The World of Berossos

170 Pages·012.148 MB·English

by  Johannes Haubold, Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Robert Rollinger, John Steele (eds)

C O The World of Berossos
l a ssic a et r ie n t a l ia
Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on
Herausgegeben von
»The Ancient Near East between Classical
Reinhold Bichler, Bruno Jacobs, and Ancient Oriental Traditions«,
Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Robert Rollinger, Hatfield College, Durham 7th-9th July 2010
Kai Ruffing und Josef Wiesehofer
Edited by
Johannes Haubold, Giovanni B. Lanfranchi,
Band 5
Robert Rollinger, John Steele
2013 2013
Harrassowitz Verlag • Wiesbaden Harrassowitz Verlag • Wiesbaden
Table of Contents
Publication of rhis book was supported by a grant of Bundesministerium fur Bildung, Wissen-
schaft und Kultur in Wien; Amt der Vorarlberger Landesregierung, Abteilung lib, Wissenschaft
und Weiterbildung; Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Kultur.
1. Overview
Cover illustration: “Beautiful Reconstruction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon”.
Johannes Haubold (Durham University)
Specially painted for “Wonders of the Past”.
The World of Berossos: Introduction...................................................................................... 3
J. A. Hammerton (ed.)> Wonders of the Past - The Marvellous Works of Man in Ancient Times
described by the Leading Authorities of To-day, Vol. I (London 1923: The Fleetway House) 348.
Geert De Breucker (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
Berossos: His Life and His Work............................................................................................ 15
2. Reading the Babyloniaca
Johannes Haubold (Durham University)
‘The Wisdom of the Chaldaeans’: Reading Berossos, Babyloniaca Book 1.................. 31
Martin Lang (Leopold-Franzens Universitat Innsbruck)
Book Two: Mesopotamian Early History and the Flood Story.......................................... 47
Giovanni B. Lanfranchi (University of Padova)
Babyloniaca, Book 3: Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians............................................ 61
John Dillery (University of Virginia)
Berossos’ Narrative of Nabopolassar and
Nebuchadnezzar II from Josephus.......................................................................................... 75
3. Society, Religion and Culture
Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen
Tom Boiy (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet
iiber http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. Babylon during Berossos’ Lifetime........................................................................................ 99
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek John M. Steele (Brown University)
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche The ‘Astronomical Fragments’ of Berossos in Context...................................................... 107
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet
at http://dnb.dnb.de. Bruno Jacobs (Universitat Basel)
Berossos and Persian Religion................................................................................................ 123
Robert Rollinger (University of Helsinki/Leopold-Franzens Universitat Innsbruck)
For further information about our publishing program consult our
website http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de Berossos and the Monuments:
© Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden 2013 City Walls, Sanctuaries, Palaces and the Hanging Garden................................................ 137
This work, including all of its parts, is protected by copyright.
Any use beyond the limits of copyright law without the permission 4. Literary Contexts
of the publisher is forbidden and subject to penalty. This applies
particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage Stephanie Dailey (Oxford University)
and processing in electronic systems. First Millennium BC Variation in Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, the Flood Story
Printed on permanent/durable paper.
and the Epic of Creation: What was Available to Berossos?............................................ 165
Printing and binding: Hubert & Co., Gottingen
Printed in Germany Christopher Tuplin (University of Liverpool)
ISSN 2190-3638 Berossos and Greek Historiography...................................................................................... 177
ISBN 978-3-447-06728
VI Table of Contents
Paul Kosmin (Harvard University)
Seleucid Ethnography and Indigenous Kingship:
The Babylonian Education of Antiochus 1............................................................................ 199
Acknowledgements
Ian Moyer (University of Michigan)
Berossos and Manetho.............................................................................................................. 213
The editors gratefully acknowledge the support of the British Academy, Durham University,
5. Transmission, Reception, Reconstruction
and the Durham Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East
Francesca Schironi (University of Michigan) (CAMNE). Without their support, this volume, and the conference which inspired it, would
The Early Reception of Berossos............................................................................................ 235 not have been possible. Thanks are also due to the participants in the conference on ‘The
world of Berossos’ (Durham 7th—9th July 2010), and especially to Amelie Kuhrt, for her
Irene Madreiter (Leopold-Franzens Universitat Innsbruck)
challenging and encouraging response to the papers. Finally, the editors would like to thank
From Berossos to Eusebius -
Astrid Haubold, who prepared the typescript for publication with great efficiency and unfail­
A Christian Apologist’s Shaping of‘Pagan’ Literature...................................................... 255
ing good cheer.
