Assur-bani-pal, son of Esarhaddon, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, B.C. 670, was the greatest of the Assyrian sovereigns, and he is far more memorable on account of his magnificent patronage of learning than on account of the greatness of his empire or the extent of his wars.
Assur-bani-pal added more to the Assyrian royal library than all the kings who had gone before him, and it is to tablets written in his reign that we owe almost all our knowledge of the Babylonian myths and early history, beside many other important matters.
The agents of Assur-bani-pal sought everywhere for inscribed tablets, brought them to Nineveh, and copied them there; thus the literary treasures of Babylon, Borsippa, Cutha, Agané, Ur, Erech, Larsa, Nipur, and various other cities were transferred to the Assyrian capital to enrich the great collection there.
The fragments brought over to Europe give us a good idea of this library and show the range of the subjects embraced by its collection of works. Among the different classes of texts, the Genesis stories and similar legends occupied a prominent place; these, as they will be further described in the present volume, need only be mentioned here. Accompanying them we have a series of mythological tablets of various sorts, varying from legends of the gods, psalms, songs, prayers, and hymns, down to mere allusions and lists of names. Many of these texts take the form of charms to be used in sickness and for the expulsion of evil spirits; some of them are of great antiquity, being older than the Izdubar legends. One fine series deals with remedies against witchcraft and the assaults of evil spirits. Izdubar is mentioned in one of these tablets as lord of the oaths or pledges of the world.
Some of the prayers were for use on special occasions, such as on starting on a campaign, on the occurrence of an eclipse, &c. Astronomy and astrology were represented by various detached inscriptions and reports, but principally by the great work of which mention has already been made, and many copies of which were in the Library of Assur-bani-pal.
Among the Astrological tablets is a fragment which professes to be copied from an original of the time of Izdubar.
Historical texts formed another section of the library, and these included numerous copies of inscriptions of early Babylonian kings; there were besides, chronological tablets with lists of kings and annual officers, inscriptions of various Assyrian monarchs, histories of the relations between Assyria and Babylonia, Elam, and Arabia, treaties, despatches, proclamations, and reports on the state of the empire and military affairs.
Natural history was represented by bilingual lists of mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and plants, trees, grasses, reeds, and grains, earths, stones, &c. These lists are classified according to the supposed nature and affinities of the various species, and show considerable advance in the sciences. Mathematics had a place in the library, there being tables of problems, figures, and calculations; but this branch of learning was not studied so fully as in Babylonia.
Grammar and Lexicography were better represented, since there were many works on these subjects, including lists of the characters, the declension of the noun, the conjugation of the verb, examples of syntactical construction, reading-books, interlinear translations of Accadian texts, and the like. All these tablets were copied from Babylonian originals. In legal and civil literature the library was also rich, and the tablets serve to show that the same laws and customs prevailed in Assyria as in Babylonia. There are codes of laws, law cases, records of sale, barter, and loans, lists of property, lists of titles and trades, of tribute and taxes, &c.
In Geography the Assyrians were not very advanced; but there are lists of countries and their productions, of cities, rivers, mountains, and peoples.