But the manner of grouping the names and of dividing the dynasties varied according to the period in which the lists were drawn up, and at the present time we are in possession of at least two systems which the Babylonian historians attempted to construct. Berossus, who communicated one of them to the Greeks about the beginning of the IInd century B.C., would not admit more than eight dynasties in the period of thirty-six thousand years between the Deluge and the Persian invasion. The lists, which he had copied from originals in the cuneiform character, have suffered severely at the hands of his abbreviators, who omitted the majority of the names which seemed to them very barbarous in form, while those who copied these abbreviated lists have made such further havoc with them that they are now for the most part unintelligible. Modern criticism has frequently attempted to restore them, with varying results; the reconstruction here given, which passes for the most probable, is not equally certain in all its parts:--* [Illustration: 084.jpg CHRONOLOGIC TABLE] It was not without reason that Berossus and his authorities had put the sum total of reigns at thirty-six thousand years; this number falls in with a certain astrological period, during which the gods had granted to the Chaldaeans glory, prosperity, and independence, and whose termination coincided with the capture of Babylon by Cyrus.** Others before them had employed the same artifice, but they reckoned ten dynasties in the place of the eight accepted by Berossus:-- * After the example of G. B. Niebuhr, Gutschmid admitted here, as Oppert did, 45 Assyrians; he based his view on Herodotus, in which it is said that the Assyrians held sway in Asia for 520 years, until its conquest by the Medes. Upon the improbability of this opinion, see Schrader’s demonstration. ** The existence of this astronomical or astrological scheme on which Berossus founded his chronology, was pointed out by Brandis, afterwards by Gutschmid; it is now generally accepted. [Illustration: 085.jpg TABLE]