerzeggers admits, deaths of queens were mentioned earlier in chronicles, and especially the death of the mother of Nabonidus, who even had set up a stela in her own name15, must have had impact. So indeed, Hellenistic zeitgeist may well be present, but again difficult to prove. And again I can detect no value judgement. Both queens are appropriately mourned. One might even argue that Cyrus imitates Nabonidus in this. Everything still fits in with the interest of chronicle composers, which lies in the interpretation of omens. Thus the issues of the chronicles concur with the issues of the omens: accessions and deaths of kings (and queens), battles, plagues, and some cultic events as the Akītu festival. All this we have in the Nabonidus Chronicle. The method is that of the authors of the astronomical diaries (possibly the same persons) who recorded the “events” in the sky. They also made their choices what to record and what not, but what they recorded, be it lunar eclipses or movements of planets in the sky, is reliable. This also explains the use of archaic geographical terms in chronicles, such as Elam, Umman-manda, Hanî, Hatti, Subartu, Amurru. It is used because of their occurrence in omens, and it makes these designations timeless. That it is not negative is exemplified by the fact that, e.g., the Umman-manda come to the aid of Nabopolassar (ABC 3:59 and 65) and Ugbaru is the governor of Gutium and the Gutians protect the temple (ABC 7:16–18). Even though it is not historiography in the fullest sense, the related facts are reliable.16 Thus, it is very difficult to glean opinions about the Persian Empire from this chronicle. About Cyrus and Nabonidus both negative and positive notations are made. Cyrus proclaims peace to the Babylonians (3.18–20) and the rituals in the temple are not disturbed (3.16–18), but before he had slaughtered the people of Akkad (3.13), and later he made his son, dressed in Elamite robes, king of Babylon, which may have disturbed the chronicler, although he does not say so. The “proto-chronicler” may have cherished the same hopes as the author of the Cyrus Cylinder and the Verse Account, that Cyrus would respect Babylon’s traditions. The same will have been the attitude of early Hellenistic Babylonian scholars. Babylonians in the Persian period were soon disappointed. Alexander made similar promises as Cyrus (and much earlier, Sargon II),17 but here again the Babylonians were probably not satisfied, though they could see more promising measures. Alexander intended Babylon as his new capital (the Persians never did that) and at least tried to rebuild the temple tower. He had the army level the ground at the tower complex at his return in 323 b.c.e. Antiochus I again made an effort (BCHP 6) and he apparently ordered restorations of Ezida and Esagil and in 268 b.c.e. buried the last known royal cylinder in the foundations of Ezida to commemorate this.18 Alexander, however, did not provide the necessary resources; private donations of Babylonians had to finance it.19 Babylonia was for a time the core of the Seleucid Empire, but Babylon suffered much from the war for the hegemony over Asia between Seleucus and Antigonus in the years 311 to 308 b.c.e. (Diadochi Chronicle, BCHP 3) and the city finally was degraded to a second rank position after the founding of Seleucia. This was still in Babylonia, and it marked Babylonia as a more important province than Persis, the former center of empire, but it was not good for the prominence of the old city. In addition, Syria, with Antioch on the Orontes, gradually turned into the main center of the empire.

What remains is the interesting and important observation that the chronicle might have been produced, or rather adapted, in a later period than is usually assumed, just as the book of Jeremiah was once adapted (Jer 36:32). The same is true, for instance, for the Akitu ritual text.20 The first editor, Thureau-Dangin,21 postulated that the document probably dates to the Hellenistic period, and Zimmern22 argued already in 1922 that this document might well be a free conceptualization of the New year festival ritual for the priesthood of the Esagil temple in Babylon in the Seleucid-Parthian period, a point of view all too often ignored in later studies of the Babylonian Akitu ritual. It is interesting to note the important role of the šešgallu in this ritual, which is also at issue in the Nabonidus chronicle (see above).

Another point that may point to a late date for the Nabonidus chronicle is the number of details in the description of some entries, as the chronicles of the Hellenistic period become increasingly more detailed. The same is true for the historical sections of the Astronomical Diaries. This may reflect a growing interest in history per se. The interactions with Herodotus, the Dynastic Prophecy, and Berossus are certainly worth considering, but we must at the same time be wary of reading too much of our own concerns into these texts. Actually, texts like the Dynastic Prophecy are more suitable for learning about views on Persian kingship. In this document Nabonidus is valued negatively (2.16: “He will plot evil against Akkad”), while Cyrus is valued positively (2.24: “During his reign Akkad [will live] in security”23). How the author thought of the Macedonians is more difficult to establish due to serious lacunae in the tablet. The least one can say is that it is an exhortation to the new rulers to respect old rights of tax exemptions (zakûtu) for ancient religious centers in Babylonia, a time honored theme indeed.

