HERODOTUS' DESCRIPTION OF BABYLON

John MacGinnis

Introduction'

The purpose of this article is to re-examine the nccount Herodotus gives towards the end ol' Book I of Babylon and Babylonia. and in the light of this to resolve whcthcr or not he actually went there.

As early as Rawlinson ( 1880) nnd Saycc ( 1883. 104 and 107) scholars have doubted whcthcr Herodotus visited Babylon.' The argument is confused by an inconsistency in Herodotus himself in two places he refers to material which seems not to have come down to us - in i . I06 to itn account of the fhll of Nineveh. and in i. I84 to the 'Assyrioi Logoi'. which here must mean a work different from the chapters of i. 178-200 which conslitute his writing on Babylonia as we have it. Drews. 1970. lists the various theories put forward over the last century: of these Rawlinson ( 1880, 27) thought the Logoi must havc been a separate work: Pawcll ( 1939. 18) that it was originally included but deleted to accommodate the Samian Logos: Maddalcna (Drews. 1970. n.3) that i.178-20() represents a trimmed version of the original work.' But unless these Logoi were simply lists of names and dates of 'the many kings of Babylon' (i . 184). reproducing cuneiform king-lists of the typc so well known (for instance ANET. 265. 27 I . 564. 566) and therefore not exceptionally interesting to his readership.' I think it most unlikely that Herodotus would have cleliberately deleted the material. If. as Jacoby ( I9 13) thought. the Logoi formed a separate work published earlier. it is surprising that our only other knowledge of it is a single manuscript variation in reading 'Herodotus' for 'Hesiod' in a reference by Aristotle to a work on the fitll of Nineveh (Hist. An. 8.18.3: Huxley. 1965). Apart from this the Logoi are nowhere quoted in extmt ancient literature (Drews. 1973. 191 n.194). The question cannot yet be resolved, but the fact that other logoi are preserved in the Histories (the Egyptian. Libyan. Sumian and Scythiitn). and that they all form self-contained units. would favour most of all the view of Drews: note in particular the future tenses ' c k c h w ' ( I shall show) and 'poicwntcti' (1 shall make) of i. 106 and 184. which might suggest that as each logos was finished it was incorporated into an updated 'complete works' of Herodotus.

The Geography

The setting of Babylon on the Euphrates. in the plitin of the Tigris and Euphrates leading clown to the Erytrian Sea. which receivcs little rain and in which many other large cities nlso lie. is

I I would like to cxprcss my thanks to M r J. V. Kinnicr Wilson and MI J. N. Po\tplrte for their untiring :issist;incc while I wiih writing this article. 1 would dso like to thiink Rupert Maccy-Darc mid Aubrey dc Grey for tcchniclrl ;idvice. Abbreviations used iirc those ol' AHW. plus BSA = Bulletin on Suiiicri;m Agriculture ;ind H;iii~lbt~E; = The Admiriilty Handbook for Iraq ( 1044). For lion-Ass~riologists. now OH = Old Hiibyloniiin. NR = Kco- Babylonian. LB = Late Babylonien. N A = Nco-Ashyrian. Anticipirted however hy Ctesias' ilcCt1sittiOli of IFing (Konig. 1971. I 1: Raump;irtnc.r. 1111. I -I and 36. wiiiii;iriw\ previous litcrirture on Herodotus' Babylonian pas~ges: the niost important work\ arc Iiih owi. and th;it ol' Huvn. ;aid of Wetzel. 1944. Drcws hiinsclf concludes that the two rcfcrcnccs ;ire to ii work plnnnccl by Hcrcdotu\ hut not yet witten ( 1070. I W 1973. 135). ' Thus Diodorus 2.21. I expressly states that he will 1101 record names itntl diitcx ol' the h inp since they would not be

of sufficient interest. Notc that Euscbius consitlcrcd Hcrcdolus an ;iuthority on Ashyriiiti l ing lists along with Ktcsias and Hellanikos (Hualey. 1 I 2 1.

68 BlCS 33 ( 1986)

correct. The confusion of Babylonia with Assyria is common to all classical writers except Claudius Ptolemaeus (Holzhey, 27), though it is surprising to find i t here, given the distinction still preserved in the Behistun inscription of Darius.

Outside Babylon, Herodotus mentions only a few features of the land. A village called Ardericca’ is said to be passed three times by the Euphrates (i.185.2), but we know of none such otherwise - certainly the explanations of Rawlinson (1861), that i t was connected with the Aqar Q u f lake system, and of How and Wells (crd loc.), that i t may be the same as the Idikara of Ptol. V.xvii.19 about 50 miles North of Sippar, lack support. Any eventual clarification must also account for the same name being given to the village in Susiana where the deported Eretrians were settled (vi. I 19).6

In i.200 the ‘three clans ... living entirely off fish’ may well refer to the marsh-dwellers in the South.’ If so, it is noteworthy that no description of the marshes accompanies, probably because this was information told to Herodotus rather than seen for himself.

Thirdly in i. 179.4 we learn of ‘Is, eight days’ journey from Babylon, on a small river of the same name, tributary to the Euphrates, in which lumps of bitumen are found in great quantity’. Is (modern Hit) is 125 miles North of Babylon (so an acceptable 16 miles a day over eight days), and is famous for its bitumen right up to today, the first mention being in the annals of Tukulti-Ninurta 11, ‘the springs of bitumen, place of ushmetu-stone, where the gods speak’ (ARAB 1409). Herodotus is wrong in placing Hit on a tributary of the Euphrates.

Lastly there is the ‘Lake of Nitocris’ (i.185.3-7), 400 stades (i.e. 47 miles) in circumference with embankments of earth lined with stone. This must be the work of Nebuchadnezzar referred to in VAB IV no.19.vi, two walls, one 50 km. long from Babylon to Kish, one 54 km. from Sippar to Opis on the Tigris. This is the Median Wall of Xenophon; the standard work is Barnett, 1963, his identification (18) now confirmed by Killick’s excavation (Iraq 46 (1984)). Killick points out that it could not have served as a flood embankment (though the ancient engineers may still have planned it as such: Lane (321-2) calculated the combined capacity of the Habba and Abu Dibis depressions North of Babylon at 6 billion tons of water, and flooding to defend a city is recorded by Sargon in ARAB I1 39). This type of wall to exclude incursors goes back at least to the Muriq-Tidnim of Shulgi’s fourth year, that is, about 2090 BC.

Architectural FeaturesX The Wails

Herodotus ( 178.2-3; 179.3; 180.2; 180.4- 18 I . 1 ) tells of walls forming a square, each side 120 stades (14 miles) long, 50 cubits wide and 200 high, surrounded by a moat and with pairs of guard rooms facing each other on top across a way wide enough for a four-horse chariot.’

The walls of Babylon“’ are first mentioned by Sumu-Abum (19th century BC), but the ones seen by Herodotus must have been essentially those rebuilt by Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar (seventh and sixth centuries BC) after the destruction by Sennacherib. I ’ They constructed the walls on the East going down to the river and an extension of these on the

’ Saggs. I Y69. suggests an Aratnic etymology meaning ’land of the marsh-village’. ‘’ And which. if either. would be the Urdaliku noted by Oppert ZA 111 (1888). 422. ’ Strnbo. 16.I.20. says so explicitly.

” Diodorus. 3.3.3. \ays similarly of the walls of the city founded by Ninos that they could take three chariots abreast. I“ See Wetrel. 1930. Ravn. 16ff. I I The Verse Account of Nabonidus has Cyrus restoring the walls: S. Smith. Ruhy/o/iicrr7 Historic~cil Tc.vt.s (1924). 90,

See Koldewey. I Y 14. I X I . for a summary of NB construction in Babylon.

vi.X- I I . But according to Berossos ( Burstein. 28. I l l 4. I ) Cyrus demolished the walls.

J . MACGINNIS 69

Western bank (Wetzel, 1930, 63, 1944, 53; VAB IV Nebuch. 15.v.7) and then a second outer wall on the East extending North to include the Summer Palace. The main wall was in fact a double wall of which the outer one (3.7 m. thick) was called Nameffi-Enlil (‘Pedestal of Enlil’) and the inner (6.5 m. thick) fmgur-Enlil (‘Enlil is favourable’).’’ They both had towers, the former at 20 m. and the latter at 18 m. intervals. There was a space of 7.2 m. between them.

