A History of Babylon, from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest

by L. W. King

In such hands the astral theory carries its own antidote, for one cannot but be struck with the ease with which it may be applied. There is generally no need to prove a mythological setting to the narrative; all that is necessary is to assume an astral meaning beneath the text.[55] In fact, one way of demonstrating its unsoundness has been to apply its methods to the records of the life of a historical personage.[56] But this argument amounts at best to a reductio ad absurdum, and the most damaging criticism has been directed from the purely astronomical side.

It is well known that the different ecliptic constellations which make up the signs of the zodiac do not each occupy thirty degrees of the ecliptic, but that some are longer and some shorter than others. Also, the constellations of the Babylonian astronomers during the late period did not completely coincide with ours. For instance, the most eastern star of our constellation Virgo was counted by the Babylonians of the Arsacid era as belonging to the next ecliptic constellation, Leo, since it was known as "the hind-foot of the lion."[57] But, fortunately for our purpose, not much doubt can exist as to the eastern limit of the Twins and the western limit of the Ram, which mark the beginning and end of the three World Ages of the astral mythologists. For the two bright stars, Castor and Pollux, from which the Twins receive their name were undoubtedly reckoned in that constellation by the Neo-Babylonians. And the easternmost star of our constellation of the Fishes (a piscium) was probably well beyond the Babylonian constellation of the Ham.

A NEO-BABYLONIAN TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY.
Brit. Mus., No 86378.

Working on this assumption, and assuming thirty degrees to each of the three intervening constellations, Dr. Kugler has calculated the years in which the sun entered these signs of the zodiac at the vernal equinox, the points, that is to say, at which the astral World-Ages would have begun and ended. His figures entirely dispose of Winckler's claim to an astronomical basis for his astral system. The Age of the Twins, instead of ending, according to the theory, at about 2800 b.c., really ended in the year 4383 b.c. Thus the Age of the Bull began over fifteen hundred years before the birth of Sargon I., who is supposed to have inaugurated its beginning; and it ended in 2232 b.c.—that is, considerably before the birth of Hammurabi, under whom we are told the Bull Age motifs were principally developed. Moreover, from the time of the First Dynasty onwards down to the year 81 b.c.—that is to say, during the whole course of her history—Babylon was really living in the Age of the Ham, not in that of the Bull. Thus all the motifs and myths, which have been so ingeniously connected with the Bull sign of the zodiac, ought really to have been connected with the Ram. But even the astral mythologists admit that there is not a trace of a Ram-motif in the Babylonian mythology. Granting all the assumptions made by Winckler and his school with regard to the astronomical knowledge of the early Babylonians, the theory evolved from them is found to be baseless. Winckler's astronomy was at fault, and his three astrological World-Ages do not really correspond to his periods of history.[58]

Babylon was, indeed, the mother of astronomy no less than of astrology, and classical antiquity was indebted to her in no small measure: but, strictly speaking, her scientific observations do not date from a very early period. It is true we have evidence that, as early as the close of the third millennium, the astronomers recorded observations of the planet Venus,[59] and there is also a fragment of an early text which shows that they attempted to measure approximately the positions of the fixed stars. But their art of measuring remained for a long time primitive, and it was only the later Babylonians, of the period from the sixth to the first century b.c., who were enabled to fix with sufficient accuracy the movements of the planets, especially those of the moon, and by this means to found a reliable system of time-measurement. The mere fact that the astrological texts, even in the late Assyrian period, treat eclipses as possible on any day of the month, and use the term for any kind of obscuration of the sun and moon, is sufficient evidence that they had not at that time noted their regular occurrence and still had comparatively crude notions of astronomy.[60]

The earliest scientific document in the strict sense of the word dates from the second half of the sixth century, when we find for the first time that the relative positions of the sun and moon were calculated in advance, as well as the conjunction of the moon with the planets and of the planets with each other, their position being noted in the signs of the zodiac. But the tablets afford no evidence that the Babylonian astronomers possessed any knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes before the close of the second century b.c., and the traditional ascription of the discovery to Hipparchus of Nicæa, working between the years 161 and 126 b.c. on the observations of his Babylonian predecessors, may be accepted as accurate.[61]

There are, in short, no grounds for the theory that the Babylonians divided the history of the world into astral ages, nor that their myths and legends had any peculiar connexion with successive signs of the zodiac. That astrology formed an important section of the Babylonian religious system from an early period there can be no doubt; but at that time the stars and planets did not exercise any preponderating influence on religious belief, and many features of the system, for which an astral origin has been confidently assumed, must be traced to a simpler and more primitive association of ideas.[62] But the necessary modification of the astral theory still leaves open the possibility that Hebrew literature may have acquired a strong astrological tinge in the Exilic and post-Exilic periods. Were Jewish traditions affected in Babylon, for example, in some such way as the Mithraie legends from Persia? Since the astral theory has no claim to dictate the answer for us, the question must be decided by the ordinary rules of historical and literary evidence.