A brief overview of Sumerian and Greek interaction

Original (in Russian): https://t.me/hrenologia/5841

Nota bene. I use a dynamic bibliography system, whereby the bibliography appears at the end of each section rather than at the end of the entire article.

§1. Graeco-Babyloniaca

A recent question posed by a reader touches upon a classical issue: “Were the Greeks aware of the Sumerians and their cultural legacy?”. The brief and academically grounded answer is no. Even among the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian elites of the first millennium BCE - contemporaneous with the Greco-Persian period - knowledge of the Sumerians had become fragmentary and largely symbolic, despite the continued use of the Sumerian language in liturgical, scientific and scholarly contexts.

Nonetheless, points of cultural and linguistic contact between the Mesopotamian and Hellenistic worlds are attested, most notably in the corpus of so-called Graeco-Babyloniaca - a term applied to a group of Babylonian tablets that exhibit cuneiform inscriptions in Sumerian or Akkadian on one side, and their transliterations into the Greek alphabet on the other.

Fewer than thirty such tablets and fragments are currently known. They were produced between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE, and their provenance, insofar as it can be established, points to Hellenistic Babylon. The texts comprise excerpts from lexical lists, as well as prayers and incantations, and their format corresponds closely to the traditional didactic arrangements found in the late cuneiform scholastic tradition of the Neo-Babylonian and Late Babylonian periods.

The scribes responsible for these texts were probably Babylonian students who were not yet proficient in writing cuneiform. Instead, they copied the content set by their teachers using the easier-to-acquire Greek script. There is evidence to suggest that no unified system of transliteration had been developed yet, and orthographic conventions varied across the tablets. In fact, there is a discussion:

The first hypothesis is that the texts were created by Greek or Macedonian scribes learning cuneiform (Sollberger). One argument in favour of this is that the practice of turning the tablets vertically, like a book, supports it.

Another hypothesis is that the texts were written by Babylonians attempting to adapt the language to a new writing system (Geller and Knudsen). For example, there is no Greek translation of the texts, as was customary in Sumerian-Akkadian lexical lists.

These texts are significant for two primary reasons. First, they serve as independent witnesses for the phonetic interpretation of cuneiform signs, confirming or challenging scholarly reconstructions. Second, they offer grounds for hypothesizing that, in the Hellenized Near East, traditional Mesopotamian texts may have continued to be copied using Greek orthography on perishable materials even after the decline of clay tablets in the 1st century CE - a practice analogous in some respects to the development of the Coptic script.

The image shows an example of a Graeco-Babyloniaca tablet: a student-scribe attempted to write PA.TE.SI = ENSI, and LUGAL, and to render it using the Greek alphabet - but the result is very fragmentary.
Source: Westenholz, A. (2007). The Graeco-Babyloniaca Once Again. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, 97(2), 262–313. https://doi-org.uaccess.univie.ac.at/10.1515/ZA.2007.014

The most up-to-date linguistic resources on this topic that I am aware of include (all from “History of Akkadian Language” by Brill):

• Lang, M. (2021). Chapter 5: Akkadian and the Greek Alphabet (Graeco-Babyloniaca). In History of the Akkadian Language.

• Hackl, J. (2021). Chapter 24: Late Babylonian. In History of the Akkadian Language.

• Vita, J. (Ed.). (2021). Part 8: Afterlife — Akkadian after Akkadian. In History of the Akkadian Language.

For more on Greek historiography of the ancient Mesopotamia, see:

• Cartlidge, B. (2020). Herodicus in Babylon: Greek epigram and the Near East. Mnemosyne, 73(6), 949–974. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525X-12342750

• Stevens, K. (2019). Berossus and the Graeco-Babyloniaca. In Between Greece and Babylonia (pp. 94–143). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108303552.003

The contributions of M. J. Geller and Sollberger (1950s–1960s), Knudsen (1970s–2000s), and Oelsner (2014) are particularly valuable. Oelsner has written extensively on the interaction of Late Akkadian with Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Persian, among other languages. Streck, M. P., Maeir, A. and Berlejung, A. (2017). Late Babylonian in Aramaic Epigraphs on Cuneiform Tablets.

In a comparative philological framework, Piotr Michałowski has argued (in The Life and Death of the Sumerian Language in Comparative Perspective) that the obsolescence of Sumerian parallels the posthumous trajectories of Latin during the Carolingian reforms, Byzantine Greek, and the classical forms of Arabic and Hebrew. In each case, standardization of the written form was accompanied by reforms in recited pronunciation, often aligning with contemporary liturgical or didactic needs. On this point, cf. Rabin, Chaim (1985), “Massorah and Ad Litteras,” Hebrew Studies 26, 81–91.

§2. Literature connections

From Iliad XIV 192–205 and 295–305 (Homer. (1911). The Iliad of Homer (A. Lang, W. Leaf, & E. Myers, Trans.; Revised ed.). Macmillan and Co. Gutenberg - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3059/pg3059-images.html):

Then with crafty purpose the lady Hera answered her: “Give me now Love and Desire wherewith thou dost overcome all the Immortals, and mortal men. For I am going to visit the limits of the bountiful Earth, and Okeanos, father of the gods, and mother Tethys, who reared me well and nourished me in their halls, having taken me from Rhea, when far-seeing Zeus imprisoned Kronos beneath the earth and the unvintaged sea. Them am I going to visit, and their endless strife will I loose, for already this long time they hold apart from each other, apart from love and the marriage bed, since wrath hath settled in their hearts. If with words I might persuade their hearts, and bring them back to love and the marriage bed, ever should I be called dear to them and worshipful.”

