Another theory brought forward by the Rev. A. H. Sayce and Josef Grivel, “Transactions of Society of Biblical Archæology,” vol. ii. part 2, p. 243, and vol. iii. part 1, p. 136, identifies Nimrod with Merodach, the god of Babylon; partly on the ground of the similarity of name, Merodach being Amar-utuci or Amar-ud in Accadian, partly because Merodach the patron-deity of Babylon stood in the same relation to that city that Asshur did to Assyria (see Micah v. 6), and partly since we find Merodach called “a hero” like Nimrod in Genesis, and assigned “four divine dogs” as though he were a hunter. These dogs are Uccumu “the despoiler,” Acculu “the devourer,” Icsuda “the capturer,” and Iltebu “the carrier away.” Merodach, it must be remembered, is always represented as a man, and is armed with weapons of war.

Mr. Smith first fancied that Nimrod might be Khammuragas, whom he identified with the first Arab king of Berosus, as this line of kings appeared to be connected with the Cossæans. This identification failing, after the discovery of the Deluge tablet in 1872, he conjectured that the hero whose name is provisionally read Izdubar is the Nimrod of the Bible, a conjecture which has since been adopted by several other scholars.

The supposition that Nimrod was an ethnic or geographical name, which was at one time favoured by Sir Henry Rawlinson, and has since been urged by Professor Oppert, is quite untenable, for it would be impossible on this theory to account for certain features in what we are told of the hero.

Mr. Smith’s opinion that he was the hero of the Izdubar Epic was first founded on the discovery that the latter formed the centre of the national historical poetry, and was the hero of Babylonian legend—in fact, occupies much the same place as Nimrod in later Arab tradition.

Izdubar, moreover, agrees exactly in character with Nimrod; he was a hunter, according to the cuneiform legends, who contended with and destroyed the lion, tiger, leopard, and wild bull or buffalo, animals the most formidable in the chase in any country. He ruled first in Babylonia over the region which from other sources we know to have been the centre of Nimrod’s kingdom. The principal scene, too, of his exploits and triumphs was the city of Erech, which, according to Genesis, was the second capital of Nimrod.

There remains the fact that the cuneiform name of this hero is undeciphered, the name Izdubar being a mere makeshift. It is possible that when the phonetic reading of the characters is found it will turn out to correspond with the name Nimrod. At all events it is noteworthy that Izdubar seems to have been specially connected with the town of Marad, the original Accadian name of which was Amarda, and that the Accadian an Amarda or “god of Amarda,” closely corresponds with the Biblical name of Nimrod. The translations and notes given in this book will lead, perhaps, to the general admission of the identity of the hero Izdubar with the traditional Nimrod; but this result can be firmly established only when more evidence is before us than that which we have at present.

At the time of the opening of the Epic, the great city of the south of Babylonia, and the capital of this part of the country, was Uruk, called in Genesis, Erech. Erech was devoted to the worship of Anu, the god of heaven, and his wife, the goddess Anatu, as well as of Istar, the Phœnician Ashtoreth, or Astarte, the myth of whose love for the Sun-god Dumuzi or Tammuz, the Adonis of Greek story, is alluded to in the course of the poem. The worship of Anatu, however, was subsequent to the Semitic occupation of the country, since the necessity of providing a female deity by the side of every male one was not felt until the Accadians, whose language was unacquainted with genders, were succeeded by the Semites with their nouns either masculine or feminine.

Here may provisionally be placed the first fragment of the Izdubar legends, K 3200. This fragment consists of part of the third column of a tablet, which is probably the first; and it gives an account of a conquest of Erech by its enemies. The fragment reads:—

Here we have a graphic account of the condition of Erech, when the enemy overran the country, and the first question which occurs is, who were these conquerors? Conjecture is idle in the want of evidence. They may have been the Semitic successors of the Accadians, they may have been the Medes of Berosus, or they may have been tribes who belong only to the realm of mythology. Mr. Smith believed that they were the subjects of Khumbaba, the tyrant whose death is related in the fourth book of the Epic, and who ruled over the land of Elam.