Accadian, however, was not the only language besides his own that the Semitic Babylonian or Assyrian was required to know. Aramaic had become the common language of trade and diplomacy, so that not only was it assumed by the ministers of Hezekiah that an official like the Rab-shakeh or Vizier of Sennacherib could speak it as a matter of course (2 Kings xviii. 26), but even in trading documents we find the Aramaic language and alphabet used side by side with the Assyrian cuneiform. This common use of Aramaic explains how it was that the Jews after the Babylonish captivity gave up their own language in favour not of the Assyro-Babylonian, but of the Aramaic of Northern Syria and Arabia. An educated Assyrian was thus expected to be able to read and write a dead language, Accadian, and to read, write, and speak a foreign living language, Aramaic. In addition to these languages, moreover, he took an interest in others which were spoken by his neighbours around him. The Rab-shakeh of Sennacherib was able to speak Hebrew, and tablets have been discovered giving the Assyrian renderings of lists of words from the barbarous dialects of the Kossæans in the mountains of Elam and of the Semitic nomads on the western side of the Euphrates. All the branches of knowledge known at the time were treated of in Assyrian literature, though naturally history, legend, and poetry occupied a prominent place in it. But even such subjects as the despatches of generals in the field, or the copies of royal correspondence found a place in the public library. The chronology of Assyria, and therewith of the Old Testament also, has been restored by means of the lists of successive 'eponyms' or officers after whom the years were named, while a recent discovery has brought to light a table of Semitic Babylonian kings, arranged in dynasties, which traces them back to B.C. 2330. [Illustration: Part of an Assyrian Cylinder containing Hezekiah's Name. (_From the original in the British Museum._)] The following is the transcription into the ordinary Assyrian Characters of the last thirteen lines of the photograph on page 104. [Illustration] By way of comparison, a specimen of Babylonian writing is also given here. [Illustration: SPECIMEN OF BABYLONIAN WRITING FROM AN INSCRIPTION OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.] The following is the transliteration and translation of the transcription on page 105. 29. a-na D.P.[6] Kha-za-ki-ya-hu _to Hezekiah._ [6] D.P. stands for 'Determinative Prefix.' There are thirty determinatives in Assyrian. The D.P. [Illustration: Symbol 1], the sign meaning 'heaven,' or anything in heaven, is put before the name of a god. The D.P. [Illustration: Symbol 2], the sign meaning 'country,' is put before the name of a country. The D.P. [Illustration: Symbol 3], the sign meaning 'city,' is put before the name of a city, and so on.