Then laughter-loving Aphrodite answered her again: “It may not be, nor seemly were it to deny that thou askest, for thou sleepest in the arms of Zeus, the chief of gods.”

Therewith from her breast she loosed the broidered girdle, fair-wrought, wherein are all her enchantments; therein are love, and desire, and loving converse, that steals the wits even of the wise. This girdle she laid in her hands, and spake, and said: “Lo now, take this girdle and lay it up in thy bosom, this fair-wrought girdle, wherein all things are fashioned; methinks thou wilt not return with that unaccomplished, which in thy heart thou desirest.

…

Then with crafty purpose lady Hera answered him: “I am going to visit the limits of the bountiful Earth, and Okeanos, father of the gods, and mother Tethys, who reared me well and cherished me in their halls. Them am I going to visit, and their endless strife will I loose, for already this long time they hold apart from each other, from love and the marriage bed, since wrath hath settled in their hearts. But my horses are standing at the foot of many-fountained Ida, my horses that shall bear me over wet and dry. And now it is because of thee that I am thus come hither, down from Olympus, lest perchance thou mightest be wroth with me hereafter, if silently I were gone to the mansion of deep-flowing Okeanos.”

Then Zeus, the gatherer of the clouds, answered her and said: “Hera, thither mayst thou go on a later day. But come let us twain take pleasure in the bed of love. For never once as thus did the love of goddess or woman so mightily overflow and conquer the heart within my breast. Not when I loved the wife of Ixion, who bore Pirithoos, the peer of gods in counsel, nor when I loved Danae of the fair ankles, daughter of Akrisios, who bore Perseus, most renowned of all men, nor when I loved the famed daughter of Phoinix, who bore me Minos, and godlike Rhadamanthys, nay, nor even when I loved Semele, nor Alkmene in Thebes, and she bore Herakles, a child hardy of heart, but Semele bore Dionysos, a delight to mortals, nay, nor when I loved the fair-tressed queen, Demeter, nor renowned Leto, nay, nor thy very self, as now I love thee, and sweet desire possesses me.”

And him the lady Hera answered with crafty purpose: “Most dread son of Kronos, what a word thou hast spoken! If now thou dost long to be couched in love on the crests of Ida, and all stands plain to view, how would it be if someone of the eternal gods should see us slumbering, and go and tell it to all the gods? It is not I that could arise from the couch and go again to thy house, nay, it would be a thing for righteous anger. But if thou wilt, and it is dear to thy heart, thou hast a chamber that thine own son Hephaistos builded, and fastened strong doors to the pillars, thither let us go and lie down, if the couch be thy desire.”

There exist several fragments in the Iliad and Theogony that raise questions of Sumerian-Babylonian influence. There are several monographs on this subject: the classical work by Smith, G. (1876), The Chaldean Account of Genesis, or more recent ones like Haubold, J. (2013). Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature. Cambridge University Press and Burkert, W. (2004). Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Harvard University Press. The last author interprets the moment where Hera deceitfully tells Zeus that she is heading to Oceanus - the forefather - and Tethys - her mother. While references to these figures are well known from Hesiod (e.g., at the very beginning of the Theogony: "Gaea the Mother, Oceanus the great, and dark Night, and the other sacred race of the immortals"), their presence in the Iliad is unique.

Burkert notes that this scene strikingly resembles the beginning of the Babylonian epic Enūma Eliš. There, the primordial pair is Apsu and Tiamat - representing fresh and salt water. Hera calls Oceanus and Tethys the primordial ones, yet Tethys, unlike the active marine goddess Thetis (mother of Achilles), never had a cult in Greece and is mentioned only in this context. According to Burkert, the very name is borrowed through phonetic similarity - Akkadian Tiamat (variants Tawtu, Tawti) could have become Tēthys by losing the w sound and shifting the vowel in the Ionic dialect - just as Kubaba became Kybele, Baal became Belos, and Mada became Medoi.

The text of Enūma Eliš was known to Eudemus of Rhodes, a student of Aristotle. He transmitted the name of the goddess as Tauthe (Ταυθὲ), which reflects the form Tawtu. The author of this analysis concludes that this is not a mere tradition, but a direct borrowing from a written Babylonian text. Later, through Berossus and his Babyloniaka and Eudemus, it was passed down to the Neoplatonist Damascius, for whom the deity Mummu–Mōymis, representing an animated, deified rational cosmos, is a child of the primeval couple Apason (Apsu) and Tauthe (Tiamat). Curiously, the Enūma Eliš itself does not explain the origin or lineage of Mummu.

Assyriologists like Kramer and Krebernik, who studied Greco-Mesopotamian interactions, believed (and still believe) that Eudemus may have confused Mummu, used as an epithet of Tiamat, with a separate deity Mummu, and from this concluded that he was the son of the primordial couple (as Krebernik wrote in an encyclopedic entry: "Mum(m)u. Name bzw. Epitheton verschiedener Gottheiten"). Other Assyriologists like Bartash side with Eudemus. As Martin West also argues, this Iliad scene is an Eastern influence, which entered the epic in spite of the oral tradition.