Walter Stephens (Johns Hopkins University) JHH, G-BL, RR, JMS
From Berossos to Berosus Chaldaeus:
The Forgeries of Annius of Viterbo and Their Fortune...................................................... 277
Kai Ruffing (Universitat Marburg)
Berossos in Modern Scholarship............................................................................................ 291
Birgit Gufler/Irene Madreiter (University of Innsbruck)
Berossos - A Bibliography...................................................................................................... 309
1. Overview
The World of Berossos: Introduction
Johannes Haubold (Durham University)
This volume is devoted to a man whose work is largely lost, whose life is shrouded in mys­
tery, and whose real name we do not know.1 What we do know is that ‘Berossos’ of Babylon
was a contemporary of Alexander the Great and the first two Seleucid kings, Seleucus I
and Antiochus I, and that he wrote a work about Babylonian history and culture, the
Babyloniaca. He describes himself as a Babylonian and a priest of Bel-Marduk, the national
god of Babylon, though in practice this may mean no more than that he was in some way
attached to the main temple of Babylon, the Esagila.2 According to Vitruvius, Berossos later
moved to the Greek island of Cos to open a school of astronomy.3 Pliny mentions a statue
which the Athenians set up to celebrate his powers of prophecy;4 and Pausanias makes him
the father of the Sibyl.5 With Pausanias we are plainly in the realm of mythmaking. Whether
Vitruvius or Pliny are any more trustworthy has been debated.6 Whatever we make of their
testimonies, it is not implausible that Berossos had connections with the astronomers of the
Esagila while in Babylon, and he must certainly have had some connection with, or at least
an interest in, the Seleucid court, because he dedicated his Babyloniaca to Antiochus I.7
We know from a cuneiform chronicle that Babylonian religious experts acted as advisors
to Antiochus I.8 Berossos may well have been one of them, or in any case have worked in a
similar milieu.
The Babyloniaca
We can reconstruct that the Babyloniaca was a history of Babylon in three books, written in
Greek and for a Greek audience, but from a Mesopotamian perspective.9 After an opening
section on the geography and culture of Babylonia, book 1 describes how the world came
to be. Book 2 takes the story from the first king Aloros down to Nabonassar/Nabu-nasir in
1 ‘Berossos’ is a Greek rendering of an Akkadian name. Our best guess at the moment is that his fellow
Babylonians would have known him as Bel-re'usunu (‘Bel is their shepherd’), but this is not certain; see
further De Breucker’s contribution to this volume.
2 Beaulieu 2006b.
3 BNJ 680 T 5.
4 BNJ 680 T 6.
5 BNJ 680 T 7.
6 E.g. Kuhrt 1987, De Breucker 2003 and his commentary in Brill’s New Jacoby.
1 BNJ 680 T2.
8 Chronicle concerning Antiochus and the Sin temple: preliminary edition and translation by R. J. van
der Spek, published at www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-antiochus_sin/antiochus_sin 01.html;
for a printed edition with commentary see Del Monte 1997, 194-7. A similar encounter is reported by
Diodorus Siculus, 17.112: when Alexander returned to Babylon from India, an astronomer of the Esagila
temple called Belephantes (Akkadian Bel-apla-iddiri?), advised Alexander not to enter the city.
9 Berossos’ work was also known in antiquity under the alternative title Chaldaica, ‘Chaldaean Matters’,
perhaps as the result of confusion with Alexander Polyhistor’s Chaldaica: see De Breucker’s introduc­
tion to Berossos at BNJ 680.
4 Johannes Haubold The World of Berossos: Introduction 5
the 8th century BC. Book 3 outlines the more recent history of Babylon, from the Assyrian of the Hanging Garden in book 3 of the Babyloniaca. If we believe Josephus, who is our
king Tiglat-Pileser, or Pulu, down to Alexander. In putting together his account, Berossos main source for this part of the work, Berossos told the story of how Nebuchadnezzar built
drew heavily on Mesopotamian (i.e. Akkadian and Sumerian) sources. These profoundly a miraculous structure, half park, half palace, called the ‘Hanging Garden’, for his homesick
shape his narrative, making for a varied reading experience: much of the colourful account Iranian wife Amyitis. Notoriously, the Hanging Garden, while a popular topic in Hellenistic
of book 1 is based on the Babylonian Epic of Creation (Enuma elis), while the rather arid and later Greek literature, is neither mentioned in the cuneiform sources nor has it been se­
lists that made up most of book 2 reflect the style of Akkadian and Sumerian king lists. Book curely identified in the archaeological record. Some scholars have therefore expressed doubt
3, finally, owes much in tone and content to the inscriptions of important Babylonian kings, about the authenticity of the story in Berossos,13 but as in the case of the astronomical frag­
especially Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus. ments, authenticity here may reside not so much in abstract notions of what is legitimately
Unfortunately, the Babyloniaca as a whole is lost, and all we have are fragments that are Mesopotamian, but rather in Berossos’ ability to project a plausible image of Babylon to his
sometimes corrupt, often difficult to interpret, and almost always at several removes from Greek readers. Babylon was full of famous landmarks, and it must have been awash with
the original text. Fragment 1 is fairly typical in this regard: today we read it in two versions, stories about them. Nebuchadnezzar himself conceived of his palace as a ‘marvel for all
one Greek, the other Armenian. The Greek text is an excerpt made by the Byzantine monk people’,14 and it is unsurprising that it became the locus of much speculation and romance.
