y of Bel and the
Dragon, the third of the apocryphal additions to Daniel, we
have direct evidence of the late survival of the Dragon
_motif_ apart from any trace of the Creation myth; in this
connexion see Charles, _Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha_, Vol.
I (1913), p. 653 f.

(2) See _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, pp. 116 ff., lxviii f. The
text is preserved on an Assyrian tablet made for the library
of Ashur-bani-pal.

(3) The _beru_ was the space that could be covered in two
hours' travelling.

(4) The Babylonian Dragon has progeny in the later
apocalyptic literature, where we find very similar
descriptions of the creatures' size. Among them we may
perhaps include the dragon in the Apocalypse of Baruch, who,
according to the Slavonic Version, apparently every day
drinks a cubit's depth from the sea, and yet the sea does
not sink because of the three hundred and sixty rivers that
flow into it (cf. James, "Apocrypha Anecdota", Second
Series, in Armitage Robinson's _Texts and Studies_, V, No.
1, pp. lix ff.). But Egypt's Dragon _motif_ was even more
prolific, and the _Pistis Sophia_ undoubtedly suggested
descriptions of the Serpent, especially in connexion with
Hades.

A further version of the Dragon myth has now been identified on one of
the tablets recovered during the recent excavations at Ashur,(1) and in
it the dragon is not entirely of serpent form, but is a true dragon with
legs. Like the one just described, he is a male monster. The description
occurs as part of a myth, of which the text is so badly preserved that
only the contents of one column can be made out with any certainty. In
it a god, whose name is wanting, announces the presence of the dragon:
"In the water he lies and I (. . .)!" Thereupon a second god cries
successively to Aruru, the mother-goddess, and to Pallil, another deity,
for help in his predicament. And then follows the description of the
dragon:

In the sea was the Serpent cre(ated).
Sixty _beru_ is his length;
Thirty _beru_ high is his he(ad).(2)
For half (a _beru_) each stretches the surface of his ey(es);(3)
For twenty _beru_ go (his feet).(4)
He devours fish, the creatures (of the sea),
He devours birds, the creatures (of the heaven),
He devours wild asses, the creatures (of the field),
He devours men,(5) to the peoples (he . . .)