The concluding chapter will deal in some detail with certain features of Babylonian civilization, and with the extent to which it may have moulded the cultural development of other races. In the latter connexion a series of claims has been put forward which cannot be ignored in any treatment of the nation's history. Some of the most interesting contributions that have recently been made to Assyriologieal study undoubtedly concern the influence of ideas, which earlier research had already shown to be of Babylonian origin. Within recent years a school has arisen in Germany which emphasizes the part played by Babylon in the religious development of Western Asia, and, in a minor degree, of Europe. The evidence on which reliance has been placed to prove the spread of Babylonian thought throughout the ancient world has been furnished mainly by Israel and Greece; and it is claimed that many features both in Hebrew religion and in Greek mythology can only be rightly studied in the light thrown upon them by Babylonian parallels from which they were ultimately derived. It will therefore be necessary to examine briefly the theory which underlies most recent speculation on this subject, and to ascertain, if possible, how far it may be relied on to furnish results of permanent value.
But it will be obvious that, if the theory is to be accepted in whole or in part, it must be shown to rest upon a firm historical basis, and that any inquiry into its credibility should be more fitly postponed until the history of the nation itself has been passed in review. After the evidence of actual contact with other races has been established in detail, it will be possible to form a more confident judgment upon questions which depend for their solution solely on a balancing of probabilities. The estimate of Babylon's foreign influence has therefore been postponed to the closing chapter of the volume. But before considering the historical sequence of her dynasties, and the periods to which they may be assigned, it will be well to inquire what recent excavation has to tell us of the actual remains of the city which became the permanent capital of Babylonia.
[1] Cf. Hogarth, "The Nearer East," pp. 212 ff., and Ramsay, "The Historical Geography of Asia Minor," pp. 27 ff. Herodotus (V, 52-54) describes the "Royal Road" of the Persian period as passing from Ephesus by the Cilician Gates to Susa, and it obtained its name from the fact that all government business of the Persian Court passed along it; the distances, given by Herodotus in parasangs and stages, may well be derived from some official Persian document (cf. How and Wells, "Commentary on Herodotus," II, p. 21). But it followed the track of a still earlier Royal Road, by which Khatti, the capital of the old Hittite Empire, maintained its communications westward and with the Euphrates valley.
[2] At the present day this forms the great trunk-road across the highlands of Persia, by way of Kirmanshah; and, since the Moslem conquest, it has been the chief overland route from the farther East for all those making the pilgrimage to Mecca.
[3] Cf. Hogarth, op. cit., p. 200 f.
[4] See below, pp. 9 ff.
[5] It is not improbable that the transference from one bank to the other was dictated by the relations of the ruling empire with Persia and the West.
[6] See "Sumer and Akkad," p. 242.