Syncellus (died after AD 810) from Eusebius of Caesarea’s now lost Chronicle of AD 306-11. The present collection as a whole suggests that the issue of authenticity in the Babyloniaca
Eusebius in turn used a paraphrase which Alexander Polyhistor (ca. 110-40BC) had made is far less straightforward than has often been assumed, and that the question of what is auth­
of Berossos’ original text. The Armenian is a translation of Eusebius’ Chronicle with some entically Babylonian in Berossos is intimately bound with his attempt to engage a politically
errors and explanatory glosses.10 As this brief overview shows, Fragment 1 merely provides dominant Greek readership. In the context of early Hellenistic Babylon, that was not such an
us with a paraphrase at three removes from the original text. This picture is fairly typical of unusual project as it might seem today: the Greek language was fast becoming a lingua fran­
our extant sources for Berossos. Indeed, we cannot even be certain that we have any verba­ ca after the conquests of Alexander, and a diverse range of culturally composite works soon
tim quotations from the Babyloniaca at all." The other problem illustrated by Fragment 1 is began to appear throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Cultural hybridity could take many
that Berossos is transmitted in several languages. Chance would have it that the Armenian different forms, from the high-brow (auto-)ethnography of Manetho to the Creole of the
translation of Eusebius is our single most important witness to the Babyloniaca but frag­ Septuagint, which was certainly not intended for educated Greeks, and seems to have been
ments also survive in Greek, Syriac, classical Latin, and, in one case, a corrupt form of ignored outside the Jewish community until well into the Christian era.15 The Babyloniaca
medieval Latin translationese.12 belongs near the more elevated end of the spectrum in terms of literary and political ambi­
In this already very complicated picture of transmission, a group of fragments dealing tion. It still looked fairly unusual in purely Greek terms, but there were precedents for what
with astronomical matters (in the broadest sense) pose a special set of problems. Scholars Berossos was doing, both in the elusive work of Xanthus of Lydia and - perhaps more im­
have long questioned the authenticity of these fragments {BNJ F 15-22), on the ground that portantly - in the figure of the local informants evoked in the work of earlier historians such
they seem rather general and do not reflect cutting-edge Babylonian astronomy of the third as Herodotus and Megasthenes.16
century. However, in the case of Berossos what might be meant by ‘authenticity’ needs to be There is also a Mesopotamian context to be considered here. Babylon was a cultural melt­
questioned in the first place. Berossos himself insists that he faithfully transmits the ancient ing pot, and Berossos will not have been alone in knowing four languages (Aramaic, Greek,
archives of Babylon. Overall, he is beguilingly true to his promise, but in some cases at least Akkadian, Sumerian), and possibly more. Moreover, Babylon was - and saw itself as -
authenticity seems to have been more a matter of authenticating gestures calculated to im­ the ancient centre of kingship par excellence, and in Hellenistic times had become a truly
press Berossos’ Greek readers. The astronomical fragments may well fall in this category: cosmopolitan city. Alexander had intended to make it the capital of his world empire, and
Greeks and Romans knew that astronomy as a science had originated in Mesopotamia and treated it accordingly during his lifetime.17 Babylonian astronomers had allegedly predicted
associated it with ‘Chaldaean’ experts. It is therefore possible that Berossos pitched the Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela, and the city had extended a public welcome to him just
astronomical fragments to Greek readers who knew and cared little about real Babylonian as it had welcomed Cyrus after the battle of Opis.18 It is sometimes said that Babylon’s his­
astronomy. Alternatively, general astronomical knowledge might have been attributed to tory as a self-governing city ended in 539BC, with the conquest of Cyrus. In fact, already
him at a later time because he was a Chaldaean, and was therefore expected to have dealt
13 For doubts about the authenticity of the Hanging Garden see Dailey 1994; for a different view see
with the subject.