Sources:

• Frahm, E. (2024). Enuma eliš outside the cuneiform tradition.

• Burkert, W. (1992). The orientalizing revolution: Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the early Archaic period. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Burkert, W. (2004). Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern contexts of Greek culture. Harvard University Press. https://archive.org/details/babylonmemphispe0000burk

• Betegh, G. (2002), 'On Eudemus fr. 150 (Wehrli)', in: I. Bodnár and W. Fortenbaugh (ed.), Eudemus of Rhodes. https://www.energy.ceu.edu/sites/default/files/publications/eudemus.pdf

• Cory, I. P. (1876). Cory's ancient fragments of the Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other authors (E. Richmond Hodges, Ed.). Reeves & Turner.

• Haubold, J. (2013). Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Penglase, C. (1994). Greek myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203443910

• Smith G. (1876). Chapter VI In Chaldean account of Genesis. In Sacred Texts: Ancient Near East. http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/caog/caog06.htm

• Schnabel, P. (1923). Berossos und die babylonisch-hellenistische Literatur. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. https://archive.org/details/berossosunddieba00schnuoft

§3. Gilgamesh in Rome

But what came to my mind was not that, but rather the sole attested reference to Gilgamesh in Greco-Roman sources. It appears in Book XII of Claudius Aelianus’ De Natura Animalium (Claudius Aelianus, De Natura Animalium, Book XII; trans. G. McNamee, 2005), recounting a story about Gilgamesh (whom Aelian calls Gilgamos) in a modified version of the legend of Sargon of Akkad: an oracle foretells to the Babylonian king that he will die at the hands of his own grandson (his daughter’s son). Fearing this, Seuechoros (as Aelian jokes, much like Acrisius with Danaë) places his daughter under strict guard. Nonetheless, she conceives a child by an unknown man. The guards, afraid of the king, throw the infant from the citadel. Terrified, the king orders the child thrown from a tower - but an eagle, seeing the falling boy, swoops down, catches him on its back, and carries him away to a distant garden. There, the eagle gently sets the child down. A gardener discovers the boy, raises him with love and care, and names him Gilgam (Gilgamos), who later becomes king of Babylon. Aelian adds that even if this story may sound legendary, it is not without parallels - after all, the Persian founder Achaemenes was also said to have been raised by an eagle:

Animals will often conceive a love for a human. For example, an EAGLE once raised a human baby. I will tell you the whole story to give all the relevant facts. When Seuechoros was the king of Babylon, the Chaldeans prophesied that his yet unborn grandson would one day overthrow him. This made him afraid, and he locked his daughter away in a tower and kept close watch on her. Even so, since fate has more power than even the king of Babylon, the daughter got pregnant by some unknown man. The guards, fearful of what the king would do when he found out, waited for the birth and then threw the infant from the tower. An eagle saw the baby falling and flew beneath it, caught it on its back, and took it off to some garden. The keeper of the garden saw the baby and fell in love with it and took care of it thenceforth; the baby was called Gilgamos, and indeed he became king of Babylon.

I agree, for the most part, with people who think this story is a legend. However, I have heard that Achaemenes the Persian, from whom the Achaemenid aristocracy is descended, was also nursed by an eagle.

Interestingly, Aelian himself acknowledges the mythic nature of the story - “If someone considers this a myth, I concur” - but, as Steven D. Smith (2020) argues, this rhetorical gesture is less a sign of skepticism and more an embrace of myth as a vehicle for cultural synthesis. Aelian was less concerned with factuality than with the philantropia (affection) animals may feel toward humans, and with how myths from Chaldean, Persian, and Greek traditions could be reframed within Roman literary discourse. As Smith notes, the eagle may serve not only as a symbol of divine rescue, but also as a kind of mythological basanos - a “test” of legitimacy. In another chapter of De Natura Animalium (II.26), Aelian describes how eagles test their offspring by making them stare into the sun: only the legitimate chicks endure the light. In the Gilgamos story, this imagery is echoed when the eagle “sees most keenly” the falling child and saves him, as if recognizing him as worthy of survival. This reflects Aelian’s broader literary method - testing which myths deserve “inclusion” in his cultural anthology.

We also see intertextuality here, with three different legends from different regions bound together: The Greek legend of Danaë, the mother of Perseus, who was hidden away by her father Acrisius and miraculously impregnated (a legend similar to that of Oedipus), mirrors the legend of Sargon of Akkad, an ancient Babylonian king said to have been born to a noble mother and an unknown father. He was then cast away and raised by a gardener (a story similar to that in the Book of Exodus). The eagle motif is also found in the Babylonian legend of Etana and the Sumerian legend of Lugalbanda, in which an eagle carries a human skyward. As Smith (2020) argues, Aelian is not merely retelling a tale; he is consciously integrating Chaldean traditions into Greco-Roman frameworks. The king's behavior recalls Acrisius; the infant cast out and raised by a gardener evokes Sargon; the eagle echoes Etana. Through this mosaic, Aelian constructs what Homi Bhabha would call a “third space of enunciation”, where Greco-Roman literary norms and Mesopotamian mythology are reconciled in a new hybrid form.

