* The story which asserts that Pythagoras served under
Nergilos, King of Assyria, is probably based on some
similarity of names: thus among the Greek kings of Cyprus,
and in the time of Assur-bani-pal, we find one whose name
would recall that of Pythagoras, if the accuracy of the
reading were beyond question.
Yet it is not surprising that they should have believed this to be the case, when increasing familiarity with the priestly seminaries revealed to them the existence of those libraries of clay tablets in which, side by side with theoretic treatises dating from two thousand years back and more, were to be found examples of applied mechanics, observations, reckonings, and novel solutions of problems, which generations of scribes had accumulated in the course of centuries. The Greek astronomers took full advantage of these documents, but it was their astrologers and soothsayers who were specially indebted to them. The latter acknowledged their own inferiority the moment they came into contact with their Euphratean colleagues, and endeavoured to make good their deficiencies by taking lessons from the latter or persuading them to migrate to Greece. A hundred years later saw the Babylonian Berosus opening at Cos a public school of divination by the stars. From thenceforward “Chaldæan” came to be synonymous with “astrologer” or “sorcerer,” and Chaldæan magic became supreme throughout the world at the very moment when Chaldæa itself was in its death-throes.
Nor was its unquestioned supremacy in the black art the sole legacy that Chaldæa bequeathed to the coming generations: its language survived, and reigned for centuries afterwards in the regions subjugated by its arms. The cultivated tongue employed by the scribes of Nineve and Babylon in the palmy days of their race, had long become a sort of literary dialect, used in writings of a lofty character and understood by a select few, but unintelligible to the common people. The populace in town or country talked an Aramaic jargon, clumsier and more prolix than Assyrian, but easier to understand. We know how successfully the Aramæans had managed to push their way along the Euphrates and into Syria towards the close of the Hittite supremacy: their successive encroachments had been favoured, first by the Assyrian, later by the Chaldæan conquests, and now they had become sole possessors of the ancient Naharaîna, the plains of Cilicia, the basin of the Orontes, and the country round Damascus; but the true home of the Aramæans was in Syria rather than in the districts of the Lower Euphrates. Even in the time of the Sargonids their alphabet had made so much headway that at Nineveh itself and at Calah it had come into everyday use; when Chaldæan supremacy gave way to that of the Persians, its triumph—in the western provinces, at any rate—was complete, and it became the recognised vehicle of the royal decrees: we come upon it in every direction, on the coins issued by the satraps of Asia Minor, on the seals of local governors or dynasts, on inscriptions or stelæ in Egypt, in the letters of the scribes, and in the rescripts of the great king. From Nisib to Baphia, between the Tigris and the Mediterranean, it gradually supplanted most of the other dialects—Semitic or otherwise—which had hitherto prevailed. Phoenician held its ground in the seaports, but Hebrew gave way before it, and ended by being restricted to religious purposes, as a literary and liturgical language. It was in the neighbourhood of Babylon itself that the Judæan exiles had, during the Captivity, adopted the Aramaic language, and their return to Canaan failed to restore either the purity of their own language or the dignity and independence of their religious life. Their colony at Jerusalem possessed few resources; the wealthier Hebrews had, for the most part, remained in Chaldæa, leaving the privilege of repopulating the holy city to those of their brethren who were less plenteously endowed with this world’s goods. These latter soon learned to their cost that Zion was not the ideal city whose “gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the wealth of the nations;” far from “sucking the milk of nations and the breast of kings,” * their fields produced barely sufficient to satisfy the more pressing needs of daily life. “Ye have sown much, and bring in little,” as Jahveh declared to them “ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” **
* An anonymous prophet in Isa. lx. 11-16.
** Hagg. i. 6.
They quickly relinquished the work of restoration, finding themselves forgotten by all—their Babylonian brethren included—in the midst of the great events which were then agitating the world, the preparations for the conquest of Egypt, the usurpation of the pseudo-Smerdis, the accession of Darius, the Babylonian and Median insurrections. Possibly they believed that the Achæmenides had had their day, and that a new Chaldæan empire, with a second Nebuchadrezzar at its head, was about to regain the ascendency. It would seem that the downfall of Nadintav-bel inspired them with new faith in the future and encouraged them to complete their task: in the second year of Darius, two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, arose in their midst and lifted up their voices.
Zerubbabel, a prince of the royal line, governed Judah in the Persian interest, and with him was associated the high priest Joshua, who looked after the spiritual interests of the community: the reproaches of the two prophets aroused the people from their inaction, and induced them to resume their interrupted building operations. Darius, duly informed of what was going on by the governor of Syria, gave orders that they were not to be interfered with, and four years later the building of the temple was completed.*
* Ezra iv.-vi.; the account given by Josephus of the two
expeditions of Zerubbabel seems to have been borrowed partly
from the canonical book, partly from the Apocryphal writing
known as the 1st Book of Esdras.
For nearly a century after this the little Jewish republic remained quiescent. It had slowly developed until it had gradually won back a portion of the former territories of Benjamin and Judah, but its expansion southwards was checked by the Idumæans, to whom Nebuchadrezzar had years before handed over Hebron and Acrabattenê (Akrabbim) as a reward for the services they had rendered.
On the north its neighbours were the descendants of those Aramaean exiles whom Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon, kings of Assyria, had, on various occasions, installed around Samaria in Mount Ephraim. At first these people paid no reverence to the “God of the land,” so that Jahveh, in order to punish them, sent lions, which spread carnage in their ranks. Then the King of Assyria allotted them an Israelitish priest from among his prisoners, who taught them “the law” of Jahveh, and appointed other priests chosen from the people, and showed them how to offer up sacrifices on the ancient high places.*
* Kings xvii. 24-40. There do not seem to have been the
continual disputes between the inhabitants of Judaea and
Samaria before the return of Nehemiah, which the compilers
of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah seem to have believed.