Magi

—General Data:

A country in western Asia of varying limits at different periods. The natural boundaries were the Persian gulf on the south, the Tigris on the east, and the Arabian desert on the west. On the north the boundary changed with political changes; but it may be roughly placed at a line drawn along the beginning of the alluvial soil.

Climate and Products.

The climate is subtropical. Rain may fall at any time between November and February; but the rainiest months are November and December. The rest of the year is dry and extremely hot, though rain is not unknown, in the form of brief showers. Ancient writers ascribe extraordinary fertility to the soil; and, due allowance being made for exaggeration, there remains indubitable evidence of great productivity. The disuse of former elaborate arrangements for irrigation, and the lack of attention have, in modern times, turned much of the country into an arid waste interspersed with malarial marshes. The principal products of the country were wheat, dates, barley, millet, sesame, vetches, oranges, apples, pears, and grapes. The domestic animals in use were horses, camels, oxen, sheep, dogs, and goats. Of wild animals there were enough to furnish much sport for kings and princes. In the chase the lion held first place, if one is to judge by the native accounts; but the wild boar, the wild ox, the jackal, the gazelle, and the hare were likewise found. Birds were numerous; and fish, chiefly carp, were taken in the sluggish rivers.

People and Language.

The people that made the great civilization and history of Babylonia, as it is now known, were Semites, of the same general stock as the Hebrews and Arabs. The time at which they entered the country is matter of dispute, as is also the question whether or not they found another race already in possession. It is probably safe to say that the great majority of modern Assyriologists entertain the view that before the advent of the Semites Babylonia was peopled by a race known as Sumerians, to whom is due the origin of the method of writing, as also that of part of the religion and the general culture of the Babylonians. To this view, however, there is opposed a strong body of opinion, of which Joseph Halévy, the eminent French Orientalist, is the chief exponent. The language spoken by the Babylonians is usually called Assyrian. It belongs to the northern group of the Semitic family, and is more closely affiliated with Hebrew, Phenician, and the several Aramaic languages than with Arabic, Himyaritic, and Ethiopic. The method of writing is cumbrous; but it served its purpose from the earliest inscriptions antedating 4500 B.C. down to the period of Alexander the Great. It is called cuneiform, since the earlier picture-writing gradually developed into a character the chief constituent of which is a wedge (Latin, cuneus).

Its History.

The beginnings of history in Babylonia are lost in antiquity. More than 4,000 years before the common era the country was called Kengi—that is, "land of canals and reeds"—and in it were a number of cities, each with a sort of city king. One of the earliest of these kings bore the name En-shag-kush-anna, the political center of whose kingdom was probably Erech, while Nippur was its most important religious center. The names of many other kings that ruled in one city or another have been handed down; but no clear light upon the movements of men in the forming of kingdoms is obtained until the reign of Sargon I., about 3800 B.C., and of his son Naram-Sin. These kings were certainly Semites, whatever may be said of earlier monarchs. They made conquests over a large part of the country. Later astrological tablets ascribe to the former some successful campaigns into the far west to Phenicia and Elam. For a long period after the reigns of Sargon and Naram-Sin the supreme power in Babylonia passed from city to city; first one and then another held the supremacy.

Kings Ur-gur and Dungi.

The first one that held the chief place after this great conqueror was gone was the city of Ur, in which kings Ur-gur and Dungi held sway about 3200 B.C. Each of them was called not only "king of Ur," but also "king of Sumer and Akkad," under which title they claimed dominion over both northern and southern Babylonia.

After the power had slipped away from Ur, the city of Isin became supreme for a time, only to be succeeded again by Ur, and this in turn by Larsa. During all this long period the city of Babylon exerted no profound influence upon the general life of the country. But about 2450 B.C., according to the native chronologists, the first dynasty began to reign, with Sumuabi as the first king. The sixth king of this dynasty, Hammurabi (about 2342-2288 B.C.; see see AMRAPHEL), united all Babylonia under one scepter and made Babylon its capital. From that proud position the city was never deposed; for even when the Assyrians ruled the land from Nineveh.the city of Babylon was still the chief city of the southern kingdom. The development of the kingdom which Hammurabi had founded was continued during the second dynasty of Babylon, at the end of which (about 1780 B.C.) a foreign dynasty known as the Kassites came to the throne.

The Kassites.

The Kassites had come originally from the mountains of Elam; and they furnished to Babylonia some kings eminent as warriors and in the arts of peace. Among them were Kadashman-Bel and Burnaburiash (about 1400 B.C.), who were in correspondence with the kings of Egypt. During the 576 years that this dynasty ruled over Babylonia the kingdom of Assyria achieved complete independence, and the power of Babylonia waned greatly. The dynasties that followed (dynasty 4 of Isin, dynasty 5 of the Sea Lands, dynasty 6 of Bazi) produced few men of the highest rank either as warriors or as organizers; and modern knowledge of the latter part of the period is more or less fragmentary. The seventh dynasty had but one king, an Elamite of unknown name (about 1030 B.C.), and during the eighth dynasty the power gradually drifted into the hands of Assyria. In 729 B.C. Tiglathpileser III. of Assyria was also king of Babylonia, and thenceforward Babylonia had no life of its own (ASSYRIA).

Nabopolassar.