Ill 



SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 



THROUGHOUT classical antiquity Egyptian sci- 

 ence was famous. We know that Plato spent 

 some years in Egypt in the hope of penetrating the 

 alleged mysteries of its fabled learning ; and the story 

 of the Egyptian priest who patronizingly assured 

 Solon that the Greeks were but babes was quoted 

 everywhere without disapproval. Even so late as the 

 time of Augustus, we find Diodorus, the Sicilian, look- 

 ing back with veneration upon the Oriental learning, 

 to which Pliny also refers with unbounded respect. 

 From what we have seen of Egyptian science, all this 

 furnishes us with a somewhat striking commentary 

 upon the attainments of the Greeks and Romans them- 

 selves. To refer at length to this would be to antici- 

 pate our purpose ; what now concerns us is to recall that 

 all along there was another nation, or group of nations, 

 that disputed the palm for scientific attainments. 

 This group of nations found a home in the valley of 

 the Tigris and Euphrates. Their land was named 

 Mesopotamia by the Greeks, because a large part of 

 it lay between the two rivers just mentioned. The 

 peoples themselves are familiar to every one as the 

 Babylonians and the Assyrians. These peoples were 

 of Semitic stock allied, therefore, to the ancient He- 



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