s as corroborative of his own, not one has descended in his
writings to these later times. We learn, however, from the Jewish
historian, that one of their number, Berosus, was a Chaldean; that two
of the others, Hieronymus and Manetho, were Egyptians; and that a third,
Nicolaus, whose history he quotes, was a citizen of Damascus. "There
is," said this latter writer, in his perished history, "a great mountain
in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that
many who fled at the time of the deluge were saved; and that one who was
carried in an ark came on shore on the top of it; and that the remains
of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man,"
added this forgotten writer, "about whom Moses, the legislator of the
Jews, wrote." The works of the Chaldean, Berosus, have long since been
lost, all save a few extracts preserved by the Patristic writers. One of
these, however, which embodies the Chaldean tradition of the Flood, is
very remarkable. Like the Scandinavian legend, it represents the
antediluvians as giants, all of whom, save one, became exceedingly
impious and depraved. "But there was one among the giants," says
Berosus, "that reverenced the gods, and was more wise and prudent than
all the rest. His name was Noa; he dwelt in Syria, with his three sons,
Sem, Japet, Chem, and their wives, the great Tidea, Pandora, Noela, and
Noegla. This man, fearing the destruction which, he foresaw from the
stars, would come to pass, began, in the seventy-eighth year before the
inundation, to build a ship covered like an ark. Seventy-eight years
from the time he began to build this ship, the ocean of a sudden broke
out, and all the inland seas and the rivers and fountains bursting from
beneath (attended by the most violent rains from heaven for many days),
overflowed all the mountains; so that the whole human race was buried in
the waters, except Noa and his family, who were saved by means of the
ship, which, being lifted up by the waters, rested at last upon the top
of the Gendyae or Mountain, on which, it is reported, there now
remaineth some part, and that men take away the bitumen from it, and
make use of it by way of charm or expiation, to avoid evil." A more
general Assyrian tradition, somewhat different in its details, also
survives.[25] The god Chronus, it was said, appeared in a vision to
Xisuthrus, the tenth king of Babylon; and, warning him that on a certain
day there would be a gre