The second main wall built by Nebuchadnezzar on the East was also double, the inner ring being 7 m. wide of unbaked brick, the outer 7.8 m. of baked. They were separated by 12 m., and on the outer side was a moat of baked brick set in asphalt.”

To Herodotus the inner double-wall was his inner wall and i t was as he said the thinner of the two (combined width of 17.4 m. viz-a-viz 26.8 m.). His width of 50 cubits (about 13 m.) is a fair approximation.

But whilst the 12 m. space in the outer wall would have been enough for the chariot, there is no reason to think as Koldewey (according to Wetzel, 1944, 55-6) that i t was filled up to the top. As for the guard-rooms, Ravn (35) noted how the towers of the two walls of the inner wall would give the appearance from below of rooms facing each other, though not at exactly similar intervals. But herein lies a surprise: Wetzel assumed Herodotus did not know the inner walls, and this must be refuted because the wall on the West - specifically mentioned in i. 180 - was a continuation of the inner pair. It then emerges that Herodotus’ walls are a conflation, assuming the towers of the inner pair and the moat of the outer.

The moat was partly excavated by Koldewey. Its outer revetment could not be traced due to being under cultivation, but the inner one was indeed, as expected and described also in the royal inscriptions, made of baked brick set in bitumen.’‘

The lengths of the walls given by Herodotus and the other classical historians are as follows:

Herodot us Strabo Ctesias Cleitarchus Q. Curtius

LENGTH HEIGHT 480 Stades (56 miles) 335 feet 385 Stades 75 feet 360 Stades 300 feet 365 Stades 368 Stades

These lengths are all of the same order and exaggerated. The complete circuit of the inner wall was 8.4 km. (E = 1.65, N = 2.65, W = 1.5, S = 2.6) and even the outer wall was only 10 miles long. Herodotus’ figure must be rejected, as too the apologies of Koldewey that Herodotus misunderstood the length of the whole told to him for the length of one side. and of Oppert that the walls encompassed Borsippa and Kish as well. There is no evidence for this, nor is i t plausible.

The height of 200 cubits is also exaggerated: the general rule of height = three times width would allow 12-18 m. Only Strabo’s 75 ft. is sensible, and accords well with the 72 ft. (i.e. 170 courses) of Sennacherib’s wall at Nineveh (ARAB I1 366).

The quay walls along both banks described by Herodotus could refer either to revetment walls, in which case he would be right, or to fortifications. If the latter, he was probably mistaken: Nabonidus constructed a fortification wall along the East bank (known from his inscriptions, Berossus (Burstein, 28, III.iv. 1 ) and the excavations) and this did indeed have towers, gates and stairs (Ravn, 29), but there is no suggestion of a counterpart along the

I’ These names are first attested in the late Kassite period (George, 1985. 14). Iz A good map of the walls is Wetzel, 1944, 48. I‘ Wetzel, 1944, 53, claims from his own inspection that the outer revetnient wall waz rioi ot hnked hricka

70 H K ' S 33 (19x6)

Western bank. The quay wall was indeed pierced by gates with roads leading up to them. just a s Herodotus says and Wetzel's statement that the gates would have been destroyed by the time of Herodotus is unfounded ( 1944, 55) .

The Gates

In i . 179.3 Herodotus tells of 100 bronze gates, naming five of them in iii.156 as those of Bel. Nineveh. Seni i rmis and the Cissian and Chaldean. In addition to an unknown number o f snialler ones!' there were cight major gates - those of Marduk (or Gishshu) and Zababa in the East. Urash and Enlil in the South, Adad and Shainash on the West and Sin and Ishtar in the North (see plan in Wisenian. 1985, 46).l" Baumgartner identified Herodotus' gate o f Be1 with the Babylonian Marduk Gate, the Semiramis with the Ishtar Gate, the Chaldean with the Enlil Gate (both faced southwards: Wetzel notes that i t could therefore have been the Urash Gate) and the Cissian (i.e. Kish) with the Zababa Gate. This is probably correct. Note that Herodolus knows alternative names for all the gates: these were doubtless the popular as opposed to the official ( re I i g i ou s ) names. I '

Herodotus says they were of bronze, and indeed the NB inscriptions frequently make mention of bronze gates, sometimes further with bronze bulls and dragons. The latter were probably cast statues, but the reference is otherwise certainly to the bronze cladding of the door leaves. examples of which have been excavated, notably at Balawat (King, 19 IS). IX

The Gate o f Semiramis of i . I87 is of special interest. In the course of the story of the tomb which i t contains. Herodotus says that i t (a) was 'leophoron' and (b) bore an inscription. I t has been suggested already by Koldewey ( 19 18. 53; followed by Baumgartner) that 'leophoron' - which he translated 'liiwentragend' (bearing lions) - must refer to the enamelled brick decoration of the gate. Unfortunately, this theory must be discounted as the true etymology of 'leophoron' is 'people (not lion)-bearing' as its usage elsewhere (right up to modern times) shows (Powell, 1938. s . 1 9 . ) . though of course this does not mean that Herodotus' gate cannot still be the lshtar Gate. On the other hand i t is certainly possible that the inscription mentioned by Herodotus may be the very one found by the excavations and restored prominently high up on the gate (Koldewey. 1918. 39-41 and Abb.l). I t is strange only that this has not been suggested before.

The Ziggurrat ( I . I8 1-2)

The ziggurrat'" Etemenanki'" was set in a vast court with sides measuring 457 m. (S) , 409 m. ( E ) and 413 i n . ( W ) (Wetzel. 1938. 14-32). The base of the ziggurrat measures 91 in. square but these remains may be OB (Bergamini, Mcsopofuniiu 13, following on from his calculations of the NB water level, which was at its normal height 1 m., and at high flood 3 m., above the level of the remains found by Koldewey). Xerxes is said to have destroyed i t , and Alexander to have cleared away the rubble ;IS a preliminary to the planned rebuilding which was cut short by

I 5 B. ,itinig;irtner ( 7 5 ) put\ the limit on their numher at 20-30 but without saying why

I', The po\itions o f the gates have hcen fixed through their use ;IS reference points in real estate contracls. I - See Miglu\. LA 72. 19x2. for the chan2ing of gate name\ in Assur. I' Mahers o f iron d o o r \ were employed at Persepolis (Cameron. 194X. no. I X ) : Isaiah xlv .2 talks of 'gates of brass

I " See Kolde\*e!. I91 I . and Knvn. 15tt. x The n;inie is not attested hefore E\nrhaddon. and the /iffurrat is only referred to infrequently before that in Enumii

and d o o r \ of iron'.

Elish VI .nd the Epic o f Erra ( v o n Sorlen [IF 3 (1971 )) .

J. MACGINNIS 71

his death.?’ Herodotus is right in his approximation of 2 stades (about 400 m.) for the length o f the peribolos walls, but twice too big in his 1 stade (200 m.) for the base of the ziggurrat.

Herodotus’ description of a tower of eight stages with a spiral ascent and shrine on the top has been much debated. The problem is that we do know of spiral ziggurrats (for instance Khorsabad: see also the White Obelisk, illustrated by Sollberger /mq 36 (1974)) but that the other evidence is against this: the excavations revealed a main staircase 9 ni. wide and 54 m. long perpendicular to the South side, and two smaller ones starting in the SE and SW corners and meeting at the middle. Now whilst these remains musl be earlier than NB (see above), and do not in any case align at right angles with the NB temenos wall (Wiseman. 1985. 68). this is exactly the configuration of the NB ziggurrat at Ur (UE IX).?’ These three staircases probably met at the second stage (according to the rule that the length of a stairs equals its height). Beyond this Dombart (Der olte Orient 29/2, 1930) follows Herodotus by placing five spiral stages on two square lower ones, Busink (Dc Bah~loni.whe Tonipcltorcri. 1949) similarly but with the upper stages also square. Wetzel (1938) ignores Herodotus completely and has the main flight of stairs going straight to the top.” Our evidence is not yet conclusive. but I would suggest that one reason against a ramp winding the whole way round a ziggurrur the size of Etemenanki is that in plan this would cover a horizontal distance of IS12 m. (4 x 198 + 78 + 60 + 51 + 42 + 33 + 241) as against the 33 m. (45-12) of Wetzel’s direct staircase, meaning that anyone ascending would have had to walk 46 times as far.

