An historical survey of the astronomy of the ancients / by Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
- George Cornewall Lewis
- Date:
- 1862
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An historical survey of the astronomy of the ancients / by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![Ion. Of the other eighteen kings between Nabonassar and Cyrus, not more than five or six can be identified with any known name, either in sacred or profane writers. In this state of things, modern critics have been driven to the expedient of assuming that the kings of the Canon were kings merely of Babylon, and of putting them in a parallel column to the kings of Ass}rria. This expedient is in the highest degree arbitrary; for when a continuous line of kings terminating in Cyrus, and the other kings of the Persian Empire is presented to us, the natural sup- position is, that the predecessors of Cyrus were, like him, the sovereigns of a great empire, and not the chieftains of a single city. It is, moreover, important to compare the last eight names before Cyrus in the list of Berosus and in the astronomical canon. The names of Asordanus and Asaradinus nearly agree in sound, but the lengths of their reigns differ. In the seven next, the agreement of the years of the reigns is so close, that it can- not be fortuitous. The names of the kings likewise correspond closely in Nos. 4, 5, 7, and 8. Berosus. Years. Aste. Canon. Years. 1. Asordanus . . 8 1. Asaridinus . . .13 2. Sammughes . . 21 2. Saosduchinus ... 20 3. Sardanapalus . . 21 3. Ciniladanus . . .22 4. Nabopolassar . • 21 4. Nabopollassar ... 21 5. Nabucodrossor . 43 5. Nabocolassar . . .43 6. Amilmarudoch . 2 6. Illoarudamus ... 2 7. Neriglissar , 4 7. Nericasolassar ... 4 [Laborosoarchod, 9 months] 8. Nabodenus . . 17 8. Nabonadius ... 17 9. 9 9. Cyrus . ... 9 Now, Berosus does not profess to give a merely Babylonian dynasty. The kings in his series belong to the Assyrian Empire. It is clear, however, that the seven kings preceding Cyrus in Berosus coincide chronologically with the corresponding kings](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21015855_0443.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
