The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
After the death of Ilgi, Chaldaean history is for a time a blank. It
would seem, however, that while the Cushites were establishing themselves
in the alluvial plain towards the mouths of the two great rivers, there
was growing up a rival power, Turanian, or Ario-Turanian, in the
neighboring tract at the foot of the Zagros mountain-chain. One of the
most ancient, perhaps the most ancient, of all the Asiatic cities was
Susa, the Elamitic capital, which formed the centre of a nationality that
endured from the twenty-third century B.C. to the time of Darius
Hystaspis (B.C. 520) when it sank finally under the Persians. A king of
Elam, whose court was held at Susa, led, in the year B.C. 2286 (or a
little earlier), an expedition against the cities of Chaldaea, succeeded
in carrying all before him, ravaged the country, took the towns,
plundered the temples, and bore off into his own country, as the most
striking evidence of victory, the images of the deities which the
Babylonians especially reverenced. This king’s name, which was
Kudur-Nakhunta, is thought to be the exact equivalent of one which has a
world-wide celebrity, to wit, Zoroaster. Now, according to Polyhistor
(who here certainly repeats Berosus), Zoroaster was the first of those
eight Median kings who composed the second dynasty in Chaldaea, and
occupied the throne from about B. C. 2286 to 2052. The Medes are
represented by him as capturing Babylon at this time, and imposing
themselves as rulers upon the country. Eight kings reigned in space of
234 (or 224) years, after which we hear no more of Medes, the
sovereignty being (as it would seem) recovered by the natives. The
coincidences of the conquest the date, the foreign sovereignty and the
name Zoroaster, tend to identify the Median dynasty of Berosus with a
period of Susianian supremacy, which the monuments show to have been
established it Chaldaea at a date not long subsequent to the reigns of
Urukh and Ilgi, and to have lasted for a considerable period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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