One piece of evidence that clears away some of the doubt is the celebrated ‘Esagil Tablet of Anu-Belshunu”‘ of 299 BC.” It gives the dimensions of the ziggurrat as follows:

STAGE I 2 3 4 5 (6) 7

LENGTH 15 GAR (90 111.)

13GAR(78 In.)

10 GAR (60 m.) 8.5 GAR (51 m.) 7 GAR (42 m.) 15.5 GAR ( 3 3 m.) 4 GAR (24 m.)

WIDTH IS GAR 13 GAR 10GAR 8.5 GAR 7 GAR 5.5 GAR 3.5 GAR (21 m.)

HEIGHT 5 1/2 GAR 3 GAR 1 GAR I GAR 1 GAR I GAR] 2.5 GAR

Most editors?” restore the 6th stage thus, but Herodotus’ 8 (not 7 ) stages still” pose a problem. This is easily resolved, not, as Unger (17 and 199). by supposing that an invisible magical (i.e. non-existent) foundation level was included. but either as Lawrence ( t i t / lo(..) by assuming that the ground level was counted in: as Drews (1973, 180 n.188) that ;IS Herodotus will not have been allowed into the enclosure?x he could not see that the lowest stage. almost

? ’ Arrion 7.17. 3.16: Strabo 16.1 .S: Diotlorus 17.1 17: CT 40 no\ . 4 and 6 -- And so apparently on the Assyrian relief depicting a riggurmt (Gadd. S / o / r c , . \ of’r\.tsyric/. 110.73 p.206) - These are ;ill illustrated i n Ravn. plates XIV-XV. ”Re-edited by Ungcr on pp.737-49 (reviewed Weissbach. 1933). and now again by George. I 9 X . S : PoMcII. 19x2. A\

-. Though copied from an original from Borsippa. ‘only lor the initiate ( t u r d 1 0 to see‘: Weidner puhli\hed ;I \imilar

26 Not. however. Schott. voii Soden o r WetLel ( w e Ravn. 49).

?’The tablet from Babylon published by Wisemiin. IS77 ( a n d 19x5. 71-5). is the plan o l a smaller iisgurrat and h a s five complete stages and one broken. but the proportions are such that a \eventh i \ cert;iiii to be re\torcd. I t i \ particularly unfortunate that the top is missing. as this might h a w given more inlormation ahout the temple. Judging by the words ‘ / i 0 - )7 i , s / r ~ r - h u / A,r-s/rtrr?’. that is. ‘opposite the shrine o f Assur’. [ h i \ w:i\ ii tlilfercnt ziggurrai. hut i t is not in any c a w clear whether the tablet reprewnts ii reiil o r imaginary builtliny (Wi\em;in. 1977. 143).

,,

1 7

72 for metrologicnl notes.

tablet of NA date in AFO 20 ( 1963). ’i

2 x Oppenheiin. 1964. I O X (and n.3X). holds that the coninion man could not enter the temple.

72 BlCS 33 ( 1986)

twice as thick as the second, was only one; or by assuming that he was counting in the temple at the top - in my view most likely. The belief that Herodotus was describing a tower different from Etemenanki seems unnecessary and certainly there is no reason to think the ziggurrat of Borsippa a better candidate (Moberg, 162, Delitzsch, 98).

It is noteworthy that Herodotus makes no mention of colours; we know that other ziggurrats were coloured such as those of Borsippa” and Khorsabad,”’ but in the case of Etemenanki we can only be sure that the top was clad in blue tiles (VAB IV Nebuch. 14.i.42; cf. also such a cladding on the ziggurrat of Susa according to Ashurbanipal (ARAB I1 8 lo) and the tiles found fallen from the top from the NB ziggurrat at Ur, UE V p 133). This cladding is the hitlupu (GIR6) ‘clothed’ of the Esagil tablet 1.42. It is possible that the colours of the seven walls of Ecbatana (i.98.5) were confused by Herodotus for the stages of the ziggurrat - certainly nobody suggests that Herodotus himself went there - but such a confusion would be extraordinary. It may simply be that the ziggurrat at Babylon was not coloured: Wetzel, indeed, has the lower six stages white-washed ( 1938,84).

The Upper Temple (I. 18 I .5- 182.7)

Herodotus says there was a large temple on the top (neos epesti rnegas) containing a couch and a golden table. It has been denied that this was SO,^' but given the dimensions of the Esagil tablet for the uppermost stage, 24 x 21 m., there is no reason why not. In fact Nebuchadnezzar claims ‘kissu ellu ... ina reshi-shina epush’, that is, ‘I built a holy shrine on top of them’ (the plural refers to the ziggurrats of Babylon and Borsippa; Pallis, 106), the Esagil tablet talks of ‘AN.TA V I I - U ~ sha-hu-ru’, that is, ‘Upper (Cella), 7th (Stage), High Temple’. Nebuchadnezzar also mentions an upper temple, in VAB IV Nebuch, 14.i.42.

Ravn takes the section of the Esagil tablet, lines 25-36, to be an account of the temple on the top,’? with its two courts (kisallu) and six shrines (papahu) ‘of the Nuhar’.73 Its inclusion of a bedroom (hit e r ~ h i ) ~ ~ corroborates Herodotus, though this need not imply, as Cook ( 16), that Herodotus actually ascended the ziggurrat. According to Herodotus, this was used for the god to come down and sleep with a priestess; and this brings us into the controversial territory of the Sacred Marriage.

There were three sorts of Sacred Marriage rite:” (a) between a god and a goddess (b) between a goddess and the king (c) between a god and a priestess.

The first of these is attested between Ningirsu and Baba in the time of Gudea, and also between (i) Marduk and Sarpanitum and (ii) Nabu and Tashmetum in NA/NB times; the second under Shulgi and Idin-Dagan of Isin. The third, which most closely matches Herodotus, is van Buren’s interpretation of the role of the entu-priestess of Nannar/Sin at Ur, and would range

?’) According to Rawlinson, 1861, though Koldewey (191 I , 5 8 ) found no trace. 30Frankfort, 1979, 149.

Schmid (134) is of the opinion that the upper parts of the ziggurrat were in ruins following Xerxes’ destruction, hut Herodotus would have been able to see that part and his account gives the opposite impression.

‘? Unger (RLA ‘Babylon’, 99b) makes it part of Esagil, but as both the preceding and following sections deal with the ziggurrat this is unlikely.

3 3 The meaning of nuhar has been discussed by Weissbach, ZA 41, 28Sf. who cites two lexical entries equating the nuhar with ziggurat.

3J And thc hit re-’-a-me, ‘room of love-making’, of Unger, 177 no.13. 1z See Kramer, 1969, RLA, ‘Heilige Hochzeit’, Pallis, 197-200.

J . MACGINNIS 73

from at least the time of Sargon of Akkad to Nabonidus (van Buren, Orienfulia NS 13 (1944),

In NB times the evidence is chiefly for a union between a god and his divine spouse, particularly between Nabu and Tashmetum,’h but this only involves the bringing together of the two statues in the sanctuary and not a union of humans representing the gods. It is a matter of debate whether a Sacred Marriage formed part of the NB New Year’s Fe~tival,~’ but it is important to realise that the arguments for this in the NB period are not strong, being based on the Ur III/OB texts of Shulgi and Idin-Dagan, the hearsay of Herodotus, 1,500 years later and a post-Frazerian determination to work it in somehow. But there is no evidence for any union concerning humans in a sacred marriage in NB times: the text describing the ritual of the New Year’s Festival at Babylon (ANET, 331-334) makes no mention of S U C ~ . ’ ~

At one time scholars, led by Langdon, believed that the New Year Festival incorporated a ceremony in which the death and resurrection of Be1 was enacted. Vod Soden (ZA 5 1 ) has however convincingly demonstrated that the text in question records not the actual belief and practice in Babylon, but a work of propaganda created by Sennacherib to justify his destruction of the city. The real motive of the Festival seems rather to have involved the renewal of the fertility of the land, and with this, perhaps, a renewal of the kingship.”