As has been pointed out by Waerzeggers,24 the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus inaugurated a period in which Babylon would never again be a leading city and central to the empire. The people, especially Babylonian scholars and scribes, had to deal with this. They had a few things to go on. In whatever kind of foreign rule, the best thing one could hope for (apart from recovering independence) is recognition of privileged status, including tax exemption, respect for Marduk as supreme god (at least for Babylonia, but possibly more), respect for religious practices, especially the New Year Festival, and at least some special status as preferential center of power and interest. Waerzeggers also demonstrated that not much came of this and that disappointment was the result.

In their scholarly literature, scribes tried to find comfort in the past, just as Greek intellectuals did in the Roman Empire.25 They liked to write chronicles about kings who defeated foreign enemies. They stressed the importance of the god Marduk and collected and commented upon documents that promoted his status as supreme god, especially since the days of Nebuchadnezzar I (cf. ch. 3 by Nielsen). The importance of the god is also indicated by the fact that Marduk may use foreign countries to punish Babylonia temporarily. Marduk is depicted as the god who called upon Elam to punish Babylon and who even willingly left Babylon, finally to be returned by Nebuchadnezzar I. It is part of the motif of “divine abandonment,” described at length by Morton Cogan,26 and also well-known from the Hebrew Bible, where God uses Assyrian and Babylonian kings to punish Israel and Judah and even allows Jerusalem and its temple to be destroyed and the treasures to be taken to Babylon. Such a motif we find back in the Cyrus Cylinder and the Verse Account, where the foreign king Cyrus reinstalls Marduk as supreme deity. The startling reality of 539 b.c.e. is that now a king of Elam is chosen by Marduk as restorer of the godly order. Though Cyrus is not called king of Elam in so many words, it does not alter this fact. He is called King of Anšan, which had been a major city of Elam for millennia. Cyrus might well be of Elamite extraction, as his name is probably Elamite.27 So, in 539 b.c.e., he was actually the king of Elam. As in Nebuchadnezzar I’s days, Elam was an instrument in the hands of Marduk, but different: “the relationship with Persian rule could be expressed as a positive or a negative depending how the tradition was utilized,” as Nielsen (ch. 3 herein) rightly observed. As pointed out above, a geographical name like “Elam” need not in itself have negative connotations, though readers might read it in them.

Another point is kingship. The above interpretation of Cyrus is a new coming-to-terms with Achaemenid kingship. It was a way of accepting the new situation. Although Cyrus was a foreign king, he was also accepted as king of Babylon. Many kings are called “king of Babylon” in their official royal titles, and the Persian kings figure in the king lists, just as do their Macedonian successors (see ch. 4 herein by De Breucker). At the same time we see that kingship in itself lost importance in the Babylonian literature. Religious offices and scribal tradition gradually became more important next to and perhaps even instead of kingship. This can be derived from the list of sages and kings, where sages became as important as kings in the early Seleucid period.28 We see it also in the more important role of the priesthood, or at least the šešgallu (or: ahu rabû, “high priest,” lit. “big brother” = “highest colleague”). In the Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7 ii 8) as well as in the Religious Chronicle (ABC 17 ii 5) it is this officer who takes care that the ritual goes on kī šalmu, “properly.”

We also see that the šatammu, the head of the temple administration, gradually becomes the most important local official, a situation most clearly apparent in the Seleucid period when Babylon was governed by the šatammu and the kiništu (“temple council,” related to Hebrew knesseth) of Babylon, a situation not much different from the rule of Jerusalem by the high priest and the Sanhedrin.29 In addition, there was a governor (pāhatu or šaknu), just as there was a governor (peḥāh) in Jerusalem. From the time of Antiochus IV, this person was the head of the Greek community in Babylon. The supremacy of Babylon in Babylonia ended, so that in Uruk Anu could rise to the position of major deity with a new temple (in this book discussed by De Breucker, ch. 4). The new political situation had a deep impact on political and religious thought in Babylonia, but it led to very diverse reactions.”

