2. Comparison, villi, ancient Historians and the Inti- mations on the Monuments. — The original sources of
profane history on this subject are Herodotus and Cte- sias; but every attempt to reconcile their statements with those of Scripture, or even with each other, has hitherto failed. The former fixes the duration of the Assyrian dominion in Upper Asia at 520 years (Herod, i, 95), while the latter again assigns to the Assyrian empire, from Ninus to Sardanapalus, no less a period than 1305 years (Diodor. Sicul. ii, 21). The authority of Ctesias, however, is very generally discredited (it was so even by Aristotle), though he has recently found a defender in Dr. Russell, in his Connection of Sacred and Profane History. The truth is (as is remarked by the judicious Heeren), that the accounts of both these historians are little better than mere traditions of an- cient heroes and heroines (witness the fables about Semiramis!), without any chronological data, and en- tirely in the style of the East. To detail all the fanci- ful hypotheses which have been propounded, with the view of forming out of them a consistent and coherent narrative, forms no part of our present design. Con- siderable light, however, has been thrown, by recent researches, upon certain points of this history. — Kitto.
(1.) The original Settlement of the Country. — Scrip- ture informs us that Assyria was peopled from Babylon (Gen. x, 11), and both classical tradition and the mon- uments of the country agree in this representation. In Herodotus (i. 7), Ninus, the mythic founder of Nine- veh, is the son (descendant) of Belus, the mythic found- er of Babylon — a tradition in which the derivation of Assyria from Babylon, and the greater antiquity and superior position of the latter in early times, are shad- owed forth sufficiently. That Ctesias (ap. Diod. Sic. ii, 7) inverts the relation, making Semiramis (accord- ing to him, the wife and successor of Ninus) found Bab- ylon, is only one out of a thousand proofs of the un- trustworthy character of his history. The researches recently carried on in the two countries clearly show, not merely by the statements which are said to have been deciphered on the historical monuments, but by the whole character of the remains discovered, that Babylonian greatness and civilization was earlier than Assyrian, and that, while the former was of native growth, the latter was derived from the neighboring country. The cuneiform writing, for instance, which is rapidly punched with a very simple instrument upon moist clay, but is only with much labor and trouble inscribed by the chisel upon rock, must have been in- vented in a country where men "had brick for stone" (Gen. xi, 3), and have thence passed to one where the material was unsuited for it. It may be observed, also, that while writing occurs in a very rude form in the earlier Babylonian ruins (Loftus's Chaldaia, p. 109), and gradually improves in the later ones, it is in As- svria uniformly of an advanced type, having apparent- ly been introduced there after it had attained to per- fection.
(2.) Date of the Foundation of the Kinqdom. — "With respect to the exact time at which Assyria became a separate and independent country, there is an impor- tant difference between classical authorities, Herodo- tus placing the commencement of the empire almost a thousand years later than Ctesias ! Scripture does but little to determine the controversy ; that little, howev- er, is in favor of the former author. Geographically, as a country, Assj'ria was evidently known to Moses (Gen. ii, 14; xxv, 18; Num. xxiv, 22, 24); but it does not appear in Jewish history as a kingdom till the reign of Menahem (B.C. cir. 770). In Abraham's time (B.C. 2000 ?) it is almost certain that there can have been no Assyrian kingdom, or its monarch would have been found among those who invaded Palestine with Che- dorlaomer (Gen. xiv, 1). In the time of the early judges (B.C. 1575), Assyria, if it existed, can have been of no great strength ; for Chushan-Kishathaim, the first of the foreigners who oppressed Israel (Judg. iii, 8), is master of the whole country between the rivers (1mm- A 'aharim = " Syria between the two rivers"). These
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facts militate strongly against the views of Ctesias, whose numbers produce for the founding of the empire the date of B.C. 2182 (Clinton, Fast, Hell, i, 263). The more modest account of Herodotus is at once more probable in itself, more agreeable to Scripture, and more in accordance with the native writer Berosus. Herodotus relates that the Assyrians were "lords of Asia" for 520 years, when their empire was partially broken up by a revolt of the subject-nations (i, 95). After a period of anarchy, the length of which he does not estimate, the Median kingdom was formed, 179 years before the death of Cyrus, or B.C. 708. He would thus, it appears, have assigned to the foundation of the Assyrian empire a date not very greatly anterior to B.C. 1228. Berosus, who made the. empire last 526 years to the reign of Pul (ap. Euseb. Chron. Arm. i, 4), must have agreed nearly with this view — at least he would certainly have placed the rise of the kingdom within the 13th century. This is, perhaps, the utmost that can be determined with any approach to certainty. If, for convenience' sake, a more exact date be desired, the conjecture of Dr. Brandis has some claim to be adopted, which fixes the year B.C. 1273 as that from which the 526 years of Berosus are to be reckoned (Re- rum Assyriarum Tempora Emendata, p. 17).