That this document is by no means impeccable has long been recognized. Already George Smith had written "The contempt of chronology in the Assyrian records is well shown by the fact that in Cylinder A, the account of the revolt of Psammitichus is given under the third expedition, while the general account of the rebellion of [Shamash shum ukin] is given under the sixth expedition, the affair of Nebobelzikri under the eighth expedition, and the Arabian and Syrian events in connection are given under the ninth expedition." [Footnote: Ibid., 202 n.*] If this severe criticism is not justified by a study of the Assyrian sources as a whole, the reference to Cylinder A may well begin our consideration of the shortcomings of that group. The Karbit and Urtaki episodes are entirely omitted. The omission of Karbit has dropped the Manna from the fifth to fourth and the omission of the latter has made the Teumman campaign the fifth instead of the seventh as in B, while the Gambulu expedition is also listed in the fifth though B makes it the eighth! The death of Gyges is added immediately after the other Lydian narrative, without a hint that years had intervened. The elaborate account of Teumman given by B has been cut decidedly and the interesting Ishtar dream is entirely omitted.

The same is true of the Gambulu narrative. While B and C have the data as to the Elamite side of the revolt of Shamash shum ukin, the introduction and conclusion as well as many new details are found only in A. It is curious to find here, for the first time, the greater part of the long list of conquered Egyptian kings, written down when Egypt was forever freed from Assyrian rule. That Cylinder B was not its immediate source is shown by the fact that in the first Egyptian expedition it gives the pardon of Necho, which is not in B, but is found in the earlier F.

Although this document has regularly been presented as the base text, largely because it gives a view of the greater part of the reign, enough should have been said in the preceding paragraph to prove how unworthy of the honor it is. Of all the cases where such procedure has caused damage, this is the worst. For the years from which we have no other data, we must use it, and we may hope that, as this period was nearer the time of its editors, its information may here be of more value. But we should recognize once and for all that the other portions are worthless and worse than worthless, save as they indicate the "corrections" to the actual history thought necessary by the royal scribes.

Later than this in date, in all probability, is the document we may call I. To be sure, the Arabian expedition already occurs in B, but I has also sections which appear only in A, and which therefore probably date later. The one indication that points to its being later than A is the fact that, while A ascribes these actions to his generals, our document speaks of them in the first person. [Footnote: K. 2802; G. Smith, 290 ff.] Still later are the Beltis [Footnote: II R. 66; G. Smith 303 ff.; S. A. Smith, II. 10 ff.; cf. I. 112; Jensen, KB. II. 264 ff.; Menant, 291 ff.] and Nabu inscriptions, [Footnote: S. A. Smith, I. 112 ff.; III. 128 ff.; Strong, RA. II. 20 ff.] though as these are merely display inscriptions, the date matters little. Here too belongs J in spite of its references to the accession. [Footnote: K. 2867; S. A. Smith, II. 1 ff.; cf. Olmstead, Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc., XLIV. 434.—The various British Museum fragments, cited in King, Supplement, seem to be of no special importance for this study as they are duplicates with few variants.] And to this very late period, when the empire was falling to pieces, is to be placed the hymn to Marduk which speaks of Tugdami the Cilician. [Footnote: S. A. Strong, JA. 1893, 1. 368 ff.]

We have already crossed the boundary which divides the really historical narratives from those which are merely sources. Among the latter, and of the more value as they open to us the sculptures, are the frequent notes inscribed over them, [Footnote: Scattered through the work of G. Smith, cf. also Menant, 287 ff.] while a number of tablets give much new historical information from the similar notes which the scribe was to thus incise. [Footnote: K. 2674; III R. 37; G. Smith, 140 ff.; S. A. Smith, III. 1 ff. K. 4457; G. Smith, 191 ff. K. 3096; G. Smith, 295 ff.] The Ishtar prayer is a historic document of the first class, the more so as its author never dreamed that some day it might be used to prove that the king was not accustomed, as his annals declare, to go forth at the head of his armies, that he was, in fact, destitute of even common bravery. [Footnote: K. 2652; III R. 16, 4; G. Smith, 139 f.; S. A. Smith, III. 11 ff.; cf. Jensen, KB. II. 246 ff. Talbot, TSBA. I. 346 ff.]

For the period after the reign of Ashur bani apal, we have only the scantiest data. The fall of the empire was imminent and there were no glories for the scribe to chronicle. Some bricks from the south east palace at Kalhu, [Footnote: I R. 8, 3; Winckler, KB. II. 268f; Menant, 295.] some from Nippur, [Footnote: Hilprecht, ZA. IV. 164; Explorations, 310.] and some boundary inscriptions [Footnote: K. 6223, 6332; Winckler, AOF. II. 4f; Johns. PSBA. XX. 234.] are all that we have from Ashur itil ilani and from Sin shar ishkun only fragments of a cylinder dealing with building. [Footnote: K. 1662 and dupl. I R. 8, 6; Schrader, SB. Berl. Gesell. 1880, 1 ff.; Winckler, Rev. Assyr. II. 66 ff.; KB. II. 270 ff.; MDOG. XXXVIII. 28.] We have no contemporaneous Assyrian sources for the fall of the kingdom, our only certain knowledge being derived from a mutilated letter [Footnote: BM. 51082; Thompson, Late Babylonian Letters 248.] and from a brief statement of the Babylonian king Nabu naid a generation later. [Footnote: Messerschmidt, Mitth. Vorderas. Gesell., 1896. I.]

CHAPTER VIII

THE BABYLONIAN CHRONICLE AND BEROSSUS

This concludes our detailed study of the "histories" of the reigns which were set forth with the official sanction. Before summing up our conclusions as to their general character, it will be well to devote a moment to the consideration of certain other sources for the Assyrian period. Many minor inscriptions have been passed by without notice, and a mere mention of the mass of business documents, letters, and appeals to the sun god will here be sufficient, though in a detailed history their help will be constantly invoked to fill in the sketch secured by the study of the official documents, and not infrequently to correct them. Of foreign sources, those of the Hebrews furnish too complicated a problem for study in this place, [Footnote: Cf. Olmstead, AJSL. XXX. Iff.; XXXI, 169 ff. for introduction to these new problems.] and the scanty documents of the other peoples who used the cuneiform characters hardly furnish source problems.

Even the Babylonians have furnished us with hardly a text which demands source study. To the end, as is shown so conspiciously in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, scores of long inscriptions could be devoted to the building activities of the ruler while a tiny fragment is all that is found of the Annals. Even his rock cut inscriptions in Syria, those in the Wadi Brissa and at the Nahr el Kelb, are almost exclusively devoted to architectural operations in far away Babylon! [Footnote: It may be noted that the Cornell Expedition secured squeezes of both these inscriptions.]