An important point to consider is that Gilgamos in Aelian’s story is not a direct reflection of the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh, but rather an example of a famous name being “grafted” onto pre-existing mythic frameworks (it is a popular opinion of some sceptical antiquity scholars like Nina Braginskaya). The narrative structure of the tale - involving royal birth, concealment, infant exposure, miraculous rescue by an eagle, and eventual kingship - is far closer to the Legend of Cyrus the Great than to any episode from the Gilgamesh epic. In this light, Gilgamos appears to be a prestigious name that "settled" on a Cyrus-like birth legend, much as cultural memory often attaches illustrious figures to widely circulating folkloric templates. Furthermore, as noted in thematic and comparative reference works - including Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1955 - 1958), where relevant motifs include T578.1.1 “Child exposed because of prophecy”, B542 “Child saved and raised by animals or birds”, and N711.1 “Child destined to become king despite abandonment” - similar patterns exist where the name “Gilgamos” appears again not in connection with Sumerian or Akkadian traditions, but atop a narrative substructure of Egyptian origin. This suggests that the legendary name migrated independently of its original narrative context, becoming a floating signifier adaptable to various regional mythologies. Comparable classificatory systems can also be found in Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU) Tale Type Index, especially types ATU 707 “The Three Golden Children” and ATU 930 “Prophecy and Exposure”, as well as in the Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft under the entry “Gilgamos”.

Sadly, Gilgamesh is only mentioned by Aelian in the Greek sources.

The name Gilgameš was first deciphered in cuneiform by Pinches in 1890 (Babylonian and Oriental Record IV, p. 264), though it had long been known in ideographic writing as IZ-ṬU-BAR or GIŠ-ṬU-BAR. The identification of Gilgamos with the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh was first proposed by Sayce (Academy 1890, II, p. 421):

Source of pic.: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archibald_Sayce%27s_and_Theophilus_Pinches%27_interpretation_of_the_new_name_of_Gilgamesh,_in_1890.png

While Sayce suggested that Aelian's version came from Berossos, Smith (again 2020) points out that Aelian never cites Berossos directly and may instead have drawn on multiple oral or literary sources, possibly even Ctesias’ Persika. What mattered more to Aelian than historical transmission was the story's Mesopotamian (Chaldean) origin and its potential to enrich Roman literary culture.

The name of Gilgamesh is mentioned not only in Mesopotamian texts but also in the Qumran scrolls: fragment 13Q450, The Book of Giants, contains the name Gilgamesh next to a passage translated as “…all against his soul…”. These same texts were later used by Near Eastern Manichaean sects.

The Assyrian theologian of the Church of the East, Theodore Bar Konai, writing around 600 CE, includes Gilgamesh (Gligmos) in a list of twelve kings said to have lived during the time of the patriarchs from Peleg to Abraham.

Even in the 15th century, the memory of Gilgamesh (under the form Jiljamish) persisted: the Egyptian scholar Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti mentions him as one of the demons. In these faint echoes, Gilgamesh is remembered either as an ancient king or as an enormous and therefore evil creature, but no other aspect of the epic survived (Helle 2021).

• Cooley, J. L. (2019). The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh: A case of Hellenistic intercultural reception. In I. Frölich & A. T. Krause (Eds.), Enoch from antiquity to the Middle Ages: Sources from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Vol. 2, pp. 55–83). Oxford University Press.

• Gilgamos / Real‑Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. URL: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/RE:Gilgamos

• George, A. R. (2003). The Babylonian Gilgamesh epic: Introduction, critical edition and cuneiform texts (Vols. 1–2). Oxford University Press. P. 60 - 61.

• Helle, S. (2021). Gilgamesh: A new translation of the ancient epic; With essays on the poem, its past, and its passion. Yale University Press. P. 234.

• Smith, S. D. (2020). Gilgamos in Rome: Aelian NA 12.21. In A. König, R. Langlands, & J. Uden (Eds.), Literature and Culture in the Roman Empire, 96–235: Cross-Cultural Interactions (pp. 328–343). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Thompson, S. (1958). Motif-index of folk-literature: A classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends (Vols. 6). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

• Tigay, J. H. (1982). The evolution of the Gilgamesh epic (2nd ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press. P. 253 - 255.

• Uther, H.-J. (2004). The types of international folktales: A classification and bibliography. Based on the system of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson (Vols. 3). Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (FFC 284–286).

  P.S. I would like to express my gratitude to Anastasiya Romantseva, Ruslan Nakipov and Nina Braginskaya for their notes and commentaries.

§4. The Chaldeans and Mesopotamia in the Geographical Notes of Strabo and Pliny

I’ll restate my thesis from the beginning - it is well established that the Greeks had no direct knowledge of the Sumerians as a historical people or culture. The very name Šumer does not appear in Greek or Roman sources, and by the time of the classical period, even the Akkadian-speaking Babylonians and Assyrians had only a limited and ceremonial understanding of the Sumerian language and its origins. However, Sumerian intellectual legacies - especially in astronomy, astrology, and scribal science - profoundly influenced Greek thought.