Bichler/Rollinger 2005, Rollinger in this volume.
Difficulties of this kind turn on the question of agency: Berossos’ agency as a translator
14 Nebuchadnezzar 15 col. IX.29-32 (Langdon).
of culture, and his audiences’ agency in receiving his work. That Berossos was at times ca­ 15 For the reception of the Septuagint see Cook 2009.
pable of manipulating his audience’s expectations is suggested by the much-discussed story 16 On Greek historical writing about the Near East see Drews 1973, Sterling 1992, Bichler 2007, Dillery
2007, Rollinger 2008, all with further literature. It cannot be shown that Berossos knew Herodotus, and
10 The translation was made in the 12th century CE; see Madreiter, this volume, pp. 255-276. in fact he may not have done; see Tuplin’s contribution to this volume, pp. 177-198. The idea of the local
11 For a possible candidate see BNJ 680 F 3a. informant will surely have been familiar to him.
12 BNJ 680 F 17. The fragment appears to confirm that Berossos discussed astronomy in book one of the 17 For Babylon as the capital of Alexander’s empire, see Strabo 15.3.9-10; for Alexander’s relationship with
Babyloniaca (Berosus ait in Procreatione) and is thus of great importance to our understanding of the Babylon more generally, see Kuhrt 1990.
work. Unfortunately, the text is so difficult as to render any firm conclusions hazardous. 18 For references and discussion see Boiy’s contribution to this volume.
6 Johannes Haubold The World of Berossos: Introduction 7
in the 2nd-millennium, the Amorite dynasty, with Hammurabi as its most famous exponent, and pointing out that he had conquered the entire western hemisphere.27 The Seleucids would
originated outside Mesopotamia. The pattern of external rulers continues with the Kassite surely have taken note of that.
kings of the Middle Babylonian period, and the Assyrian kings who ruled Babylon in the Berossos too makes due mention of Nebuchadnezzar’s military prowess. In book 3 of the
early first millennium. Even the Chaldaeans who followed after the Assyrians were not ‘na­ Babyloniaca, he tells us how he campaigned in the West, bringing to heel the insubordinate
tive’ to Babylon in the same way that Alexander was native to Macedonia, though they did satrapies of Syria and even - historically incorrectly - Egypt. The idea of Egypt as a ‘sa­
successfully present themselves as the city’s legitimate rulers, and were widely perceived as trapy’ suggests a partisan political agenda in a context where the Ptolemies and Seleucids
liberators from Assyrian oppression.19 battled for possession of Syria-Palestine. More generally, Ptolemies and Seleucids vied for
All this suggests that the art of cultural and political accommodation was highly de­ the role of hegemonic power in the Hellenistic world. Whereas the Ptolemies stressed the
veloped in Hellenistic Babylon. Berossos was only the latest in a long line of intellectuals prowess of earlier pharaohs whom they appropriated as their ancestors, Seleucid kings em­
whose task it was to ‘preserve kingship’ by steering the city through a succession of more phasised the role of Nebuchadnezzar and other Babylonian monarchs. Berossos played to
or less self-consciously foreign dynasties.20 Others had done it before him: the famous their aspirations, and in so doing made a pitch for Seleucid commitment to his own city:
Cyrus Cylinder and the less well-known but equally fascinating Persian Verse Account il­ Nebuchadnezzar used the spoils of his western conquests specifically to rebuild Babylon.
lustrate well the effort that went into negotiating an accommodation with Persia after the The unspoken suggestion is that other good emperors (including Antiochus I) ought to do
debacle of 539BC.21 From a Babylonian perspective, then, producing a sustainable script for the same.