From the paper of R. J. van der Spek Coming to terms with the Persian Empire: some concluding remarks and responses, in Political Memory in and after the Persian Empire, by Jason M. Silverman (Editor), Caroline Waerzeggers (Editor), SBL Press; Illustrated edition (4 Dec. 2015)

Source with the entirety of the paper https://research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/1378318/Coming+to+Terms+Silverman-Waerzeggers+Political+Memory+Persian+Empirech18.pdf

Robartus Johannes (Bert) van der Spek is a Dutch ancient historian, specializing in the Seleucid Empire. He was a full professor in Ancient Studies at VU University Amsterdam from 1993 to his retirement in 2014, and is currently working on the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Age (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_van_der_Spek )

#babylon #persian empire #herodotus #assyriology #r. j. van der spek

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aboutanancientenquiry · 3 years ago

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Again on the Persian Empire and the ancient Greek historiography

“When we review the uses of the political memory of the Achaemenid Empire it is difficult to draw general conclusions as to how this memory was shaped. Many different memories were created that suited the needs of the day and that suited the authors of texts and the artists. So we often see contradictory memories of the Persians at the same time. The interest of the beholder is what matters. This could be a way of living and working under the sway of the Persians, or the view of outsiders who had to cope with them in wartime, trade, and negotiations, or had to deal with them as part of their history. The memory was more fragmentary than collective, although certain prejudices prevailed.

This does not mean that all history writing concerning the Persians can be discarded as unreliable. Historiography may give reliable facts, but these facts (even if they are correct per se) betray the interest and the world view of the author. That was so in antiquity just as it is today. The Persian past may also be used for making completely invented stories, such as the book of Esther. Modern historians have to treat these texts and works of art always taking into account the five W’s: Who wrote (made) what, where, when, and why?

Allow me, finally, as a modern historian, to make a few remarks about the impact of the Persian Empire and the memory of it on the present world. In the first place, the Persian Empire was the neighbor and partly ruler of the Greek world. It was the United States of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e., and it is evident that Greek civilization was shaped by the interaction with that neighbor, be it by learning from it or by being challenged to behave in antithesis. The mainstream Greek view of the Persians as effeminate, slavish, and irrational Orientals has shaped the European view of the East for centuries. The impact of the Persian Empire was a fortiori strong on the Hellenistic empires that emerged on the soil of their Persian predecessor. The Hellenistic empires, in their turn, were a challenge for the Romans. The Romans overcame these empires, which nevertheless left their imprints as examples of empire when the Roman monarchy came into being. The imprint of the Roman Empire on European civilization is seldom contested.”

Excerpts from the conclusion of the paper of R. J. van der Spek Coming to terms with the Persian Empire: some concluding remarks and responses. In J. M. Silverman, & C. Waerzeggers (Eds.), Political Memory in and after the Persian Empire (pp. 447-477). (Ancient Near East Monographs; No. 13).

Source: https://research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/1378318/Coming+to+Terms+Silverman-Waerzeggers+Political+Memory+Persian+Empirech18.pdf

R.J. van der Spek is Dutch historian of the Antiquity and Assyriologist (see https://href.li/?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_van_der_Spek)

I agree with and I find very good the first two paragraphs of the text of Pr. van der Spek that I have reproduced.

I find however objectable something he says in the third paragraph, namely that

[T]he mainstream Greek view of the Persians as effeminate, slavish, and irrational Orientals has shaped the European view of the East for centuries.

And this first of all because the Greek attitudes toward the Persians were more complex than what Pr. van der Spek’s phrase gives us to understand. It would be for instance inaccurate to say that a major Greek author like Herodotus presents the Persians as a people effeminate, slavish and irrational. More generally, despite the rhetorical arguments and exaggerations on the weaknesses of the Persian Empire used by the propagandists of a panhellenic campaign in Asia in order to support their cause, I think that most Greeks understood that an effeminate, slavish, and irrational people could not have created the greatest empire the world had seen till that era nor have threatened so seriously the Greek freedom in the Persian Wars. Moreover, the Greeks were aware of the reality that, despite the Persian domination of the Near East, the “East” was not just the Persians.

Secondly, of course there was often negativity in the views of the Greeks on the Persians, but the Greeks had their own reasons for this: I mean, besides the important cultural differences between the two peoples, mainly the Persian invasions of Greece and later the Persian intervention in the Greek affairs, playing the one major Greek-city state against the other. Modern European nations had their own reasons for their negative views and stereotypes toward the East and the peoples of the East, especially during the colonial era, and I don’t think that these negative views and stereotypes have been essentially “shaped” by the views of the Greeks. To put it differently, the colonial ideology of the modern era has not its foundations in the views of the Greeks of the classical era on the Persians and the Persian Empire.