One of the most striking testimonies to this influence can be found in Strabo's Geographica (XVI.1.6–8, Strabo. (1903). The geography of Strabo: Literally translated, with notes (Vol. 3). London: George Bell & Sons. Retrieved from https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D16%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D6) He writes:

6. In Babylon a residence was set apart for the native philosophers called Chaldæans, who are chiefly devoted to the study of astronomy. Some, who are not approved of by the rest, profess to understand genethlialogy, or the casting of nativities. There is also a tribe of Chaldæans, who inhabit a district of Babylonia, in the neighbourhood of the Arabians, and of the sea called the Persian Sea.¹ There are several classes of the Chaldæan astronomers. Some have the name of Orcheni, some Borsippeni, and many others, as if divided into sects, who disseminate different tenets on the same subjects. The mathematicians make mention of some individuals among them, as Cidenas, Naburianus, and Sudinus. Seleucus also of Seleuceia is a Chaldæan, and many other remarkable men.

7. Borsippa is a city sacred to Diana and Apollo. Here is a large linen manufactory. Bats of much larger size than those in other parts abound in it. They are caught and salted for food.

8. The country of the Babylonians is surrounded on the east by the Susans, Elymæi, and Parætaceni; on the south by the Persian Gulf, and the Chaldæans as far as the Arabian Meseni; on the west by the Arabian Scenitæ as far as Adiabene and Gordyæa; on the north by the Armenians and Medes as far as the Zagrus, and the nations about that river.

This passage is invaluable, as it not only situates Babylonian astronomers in a Hellenistic context but also identifies Uruk (= greek Ὀρχόη Orchoi) as a major center of astronomical learning - thus providing an indirect but significant reference to a Sumerian-founded city and its scientific legacy. The survival of these scholarly lineages is likely the final echo of Sumerian intellectual traditions, mediated through Akkadian and Neo-Babylonian scribal institutions.

Strabo goes on to describe Borsippa, the sacred city of Artemis and Apollo, as a place with extensive linen workshops and an abundance of unusually large bats, which the locals consumed and preserved. He also outlines the territorial boundaries of Babylonia, surrounded by Susiana, Elymais, the Persian Gulf, Arabian tribes, Armenia, and Media (XVI.1.7–8).

Another significant description of Mesopotamia is found in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (HN), Book VI, Chapters 30–31 (on “Mesopotamia” and “Tigris”). These chapters offer one of the most detailed accounts of Mesopotamian geography in Latin literature (Pliny the Elder. (1855). The Natural History (J. Bostock & H. T. Riley, Trans.). London: Taylor and Francis. E-Edition: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137):

30. The whole of Mesopotamia formerly belonged to the Assyrians, being covered with nothing but villages, with the exception of Babylonia and Ninus. The Macedonians formed these communities into cities, being prompted thereto by the extraordinary fertility of the soil. Besides the cities already mentioned, it contains those of Seleucia, Laodicea, Artemita; and in Arabia, the peoples known as the Orei and the Mardani, besides Antiochia, founded by Nicanor, the governor of Mesopotamia, and called Arabis. Joining up to these in the interior is an Arabian people, called the Eldamani, and above them, upon the river Pallaconta, the town of Bura, and the Arabian peoples known as the Salmani and the Masei. Up to the Gordyaei join the Aloni, through whose territory runs the river Zerbis, which falls into the Tigris; next are the Azones, the Silici, a mountain tribe, and the Orontes, to the west of whom lies the town of Gaugamela, as also Sue, situate upon the rocks. Beyond these are the Silici, surnamed Classitae, through whose district runs the river Lycus on its passage from Armenia, the Absithris running south-east, the town of Accobis, and then in the plains the towns of Diospage, Polytelia, Stratonice, and Anthermis. In the vicinity of the Euphrates is Nicephorion, of which we have already stated that Alexander, struck with the favourable situation of the spot, ordered it to be built. We have also similarly made mention of Apamea on the Zeugma. Leaving that city and going eastward, we come to Caphrena, a fortified town, formerly seventy stadia in extent, and called the "Court of the Satraps." It was to this place that the tribute was conveyed; now it is reduced to a mere fortress. Thaebata is still in the same state as formerly: after which comes Oruros, which under Pompeius Magnus formed the extreme limit of the Roman Empire, distant from Zeugma two hundred and fifty miles.

    There are writers who say that the Euphrates was drawn off by an artificial channel by the governor Gobares, at the point where it branches off, in order that it might not commit damage in the city of Babylonia, in consequence of the extreme rapidity of its course. The Assyrians universally call this river by the name of Narmalcha, which signifies the "royal river." At the point where its waters divide, there was in former times a very large city, called Agranis, which the Persae have destroyed.

    Babylon, the capital of the nations of Chaldaea, long enjoyed the greatest celebrity of all cities throughout the whole world: and it is from this place that the remaining parts of Mesopotamia and Assyria received the name of Babylonia. The circuit of its walls, which were two hundred feet in height, was sixty miles. These walls were also fifty feet in breadth, reckoning to every foot three fingers' breadth beyond the ordinary measure of our foot. The river Euphrates flowed through the city, with quays of marvellous workmanship erected on either side. The temple there of Jupiter Belus is still in existence; he was the first inventor of the science of Astronomy. In all other respects it has been reduced to a desert, having been drained of its population in consequence of its vicinity to Seleucia, founded for that purpose by Nicator, at a distance of ninety miles, on the confluence of the Tigris and the canal that leads from the Euphrates. Seleucia, however, still bears the surname of Babylonia: it is a free and independent city, and retains the features of the Macedonian manners. It is said that the population of this city amounts to six hundred thousand, and that the outline of its walls resembles an eagle with expanded wings: its territory, they say, is the most fertile in all the East.