Herodotus says that there was no statue in the Upper Temple, but the record of offerings made ‘to Marduk and Erua (a by-name of Sarpanitum) of Etemenanki’ (Unger, 260 1.18) would suggest the contrary. Diodorus 2.9.5 makes them three golden statues, of Zeus, Hera and Rhea, described in detail that we cannot verify.

63-72).

The Lower Temple (I. 183)

Herodotus also describes a lower temple containing a sitting figure of Be1 on a throne on a stand, with a table beside. all of gold. He does not enter into the architecture.

The series TtN.TtRki = Ba-hi-lu lists 53 main temples in Babylon (in addition to 55 shrines of Marduk, 300 of the Igigi, 600 of the Anunnaki, and 180 each of Ishtar and Adad (new edition in George, 1985)), but there can be no doubt that Herodotus meant Esagil, the huge temple complex of M a r d ~ k . ~ ” Esagil was in existence by the OB period (von Soden, U F 3, 255; George, 1985, 456), but had also been destroyed by Sennacherib, restored by Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, and then been the object of the lavish attention of the NB kings. It was then further looted by Xerxes, probably after the revolt of 482.4’ But it was clearly restored and is still mentioned in texts of the Seleucid and Arsacid periods (George, 1985, 456). Pliny asserts that it was still standing in his day amid the otherwise deserted Babylon ( N H 6.30.12 I ) .

jh Postgate, Sumer 30; Oppenheim, 1964, 102, 193 and 359 n.30. j7 For this are Falkenstein in the J . Friedrich Festschrift (1959), 162; Black, Religion 1 1 (1981). 48; Frankfort, 1948,

3 18 and 330-33 I . jX For instance, (Bet) ‘ihish anu hadashshuru’, ‘hastened to the marriage’, in the text quoted by Pallis. 198 (VAT

663). jYSee especially Kramer, 1969, Frankfort, 1948, 296, 317 and 330-331 on this, and the view that the ceremony

evolved from one celebrating the union of Ishtar and Dumuzi. 4o Be1 is attested as a by-name of Marduk from the last Kassite period (von Soden, ZA 5 1. 163) and was common in

NB and Achaemenid times. With Nabu he was the dominant Babylonian deity - compare the frequency with which the two appear in personal names and their symbols on seals - and the two are often quoted as such as the Be1 and Neb0 of the later OT.

“ Cf. Bohl in Bi. Or. 19 (1962).

74 BlCS 33 ( 1986)

It was surrounded by a huge courtyard with nearly 1,000 towers (Koldewey, 1914, 187) and its gates4? were indeed adorned with bronze, as Herodotus says, and Nebuchadnezzar records (VAB IV Nebuch. 5.i.24; 7.ii.8; 13.i.59; 14.i.42).

Herodotus says that in addition to the sitting statue there had been a standing one, also of gold, until taken off by Xerxes. We do not possess the statues from Esagil, but fragments of their adornment - lapis lazuli, shell and onyx inlays - were found by Koldewey (1914, 222, 191 1,47 and Abb. 78-9) as well as traces of a throne of wood and gold (ihid. 42: Wetzel, 1938,

Nevertheless we can be certain that the statue was made of at least gold on wood if not solid gold.44 Furthermore it is likely that both standing and seated images existed, if the depictions of Marduk on cylinder seals from the Akkadian period or on the grand seal of Marduk presented by Marduk-Nadin-Shumi4 represent the god as commonly envisaged, including therefore the form of the statue.

pll. 36-9)."

The Palace (I. 18 I.,),,

Herodotus says that the palace was across the river from the main temple and, as a glance at the plan shows that the NB palaces (i.e. the main palace and the Northern palace) were on the same (Eastern) side as Esagil, this has normally been explained by reference to the change of course of the river documented in the excavations by the washing away of a tract of road South and East of the main palace, and by a 100 m. wide gap in the quay wall further South filled with alluvium (Ravn, 59). The new course is mapped in Wetzel, 1944, 48. But note that Diodorus 2.8.3-7 also speaks of two palaces connected by a bridge, so that it is possible that there was another palace on the West side of the city not found by the excavators. It it true that we do not know exactly up to what time each of the palaces (the Main Palace, Northern Palace and Summer Palace) was in use, but that no description is given of any suggests that Herodotus penetrated none.

The Houses (I. 180.3)4x

The laying out of streets at right-angles does seem to be approximately correct, to judge from the plan of the excavations of the NB residential area on Merkes (Reuther, 1926, 77-122; Koldewey, 1914, 241-2), though it must be stressed that this represents only a small area of the N B city.

Herodotus' other point - that each house was 'rriorophon kai (err-orophon' - occasioned doubt so long as this was translated 'with three or fourfloors'. In fact as Wetzel (1944, 61) and Ravn (79) have pointed out, it really means with three or four roofs, and so could refer to the main room of the house having a higher roof level than the rest (for it was true of many of the houses that the walls of the principal room were thicker than the rest), with awnings further stretched out on top of these, and/or the further discontinuity in the sky-line due to the constant

'? Discussed by George, 1985, 138f. '' Ashurbanipal dedicated a throne to Marduk, giving its measurements as 1 2/3 x 1 2/3 x 3 1/3 cubits (ARAB I I

1012). Baruch vi (possim) speaks of statues of gold and silver on wood, with a crown, sceptre, dagger and axe and purple garments.

4' For instance, Frankfort. 1939, Plates XXVI k, XXVIII m and n. 46 Weissbach, 1903. 16-17; Unger. 210.

" On these see Reuther and Ravn. 66ff. See Koldewey, 193 1-2. and Wiseman, 1985,53ff.

J. MACGINNIS 75

rebuilding at different times of adjacent houses on the tell. There is no proof that this is right, but it is certainly the best explanation yet.

The Bridge (I. 186)

The bridge of stone connecting the two halves of the city can only be the Euphrates Bridge excavated by Koldewey (Wetzel, 1930, 54-7; Ravn, 74ff). It is not mentioned in the texts (Wetzel, 1930, 106-7) and was dated to the time of Nebuchadnezzar chiefly on the brick size. It had eight piers with stone facing4y and was 123 m. long. According to Diodorus 2.8.2 it was floored with cedar, cypress and palm, and slots for timbers were found by Koldewey (1914, 197). If there is any truth in the story of the flooring being taken up at night, it is not, as How and Wells, a result of Herodotus being ‘unconscious of the rivalry between Babylon and Borsippa’ (ad loc.), but, as Wetzel (1 944,66), to allow the passage of ships.

Customs Brick-Making (I. 179)5”

The method of building a water-resistant wall out of kiln-baked mud bricks with bitumen and layers of reed matting between the courses in i.179 is exactly right. The only point of difference is that whereas Herodotus has this matting every thirty courses, it is more usual to see it every 5-13 courses, if not (as rarely) between every one (Koldewey, 1914, 80; Wetzel, 1944, 54; UE V, 131). Note that Herodotus does not explicitly mention the unbaked brick of which virtually everything was built: perhaps because it was too well understood to need explaining.

Waters of the Persian King (I. 188)

Although we have no cuneiform evidence confirming that these were drawn from the Choaspes, this is confirmed by Ctesias (Konig, 1972, 129) and Pliny (Rawlinson, 1880, 308 n.7). Other writers, however, record different traditions: Din0 the Nile (Lawrence ad loc.), Strabo the Eulaeus and Chalymon (Rawlinson ad loc.).

Clothes ( 195.1-2)

Herodotus’ account does not match exactly the dress we see on boundary stones” or Assyrian reliefs depicting Babylonians,s2 though the main element, a tunic (kithon) reaching to the feet, is correct. The extra woollen one and the cloak (chlanidion) on top of that are unexpected, suggesting that Herodotus was in Babylon at a cold time of year.

As far as we know, the Babylonians did not wear pointed shoes (emhas) but wore sandals or went barefoot (Salonen, 1969; King, 191 5 , pl.LXIV).