#persian empire #ancient greek classics #herodotus #r. j. van der spek

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aboutanancientenquiry · 3 years ago

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Berossus, the Babylonian chronicles, Herodotus, and historiography (I: excerpts from a text of R. J. van der Spek)

“Berossus as a Babylonian chronicler and Greek historian

R.J. (Bert) van der Spek

in: R.J. van der Spek et al. eds. Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society presented to Marten Stol on the occasion of his 65th birthday, 10 november 2005, and his retirement from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Bethesda MD: CDL Press 2008) 277-318

Marten Stol began his career in Classical Studies and so in this Festschrift I should like to present a study of an ancient Babylonian cuneiform scholar who also read Classics.1 The name of this scholar who lived in Babylon in the early Hellenistic period was Bel-re’ûshunu,2 whose name means “The Lord is their shepherd,” and who is better known in its Latinized Greek form: Berossus. He was an ancient historian interested in both Near Eastern and Greek history, reading Babylonian historiographic texts and the works of Greek historians. He wrote a history in Greek about Babylonian culture and history and, possibly, he composed Babylonian chronicle texts as well. In this essay I shall endeavor to shed light on Berossus’ place in Babylonian and Greek historiography and science and in the academic circles in which he lived.

Babylonian Chronicles and Historiography

A chronicle is a continuous register of events in chronological order. The events are simply enumerated in terse, often paratactic, sentences and the primary interest is in exact dating. A chronicle does not contain narrative; has no exposition about cause and effect; and offers no general background. It is a data base of facts about the past. Many civilizations produce these kinds of texts, but the purpose is not always the same. The Greeks had a chronographic tradition; the Romans had their Annales Maximi; Eusebius wrote his Chronica to prove the antiquity of the Bible. As chronography is writing about the past, chronicles can be viewed as historiography. The word “historiography,” however, has led to endless discussions about what it is supposed to be. Is historiography any writing about the past or is it a literary or scientific genre that has to obey to certain rules? Many authors subscribe to the last assumption and then try to distinguish real historiography from other kinds of history writing, which contributes a great deal to the confusion. Fornara (1983:1) distinguishes “historical writing” (general term) from “history” (specific type, exemplified by authors such as Herodotus and Thucydides). He does this on the basis of Felix Jacoby’s distinction in Greek historiography between Genealogie, Ethnographie, Zeitgeschichte (rephrased “history” by Fornara), Horographie and Chronographie. According to Van Seters (1983: 2) “all historical texts may be subsumed under the term historiography as a more inclusive category than the more particular genre of history writing.” The narrower definition of “history writing” is further defined by five criteria that I need not repeat here (Van Seters 1983: 4–5). Hence Van Seters’ “history writing” comes close to Fornara’s “history,” but differs from the latter’s “historical writing.”

The second, but related discussion is where and when the genre of historiography was created. The point is pertinent because it depends how “historiography” is defined. The answers given—it all started with Herodotus, with the historical books of the Hebrew Bible, with the Hittite annals and treaty prologues, or with Babylonian chronicles—are so different because the interpretation of historiography diverges so widely.3

Herodotus is most commonly credited as the inventor of historiography, primarily because it was perceived that way already in the Classical period. Cicero, De Legibus 1.5.5 called him pater historiae, although he added that Herodotus’ work is full of fabulous stories. Yet Herodotus’ personal research and his reference to different sources are generally appreciated for what they are, as is his excellent narrative style. Hence Herodotus is the standard, and as there is no equivalent for Herodotus in the Near East, there could not have been “real historiography” in the East.4 [ NOTE 4 of the author: See for a recent study about “the first real historians” Grabbe 2001, who concludes: “Thus, if someone asks, ‘Who were the first historians?’ I would have to answer, ‘It depends on your definition of “historian”.’ But if you ask, ‘Who were the first critical historians?’ the answer is definitely the Greeks.” (Grabbe 2001: 181). ].