    The Parthi again, in its turn, founded Ctesiphon, for the purpose of drawing away the population of Seleucia, at a distance of nearly three miles, and in the district of Chalonitis; Ctesiphon is now the capital of all the Parthian kingdoms. Finding, however, that this city did not answer the intended purpose, king Vologesus has of late years founded another city in its vicinity, Vologesocerta by name. Besides the above, there are still the following towns in Mesopotamia: Hipparenum, rendered famous, like Babylon, by the learning of the Chaldaei, and situate near the river Narraga, which falls into the Narroga, from which a city so called has taken its name. The Persae destroyed the walls of Hipparenum. Orchenus also, a third place of learning of the Chaldaei, is situate in the same district, towards the south; after which come the Notitae, the Orothophanitae, and the Grecichartae.

    From Nearchus and Onesicritus we learn that the distance by water from the Persian Sea to Babylon, up the Euphrates, is four hundred and twelve miles; other authors, however, who have written since their time, say that the distance to Seleucia is four hundred and forty miles; and Juba says that the distance from Babylon to Charax is one hundred and seventy-five. Some writers state that the Euphrates continues to flow with an undivided channel for a distance of eighty-seven miles beyond Babylon, before its waters are diverted from their channel for the purposes of irrigation; and that the whole length of its course is not less than twelve hundred miles. The circumstance that so many different authors have treated of this subject accounts for all these variations, seeing that even the Persian writers themselves do not agree as to what is the length of their schoeni and parasangae, each assigning to them a different length.

    When the Euphrates ceases, by running in its channel, to afford protections to those who dwell on its banks, which it does when it approaches the confines of Charax, the country is immediately infested by the Attali, a predatory people of Arabia, beyond whom are found the Scenite. The banks along this river are occupied by the Nomades of Arabia, as far as the deserts of Syria, from which, as we have already stated, it takes a turn to the south, and leaves the solitary deserts of Palmyra. Seleucia is distant, by way of the Euphrates, from the beginning of Mesopotamia, eleven hundred and twenty-five; from the Red Sea, by way of the Tigris, two hundred and twenty; and from Zeugma, seven hundred and twenty-three, miles. Zeugma is distant from Seleucia in Syria, on the shores of our sea, one hundred and seventy-five miles. Such is the extent of the land that lies in these parts between the two seas. The length of the kingdom of Parthia is nine hundred and eighteen miles.

31. There is, besides the above, another town in Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Tigris and near its confluence with the Euphrates, the name of which is Digba. It will be as well now to give some particulars respecting the Tigris itself. This river rises in the region of Greater Armenia, from a very remarkable source, situate on a plain. The name of the spot is Elegosine, and the stream, as soon as it begins to flow, though with a slow current, has the name of Diglito. When its course becomes more rapid, it assumes the name of Tigris, given to it on account of its swiftness, that word signifying an arrow in the Median language.

    It then flows into Lake Arethusa, the waters of which are able to support all weighty substances thrown into them, and exhale nitrous vapours. This lake produces only one kind of fish, which, however, never enter the current of the river in its passage through the lake; and in a similar manner, the fish of the Tigris will never swim out of its stream into the waters of the lake. Distinguishable from the lake, both by the rapidity and the colour of its waters, the tide of the river is hurried along; after it has passed through and arrived at Mount Taurus, it disappears in a cavern of that mountain, and passing beneath it, bursts forth on the other side; the spot bears the name of Zoroande. That the waters on either side of the mountain are the same is evident from the fact that bodies thrown in on the one side will reappear on the other.

    It then passes through another lake, called Thospites, and once more burying itself in the earth, reappears, after running a distance of twenty-two miles, in the vicinity of Nymphaeum. Claudius Caesar informs us that, in the district of Arrene, it flows so near to the river Arsanias, that when their waters swell they meet and flow together, but without, however, intermingling. For those of the Arsanias, being lighter, float on the surface of the Tigris for a distance of nearly four miles, after which they separate, and the Arsanias flows into the Euphrates.

    The Tigris, after flowing through Armenia and receiving the well-known rivers Parthenias and Nicephorion, separates the Arabian Orei from the Adiabeni, and then forms by its course the country of Mesopotamia. After traversing the mountains of the Gordyaei, it passes round Apamea, a town of Mesene, one hundred and twenty-five miles on this side of Babylonian Seleucia, and then divides into two channels, one of which runs southward, and flowing through Mesene, runs towards Seleucia, while the other takes a turn to the north and passes through the plains of the Cauchae, at the back of the district of Mesene. When the waters have reunited, the river assumes the name of Pasitigris.