We know nothing of the head-bands (mitra; not necessarily ‘turbans’ as sometimes translated) - though these might be connected with the karballatu of the Cimmerians (s.11. in the dictionaries) - nor of the perfumes in everyday life,s’ though there is no reason to doubt their use and it may well be that here Herodotus is a valid source in our ignorance.

49 Parts of which were found where they had fallen through decay (Wetzel, 1944,66). 50 See especially Salonen, 1972, ‘Die Ziegelei im alten Mesopotamien’. s 1 See King, 1912. 52 See Hrouda, 39. 53 Though Assyrian perfume recipes are known (Ebeling, Orientalia 17-19 (1948-50)) and perfumers (muraqqiru)

The monarchs were characterised by their use by Classical authors - thus are attested in the LB period. Ashurbanipal (Diodorus 2.23.1) and Alexander capturing the perfume chest of Darius I1 (Cook, 140).

76 B/CS 33 ( 1986)

Reliefs do picture men of rank holding ending in a shaped form: most usually a simple knob, perhaps Herodotus’ ‘apple’,55 though rosettes (Herodotus’ rose),5h tulip-like blossoms (= Herodotus’ lily?),57 and a ‘melon-shape’5x are also found. The correspondence between Herodotus’ staffs and those depicted is thus good, with only the eagle design otherwise unattested. In the past however it has been suggested (for instance Baumgartner, 79) that these designs really derived from seals, also mentioned in the same sentence. This can safely be dismissed, as we know that the seals of the Achaemenid period were predominantly cngraved with scenes of a single or fighting animal or of men on horseback (Zettler, JNES 38 (1979)). Likewise, the assertion hitherto that cylinder-seals were meant (for instance How and Wells ud loc.; Ravn, 89) is incorrect, as these had been replaced by stamp seals in the NB period. Moreover, the fact that Herodotus does not describe the shape of the seal surely suggests that it was that familiar to his Greek audience, viz. the stamp.’y

The Boats (1.194)

I t has long been realised that Herodotus has fused elements of two different craft still used on the Euphrates earlier this century and attested in antiquity.M’ These are the kelek, a raft normally 16-18 ft. x 14-16 ft. of planks lashed together and floated on 30 or so inflated goat skins,h’ and the guflu, a round willow frame with hides stretched over and sealed with bitumen on the bottom, of diameter 3 ft. 8 ins.-15 ft.h2 In Herodotus, the elements of a wooden-framed craft floated down from the North and broken up to be sold in Babylonia derive from the kelek, the circular shape, hide covering and carrying of a donkeyh3 from the guffa.hl

Auctioning Girls (I. 196)

Nothing is known of this from cuneiform sources, whilst the marriage contracts make clear both the influence of the family in arranging a match, and also the stress which is often placed upon virginity (Baumgartner, 82). Both Strabo and Nicolaus Damascenus, however, say that the practice was still in use in their time, and the only remotely connected parallels are those of parents selling their children in time of siege (Oppenheim, Iraq 17) or dedicating them to a deity (Dougherty, ‘The Sherkutu of Babylonian Deities’), in both instances the principal aim being to ensure that the children would be fed.

This custom hardly seems probable.

Medicine ( I . 197)

We know nothing of the custom here recorded of laying out the sick in the market place, though Baumgartner points out that this is so in Mark vi.56, also bringing to attention the

5‘ King, 1912. pl.LXXIV; pussim u p d Hrouda. 5 5 For instance. Hrouda. p1.32 nos.1-8; also the pomegranate (no.9). ’6 /hid. nos. 10- 1 1. ” /hid. no. 17. ’x On the onyx staff excavated at Babylon (Wetzel, 1957, ~1.42). ” One could otherwise have tried to treat ‘sphregida ... kai skeprron cheiropoieron’ as hendiadys for a ‘seal actually

(= kai) wrought ( in the form of) a rod’. Chesney, vol.11, ch.XX, is a good source on the craft of the Tigris and Euphrates.

” Chesney. vol. 11.635: kalokkie occurs hupu.1- (Salonen, 1939,66), and the craft once too in the reliefs (ihid. p1.23). 6 2 Chesney, vol.ll. 639-40; cf. the hupa.\- yicppic (Salonen, 71); the reliefs showing them are reproduced ihid. ~11.21

6 7 Thir don1 ey forms the subject of part of Aristarchus’ commentary on Herodotus Book I -- see Grenfell and Hunt, and 22.

The Aniherst f‘q>yvi. Pt.11 ( I901 ). 3. Wetzel‘s view (1944.61) that a guffa alone was described is not correct.

J. MACGINNIS 77

Caucasian folk-tale in which a sick prince goes to the bazaar to seek (successfully) a cure after his doctors have failed him (80-8 1 ).

This comprised both magical and physical treatment (see especially Ritter, AS 16), the latter including chemical prescriptions for internal treatment, poultices and bathings, and surgery (cf. CH, 215-225, and Oppenheim, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences XV (1960)). Wiseman (1985, 106) is surely right in refuting Oppenheim’s view that formal medicine had fallen out of the curriculum in the NB period (see now the indices under ‘medical’ in Leichty’s new catalogues of the Sippar Collection in the British Museum), but i t may well be that our sources do not reflect the treatment available to the common man. On the present point, we have no reason to doubt Herodotus’ statement.

Our knowledge of Babylonian medicine is confined largely to the scholarly side.

Burial (I. 198)

In the NB period burial was normally by direct interment (often wrapped in a mat) or crouched up inside two large jars (RLA, ‘Grab’). Herodotus’ ‘taphai de sphi en meliti’, that is ‘burying them in honey’, could mean either smearing or immersion in honey,h’ and investigation does reveal some confirmation. Further classical evidence is the record that Alexander inspected a tomb in Babylon containing a body floating in oil (Ctesias (Konig, 1972, p.10 no.21); Aelian Var.Hist.xii.3) and the tradition in the Pseudo-Callisthenes Life of Alexander (chapter 283, preserved only in the Armenian; see Budge, The History of Alexander the Great (1889, repr. 1976), 141, 1II.xxii) that the corpse of Alexander himself was preserved in oil, honey, incense and aloe.hh

Beyond this, there is also some cuneiform witness to burial in oil. This includes the text published in Ebeling, Tod und Lehen, 56, in which a NA king ‘laid my father in royal oil’ (shaman ~ h a r r i ) , ~ ~ and on two occasions Nabonidus similarly ‘... his corpse in sweet (= scented?) oil’, though in each place the verb is broken off.hR The difference to note is of course that the cuneiform evidence speaks of oil or ‘good oil’ (= perfume?) and not honey. It is thus not clear whether this can be identified with the custom recorded by Herodotus or not.

This practice is also known from Egypt in late antiquity, a recent case being the body of a child found preserved in honey in a jar near Giza (Leca, 177).

Temple Prostitution (I. 199)

This passage has caused much controversy. It was at first thought that the name Mylissahy was, if at all correct, a corruption of Belitu (see Tallqvist, 1938, 276) or *rnuallid(a)tu, ‘she who causes to give birth’ (Baumgartner, 82), as a title of Ishtar or Sarpanitu, though it is now certain that Herodotus was right, Mylissa representing Mul(l)is(s)u, the Babylonian form of the EME.SAL7n version of UMUN.LIL for NIN.LIL (Parpola, 1980, Mesopotamia 8 (Copenhagen),

m Strabo 16.1.20, ‘thaptousi d’en meliti ker-oi per-iplasantes’, that is, ‘they bury in honey, smearing with wax’, might suggest both.

h(, Curtius 10.10.13 has him embalmed in perfume. Outside Babylon, Plutarch has Agesilaos embalmed in honey. and Tacitus Poppaea in oil (Leca, 267). whilst Herodotus himself records that the Persians smeared their dead in wax (i.140).

67 The signs I3.GISH were ‘corrected’ by von Soden in his review of Ebeling (ZA 43, 1936. 255 n.1) to KISAL, but without examining the tablet. My collation, confirmed by J. N. Postgate, reveals that I3.GISH is certainly correct.

681’j.GISH DUG3 ADg-su I...], Anat. St. 8 p.52, H 1 B 1.15; I3.GISH DUG3 shal-mat-su 112-1 . . . I . VAB IV p.294 9.iii.28.

