Yet if the Babylonians were so deficient in their appreciation of the need of historical annals for the individual reigns, they seem to have been, the superiors of the Assyrians when it came to the production of actual histories dealing with long periods of time. While the Babylonians have preserved to us numerous lists of kings and two excellent works which we have every reason to call actual histories, the Babylonian Chronicle and the Nabunaid-Cyrus Chronicle, the Assyrians have but the Eponym Lists, the so called Assyrian Chronicle, and the so called Synchronous History. The last has already been discussed, and we have seen how little it deserved the title of a real history, yet it marks the greatest advance the Assyrians made along this line. The Eponym lists are merely lists of the officials who dated each year in rotation, and they seem to have been compiled for practical calendar purposes. The so called Assyrian Chronicle is in reality nothing but a chronological table in three columns, the first with the name of the eponym for the year, the second with his office, and the third with the most important event, generally a campaign, of the year. As a historical source, more can be made out of this dry list than has previously been suspected, and this has been pointed out elsewhere. [Footnote: Olmstead, _Jour. Amer. Or. 80c._, XXXIV. 344 ff.] But, as a contribution to the writing of history, it holds a distinctly low place.
On the other hand, the Babylonian Chronicle is a real, if somewhat crude history. In fact, it can be said without fear of contradiction that it is the best historical production of any cuneiform people. Our present copy is dated in the twenty second year of Darius I of Persia, 500 B.C., but, as it was copied and revised from an earlier exemplar, which could not always be read, its original must be a good bit earlier. Only the first tablet has come down to us, but the mention of the first proves that a second existed. What we have covers the period 745-668, a period of seventy-seven years. The second tablet would cover a period nearer the time of the writer and would naturally deal with the events more in detail, so that a smaller number of years would be given on this tablet. If but two tablets were written, the end of the work would be brought down close to the time when the Assyrian Empire fell (608). It is a tempting conjecture, though nothing more, that it was the fall of Assyria and the interest in the relations between the now dominant Babylonia and its former mistress, excited by this event, which led to the composition of the work. Be that as it may, the author is remarkably fair, with no apparent prejudice for or against any of the nations or persons named. The events chosen are naturally almost exclusively of a military or political nature, but within these limits he seems to have chosen wisely. In general, he confines himself to those events which have an immediate bearing on Babylonian history, but at times, as, for example, in his narration of the Egyptian expeditions, he shows a rather surprising range of interest. If we miss the picturesque language which adds so much to the literary value of the Assyrian royal annals, this can hardly be counted an objection by a generation of historians which has so subordinated the art of historical writing to the scientific discovery of historical facts. In its sobriety of presentation and its coldly impartial statement of fact, it may almost be called modern. [Footnote: Photograph, Rogers, 515, C. T. XXXIV 43 ff. Abstract, Pinches, PSBA. VI. 198 ff. Winckler, ZA. II. 148 ff.; Pinches, JRAS. XIX. 655 ff. Abel-Winckler, 47 f. Duplicates, Bezold, PSBA. 1889, 181; Delitzsch, _Lesestücke_, 137 ff. Schrader, KB. II. 274 ff.; Delitzsch, _Bab. Chronik_; Rogers, 208 ff.; Barta, in Harper, 200 ff. Sarsowsky, _Keilschriftliches Urkundenbuch_, 49 ff.; Mercer, _Extra Biblical Sources_, 65 ff.]