Actually, it was only at a later period that historiography was recognized as a genre. Historie in Herodotus means “investigation,” as in the Latin Naturalis Historia. Herodotus refers to his own work as a description of ta genomena ex anthropon, “what came to pass by the hand of man” and erga megala te kai thamasta “great and miraculous deeds” (I Prooemium). Herodotus is perhaps the creator of a new genre, but the new genre was not yet clearly demarcated from other kinds of writing about the past. Herodotus saw himself in a way as continuing the work of Homer. Homer also wrote about the past, about the conflict between Asia and Europe (Hdt I 3–5; II 113–120). Yet Herodotus has, probably intentionally, his own approach. He writes not in verse, but in prose. The gods hardly have direct influence on man’s actions, and Herodotus’ source is not the inspiration of the Muse, but his own research (opsis, “eyewitness information,” akoe, “oral information” and gnome, “understanding,” II 99), though this claim may be questioned (Fehling 1989).5

The ancient Mesopotamians had no word for history or history writing. Yet the Mesopotamians did write about their past, contemporary as well as distant; and they did so in different ways: in epic (Gilgamesh and the Tukulti Ninurta Epic), in king-lists, in royal inscriptions, in building inscriptions, and, last but not least, in chronicles.6

Are the Babylonian chronicles to be defined as historiography? In view of the many uncertainties I prefer not to give a precise definition of historiography. There are so many forms in which a civilization renders account to itself of its past: oral poetry of bards, myths, king lists, royal inscriptions, historical epics, chronicles, moralistic-historical texts, biographies. In my teaching of “Ancient historiography” (the historical writing of the Ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome) I usually present a ladder of characteristics of historiography in a more or less ascending scale of sophistication, and then establish, for the sake of comparison, which features fit a particular text and which not. These characteristics are:

1. It is about the past.

2. It is about the deeds of human beings.

3. It is based on evidence (either accounted for, or not).

4. It tries to explain (in religious or secular terms).

5. There is a certain distance between author and object of study; pursuit of detachment.

6. It is narrative.

7. It has a well-defined theme.

8. It has a single, well-defined author, preferably known by name.

9. It is written with a historiographic aim: history for history’s sake.

10. It is published.

11. It tries to make sense of human history; it conveys meaning.

The advantage of this list is that it releases us from the question as to whether or not a certain type of writing is the work of “real historians,” and gives us a tool with which to judge and compare these genres. The disadvantage is that it is composed from the teleological perspective of Herodotus, or even modern historiography.

The Neo-Babylonian Chronicles

The Neo-Babylonian Chronicles are a very intriguing manifestation of Babylonian historical writing. They are a collection of documents constituting a data base of historical facts in strict chronological order. Chronicles are not narrative; there is no story, no plot, no introduction or conclusion, nor is there any attempt to explain, to find causes and effects, to see relations between recorded events. The main interest is in chronology and the facts described mostly concern the king: his accession, his battles, his attitude toward the temple cult, his illnesses, and his death. Plagues and famines are other recurrent topics. The later chronicles tend to go into greater detail than do the earlier ones. A striking feature of the later chronicles and the related astronomical diaries (see below) is their interest in juridical matters.7

The Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles have been collected and edited in a single volume by A.K. Grayson (1975b). Grayson distinguishes within this collection a “series” of texts, viz. the “Babylonian Chronicle Series” (nos. 1–13b) and other chronicles. This series is subdivided into the “Neo-Babylonian Chronicle Series,” covering the period from Nabonassar (747–734 BC) to the fall of the NeoBabylonian Empire (539 BC) (nos. 1–7), and the “Late Babylonian Chronicle Series,” covering the Persian and Hellenistic periods (nos. 8–13b). The other chronicles are supposed not to belong to this series (ABC 14–24). After this edition a new chronicle was edited by C.B.F. Walker (no. 25 = Walker 1982). A new edition of Mesopotamian chronicles has been produced by Glassner (2004, nos. 16–37). The chronicles of the Hellenistic period are being published by I.L. Finkel and the author of this article (BCHP). This collection contains eleven previously unpublished chronicles. The latest chronicles are from the Parthian period, i.e., after 141 BC.

Actually, there is only slight evidence for a constructed “series” stricto sensu...

Thus the evidence for an “official” series is limited to ABC 1 and 3–5, whichprobably do not belong to the same series. In addition, ABC 1 is preserved in several copies that were far from identical (cf. Brinkman 1990). It may well be that documents ABC 2–6 or 2–7 and possibly 14 (the Esarhaddon Chronicle) are constituents for the editions of larger summary chronicles like ABC 1. It is also possible that the“series” (a consecutive series of documents) started under the Neo-Babylonian period and that a summary chronicle was produced to cover the period of the Assyrian domination (ABC 1).

