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A Babylonian King List of the Hellenistic Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

A. J. Sachs  and
D. J. Wiseman
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Extract

A number of cuneiform tablets containing chronological lists of kings of Babylonia and Assyria from various periods have been published during the last seventy-five years. None, however, of these King Lists deals with the Seleucid period, which is now covered for the first time.

The present edition of the King List is intended to be a preliminary one. Once it is subjected to the detailed criticism of the Greek historians and after the one minor philological difficulty that remains is solved by our Assyriological colleagues, we expect to republish it in a more definitive form in a larger work that we are planning on the fragments of Hellenistic history that are embedded in a considerable body of unpublished astronomical texts of the Seleucid and Arsacid periods. On that occasion, we also expect to reconsider in detail the chronological data contained in the date formulas of economic and literary cuneiform texts as well as in astronomical tablets of various types, both published and unpublished. Rather than wait until every scrap of Babylonian, let alone classical, evidence has been sifted, we have thought that the interests of scholarship would best be served by the present prompt publication, particularly since the authors of this article are primarily Assyriologists and their knowledge of Hellenistic history is therefore not very profound.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1954 , pp. 202 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1954

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References

page 203 note 1 Cf. Jacobsen, T., The Sumerian King List (Chicago, 1959), especially p. 67, n. 120Google Scholar.

page 203 note 2 Fossey, C., Manuel d'Assyriologie, II (Paris, 1926), Nos. 7541 and 7564Google Scholar show that the same form of the sign that is found in our King List is attested in royal inscriptions of Šamaš-šum-ukin and Nabonidus, but both texts use archaizing script throughout, Fossey's No. 7420 documents the use of the same form in an economic text dated in the reign of Apil-Sin in the Old-Babylonian period.

page 205 note 1 The late Olmstead, A. T., Classical Philology, XXXII (1937), p. 4Google Scholar, committed an extremely unfortunate error which has already led astray a scholar of the rank of Bickerman, E. J. (Berytus, VIII, 1944, p. 75, n. 11Google Scholar) and which will doubtless be enshrined in handbooks for the next 50 years. The dating “Year 1 Seleucus, which is year 7,” found in an astronomical text, was interpreted by Olmstead as year 1 of Seleucus = year 7 of Alexander IV = 311/310 B.C. despite the fact that his sources, Kugler, F. X. (Von Moses bis Paulus, 1922, p. 309Google Scholar; Orientalia, N.S. II, 1933, p. 105Google Scholar) and Schaumberger, J. (Analecta Orientalia, VI, 1933, p. 5)Google Scholar, had made it quite clear that the year 305/304 B.C. is involved. The paragraph in question contains Jupiter observations, the date of which—our planetary system being what it is—is not amenable to manipulation by historical speculation.

Schnabel, P., in Altheim, F., Weltgeschichte Asiens im griechischen Zeitalter, I, 1947, p. 280Google Scholar and n. 1 (repeated in Altheim's Alexander und Asien, 1953, p. 120Google Scholar), furnished information that is factually correct although his translation “das siebte, das gleich ist dem ersten” is reversed.

page 205 note 2 For example, Kolbe, W., Beitr. z. syr. u. jüd. Gesch. (= Beitr. z. Wiss. v. Alt. Test., N.F. 10, 1926), p. 12–14Google Scholar; Beloch, K. J., Gr. Gesch.2, IV 2 (1927), p. 107 ff.Google Scholar; Tarn, W. W., in Cambr. Anc. Hist., VII (1928), p. 98, n. 1Google Scholar; Cary, M., A History of the Greek World from 323 to 146 B.C. (1939, repr. of 1932 ed.), p. 57Google Scholar; Cohen, R., La Grèce et l'heilénisation du monde antique (1934, repr. 1948), p. 457Google Scholar; Roussel, P., in Glotz, G., Histoire grecque, IV 1 (1939, repr. 1945), p. 373Google Scholar; Rostovtzeff, M., The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, I (1941), p. 23Google Scholar; Bengtson, H., Griechische Geschichte von den Anfängen bts in die römische Kaiserzeit (1950), p. 365 f. and 554Google Scholar. Corradi, G., Studi Ellenistici (1929), p. 56–93, especially p. 74Google Scholar, is exceptional, probably because the part in question first appeared in 1916.