    After this, it receives the Choaspes, which comes from Media; and then, flowing between Seleucia and Ctesiphon, discharges itself into the Chaldaean Lakes, which it supplies for a distance of seventy miles. Escaping from them by a vast channel, it passes the city of Charax to the right, and empties itself into the Persian Sea, being ten miles in width at the mouth.

    Between the mouths of the two rivers Tigris and the Euphrates, the distance was formerly twenty-five, or, according to some writers, seven miles only, both of them being navigable to the sea. But the Orcheni and others who dwell on its banks have long since dammed up the waters of the Euphrates for the purposes of irrigation, and it can only discharge itself into the sea by the aid of the Tigris.

    The country on the banks of the Tigris is called Parapotamia. Mesene is one of its districts. Dabithac is a town there, adjoining to which is the district of Chalonitis, with the city of Ctesiphon, famous not only for its palm-groves but for its olives, fruits, and other shrubs. Mount Zagrus reaches as far as this district and extends from Armenia between the Medi and the Adiabeni, above Paretacene and Persis. Chalonitis is distant from Persis three hundred and eighty miles; some writers say that by the shortest route it is the same distance from Assyria and the Caspian Sea.

    Between these peoples and Mesene is Sittacene, which is also called Arbelitis and Palaestine. Its city of Sittace is of Greek origin; this and Sabdata lie to the east, and on the west is Antiochia, between the two rivers Tigris and Tornadotus, as also Apamea, to which Antiochus gave this name, being that of his mother. The Tigris surrounds this city, which is also traversed by the waters of the Archous.

    Below this district is Susiane, in which is the city of Susa, the ancient residence of the kings of Persia, built by Darius, the son of Hystaspes; it is distant from Seleucia Babylonia four hundred and fifty miles, and the same from Ecbatana of the Medi, by way of Mount Carbantus. Upon the northern channel of the river Tigris is the town of Babytace, distant from Susa one hundred and thirty-five miles. Here, gold is held in abhorrence; the people collect it together and bury it in the earth, that it may be of use to no one.

    On the east of Susiane are the Oxii, a predatory people, and forty independent savage tribes of the Mizaei. Above these are the Mardi and the Saitae, subject to Parthia: they extend above the district of Elymais, which joins up to the coast of Persis. Susa is distant two hundred and fifty miles from the Persian Sea. Near the spot where the fleet of Alexander came up the Pasitigris to Susa, there is a village situate on the Chaldaean Lake, Aple by name, from which to Susa is a distance of sixty miles and a half. Adjoining to the people of Susiane, on the east, are the Cossiei; and above them, to the north, is Mesabatene, lying at the foot of Mount Cambalidus, a branch of the Caucasian chain: from this point the country of the Bactri is most accessible.

    Susiane is separated from Elymais by the river Eulaeus, which rises in Media, and, after concealing itself in the earth for a short distance, rises again and flows through Mesabatene. It then flows round the citadel of Susa and the temple of Diana, which is held in the highest veneration by all these nations; the river itself being the object of many pompous ceremonials. The kings, indeed, will drink of no other water, and for that reason carry it with them on their journeys to any considerable distance.

    This river receives the waters of the Hedypnos, which passes Asylus, in Persis, and those of the Aduna, which rises in Susiane. Magoa is a town situate near it, and distant from Charax fifteen miles; some writers place this town at the very extremity of Susiane, and close to the deserts.

    Below the Eulaeus is Elymais, upon the coast adjoining to Persis, and extending from the river Orates to Charax, a distance of two hundred and forty miles. Its towns are Seleucia and Socrate, upon Mount Casyrus. The shore which lies in front of this district is rendered inaccessible by mud, the rivers Brixa and Ortacea bringing down vast quantities of slime from the interior — Elymais itself being so marshy that it is impossible to reach Persis that way, unless by going completely round. It is also greatly infested with serpents, which are brought down by the waters of these rivers. That part of it which is the most inaccessible of all bears the name of Characene, from Charax, the frontier city of the kingdoms of Arabia.

    Charax is a city situate at the furthest extremity of the Arabian Gulf, at which begins the more prominent portion of Arabia Felix. It is built on an artificial elevation, having the Tigris on the right, and the Eulaeus on the left, and lies on a piece of ground three miles in extent, just between the confluence of those streams. It was first founded by Alexander the Great, with colonists from the royal city of Durine, which was then destroyed, and such of his soldiers as were invalided and left behind. By his order it was to be called Alexandria, and a borough called Pella, from his native place, was to be peopled solely by Macedonians; the city, however, was destroyed by inundations of the rivers.

    Antiochus, the fifth king of Syria, afterwards rebuilt this place and called it by his own name; and on its being again destroyed, Pasines, the son of Saggonadacus and king of the neighbouring Arabians, restored it, and raised embankments for its protection, calling it after himself. These embankments extended in length a distance of nearly three miles, in breadth a little less. It stood at first at a distance of ten stadia from the shore, and even had a harbour of its own. But according to Juba, it is fifty miles from the sea; and at the present day, the ambassadors from Arabia and our own merchants who have visited the place say that it stands at a distance of one hundred and twenty miles from the seashore.

    Indeed, in no part of the world have alluvial deposits been formed more rapidly by the rivers, and to a greater extent than here; and it is only a matter of surprise that the tides, which run to a considerable distance beyond this city, do not carry them back again.