It is hard to ascertain when this later compilation was made. The copy of the “first section” was composed in 500 BC, the twenty-second year of Darius I. The first section covered 76 years (745–669 BC), but not all years have an entry. If the second tablet was as large, it may have continued until the fall of Assyria. These two tablets then would contain the domination of Assyria over Babylon. Resistance against Assyria by Babylonians and Elamites is a recurring theme. The Neo-Babylonian empire is subsequently covered in a series of smaller documents that recorded more details and presented facts about every regnal year (ABC 2–7). It is not known whether a compilation like ABC 1 was ever made from these. One would like to know which “original” document Ea-nadin used in 500 BC. I suggest that the date of composition might be the early Neo-Babylonian period, but the earlier Achaemenid period cannot be excluded.

Apart from a “series of chronicles” several other kinds of chronicles have been composed that may have been the source for the composition of larger texts. Documents like ABC 6 and 9, dealing with one year only, are not excerpts from larger chronicles (as supposed by Wiseman 1956: 4, Grayson 1975b: 12, n. 36 and Glassner 2004: 43), but the rough materials to be used for larger compositions. The smaller documents in the form of business documents contain information that isleft out in the larger compositions. Most of the preserved Hellenistic chroniclesbelong to the type of the smaller business tablets...

At the same time other chronicles were made about the remote past (pp. 84–88), the focus of which differed from the above-mentioned chronicles. A minor difference with the chronicles of the recent past is that the chronology was less precise, that is, by reigns rather than by regnal years. The topics are the same in both: wars, the accession of kings, the death of kings, civil disturbances, and the interruption and alteration of cult practices. A major difference is that the authors of the remote past chronicles wanted to explain events. They were not satisfied with simply mentioning numerous facts. The explanans is the retributive will of Marduk. “In otherwords, the chronicles exemplify an attempted interpretation of events of human history, according to which they were the consequences of divine anger aroused by some impious deed of a human ruler” (Glassner 2004: 85).

In my view the Neo-Babylonian collection chronicles about the recent past. Although it is not narrative, it does not have well-known authors, it does not discuss sources, and it has no interest in causality. Its merit is that it is an objective enumeration of facts, not dictated by royal ideology. The most remarkable fact, especially in the light of Near Eastern historiography, is that it is extremely secular. Although the authors certainly have an interest in the vicissitudes of the temple and its cult, there is not a single reference to an action of any god: no support of Marduk for the enterprises of the king, no punishment of rebellious people by angry gods...

Another salient feature is the distance between author and object of study. There is hardly any judgment of kings, favorable or negative. Victories and defeats are mentioned as dry facts; no effort is made to suppress defeats of Babylonian kings. A striking example is the record of the battle of Der (720 BC). After the death of Shalmaneser V, the Assyrian king and overlord of Babylonia, the Chaldaean Merodach-baladan II had ascended the throne in Babylon with Elamite support. Sargon of Assyria tried to reconquer Babylon but was defeated by an Elamite army. Though both Sargon and Merodach-baladan claimed victory, the Babylonian chronicle made it soberly clear that the Elamites were the real victors and that Merodach-baladan arrived too late at the battlefield (ABC 1 I: 33–37)

If we take a look at the above-suggested ladder of historiographic writing, the following features apply to the series: 1, 2, 3 (but not accounted for), 5, and possibly 9. As mentioned above, the secular character of the documents is particularly striking. In the greater part of the ancient historiographical texts religion plays a major role. In the royal inscriptions the gods are presented as major actors in the historical process; historical epics like the Tukulti-Ninurta epic are made in order to acquire divine sanctioning of royal policy; certain earlier chronicles were composed in order to show how the gods favor those kings who respect, foster and support the cult of the gods in temples. Nothing of this can be found in the Neo-Babylonian chronicle series. In no instance do the gods play a role, nor is there any suggestion of divine support or wrath.

All this brought Grayson, the editor of the Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles, to the conclusion: “Thus one is tempted to conclude that the documents were compiled from a genuine interest in writing history….We have, therefore, what seems to be history being written for history’s sake as early as the eighth century B.C.” (Grayson 1975b: 11). In my view, as I shall show below, it was history for the sake of divination. To serve this research it was necessary to make exact records of historical facts, so that the pursuit of divinatory science could go hand in hand with the study of reliable and well-dated historical facts.

The Babylonian Chronicler and His Sources

Several proposals have been made about the sources of the Neo-Babylonian Chronicle series. One of the most noteworthy theories is that the astronomical diaries must be so considered (Grayson 1975b: 12–13). These astronomical diaries are, like the chronicles, a running record of various phenomena. Most of the phenomena recorded are of an astronomical or meteorological nature but at the end of each monthly section there are statements about market prices, the height of the river, and matters of historical interest.10 Grayson stresses the fact that the diaries series and the chronicle series started about the same time. “This in itself would suggest that the source of the series was astronomical diaries” (Grayson 1975b: 13)...