69 Also mentioned in 1.131 70 A dialect of the Sumerian language.

78 BlCS 33 (1 986)

177 n.21; Dalley, RA 73, 1979).” This raises another problem, as the Babylonian goddess of sexual love is normally thought to be Ishtar, not Ninlil. One of Ninlil’s aspects is as a Mother (ummu: Tallqvist, 1938, 412), but it is Ishtar who assumes the specifically sexual role as the Prostitute (harimtu) and Mistress of Love-making (helet ru’ame: ihid. 344). There are various temple employees who may have been prostitutes - the qadishtu, kezertu, harimtu, shamhatu and kulmashitu (see Renger, ZA 58 (1967) for the OB period; he concludes that at least the qadishtu and kulmashitu had a sexual role). These are most often connected with Ishtar, thus it is Ishtar’s city of Uruk that is described as ‘a1 kezreti shamhati u harimati’, that is, ‘city of courtesans (?), prostitutes and harlots’ (Erra IV.52; also Gilgamesh VI. 165, BWL 2 18 1.6-7). In Assyria at any rate Ishtar and Ninlil were confused or merged in late times (Menzel, vol.11, 95” n.1254). Wiseman (1985, 106) associates the coins in Herodotus’ account with the lead disks found in the Ishtar Temple as Assur, but even if this is right it is hardly that Herodotus had ‘confused Babylonian and Assyrian customs’, as there is no evidence at all that he visited Assyria, nor that the Assyrian temples continued functioning after the fall of Assyria in 612, well over a century before Herodotus’ travels.

But whilst cuneiform evidence is equivocal, there is interesting corroboration from the Apocryphal Letter of Jeremias (= Baruch VI; Charles (1963 repr. from 1913), The Apocryphu and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 606) where it is described how in the Temple of Babylon women sit with a cord round the head burning bran, waiting to be drawn off to lie with men. This accords exactly with Herodotus (only the bran being added), and as it is not possible that we are dealing with a borrowing from Herodotus, it seems that a genuine tradition is recorded.’?

Historical Traditions Semiramis (I . 184)

Semiramis, originally Sammu-ramat, the wife of Shamshi-Adad V, once thought to have been an independent regent of Assyria,’’ grew to be a great figure of folk-lore in the Middle East right up to today7j and Herodotus is one of the earliest witnesses to this. Thus, whilst nothing of what he says of her is true (apart, perhaps, from the naming of the gate, though again we have no cuneiform record of this), he must be reproducing a genuine Babylonian tale. It is interesting to note that Berossus in two places tried to correct this, reminding the Greeks that she was a queen of Assyria (not Babylon) and chiding them for the belief that she had built that city (Burstein, 22, 14.9; 28, I11 3.3).

Nitocris (I. 185- 187)

Nitocris, similarly, is as such a fictitious character. She has been identified as Nebuchadnezzar (Delitzsch, i915; Baumgartner, 96; Bergamini, 136), his wife (Ravn, 38), Nabonidus (Dougherty, 1929), his mother Adad-Guppi (Rollig, ‘Nitocris von Babylon’, apud R. Stiehl (1969 ed.), Beitriige zur ulten Geschichte und daren Nachlehen) and Naqi’a (Zakutu) a wife of Sennacherib (Lewy, JNES 1 1 (1952)). None of these can be completely correct as, at the simplest, Nitocris is credited with works of Nebuchadnezzar (the basin and the bridge: i. 185-6), though also made the mother of Nabonidus (i.188). So it is clear that the figure represents a

7 1 This is stated explicitly from at least the OB period: ‘dNin-li[l] = [dM]u-lil-tu’ in AKF I1 p.9, line 4. 72 Sacred prostitution is recorded for Phoenicia by Augustin (Civ. Dei iv.10). 7 3 Finally disproved by Schramrn, Historia 21 (1972). 74 See Eilers, Semirumis ( 197 I ).

J. MACGINNIS 79

conflation (Legrand’s ‘personne imaginaire’ is closest to the mark, 1932, ad loc.), and the question is whether this is the fault of Herodotus (through misunderstanding due to language difficulties) or his sources. I would think the latter more likely, but note that this is an excellent example where our conclusion might well have been altered were the Assyrioi Logoi preserved.

Labynetus (1.74-7 and 188.1)

Labynetus too contains contradictory elements. Nobody doubts that the name represents Nabonidus (Nabu-na’id), the last of the NB kings, only the genealogy which makes him the son of another Labynetus mentioned in i.74-7 as the mediator between the Medes and Lydians is wrong. The real father of Nabu-na’id was Nabu-balassu-iqbi. Dougherty made Labynetus I Nabonidus, and Labynetus I1 his son and regent Belshazzar (1929), and this is universally rejected. Others make Labynetus I Nebuchadnezzar (Ravn, 38; Baumgartner, 95). The best suggestion is that of Melkman (1 10, followed by Wiseman, 1985, 9) making them both the same, Labynetus I representing Nabonidus before he became king. It is true that Nabonidus was of high rank before accession (he is attested as a burgrave (sha eli ali) from the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar - Dougherty, 1929, 31), so that perhaps he really did act as mediator, but clever though the suggestion is, it is not proven. At any rate, Herodotus’ historical facts are again confu~ed.’~

The Capture of Babylon (1.190-1)

Herodotus tells how the Babylonians were first defeated outside their walls and the city then captured during a festival7h by Cyrus’ ruse of lowering the waters of the river. The Babylonian Chronicle is well preserved in the portions describing Cyrus’ capture of Babylon (Gray son, ABC Chr.7, col i i ) , and inasmuch as he did first defeat the Babylonian army (though at Opis - it is not clear whether Herodotus is referring to this or to a separate battle/sortie outside Babylon) and then take the town, Herodotus is quite correct. In fact, of all the historical material, this account deviates least from what we know from cuneiform sources, and it may be that some truth lurks behind the story of the lowering of the E u p h r a t e ~ . ~ ~ Wetzel (1930, 53) was of this opinion. In one respect, however, Herodotus must be corrected: the chronicle does not allow for a prolonged siege.

Lastly, here, the fragment of narrative involving Sennacherib told in the Egyptian logos (ii.141) throws back to that monarch’s Palestinian campaign of 701 BC and the battle of Altaqu, known from his annals as well as the (slightly errant) summary in I1 Kings xix.35 (Baumgartner, 89-92). The tale of the tunnel dug in the time of Sardanapalus (ii. 150) is another example of pure folk-tale attached to a famous figure.

Agriculture The Crops (1.193.3-4)

Herodotus gives the main crops as wheat, barley, millet, sesame and dates, saying also that no figs, grapes, olives or any other fruit are grown. He is right about those that are grown,7x and that olives were not grown in Babylonia (though they were in Assyria), and almost right about

7sSack, RA 77 (1983), summarises the evolution of the legends which grew up around Nabonidus and

76 Thus too in Daniel v and Xenophon, Cyrop. 7.5.7-3 1. See also Jeremiah li. 77 Wiseman (1985, 62 n.101) seems to think that the lowering of the Euphrates is recounted in the Cyrus Cylinder,

Nebuchadnezzar.

but this is not the case. See articles by Renfrew and M. P. Charles in BSA I (1984).

80 BICS 33 ( 1986)

the figs and vines: these were grown in Babylonia, but the extremes of temperature mean that they do not thrive, and most wine was in fact i m p ~ r t e d ’ ~ (see dictionaries under serdu. kurunu and tittu; also C. C. Townsend and E. Guest, Floru of lruq, vol. IV/I (1980), 87, for ficoculture). All three are still grown today (Handbook, 463).x” Furthermore, other fruit trees certainly did exist.x’

He is right about the extensive use of sesame oilx2 but his estimates of grain yields of 200- or 300-foldx’ are much too large. Calculating yields from the cuneiform sources is greatly hampered by the use of differing metrologies and baffling scribal practices (see articles by Postgate and Maekawa in BSA I ) . It seems that a yield of 76 x is attested from the ED period, but even the standard 30 x of Ur I11 has been criticised as being far too high (for instance, Butz, RLA, ‘Landwirtschaft ’).