a Babylonian-Greek empire was much less unusual a task than one might think. Like the The Babyloniaca, then, was very much a political work. However, and somewhat para­
Cyrus Cylinder and the Persian Verse Account, Berossos offers models of successful king­ doxically, it simultaneously claimed to be of timeless value, and it is this latter claim that
ship and explains what happens when a king misbehaves. And like those texts, he anchors largely determined the fascinating history of its reception. Readers throughout the centuries
Babylonian kingship in the cosmic order. valued Berossos for his perceived faithfulness to older literature. Josephus quotes him to
Above all, and again echoing earlier cuneiform texts, Berossos emphasises the importance confirm the historical accuracy of the Hebrew scriptures. Much later, the Renaissance author
of Babylon, its buildings and its wise men, the Chaldaeans. At one point in book 3, he reports Annius of Viterbo pretended to quote Berossos in support of his own rather extravagant
how, upon the death of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabopolassar, the ‘best of the Chaldaeans’ historical claims. Among other things, Annius claimed to have discovered passages from
preserved the throne for his son and successor Nebuchadnezzar II.22 We know that Berossos Berossos which proved that, ‘shortly after the Flood, Noah and his favourite grandchildren,
was familiar with the work of Ctesias, and he is likely to have been aware of the role that the sons of Japheth, had colonized Europe’.28 That is of course not in Berossos, and Annius
Babylonian characters played in the overthrow of successive empires in the PersicaP He was soon exposed as one of the most blatant forgers in literary history. That he nonetheless
thus seems to present a revisionist portrayal of the ‘best of the Chaldaeans’ ((3s?iTioto<; continued to be read well into the 18th century speaks for the powerful hold that ‘Berosus,
airaiov) who preserves kingship for Nebuchadnezzar. In a climate where Berossos himself the Chaldaean’ has had on the European imagination.
was trying to write as a Chaldaean sage to the king, his presentation of the Chaldaeans as As a fragmentary text, the Babyloniaca lives on through the use that later readers made
loyal wardens of kingship seems calculated to advertise his own usefulness. Not coinci­ of it. The case of Annius comes as a stark reminder of how fraught the interplay between
dentally, Berossos portrays Nebuchadnezzar both as an ally of the Chaldaeans and as the text and reception can become under such circumstances. However, we are not entirely at
ultimate model of successful kingship.24 The idea was by no means new: at the time when the mercy of Berossos’ readers: when cuneiform was deciphered in the nineteenth century,
Berossos was writing, Babylonians had long seen Nebuchadnezzar as their most important it became finally possible to compare his account with other Babylonian sources. Berossos,
king, though he was still relatively unknown to the Greeks. He had served as a positive we now know, was not an impostor like Annius, but he did not mechanically follow existing
model under Nabonidus and Cyrus the Great;25 and both Babylonian rebels whom Darius cuneiform sources either. One of the most fruitful challenges in reading the Babyloniaca is
mentions in his Behistun inscription call themselves Nebuchadnezzar.26 Megasthenes finally precisely to explore the space that opens up between two extremes: slavish faithfulness to
introduced him to a Greek audience, insisting that he was more powerful even than Heracles, Mesopotamian tradition and servile assimilation to the dominant Greek culture. Berossos of­
ten leaves the issue of cultural register in suspense. For example, he simultaneously follows
Babylonian precedent and plays to Greek expectations when he equates the ancient tribe of
the Guti with the Medes.29 Then again, he invites us to reflect on the tensions between dif­
19 See sepecially Nabopolassar Nr. 4 (Langdon).
20 ‘Preserving kingship’: BNJ 680 F8; for the cuneiform sources see Lenzi 2008, 76-7 and 158-9. ferent cultural codes when he describes Cyrus the Great both as a philanthrope (a favourite
21 Up-to-date edition, translation and commentary in Schaudig 2001. trope of Greek representations of Cyrus), and as a ruler who razed the walls of Babylon (thus
22 BNJ 680 F 8.
23 Esp. Belesys at F lb § 24ff. (Lenfant) and the anonymous Chaldaean at F8d §8ff. (Lenfant). Both are
described as the foremost (e7iiorm6taro(;, Xoyid)T(XTO<;) of the Chaldaeans; for Ctesias see Wiesehofer/
Rollinger/ Lanfranchi 2011. 27 Megasthenes FGrHist 715 F la.
24 For example, he tells us that Nebuchadnezzar outshone all earlier kings of Babylon: BNJ 680 F 8. 28 Stephens 2004.
25 Nabonidus: 3.3 V 14’ (Schaudig); cf. 3.2 II 45 (Schaudig). Cyrus: PI VI 8’—11 ’ (Schaudig). 29 BNJ 680 F5. As Lanfranchi points out in this volume (pp.61-74), Berossos wrote the Medes out of his
26 DB OP par. 16-21, 49-50; for discussion see Rollinger 2010. succession of empires after Assyria. With his equation of Guti and Medes he found a new place for them.
