ledge we have about him, and the later
Chaldseans seem not to have been much better informed than ourselves.

* The earliest Assyriologists, H. Rawlinson, Oppert,
considered the local kings as having been, for the most
part, kings of all Chaldaea, and placed them in succession
one after the other in the framework of the most ancient
dynasties of Berossus. The merit of having established the
existence of series of local dynasties, and of having given
to Chaldaean history its modern form, belongs to G. Smith.
Smith's idea was adopted by Menant, by Delitzsch-Murdter, by
Tiele, by Winckler, and by all Assyriologists, with
modifications suggested by the progress of decipherment.

They filled up the lacunae of his history with legends. As he seemed
to them to have appeared suddenly on the scene, without any apparent
connection with the king who preceded him, they assumed that he was a
usurper of unknown origin, irregularly introduced by the favour of the
gods into the lawful series of kings. An inscription engraved, it was
said, on one of his statues, and afterwards, about the VIIth century
B.C., copied and deposited in the library of Nineveh, related at length
the circumstances of his mysterious birth. "Sharrukin, the mighty king,
the king of Agade, am I. My mother was a princess; my father, I did not
know him; the brother of my father lived in the mountains. My town was
Azupirani, which is situated on the bank of the Euphrates. My mother,
the princess, conceived me, and secretly gave birth to me: she placed
me in a basket of reeds, she shut up the mouth of it with bitumen, she
abandoned me to the river, which did not overwhelm me. The river bore
me; it brought me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of
water, received me in the goodness of his heart; Akki, the drawer of
water, made me a gardener. As gardener, the goddess Ishtar loved me, and
during forty-four years I held royal sway; I commanded the Black Heads,*
and ruled them." This is no unusual origin for the founders of empires
and dynasties; witness the cases of Cyrus and Bomulus.* Sargon, like
Moses, and many other heroes of history or fable, is exposed to the
waters: he owes his safety to a poor fellah who works his shadouf on the
banks of the Euphrates to water the fields, and he passes his infancy in
obscurity, if not in misery. Having reached the age of manhood, Ishtar
falls in love with him as she did