Another point treated with scepticism is the enormous height to which the millet grew (such that he refrained from recording it exactly, as ‘no-one who has not been to Babylonia would ever believe me’ (i. 193.4)). But here our author is right on the mark: the species Giant Millet still grows in Iraq, reaching heights of 4 m. or more (Townsend, 544, Handbook, 461).x4

The Date-Palm ( I . 193.4-5)

It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance of the palm in the agricultural economy of Iraq.x5 This was just as true in ancient times and Herodotus is exactly right in drawing this out. He notes that the tree supplied food, wine“ and honey, though there are many other by- products in addition: charcoal and fodder from the rope from the fibre, timber, fuel and ladders from the trunk, fuel, roofing and fencing from the fronds, chairs, baskets, beds and cages from the mid-ribs, are just a few.

Herodotus is however confused in his description of the fertilisation: the method used for figs is not employed for the palm, which is fertilised by cutting open the female inflorescence and inserting it into the male spathe, or dusting pollen over it.

The Keloneion (1.193.1)

This is certainly the shadouf, which consists of a bucket on a pole 13-15 ft. long pivoted on an upright pole 3-4 ft. long. It is depicted on a relief of Sennacherib (Salonen, Agriculfuru Mesopofumicu (1968), pl.IX) and on an Akkadian cylinder seal (ihid. PI.IVa) and is still in use today.

7q See W. F. Leemans, Foreign Trade in the OB Period ( 1960). 102- 107, I27 and 136. There were of course a host of lesser fruits and vegetables. Dowson. 192 I . lists a large number of varieties that are planted amongst date-groves today.

‘sesame’. actually denoted linseed: J. Renfrew upud BSA I1 (1985) for the latest on this. Strabo 15.3.1 I ascribes 100- to 200-fold to Susiana. Perhaps we thus also accept Ashurbanipal’s boast that in his reign the grain grew 5 cubits high (ARAB I 1 769). though the word here is shr’u (‘barley’. but also more generally ‘grain’) not duhnu (millet).

Xr See in particular Dowson, 1921. and Landsberger’s The Date-Palm and its By-products (1967). X h Date-wine is also mentioned by Xenophon, Anah. 2.3.14. x7 Mentioned in Strabo (16.1.14). one of the few places where his parallel account materially expands on Herodotus.

x ? Though there has been much debate whether the Akkadian shamush.shammu. though etymologically the word

J. MACGINNIS X I

Con c I u s i o n

Let us now bring all this together to ask: did Herodotus visit Babylonia? There have been great scholars on both sides of the question;xx though the trend is clearly swinging in Herodotus’ favour as time strides on and cuneiform studies and Mesopotamian archaeology matures. It has been claimed that in the 5th century BC it would have been difficult to reach Babylon from the Greek world,Xy and whilst the Akkadian cylinder seals from Cyprus and the OB ones from Crete may be taken as rarities”’ there is evidence of almost routine contact with the Greek West - Cyprus (Iadnanu) and Ionia (Iamanu) - from the time of Sargon 11.” In fact there were thriving foreign communities in Babylonia in the Persian period (Oppenheim, 1985, 579; Cook, 203) as well as imports from Ionia (Oppenheim, JCS 21 (1967)). These would have come via Phoenicia, and as (Assyria and) Babylonia were in close contact with Phoenicia in the first millennium,’2 and as Herodotus specifically says he went to Tyre (ii.44), there can be no problem about the route he took.

But let his description of Babylon and Babylonia speak for itself; we shall tabulate the results of our researches as follows:

ASSESSMENT OF HERODOTUS’ DESCRIPTION

RIGHT WRONG General Geography Length of walls Rainfall Height of walls Hit Assyria = Babylonia Canals History Shadouf Palm Fertilisation Main Crops Date-Palm Boats Double Walls Quay Wall Gates Brick-making Ziggurrat Tower Upper Temple Lower Temple Worship of Be1 Streets Bridge Nebuchadnezzar’s ‘Median’ Wall Seals

OBSCURE/UNCERTAIN 3- or 4-roofed Houses Burial in Honey Stairway of the Ziggurrat Temple Prostitution Auctioning Girls Laying out the Sick Ardericca Fish-eaters

R8 Summarised by Baumgartner, 69f: against Herodotus having gone are Rawlinson, Sayce. Delitzsch, Weissbach. Meissner and Olmstead; for him are King, Oppenheim, Lehmann, Ravn (86) and Wetzel (1944, 68); note that Wetzel (1950, 51-2) believes that neither Strabo nor Diodorus nor Curtius Rufus went to Babylon.

Ry So Lister, 1979, 84. yo Also the (OB) inscription of Naram-Sin of Eshnunna from Kythera, which could have been brought there at a

y 1 See articles by Rollig in the RLA under ‘Griechen’ and ‘Ionier’, also Astour, JNES 23 (1964); there was heavy

y2 From as early as Lugalzagesi (about 2300 BC) comes the boast of the monarch to have ruled from the Upper to the

much later date (Weidner, 1939, JHS 59).

Greek contact with Egypt from the 7th century onwards (Lloyd, 1975, 13-60).

Lower Sea.

82 B K S 33 ( 1986)

Staffs Clothes (?) Waters of the King Gnomon and Polos (ii. 109)

As mentioned, although some figs and vines were grown in Babylonia, the climate was really unsuitable and the amounts are not likely to have been large. Everything labelled ‘obscure’ could derive from some genuine practice, and of the ‘wrong’ the history that he records is easily explained as from some source who did not have access to the official records; and though his dimensions for the height and length of the walls are undoubtedly incorrect, i t is absurd to condemn him on this if his measurements are his own rough estimate, or again derived from folk tradition. As mentioned above there is only one classical writer who consistently and correctly distinguishes Assyria and Babylon(ia).

The Date and Season

If, then, Herodotus did go to Babylon, it will be of interest to see if we can determine when. The date is most closely fixed by association with the visit to Egypt: scholars disagree as to whether this preceded (Powell, 1939, 28; Lloyd, 1975, 66), or followed (Ravn, 59; Lister, 83) or whether we cannot tell (Jacoby, 1913, col. 2650. Fortunately this cannot affect the dating of the stay in Babylon by more than a year or two. Lloyd (1975, 61) points out that the visit to Egypt must have been after the battle of Papremis (459 BC), the site of which Herodotus describes in iii.12; that moreover it is not likely to have been before the Peace of Callias in 449/8 as Egypt had been at the centre of Athenian-Persian conflict; and that the reference in Sophocles’ Antigone 904ff implies that Herodotus must have been in Athens by 443 B C Y 3

The season should be determined by the vegetation,+’ and the decisive piece of evidence must be that he saw the millet just before harvest (i.193.4): millet is a summer crop, cut from July to October (Handbook, 461-2; Charles in BSA I (1984), 31; Townsend, 486, 502, 544). This is supported by the fact that sesame too is a summer crop (Handbook, 461). As the Euphrates is navigable all through the year by small craft (Chesney, vol.1, 45; Handbook, 26-35; though with difficulty during the flooding which reaches its height in May), Herodotus’ note on the river-craft is not relevant here, and Ravn (59) need not be right in assuming that because Herodotus calls the Euphrates ‘swift’ (i.18O.l) he was there during the floods, and so before June. It is worth noting that the three layers of clothing recorded by Herodotus in i.195 might mean that he was there during winter. This all adds up to a late time during the millet harvest, so most likely October.”

At any rate, Ravn must surely be right (95) in thinking that the brevity of Herodotus’ description (particularly in comparison with Egypt or Scythia) must mean that he was in Babylon for only a short while.

’)‘ Powell (1939, 38) also dates the composition of the Histories to 448-442; Wetzel (1944. 48) reckons on 470-460. but without quoting evidence. Jacoby (1913. coll. 265-7) opts for 448-7. See also Forrest, 1984.

’)‘ Though be cautioned how Lloyd (1975, 72) has proved that Sourdille’s conclusions on the season of the visit to Egypt are invalid simply because he fails to distinguish between what he actually saw and what he is merely reporting.