8 Johannes Haubold The World of Berossos: Introduction 9
tapping into deep-seated Babylonian anxieties about the proper exercise of kingship).30 The never be known, but scholarship has made great strides in reconstructing his wider in­
point here is not to commit Berossos to a single voice, but to explore the interplay of voices, tellectual, historical and cultural context.32 Tom Boiy reconsiders the dramatic events that
sometimes converging, at other times strikingly dissonant, that characterise his complex shaped Berossos’ life, from the heady days after Alexander’s conquest to the mayhem that
and fragile work. followed upon his death, to the Seleucid restoration which brought challenges of a different
The rewards are considerable, as this volume aims to show. Berossos has sometimes been kind. John Steele then offers a detailed investigation of the astronomical fragments. Steele
judged by the fact that his work did not survive: it has been suggested that the Babyloniaca confirms the prevailing view that none of the astronomical fragments contain any up-to-date
was in some fundamental way flawed, or that it was inherently unattractive to Greek readers. Babylonian astronomy, and he accepts as likely that some of them are spurious. However,
There may be some truth in this, but claims about the stylistic qualities or otherwise of the he also allows for the possibility that Berossos may have drawn from older and more widely
Babyloniaca must be treated with caution, given the precarious state of our evidence. More known astronomical and cosmological traditions. Bruno Jacobs studies another difficult
generally, arguments about survival are problematic: like Sappho, Menander and Ctesias, and much discussed group of fragments: those on Iranian religion, especially the notori­
Berossos was widely read and quoted (which is why we have some of his work). We should ous fragment BNJ F 11, which has been used to support far-reaching conclusions about the
therefore not be too quick to blame the eventual disappearance of Berossos’ work on its development of religious practices under the Achaemenids. He concludes that the fragment
perceived deficiencies: in truth, the vast majority of ancient authors survive in fragments or does not suggest radical religious reforms under Artaxerxes II. Robert Rollinger rounds
not at all. Indeed, Berossos fared relatively well amidst the general shipwreck of Seleucid off this section with a study of Berossos’ portrayal of architectural monuments. He argues
literature, and the fact that we can still read his work at all - whatever the difficulties in that Berossos employs the motif of the builder king as a means of characterising successive
practice - is due to the fact that readers over the centuries continued to read, re-imagine and rulers from Semiramis to Cyrus, with special emphasis given to Nebuchadnezzar II. In this
transmit his work. connection, Rollinger revisits the vexed issue of the Hanging Garden, arguing that Berossos
merged Greek and Mesopotamian story motifs in a bid to create a memorable and culturally
A reappraisal of the Babyloniaca composite structure of the mind.
Today, we are arguably in a better position than ever before to attempt a fresh evaluation of Section 3 is devoted to Berossos’ literary context. Stephanie Dailey asks what Meso­
Berossos’ work. Geert de Breucker has recently put the study of the Babyloniaca on a new potamian narrative texts Berossos had at his disposal, and more specifically, what form they
footing with his edition of Berossos with commentary in Brill’s New Jacoby, and he opens would have taken. She cautions against the assumption that classics of Babylonian literature
this volume with an overview of some of the issues raised by the study of Berossos and his such as Enuma Elis or Gilgames existed only in a single canonical version. Berossos emerges
work.31 There follows a bloc of four chapters devoted to the Babyloniaca itself. Johannes from her study as an author who did not so much rewrite what he found but selected the
Haubold argues that the hitherto neglected account of cosmogony in Babyloniaca 1 enables version that best suited his needs from a tradition that was already multiform and there­
Berossos to cast himself as a Chaldaean sage and proto-philosopher, thus claiming for him­ fore open to selective use. Christopher Tuplin looks at the Babyloniaca in the context of
self a position of authority vis-a-vis his Greek readers which was not otherwise available to Greek historiographical writing. The picture that emerges is complex: while Berossos does
non-Greeks. Martin Lang studies the central Flood narrative of Babyloniaca 2 and argues make concessions to the taste of Greek audiences, he does not always do so in a way that
that it dramatises the survival of Babylonian culture at a point of rupture. Lang goes on is characteristic of Greek historiography: indeed, some of his approaches sound more dis­
to suggest that Berossos himself sees his task as analogous to that of the early sages, who tinctly philosophical. The result, according to Tuplin, in many ways departs from the norms
transmit and preserve the ancient core of civilisation in times of crisis. If further proof was and expectations of Greek historiographical genres. In the following chapter, Paul Kosmin
needed that there is nothing naively ‘native’ about Berossos’ work, Lanfranchi’s reading of again tackles the issue of Berossos’ relationship with other Greek writers but narrows the
Babyloniaca 3 ought to provide it: Lanfranchi shows in detail how Berossos worked both focus to the early Seleucid court authors Demodamas, Patrocles and Megasthenes. Kosmin
Babylonian and Greek traditions into his tapestry of imperial history, from the Assyrians argues that whereas the Seleucid court authors chart the vast outer spaces of the Seleucid
via the Neo-Babylonians to the Persians. The final chapter in this section, by John Dillery, empire, Berossos makes a point of ignoring imperial geography and instead writes back to
investigates how Berossos interweaves Seleucid language and ideas with his account of the ancient centre of empire in Babylon.33 The result is distinctly pedagogic, even cajoling
the Neo-Babylonian period. Dillery retrieves telling echoes of Berossos’ voice from the at times: there is a sense in which Berossos curbs the exuberance of a young and excitable
Josephus fragments of Babyloniaca 3, demonstrating how much can still be learned about Seleucid court on the move, directing its attention inward, towards Babylon as the place
this elusive author through a close engagement with the extant sources.