    At this place was born Dionysius, the most recent author of a description of the world; he was sent by the late emperor Augustus to gather all necessary information in the East, when his eldest son was about to set out for Armenia to take the command against the Parthians and Arabians.

    The fact has not escaped me, nor indeed have I forgotten, that at the beginning of this work I have remarked that each author appeared to be most accurate in the description of his own country; still, while I am speaking of these parts of the world, I prefer to follow the discoveries made by the Roman arms, and the description given by King Juba in his work dedicated to Caius Caesar, on the subject of the same expedition against Arabia.

§5. Astrological influence

Of even greater importance is the Babylonian contribution to the development of Greco-Roman astrology. In the first part i have already mentioned, the role of Berossus, a Babylonian priest of the Hellenistic period, was noted. His writings transmitted Mesopotamian astronomical-astrological knowledge to the Greek world. This diffusion intensified under the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties, when personal natal astrology - previously absent in Mesopotamian omen literature - was systematized, possibly through synthesis with Egyptian traditions (cf. the Dendera Zodiac and Claudius Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos).

In Imperial Rome, Chaldaean astrology flourished and became a dominant mode of elite divination. Rome, ever susceptible to Eastern esoterica, embraced this astral wisdom wholeheartedly. Julius Caesar himself was surrounded by astrologers -Manilius (author of the poem Astronomica) and his student Thrasyllus, who would later become astrologer to Emperor Tiberius.

Roman authors such as Cato the Elder and Juvenal issued stern warnings against the influence of Chaldaean magic. Juvenal, in Satire VI (The Ways of Women), writes with biting irony (Juvenal, Satire VI, lines 553–557. 1918 Translation - Juvenal. Satire VI (trans. S. G. Owen). URL: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/juvenal_satires_06.htm):

Still more trusted are the Chaldaeans; every word uttered by the astrologer they will believe has come from Hammon's fountain, for now that the Delphian oracles are dumb, man is condemned to darkness as to his future. Chief among these was one who was oft in exile, through whose friendship and venal prophecies the great citizen died whom Otho feared. For nowadays no astrologer has credit unless he have been imprisoned in some distant camp, with chains clanking on either arm; none believe in his powers unless he has been condemned and all but put to death, having just contrived to get deported to a Cyclad, or to escape at last from the diminutive Seriphos.

This vivid passage not only confirms the popularity of Babylonian astrology among Roman elites but also marks a shift in sacred authority - from Greek Apollo to Eastern diviners.

Even the earliest surviving testimonies about astrology in Rome are, in fact, quite critical and belong to the Roman poet Ennius (237–169 BCE), who despised those who sought answers in the heavens rather than here and now. In his lost play Iphigenia, he put the following complaints into the mouth of Homer’s hero Achilles (translation from Campion 2008):

“he gave voice to Homer’s Achille:”

The astral signs that are observed above,
When goat or scorpion or Jove arise,
Or other beasts; all gaze intent thereon,
Nor ever see what lies before their feet!

Astrology always played a problematic role in Rome (P.S. Even Cato the Elder in his speeches accused astrology of misleading people). In a society where the overwhelming majority accepted the efficacy of divination as something self-evident and believed that the gods sent omens to those who were able to interpret them, there was essentially no choice but to follow them. Nevertheless, astrology always remained somewhat alien, perceived as something foreign in relation to the traditions of Republican Rome. Worse still, like other types of divination, astrology lay beyond the control of the state. We thus face the phenomenon where astrology became a tool of political decision-making and imperial propaganda from the very beginning of the Empire, while astrologers themselves were repeatedly expelled from Rome.

The bans imposed by pagan emperors on the activity of astrologers smoothly transitioned into the prohibitions of Christian emperors in the 4th century, for the same reason - the need to control the flow of ideas. If the tradition of political astrology in Mesopotamia remained solely in the service of the state until the 5th century BCE, in Rome it became the heir to a certain democratic instinct that the emperors never managed to completely eradicate. Astrology also faced difficulties in a society where educated atheism was not uncommon, and intellectuals were skeptical about the existence of gods and unwilling to spend time on a science wholly devoted to interpreting messages from those very gods.

Rome gives us the earliest preserved examples of skeptical critique and satire directed at astrology itself, and most of the arguments used by modern critics to attack it essentially go back to Roman originals. In Babylon, if astrology was mistaken, it was considered the astrologer’s fault, not that of the science. In the Roman world, however, despite its widespread use, the value and effectiveness of astrology as a system were questioned.

The condemnation of astrologers reached its peak during the first large-scale deportation from Rome and Roman Italy (along with members of the cult of Zeus Sabazios, who were also considered undesirable foreigners) in 139 BCE. An earlier expulsion of diviners, dated to the early 3rd century BCE, does not mention astrologers, which suggests that they only began arriving in Rome after 275 BCE. Perhaps by the time of Ennius (ca. 200 BCE), they were already being mocked.

• Campion, N. (2008). A History of Western Astrology: Vol. 1. The Ancient World. London: Continuum. pp. 220–230.

• Boxer, A. (2020). A scheme of heaven: The history of astrology and the search for our destiny in data. Profile Books. https://www.amazon.com/A-Scheme-of-Heaven/dp/178125964X