Another intriguing theory is Finkelstein’s proposition that the Assyrian and Babylonian lists of omens are the sources of the chronicles (Finkelstein 1963). The omen texts contain apodoses, statements concerning historical events that are supposed to be the result of ominous events mentioned in the protases. This is an interesting proposal, as the chronicles clearly do have much in common with the phraseology of the omens. Yet it is not satisfactory as there is a lot of material that has no parallel in the omens. The same is true for the astronomical diaries.

Yet both theories are valuable. The similarity between omens, prophecies, chronicles, and diaries is striking. They share the interest in the fortunes of kings, temple cult, plagues, famines and portents. They share the predilection for the use of archaic geographical names, such as Gutium for countries in the East, Hatti for Syria, Hani for Macedonia, Meluhha for Egypt. These expressions occur widely in the omens.... It must be stressed, however, that the chroniclers were not consistent in their use of geographical names. They could use a normal contemporary designation, followed a few lines later by an archaic one...

Diaries and chronicles also share the use of prolepsis, the inverted word order that is typical for omen texts and prophecies. Compilers of omens liked to mention the object of the portents first, before the prediction, even if this would contravene the normal Akkadian subject-object-verb word order, as in the following examples: sarram massu ibbalakassu, “the king, his country will rebel against him, ummanam nakrum usannaq, “the army, the enemy will subdue (it),” alam iÍatum ikkal, “the city, fire will consume (it).”11 1We see this word order also in the chronicles and diaries: Is-tar-hu-un-dul ugal nim Hal-lu-su-se-su-is-bat-su-ma ká ina igi- sú ip-hi, “Ishtar-hundu, the king of Elam, Hallushu, his brother, took him and he shut thedoor in his face” (ABC 1 II: 32–33); d 30.ÍeÍ.meÍ.susàr kur As-surdumu-sú ina si-hi gaz-sú,“Sanherib, king of Assyria, his son killed him in a rebellion” (ABC 1 III: 34–35); m IÍ-tu-me-guerín-súbal-su-ma , “Astyages, his troops rebelled against him”(ABC 7 II: 2); lugal erín.meÍ-sú ú-maÍ-sìr-ú-si-ma , “the king (=Darius III), his troops left him” (AD I 179, no. -330: 17'; cf. Van der Spek 2003: 297–8)12; Dynastic prophecy V 5: lugal sá-a-sús lú sa-re-[si …], “That king (=Arses), a eunuch (= Bagoas) [will murder]” (Van der Spek 2003: 314, 316). .

What I suggest here is that there was not a distinct group of historians or chroniclers who used omens or diaries as their sources. Perhaps the authors of the chronicles were the same people as the students and composers of omens, diaries, and astronomical texts. They all belonged to the circle of Babylonian scholars who were tied to the temple, and had some kind of specialization (but not a rigid one), such as scribe of Enuma-Anu-Enlil, kalûs “singers,” asipus, “exorcists”13 and others, all of them more or less homines universales. The main objective of all these Babylonian scholars, as I see it, was divination.14 Divination in Babylonia was a science, not the work of animated prophets (Rochberg 2004).

These scholars, “Chaldaeans” as they were called by the Greeks, were famous for their science even outside their own country, in the Greek and Roman worlds, in Israel, Egypt, and even India.15 In this university of divination some specialization will have emerged. Just as in modern medicine there are cardiologists, neurologists, and gynecologists, the “university of divination” at Babylon had astronomers, mathematicians, chroniclers, compilers, and copyists of omens, compilers of lists of kings, prices, weather phenomena, etc. As every individual has particular abilities, some may have been versed in astronomy, others in mathematical texts, and others in writing chronicles, but they all belonged to the same circles. So it may have been that some of the scholars who made observations of the starry sky wrote the diaries and inserted historical information, specialized in astronomy and wrote astronomical cuneiform texts, while others revealed a predilection for collecting historical information. In this pursuit they may have developed an interest in recording important events of the past “with a historiographic aim, history for history’s sake.”

