BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 33 



M. Chwolson needs that especial date — the 

 Ionians may have had dealings with the 

 Babylonians. 1 Bnt the passages, where there 

 is mention of the Yunanis, are quite at 

 variance with such an explanation. The sub- 

 ject there is, in fact, that the Greeks were 

 a learned nation, possessing a cultivated 

 literature. Such passages do not carry us, 

 I maintain, to the days of the Heraclituses 

 and the Thales', who wrote scarcely any- 

 thing, and whose writings had but little 

 publicity ; but to an epoch when the 

 works of the Greek authors were spread 

 throughout the East. In the chapter 

 on the mallow, 2 the author, speaking of 

 the properties of the plant and its uses 

 in medicine, says that it belongs to cold 

 plants, and adds : " The Greeks (^Jlj^) are 

 of another opinion ; they think that this 

 plant is moderately warm, that it alleviates 

 pain, and that it softens hard tumours." 

 Dr. Chwolson makes vain efforts to prove 

 that we should not conclude from this that 



1 Page 86. 2 Page 88. 