page 205 note 3 Clay, A. T., Bab. Records in the Libr. of J. P. Morgan, I (1913), No. 5Google Scholar.

page 206 note 1 Beitr. z. syr. u. jüd. Gesch., 1926.

page 207 note 1 In cuneiform, the emendation means substituting A-šú lugal-mes̆ for A-mes̆ lugal. Curiously enough, the same error occurs in 46057 = SH. 81–7–6, 504, an astronomical Goal-Year Text, where the copyist's error described so vividly from afar by Olmstead, A. T.Classical Philology, XXXII (1937), p. 9 f.Google Scholar, is in reality a scribal error. The situation here is even more complicated because Kugler, whom Olmstead attacks, himself erred in restoring the date as 104 S.E. instead of 105 S.E. In June 1954, Sachs joined 46057 to 45787 = SH. 81–7–6, 203.

In this connection, a word of caution should be directed to Greek historians (cf., for example, Bikerman, E., Institutions des Séleucides (1938), p. 22, n. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aymard, A., Rev. de philol. 1940, p. 89, n. 3Google Scholar; Roussel, P. in Glotz, G., Histoire grecque, IV 1 (second ed., 1945), p. 343, n. 118Google Scholar; Bengtson, H., Griechische Geschichte (1950), p. 344)Google Scholar who have been making use of Olmstead's article. Olmstead was quite right in objecting to Kugler's overhasty hypotheses, but he himself, we regret to say, completely misunderstood the nature of a group of Babylonian astronomical texts which Kugler used. He was under the misapprehension that they were computed at a later date and hence of dubious historical value; in reality, they are compilations of extracts taken directly from authentic, contemporary Astronomical Diaries and must therefore be handled with great respect.

page 207 note 2 This text has been quoted by Kugler, , Von Moses bis Paulus (1922), p. 323 ff.Google Scholar, in connection with the change of kings in 119 S.E. and 125 S.E. A copy will be published in the near future; the two passages quoted above have been collated by us.

page 211 note 1 The economic text published by Schroeder, O., Vorderas. Schriftd. XV, No. 17 is dated 21 XI 143Google Scholar S.E. and has been listed by Krückmann, O., Bab. Rechtsund Verw.-Urk. aus d. Zeit Alex. u. d. Diad. (Inaug.-Diss. Berlin, 1931), p. 22Google Scholar under the co-regency of Antiochus IV and Antiochus. In Parker, R. A. and Dubberstein, W. H., Bab. Chron.2 (Chicago, 1946), p. 21Google Scholar, Krückmann is quoted as evidence for this date as the latest attested date for the co-regency. But consultation of the original publication by Schroeder shows that no royal name at all is preserved.

The two dates which Bikerman, E., Institutions des Séleucides (1938), p. 19, n. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cites as contradictory to the other Babylonian dates attested for the co-regency are not so in fact. The second of the two dates quoted as 2 VII 139 S.E., is actually 2 VII 99 S.E., the error being due to the fact that Clay (No. 13, not No. 14) in his transcription and translation carelessly wrote 139 for what his copy shows is sexagesimal 1,39 = decimal 99. The remaining date that is allegedly contradictory is in the famous lost tablet discussed by Lehmann, C. F., Zeitschr. f. Assyr., VII (1892), p. 330Google Scholar. All that we know about the daie is Lehmann's statement: “Die Thontafel, wie sie vorliegt, ist aufgezeichnet im 139. Jahre seleuki-discher Aera (173/2 a. Chr.) unter ‘König Antiochus’ (IV Epiphanes) (Rücks. Z. 25).” Until the tablet or the copies known to have been made by Pinches and Lehmann-Haupt turn up, we consider it a waste of time either to take it seriously or to speculate about emendations.

For a convenient list of co-regencies, cf. Bengtson, H., Die Strategie in der hellenistischen Zeit, II (= Münch. Beitr. z. Papyrusforsch. u. ant. Rechtsgesch., XXXII, 1944), p. 83, n. 1Google Scholar. Our present knowledge is far from exhaustive, as is shown by unpublished Babylonian texts.