LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
How high a state of civilisation the Babylonians had reached is shown by the fact that the invention of writing was a long-accomplished fact with them. The oldest inscriptions known to us, and which certainly date as far back as 4000 B.C., are already written in a species of character which from similarity to the second Egyptian style of writing has been called hieratic, and it has been proved that this hieratic style of writing has been evolved from older hieroglyphics, long since fallen into disuse.
It is not known whether any other material than stone or clay was used to write upon, and whether in such case syllabic writing was used or not. It has been surmised that the Babylonians and Assyrians also used, and perhaps exclusively at first, papyrus, leather, and other soft materials to write upon, and engraved upon stone or clay only such matter as they wished to preserve. This is not improbable, even though we do not possess any such manuscripts. For as a matter of course the first named materials could not withstand the Babylonian climate as well as the Egyptian, and only the last named are proof against fire and water. It is a fact, however, that the bas-reliefs show the scribes recording the number of the slain on soft material, probably leather, as well as upon hard tablets. Whether they also wrote books or letters on papyrus or leather has not been definitely established.
However much the writing of the Babylonians and Assyrians may have been an inheritance from very ancient times, and how much they may be indebted to the early Chaldeans for the single form and the structure of the whole system, the cuneiform writing in which they represented their language was their own invention in more than one respect, since they did not thoughtlessly use what was ready to hand, but modified and altered it with deliberation.
Writing was also used by the Babylonians and Assyrians for purely literary purposes. The narratives, legends, or poems were inscribed on tablets of clay, and if in case of a work of greater size, the two sides covered with microscopic characters did not suffice, a series of such was used, which were clearly designated and numbered, so that they were in fact leaves of a book. Generally the title of the whole, as usual with the Hebrews, the first words and the first words of the following tablet were inscribed on every tablet. This literature even if limited to the productions of the imagination, is comparatively abundant. Although in this respect it may not equal the literature of some races still living, such as the Chinese, Arabian, Persian, and Indian, nor that of the ancient times of Greece and India, which in the last named country grows as luxuriantly as its vegetation, yet on the other hand, it excels in this respect that of the other Semitic races, the Hebrews not excepted. This is proved not only by the writings so far discovered but also by the catalogues of books in Babylonian libraries or of similar works elsewhere. However, enough has been brought to light, and in a fair state of preservation, to enable us to form an opinion of the literary talent of the Babylonians, and to prove to us what great varieties of it they cultivated.
Baked Clay Cylinder of Sargon II, King of Assyria, B.C. 722-705, inscribed with a Chronicle of his Expedition
The Assyrians stand, in a literary sense, in about the same relation to the Babylonians as the Romans to the Greeks, disciples who never equalled their masters, although as far as can be seen, even relatively considered, Roman literature stands higher in relation to Greek than Assyrian stands in relation to Babylonian. The tendency of the Assyrians was warlike, and directed to practical ideas: to found a mighty empire, and to maintain their supremacy was the end for which they strove. Therefore they were more interested in history than in creations of the imagination; purely literary work had little charm for them. Only much later, a desire is awakened in them to become acquainted with the productions of the Babylonians in this field, and to acquire as much as possible of it for themselves. And perhaps even here interest in the ancient religions and national traditions played a greater rôle than love for poetry.
The Assyrians seem to have had more taste for what may be designated the science of the period, than for literature. Here also, they were following the lead of the Babylonians, and accomplished little beyond taking possession of the treasures of the Babylonian libraries. The prestige which attached to the Babylonians in antiquity as the earliest cultivators of science is well known, although some thought that they had borrowed it from the Egyptians. Without doubt they reached the greatest eminence in antiquity in the knowledge of astronomy. Kalisthenes sent Aristotle astronomical observations from Babylon, which, according to the most moderate statement, reach back to 1903 before Alexander, i.e., 2324 B.C.; and there is nothing improbable in this. The number of eclipses mentioned on the astronomical tablets would lead to a conclusion that there was an even longer period of recorded calculations. It may be that the Ziggurat of the temples, which originally had a religious significance, might, in Assyria at least, have been used as observatories. It has even been surmised that the Babylonians had some sort of a telescope, and this surmise rests upon the finding of a lens in the ruins, and upon the fact that they were acquainted with the planet Saturn, which is invisible to the naked eye; but this doss not seem probable. One thing is certain, they gave names to the constellations, especially to the signs of the Zodiac, which have in part remained in use. They were acquainted with five planets, and distinguished them very exactly from the other heavenly bodies. They observed, and with great accuracy, the eclipses of the sun and moon, perhaps also the sun spots, the comets, the orbit of Venus, and the position of the Polar star; but they had some very childish ideas about the causes of eclipses and the character of the other heavenly phenomena. Naturally the Milky Way did not escape their observation. They even calculated the regular recurrence of eclipses of the moon as well as its phases.
A few of the mathematical tablets extant prove that they had made great progress in arithmetic and higher mathematics, so indispensable to the study of astronomy. The prevalent system was the sexagesimal, with the 60 as the unit, but the decimal system seems to have been known and used. However in spite of the recognition of the high value of these researches, they hardly deserve the name of science. These researches were certainly not undertaken from a love of science. The prime object, no doubt, was to discover the will of the gods in regard to the future. The science of mathematics itself was made subservient to the art of divination. Astronomy was a secondary object, astrology the principal one. Knowledge was sought of what must happen when there should be a recurrence of certain phases of stars and heavenly bodies. All observations of planets, comets, and other stars, of eclipses and other phenomena, were immediately connected with occurrences on earth, which at some former time had fallen in conjunction with them and consequently must be expected again.