Baked Clay Cylinder of Sargon II, King of Assyria, B.C. 722-705, inscribed with a Chronicle of his Expedition
The Assyrians stand, in a literary sense, in about the same relation to the Babylonians as the Romans to the Greeks, disciples who never equalled their masters, although as far as can be seen, even relatively considered, Roman literature stands higher in relation to Greek than Assyrian stands in relation to Babylonian. The tendency of the Assyrians was warlike, and directed to practical ideas: to found a mighty empire, and to maintain their supremacy was the end for which they strove. Therefore they were more interested in history than in creations of the imagination; purely literary work had little charm for them. Only much later, a desire is awakened in them to become acquainted with the productions of the Babylonians in this field, and to acquire as much as possible of it for themselves. And perhaps even here interest in the ancient religions and national traditions played a greater rôle than love for poetry.
The Assyrians seem to have had more taste for what may be designated the science of the period, than for literature. Here also, they were following the lead of the Babylonians, and accomplished little beyond taking possession of the treasures of the Babylonian libraries. The prestige which attached to the Babylonians in antiquity as the earliest cultivators of science is well known, although some thought that they had borrowed it from the Egyptians. Without doubt they reached the greatest eminence in antiquity in the knowledge of astronomy. Kalisthenes sent Aristotle astronomical observations from Babylon, which, according to the most moderate statement, reach back to 1903 before Alexander, i.e., 2324 B.C.; and there is nothing improbable in this. The number of eclipses mentioned on the astronomical tablets would lead to a conclusion that there was an even longer period of recorded calculations. It may be that the Ziggurat of the temples, which originally had a religious significance, might, in Assyria at least, have been used as observatories. It has even been surmised that the Babylonians had some sort of a telescope, and this surmise rests upon the finding of a lens in the ruins, and upon the fact that they were acquainted with the planet Saturn, which is invisible to the naked eye; but this doss not seem probable. One thing is certain, they gave names to the constellations, especially to the signs of the Zodiac, which have in part remained in use. They were acquainted with five planets, and distinguished them very exactly from the other heavenly bodies. They observed, and with great accuracy, the eclipses of the sun and moon, perhaps also the sun spots, the comets, the orbit of Venus, and the position of the Polar star; but they had some very childish ideas about the causes of eclipses and the character of the other heavenly phenomena. Naturally the Milky Way did not escape their observation. They even calculated the regular recurrence of eclipses of the moon as well as its phases.
A few of the mathematical tablets extant prove that they had made great progress in arithmetic and higher mathematics, so indispensable to the study of astronomy. The prevalent system was the sexagesimal, with the 60 as the unit, but the decimal system seems to have been known and used. However in spite of the recognition of the high value of these researches, they hardly deserve the name of science. These researches were certainly not undertaken from a love of science. The prime object, no doubt, was to discover the will of the gods in regard to the future. The science of mathematics itself was made subservient to the art of divination. Astronomy was a secondary object, astrology the principal one. Knowledge was sought of what must happen when there should be a recurrence of certain phases of stars and heavenly bodies. All observations of planets, comets, and other stars, of eclipses and other phenomena, were immediately connected with occurrences on earth, which at some former time had fallen in conjunction with them and consequently must be expected again.
No more were other branches of science besides astronomy cultivated for their own sakes. Their science of medicine was based almost entirely upon magic, and appears to have stood on a lower plane than that of the Egyptians, at least in so far as the still existing inscriptions will permit us to judge. They indeed used as did the Vedic Indians external and internal remedies, but they probably regarded them as charms; whatever progress they may have made in the science of medicine, the records of it in the ancient inscriptions prove that it was somewhat less than what we know of the Vedic physicians and their cures. Thus it is rather an exaggeration to speak of physical, geographical, grammatical, and mythological writings of the Babylonians and Assyrians, unless the myths and legends belonging to literature already discussed are meant.
There are various reasons for the supposition that each of the Babylonian libraries according to the studies of the several religious and scientific schools had a distinctive character. The Assyrian libraries, on the other hand, being all of later date, had more general and more varied contents.
The idea that these libraries were for the use of the general public, is not well founded, and rather improbable. They were probably designed in the first place, for the learned men and scribes of the king, as well as for his own use, for the instruction of his sons, and future officials, as well as for archives of the state. They do not in the least prove that culture, learning, and erudition were the property of all classes in Assyria.[h]
Epistolary Literature
At the same time the large number of written private documents which have been unearthed—the letters and contract tablets—show that writing was not an unusual thing among the people as a whole.