Sections two and three of the collection turn the spotlight on the historical and literary
context of the Babyloniaca. The precise personal circumstances of Berossos will probably
32 Amelie Kuhrt’s work has been seminal here: see Kuhrt 1987, 1990, 1996 and Kuhrt/Sherwin-White
30 BNJ 680 F9a; for the philanthropic Cyrus see Xen. Cyr. 1.2.1 and 7.5.73, with Gera 1993: 183-4; for 1987, 1991, and 1993. See also Beaulieu 1993 and 2006a, Boiy 2004 and 2007, Oelsner 1986 and 1992,
Cyrus’ destruction of the walls of Babylon see further Rollinger in this volume. Van der Spek 1985, 2003, 2005, 2006.
31 De Breucker in turn draws on a recent revival of interest in Berossos. Important milestones are: Drews 33 ‘Writing back’ acquires a different inflection here from Salman Rushdie’s original use of the phrase in
1975, Burstein 1978, Kuhrt 1987, Verbrugghe/Wickersham 1996, De Breucker 2003a, Beaulieu 2006a, The Times, July 3, 1982, p. 8. As often, the ironies of imperial space are not adequately captured by a
Bichler 2007, Dillery 2007, Van der Spek 2008, Schironi 2009. simple dichotomy between centre and periphery.
10 Johannes Haubold The World of Berossos: Introduction
where the empire is truly won or lost.34 Berossos’ treatment of time is of central importance friar, scholar and historian, who in his Antiquities of 1498 forged an entire work by ‘Berosus
in this connection, and this is a topic taken up in Moyer’s contribution on Berossos and Chaldaeus’ and proceeded to equip it with a learned commentary. Walter Stephens revisits
Manetho. Moyer traces later attempts to bring Berossos and Manetho in line with universal this extraordinary Annian concoction and situates it in the context of a scholarly career where
dating schemes. According to Moyer, one way of reading the Babyloniaca is precisely as the boundaries between genuine historical research and pure fiction had long become blurred.
an attempt to elude such domestication. The exorbitant time periods which Berossos covers The volume is rounded off with Kai Ruffing’s overview of scholarship on Berossos after the
(432,000 years of pre-flood history alone) brings to mind Plato, and his famous remark that decipherment of the cuneiform script. As Ruffing shows, past research on Berossos has of­
the Greeks are forever children because they cannot see beyond the periodic breaks in their ten proceeded piecemeal. The present volume features contributions by scholars working in
history.35 Berossos can, and with a vengeance. Yet, as Moyer argues, we should be care­ Classics, Ancient History, Biblical Studies, Assyriology, Iranology, Patristics, the History of
ful not to see him merely as responding to Greek concerns. The boundaries between local Science and Renaissance Studies.38 When they met for the first time at the Durham confer­
and global perspectives on history are not in fact so hard and fast, least of all in the case of ence from which this volume springs, their conversations proved a source of enrichment and
Berossos, where local history is itself informed by a long-standing tradition of universal inspiration for everyone involved. It is to be hoped that the present volume conveys some of
empire. that spirit of shared intellectual endeavour.
The final section of the collection is devoted to the reception, transmission and recon­
struction of Berossos’ work. There can be few authors from classical antiquity whose
work is so obviously entangled with the history of their reception as Berossos, and recent
developments in reception studies have given us much better tools than ever before to un­
lock the interplay between the Babyloniaca and its ancient and modern readers.36 Alexander
Polyhistor and Eusebius are arguably our most important sources for Berossos’ work, and the References
first two chapters of the section are devoted to them.37 Francesca Schironi builds on her 2009 Beaulieu 1993
commentary on the Oxyrhynchus Glossary to situate the earliest reception of Berossos in the P.-A. Beaulieu, ‘The historical background of the Uruk Prophecy’, in: M. E. Cohen/D. Snell/
D. B. Weisberg (eds.), The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honour of William
context of pagan Greek paradoxography. Alexander Polyhistor himself, she argues, was less
W. Hallo, Bethesda, MD 1993, 41-52.
a historian or ethnographer than a grammarian with a strong interest in oriental mirabilia.
