Such are some of the principal contents of the great library from which we have obtained our copies of the Creation and Flood legends. Most of the tablets were copied from early Babylonian ones which have in most cases disappeared; but the copies are sufficient to show the wonderful progress in culture and civilization already made by the people of Chaldea long before the age of Moses or even Abraham. Babylonian literature, which had been the parent of Assyrian writing, revived after the fall of Nineveh, and Nebuchadnezzar and his successors made Babylon the seat of a library rivalling that of Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh. Of this later development of Babylonian literature we know very little, explorations being still required to bring to light its texts. A few fragments only, discovered by wandering Arabs or recovered by chance travellers, have as yet turned up, but there is in them evidence enough to promise a rich reward to future excavators. CHAPTER III. CHALDEAN LEGENDS TRANSMITTED THROUGH BEROSUS AND OTHER ANCIENT AUTHORS. Berosus and his copyists.—Cory’s translation.—Alexander Polyhistor.—Babylonia.—Oannes, his teaching.—Creation.—Belus.—Chaldean kings.—Xisuthrus.—Deluge.—The Ark.—Return to Babylon.—Apollodorus.—Pantibiblon.—Larancha.—Abydenus.—Alorus, first king.—Ten kings.—Sisithrus.—Deluge.—Armenia.—Tower of Babel.—Kronos and Titan.—Dispersion from Hestiæus.—Babylonian colonies.—Tower of Babel.—The Sibyl.—Titan and Prometheus.—Damascius.—Tauthe.—Moymis.—Kissare and Assorus.—Triad.—Bel. By way of introduction to the native versions of the early legends left us by the Babylonians, it is advisable to glance at the principal fragments bearing on them which are found in the classical writers of Greece and Rome. Several others might have been quoted, but their origin is doubtful, and they are of less importance for the subject in hand. Those who wish to consult them may turn to Cory’s “Ancient Fragments” (2nd edition, 1876), whose translations, as being fairly scholarlike and correct, are here given without alteration. Berosus, from whom the principal extracts are copied, lived, as has already been stated, about B.C. 330 to 260, and, from his position as a Babylonian priest, had the best means of knowing the Babylonian traditions. The others are later writers, who copied in the main from Berosus, most of whose notices may be taken as mere abridgments of his statements. EXTRACT I. FROM ALEXANDER POLYHISTOR (CORY, p. 56). Berosus, in the first book of his history of Babylonia, informs us that he lived in the age of Alexander, the son of Philip. And he mentions that there were written accounts, preserved at Babylon with the greatest care, comprehending a period of above fifteen myriads of years; and that these writings contained histories of the heaven and of the sea; of the birth of mankind; and of the kings, and of the memorable actions which they had achieved.