95 Corirru Saggs (RLA under ‘Herodot’). and Jacoby (1913, col. 263). who opt for April-May.

J. MACGINNIS 83

Herodotus’ Sources

Herodotus himself acknowledges his debt to the so-called ‘Ionic Logographers’”h (for instance, ii.3, 15, 16,20-23; iv.45) such as Dionysus of Miletus, Charon of Lampascus and Hellanicus of Lesbos, and Drews (1 969) has demonstrated that Herodotus used a predecessor on chronology, mildly suggesting Dionysus of Miletus (n.36). In particular, however, i t is Hecataeus of Miletus, whose wider importance in relation to the Histories is not in doubt,” who may have been a source for Herodotus’ description of Babylon. This view was held by Jacoby ( 19 I3 col. 426), specifically with respect to i. 180.1, i. 189.1 and i.196.1-2, none of which is convincing) and Saggs (RLA ‘Herodot’, 332), but as Hecataeus would primarily have been a source for geography, while his 9th Satrapy (Babylon and Assyria) is the only one not to be described in detail in his Periodos Ges (Jacoby, 1912, col. 2725; text in Klausen, 214, ch.88), it cannot be supported.

Lehmann (1898) argued that the many passages in Strabo similar to ones in Herodotus derived not from the former borrowing from the latter, but from both using a common source.yx However, examination shows that all the differences, where not trivial, can best be explained by the suggestion that Strabo was using another source(s) in addition to Herodotus.

As to the sources in Babylon, it is first important to warn that any conclusions we reach will necessarily be tentative, because of the fact that we do not possess the Assyrioi Logoi in their entirety (see above), so that our perception will be distorted. Rawlinson (1880, 62) already noted that Herodotus does not reflect the great learning of the but it is just this detail of literature, history, science and religious practice that we would expect to have comprised the Logoi. But there are other clues.

Firstly, hitherto unnoticed, the promise to tell of ‘the many kings of Babylon who helped to for-rifl rhe city and embellish its temples’ (i.184) suggests that he was read out texts of precisely the nature of most of the NB royal inscriptions (see VAB IV). These would have been accessible only in the temple or palace archives, and as we shall see it is clear that Herodotus did not penetrate the palace (see below).“n’

Secondly, on several occasions Herodotus quotes his sources ( i . 181.5; 182.1; 183.1 -3), and each time it is the ‘Chaldeans’. These were properly a people from Southern Babylonia that produced the dynasty of Nabopolassar,“” but in view of the later Greek (and Roman) belief that the Chaldeans were astrologers (Strabo 16.1.6, Pliny, N H 6 121ff; Rochberg-Halton, JNES 43 (1984); this sense also in Daniel ii.4) and the fact that astrological scholars were probably based in the one assumes that by ‘Chaldeans’ Herodotus must mean temple staff, whether

yhSee Oppenheim. JNES 19 (1960). 146, for a suggestion that these may have arisen out of the tradition that

’)’ As acknowledged by Herodotus; Jacoby (19 12, col. 2744) demonstrated how Herodotus made use of Hecataeus’

yx Followed by Lawrence in his notes on i.198 nos. 1 and 2, and Baumgartner, 101. y4 An exception to this may be his statement in ii.109 that the gnomon and polos originated in Babylon. Cooks‘s

statement (16) that this was due to Herodotus only having access to the lower ranks of the priesthood is illogical. since the information available to priests of all rank would have been identical.

‘(Herodotus) took the opportunity to discuss chronological matters with the keeper of the archives.’

produced narrative such as that of Sargon’s Eighth Campaign.

‘Genealogiai’. See also Lloyd, 197.5, 127f: Myres, 23; and Griffiths,.INES 2.5 (1966).

I“) So Huxley, 21 1:

iO1 For the people see Brinkman, 1968, 260-267. ‘02 Wiseman (1985, 99) associates astrology with Esagil; otherwise Ezida, the temple of Nabu, comes to mind with

its library, to judge by the contents of the Ezida temples in Nimrud, Nineveh and Khorsabad; the scholars responsible for astrological omina (primarily the series Enuma Anu Enlil) were also expert in the series Shirninin A h and Shumma Izhu (Oppenheim, Centaurus 14 (1969). 99; and Kinnier Wilson, 1972, 21). They were not necessarily priests (and this is denied by Landsberger - see for example his Brief des Bischoji i ’ o ~ E.sa,qi/u

x4 RlCS 33 ( 1986)

or not they were, or he thought them to be, priests. This is the conclusion also of Jacoby (1913, col. 262) and Orthmann (RLA, ‘Kaldu’, VI.2), denied by Drews (1973, 181, n.124), but surely confirmed by the fact that all the matters for which they are quoted as the source - the woman in the Upper Temple and the entry therein of the god; the weight of the golden statue in the Lower Temple; the earlier existence of a second statue - bear on temple matters. Furthermore, Diodorus describes the Chaldeans as temple staff specialising in divination (2.29.2); Berossos claims that he was a ‘Chaldean, a priest of Bel’ (Burstein, 13 n.2); and Curtius Rufus (5.1.22) places them between the Magi and the prophets in the lists of people greeting Alexander’s entry into Babylon. So it seems acceptable to propose that they were the divination-priests. Less certain would be the suggestion that as the Chaldean language referred to by Berossus (Burstein, 14, 1.2.2) was Babylonian, that these divination (and other?) priests still spoke Babylonian (as opposed to Aramaic).“”

Lastly, note that Drews has shown (1969) that Herodotus had access to at least some Persian sources; perhaps, as Wells ( 1907), the Zophyrus whom Herodotus could have met in 441/0.

Wetzel (1944, 49-50) wonders why he does not describe the Ishtar Gate or the Hanging Gardens, but the fcnner may have fallen into decay (and may in any case be the Semiramis Gate) whilst the latter was part of the royal palace,“” and, as we have already seen, it is probable that he did not penetrate the palaces. Similarly, Wetzel’s point that Herodotus did not describe either the New Year Festival or the Bit Akiti is invalid if we are correct in placing his visit at the end of the summer (see above). In short we may be astonished at the accuracyioh of the account; and when noting also that Herotodus’ saying in i.193.4, ‘I shall not record the height to which the sesame and millet grows . . . because no-one who has not been to Babylonia would ever believe me’, is a virtual acknowledgement that he had been there, I find no possible remaining reason to doubt that he did.’”’

Trinity College, Cambridge

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barnett R. D., ‘Xenophon and the Walls of Media’, JHS 83 (1963). Baumgartner W., ‘Herodots babylonisclie und assyrische Nachrichten’, Archiv Orientalni 18/1 ( 1950). Bergamini G., ‘Levels of Babylon Reconsidered’, Mesopotamia 12 (1977). Brinkman J., A Political History of Post-Cassite Babylonia ( 1968). Bum A. R., Persia and the Greeks (1962).

( 1065). 312 n.8). though note that several of those sending reports to the Assyrian king were mushmushshu or kuh (Oppenheim, 017. (.it., 100) and that in Seleucid Uruk the chief-priest, sheshgallu, was often an astrologer, trcpshur Enumu Anu Enlil, as well (McEwan, 1981, ‘Priest and Temple in Hellenistic Babylonia’, 16 and 198). Wiseman (1985. 73) is of the opinion that the ziggurrat was used for astronomy.

lo’ Nevertheless, Wiseman (1985, 8 8 ) holds that the ‘Chaldean astrologers lived in a special quarter of the city and were distinguished from the tribe of the same name’. but does not quote his evidence for the statement.

I“ Though it is difficult to gauge the plausibility of Zophyrus carrying round the records that provided the basis for the Tribute List in Book Ill. the details of the Royal Road in V and the Army-Role in VII. For the latest on the Hanging Gardens. see Wiseman. 1985, 56ff.

I o h Especially if he took no notes (Spiegelberg, 37; Ravn. 93; Moberg, 162; Fehling, 174; Baumgartner, 79), though there is no evidence for that. even if Herodotus was no more than a casual visitor (Baumgartner’s ‘interessierter Globetrotter’. p. 105) rather than on a mission specific to collecting materials for the Histories. 1 may as well add here that i t seems to me just as probable that his plan to write the Histories was conceived after and because of his travels.

I”’ And so aisagree with the astonishing statment of Sayce (108 n.3) - and even more astonishing concurrence of Ravn (92) - that ‘we need not regret the loss of his Assyrian History’.

J. MACGINNIS 85

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