Beaulieu 2006a
It was scholars like Polyhistor who, with their extracts, helped to keep Berossos outside the P.-A. Beaulieu, ‘Berossus on late Babylonian history’, Oriental Studies, Special Issue 2006, 116-49.
historiographical mainstream. Beaulieu 2006b
As it turned out, Berossos came to be invoked primarily as an exponent of ‘barbarian P.-A. Beaulieu, ‘De l’Esagil au Mouseion: l’organisation de la recherche scientifique au IVe siecle
avant J.-C.’, in: Pierre Briant/Francis Joannes (eds.), La transition entre I’empire achemenide et
wisdom’, somebody who provided a valuable alternative to standard Graeco-Roman his­
les royaumes hellenistiques (vers 350—300 av. J.-C.) (Persika 9), Paris 2006, 17-36.
toriography. Irene Madreiter takes up the story with Eusebius’ quotations of Berossos.
Bichler 2007
Madreiter argues that Eusebius’ relationship to Berossos was complicated to the point of
R. Bichler, ‘Some observations on the image of the Assyrian and Babylonian kingdoms within
paradox: on the one hand, he relies on his king lists to fill in the blank spaces in his history the Greek tradition’, in: R. Rollinger (ed.), Historiographic, Ethnography, Utopie. Gesammelte
of the rise of Christianity. Yet, he bites the hand that feeds him when he denounces Berossos’ Schriften Teil 1, Wiesbaden 2007, 209-28.
work as ‘illogical and irrational’. We sense here the same tendency towards splitting Berossos Bichler/Rollinger 2005
R. Bichler/R. Rollinger, ‘Die Hangenden Garten zu Ninive: Die Losung eines Ratsels?’, in: R.
into more and less acceptable strands which resurfaces in modern attempts to separate off
Rollinger (ed.), Von Sumer his Homer (FS Manfred Schretter), Munster 2005, 153-218.
the authentic Berossos from the ‘(pseudo-)Berossos of Cos’ (thus Jacoby). As well as brack­
Bilde / Engberg-Pedersen / Hannestad / Zahle 1990
eting aspects of Berossos’ work that for whatever reason seemed troublesome, readers from P. Bilde/T. Engberg-Pedersen /L. Hannestad/J Zahle (eds.), Religion and Religious Practice in the
antiquity to the present day have felt tempted to invent others from scratch. The most momen­ Seleucid Kingdom, Aarhus 1990.
tous attempt of this kind we owe to the flawed genius of Annius of Viterbo, a Dominican Boiy 2004
T. Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon, Leuven 2004.
34 It is probably significant that where the Eastern periphery of the empire does come into view in our Boiy 2007
extant fragments of Berossos, it is to describe Cyrus’ death in battle against the Dahae; cf. BNJ 680 F 10. T. Boiy, Between High and Low: A Chronology of the Early Hellenistic Period, Frankfurt 2007.
35 Plato, Timaeus 22b. Burstein 1978
36 See in general Martindale 1993, Martindale/Thomas 2006, Hardwick/Stray 2009, Hardwick/Gillespie S. M. Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus, Malibu, CA 1978.
2010; and on Berossos in particular: Schironi 2009 for the earliest reception; Grafton 1991, 76-103 and Cook 2009
Stephens 2004 for the Renaissance response. Gmirkin 2006 detects a response to Berossos in Hebrew J. Cook, The Septuagint and Reception: Essays Prepared for the Association for the Study of the
Scripture; Moyer 2011 discusses the parallel case of Manetho. Septuagint in South Africa, Leiden 2009.
37 Others could have been included: Josephus would have deserved his own chapter, as would Abydenus,
the Armenian reception of Berossos, and the fascinating - though as yet elusive - role of Michael Syrus.
For a discussion of the Josephus fragments from Babyloniaca 3, see Dillery’s contribution to this vol­ 38 Again, other fields could have been added: the Armenian fragments, for example, are in urgent need of
ume, with further literature. expert attention.
12 Johannes Haubold The World of Berossos: Introduction 13
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