One might make a comparison with modern students of theology. Though this academic study originated as a “study of God” and students today usually start with the intention of becoming a minister or priest, many eventually become historians of, e.g., the history of Israel. How many Assyriologists, like Marten Stol, began study out of interest in the “Umwelt” of the Bible and ended up in writing dissertations such as “Studies in Old Babylonian History”? In the same way ancient students of Babylonian divination will, in due course, have become specialists in astronomy or historiography. And like modern scholars they pursued their goal in a secular way. The astronomical and historiographical texts lack any suggestion of divine intervention. This does not mean, as Drews correctly observes, that the chroniclers lost their faith in the intervention of gods or the usefulness of divination. Rather they assume all events to be divinely ordained and therefore none is singled out as especially so (Drews 1975: 45). In the same way some modern scholars who write secular historical or Assyriological texts attend services in church on Sunday. One of these Babylonian scholars must have been Berossus....

Berossus

We do not know many chroniclers by name. The chronicles only seldom have colophons with names. Chronicle ABC 1 has a colophon, dated to 500 BC, but the scribe mentioned there, Ea-nadin, son of Ana-Bel-erish (the owner of the tablet), son of Liblutu, descendant of Ur-Nanna, was probably the copyist, not the author of the tablet, unless the phrase kima lab‹risu Íaˇirma baru u uppus,“written accord-ing to its original, checked and collated” is to be understood in the sense that it wasan extract of a set of smaller but more detailed chronicles. A second name is Nabu-kasir, son of Ea-iluta-ibni, the owner (and author?) of a one-column tablet (gittu ,ABC 15) with “non-integrated lines from a writing-board of Urshidazimeni” (mu.mu nu tés.a.me ta ugu gis dam Ur-si-da-zi-me ?-ni ?), a chronicle with random references from the reigns of Ashshur-nadin-shumi (699–694), Shamash-shuma-ukin (667–648), Shirikti-shuqamuna (985), and Nabu-shuma-ishkun (760?–748BC).

Another chronicler whom we know by name is Berossus (Bel-re’ûshunu ), who,in three books, wrote a history of Babylonia (Babyloniaca or Chaldaica ) from the beginning of the world up to his own time. He wrote it in Greek, but it is clear that he had access to chronicles, king lists, Enuma Elish , the Sumerian story of the flood, about Ziusudra (Xisouthros) and other cuneiform documents (Cf. Schnabel 1923, Komoróczy 1973). Apart from history he was also interested in astronomy and astrology.

It remains very difficult to establish facts about Berossus’ life. He was born during the reign of Alexander the Great (331–323BC); he was “priest of Bel”; and he dedicated his book to Antiochus I in the third year of his reign (278 BC).16 According to tradition he moved to the island of Cos and settled a school there.17 He is even supposed to have had a statue in Athens.18 His move to Cos may be legendary, but such movements were not uncommon... Hellenistic scholars were often more cosmopolitan than some of their modern counterparts. Berossus must have been versed in Babylonian science, transmitting some of it in his work. He will have started as a Babylonian scholar and reader or writer of chronicles. The style of chronicles is clearly visible in parts of his work. De Breucker(2003b) has given a good overview of the kind of scholars operating in late Babylonian Uruk and Babylon.

There is an old debate as to whether Berossus the historian was the same person as Berossus the astronomer-astrologer...”

“Conclusion

Berossus was a man of his time, educated, a Babylonian scholar well versed in Mesopotamian literature. He was familiar with all types of cuneiform literature, king lists, the Enuma Elish, the Ziusudra story of the flood, Babylonian chronicles, royal inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar. He was the colleague of the composers of chronicles, prophecies, royal inscriptions, and astronomical diaries. He, himself, may have been the author of some of these texts. He also was versed in Greek historiography, and he wrote with the express purpose of joining this discourse. The conceptual basis of his writing was Greek and he criticized other authors’ ideas in a Greek manner. In his endeavor to keep up with the Greeks he even followed and adapted legends well known to his Greek audience.61 With his knowledge of Babylonian, Sumerian, Aramaic, and Greek language and culture he was the ideal advisor to the king.”

The full text of the study of Pr. van der Spek can be found on https://www.academia.edu/12460609/Berossus_as_a_Babylonian_chronicler_and_Greek_historian

Diadochi Chronicle, Obverse. The Babylonian Diadochi Chronicle (BCHP 3; a.k.a. ABC 10, Chronicle 10) is one of the Mesopotamian chronicles written in ancient Babylonia in the Hellenistic Period. It deals with the history of the Diadochi (the successors of Alexander the Great). Source: https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/bchp-3-diadochi-chronicle/

#babylonian chronicles #berossus #herodotus #assyriology #ancient greek classics #r. j. van der spek

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