The History of Antiquity (Vol. 1-6). Duncker Max

twenty-five of the most precious perfumes were mixed together.[425] When the cities of Phenicia became great centres of trade which carried the wares of Babylonia by sea to the West in order to obtain copper in exchange, the trade between Babylonia and Syria must have become more lively still. It was the ships of the Phenicians which brought the cubic measure, and the weights, and the cubit of Babylonia to the shores of Greece, and caused them to be adopted there. In the ninth or eighth century B.C. the Greeks completely dropped their old measures of length and superficies, and fixed their stadium at 360 Babylonian cubits, their plethrum at the length and the square of sixty Babylonian cubits, and regulated the Greek foot by the Babylonian at a measure from 308 to 315 millimeters, and made their cubit equal to one and a half of these feet.[426] The light Babylonian talent became known in Greece under the name of the Eubœic talent, while the Greek city Phocæa, on the shores of Asia Minor, struck the oldest Greek coin, the Phocæan stater, at the value of a fiftieth of the heavy gold mina of Babylon (1⅗ pounds). Chios, Clazomenæ, and Lampsacus followed the heavy Syrian silver talent in their coinage; and lastly, Crœsus made his gold stater equal to the fiftieth part of the mina of the light Babylonian gold talent (50½ pounds), and his silver stater equal to the fiftieth part of the mina of the Babylonian silver talent of 67⅓ pounds.[427]

      FOOTNOTES:

      [401] H. Rawlinson, "Journ. Asiat. Soc." 1861, 18, 2 ff.

      [402] The assumption that the Birs Nimrud is the temple Beth-Sida at Borsippa is contradicted by the inscriptions. The measurements of the temple give no support for such a theory, even if the forty-two cubits of the cylinders of Rawlinson are interpreted with Norris, "Dict." p. 280, by Amatgagar; for we do not know the value of this measure exactly. I cannot regard Borsippa as a part of Babylon in the teeth of the direct testimony of Strabo (p. 728), Justin (12, 13), and Ptolemy (5, 20). The inscriptions of the Assyrians, and, not least, those of Nebuchadnezzar himself, always mention Borsippa beside Babylon. If it be maintained that in spite of this Nebuchadnezzar might have included Borsippa in the walls of Babylon, the theory is contradicted by Berosus (Joseph, "c. Apion." 1, 20), according to whom Cyrus besieges and takes Babylon while Nabonetus is blocked up in Borsippa, and by Nebuchadnezzar himself, who, after speaking of the great walls of Babylon, adds:—"I also laid the foundations of the walls of Borsippa, the Tabi-subur-su" (Ménant, "Babylone," p. 205).

[403] Herod. 1, 181–183.

[404] Diod. 2, 9.

[405] Strabo, p. 738.

[406] "Antiq." 1, 4.

[407] G. Smith, "Records of the Past," 5, 69, 73.

[408] Aberdeen inscription in Ménant, "Annal." p. 248.

[409] Cylinder Phillips in Ménant, "Babylone," pp. 210, 211.

[410] Cylinder of the British Museum in Ménant, p. 212.

[411] Ménant, "Babylone," p. 216.

[412] Ménant, loc. cit. p. 202.

[413] "Transactions Bibl. Arch." 2, 148.

[414] "Cyr. Inst." 7, 5.

[415] Cylinder Grotefend, in Oppert, "Exped." 1, 232. Chief inscription in Ménant, p. 206.

[416] Diod. 2, 8.

[417] Cylinder Phillips, in Ménant, "Babylone," p. 210.

[418] Herod. 1, 193. 2, 11.

[419] Xen. "Anab." 1, 7; Ammian, 24, 3; Strabo, p. 748, puts the borders of Babylon at a canal, 18 schœnes, i.e. 135 miles above Seleucia, and Seleucia was somewhat higher than Babylon.

[420] W. K. Loftus, "Warka, its Ruins and Remains;" "Transactions of the Royal Society," 2, 6, 1–64.

[421] Joshua, vii. 21.

[422] Brandis, "Münzwesen." s. 93.

[423] Brandis, loc. cit. s. 105 ff.

[424] Herod. 1, 194.

[425] Movers, "Phœnizier," 2, 3, 103.

[426] Brandis, "Münzwesen," s. 21 ff.

[427] Brandis, "Münzwesen," s. 71, 107, 121.

      CHAPTER IV.

      THE ARABS.

       Table of Contents

      The Arabian peninsula is a repetition of Africa on a smaller scale and in more moderate proportions, without a river-valley like that of the Nile. The centre is occupied by a table-land, which presents a few well-watered depressions lying under a burning sky between naked deserts, plains of sand, cliffs, and bald peaks. Thus, in spite of the great extent of the country (more than 1,000,000 square miles), there are few districts in the interior of Arabia suitable for agriculture. But towards the south, on the Indian Ocean, the plateau sinks down to the sea in broad mountain terraces. Here are extremely fertile valleys, and the most valuable fruits grow on the terraces in the tropic atmosphere, which is cooled by the elevation of the mountains and the winds blowing from the ocean. This is the land of frankincense, of the sugarcane and coffee-tree, of pomegranates, figs, and dates, of wheat and maize.

Herodotus, who follows all antiquity in extending the name Arabia to the deserts of Syria and Sinai, gives us but few notices of the inhabitants of this wide district. "The Arabs," he tells us, "wear long garments, and on the right side carry large bows, which can be strung on either side, and travel on swift camels. They have only two gods—Dionysus, whom they call Urotal;