History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 3 — 41 - Ch. 3: Chaldaean Civilization, pt. 14

Chaldaea abounded with soothsayers and necromancers no less than with astrologers; she possessed no real school of medicine, such as we find in Egypt, in which were taught rational methods of diagnosing maladies and of curing them by the use of simples.

The Chaldaeans were content to confide the care of their bodies to sorcerers and exorcists, who were experts in the art of casting out demons and spirits, whose presence in a living being brought about those disorders to which humanity is prone.

The facial expression of the patient during the crisis, the words which escaped from him in delirium, were, for these clever individuals, so many signs revealing the nature and sometimes the name of the enemy to be combated--the Fever-god, the Plague-god, the Headache-god.

Consultations and medical treatment were, therefore, religious offices, in which were involved purifications, offerings, and a whole ritual of mysterious words and gestures.

The magician lighted a fire of herbs and sweet-smelling plants in front of his patient, and the clear flame arising from this put the spectres to flight and dispelled the malign influences, a prayer describing the enchantments and their effects being afterwards recited.

“The baleful imprecation like a demon has fallen upon a man;--wail and pain have fallen upon him,--direful wail has fallen upon him,--the baleful imprecation, the spell, the pains in the head!

--This man, the baleful imprecation slaughters him like a sheep,--for his god has quitted his body--his goddess has withdrawn herself in displeasure from him,--a wail of pain has spread itself as a garment upon him and has overtaken him!

” The harm done by the magician, though terrible, could be repaired by the gods, and Merodach was moved to compassion betimes.

Merodach cast his eyes on the patient, Merodach entered into the house of his father Ea, saying: “My father, the baleful curse has fallen like a demon upon the man!

” Twice he thus speaks, and then adds: “What this man ought to do, I know not; how shall he be healed?

” Ea replies to his son Merodach: “My son, what is there that I could add to thy knowledge?

--Merodach, what is there that I could add to thy knowledge?

--That which I know, thou knowest it:--go then, my son, Merodach,--lead him to the house of purification of the god who prepares remedies,--and break the spell that is upon him, draw away the charm which is upon him,--the ill which afflicts his body,--which he suffers by reason of the curse of his father,--or the curse of his mother,--or the curse of his eldest brother,--or by the curse of a murderess who is unknown to the man.

--The curse, may it be taken from him by the charm of Ea,--like a clove of garlic which is stripped skin by skin,--like a cluster of dates may it be cut off,--like a bunch of flowers may it be uprooted!

The spell, may heaven avert it,--may the earth avert it!

” The god himself deigned to point out the remedy: the sick man was to take a clove of garlic, some dates, and a stalk bearing flowers, and was to throw them into the fire, bit by bit, repeating appropriate prayers at each stage of the operation.

“In like manner as this garlic is peeled and thrown into the fire,--and the burning flame consumes it,--as it will never be planted in the vegetable garden, it will never draw moisture from the pond or from the ditch,--its root will never again spread in the earth,--its stalk will not pierce the ground and behold the sun,--it will not serve as food for the gods or the king,--so may it remove the baleful curse, so may it loose the bond--of sickness, of sin, of shortcomings, of perversity, of crime!

--The sickness which is in my body, in my flesh, in my muscles,--like this garlic may it be stripped off,--and may the burning flame consume it in this day;--may the spell of the sorcerer be cast out, that I may behold the light!

” The ceremony could be prolonged at will: the sick person pulled to pieces the cluster of dates, the bunch of flowers, a fleece of wool, some goats’ hair, a skein of dyed thread, and a bean, which were all in turn consumed in the fire.

At each stage of the operation he repeated the formula, introducing into it one or two expressions characterizing the nature of the particular offering; as, for instance, “the dates will no more hang from their stalks, the leaves of the branch will never again be united to the tree, the wool and the hair will never again lie on the back of the animal on which they grew, and will never be used for weaving garments.

” The use of magical words was often accompanied by remedies, which were for the most part both grotesque and disgusting in their composition: they comprised bitter or stinking wood-shavings, raw meat, snake’s flesh, wine and oil, the whole reduced to a pulp, or made into a sort of pill and swallowed on the chance of its bringing relief.

The Egyptian physicians employed similar compounds, to which they attributed wonderful effects, but they made use of them in exceptional circumstances only.

The medical authorities in Chaldaea recommended them before all others, and their very strangeness reassured the patient as to their efficacy: they filled the possessing spirits with disgust, and became a means of relief owing to the invincible horror with which they inspired the persecuting demons.

The Chaldaeans were not, however, ignorant of the natural virtues of herbs, and at times made use of them;

but they were not held in very high esteem, and the physicians preferred the prescriptions which pandered to the popular craving for the supernatural.

Amulets further confirmed the effect produced by the recipes, and prevented the enemy, once cast out, from re-entering the body; these amulets were made of knots of cord, pierced shells, bronze or terra-cotta statuettes, and plaques fastened to the arms or worn round the neck.

On each of the latter kind were roughly drawn the most terrible images that they could conceive, a shortened incantation was scrawled on its surface, or it was covered with extraordinary characters, which when the spirits perceived they at once took flight, and the possessor of the talisman escaped the threatened illness.

However laughable, and at the same time deplorable, this hopeless medley of exact knowledge and gross superstition may appear to us at the present day, it was the means of bringing a prosperity to the cities of Chaldaea which no amount of actual science would ever have produced.

The neighbouring barbaric peoples were imbued with the same ideas as the Chaldaens regarding the constitution of the world and the nature of the laws which governed it.

They lived likewise in perpetual fear of those invisible beings whose changeable and arbitrary will actuated all visible phenomena; they attributed all the reverses and misfortunes which overtook them to the direct action of these malevolent beings;

they believed firmly in the influence of stars on the course of events;

they were constantly on the look out for prodigies, and were greatly alarmed by them, since they had no certain knowledge of the number and nature of their enemies, and the means they had invented for protecting themselves from them or of overcoming them too often proved inefficient.

In the eyes of these barbarians, the Chaldeans seemed to be possessed of the very powers which they themselves lacked.

The magicians of Chaldaea had forced the demons to obey them and to unmask themselves before them;

they read with ease in the heavens the present and future of men and nations; they interpreted the will of the immortals in its smallest manifestations, and with them this faculty was not a limited and ephemeral power, quickly exhausted by use: the rites and formulas known to them enabled them to exercise it freely at all times, in all places, alike upon the most exalted of the gods and the most dreaded of mortals, without its ever becoming weakened.

[Illustration:352. jpg A CHALDAEAN AMULET.

] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Loftus.

The original is in the British Museum.

A race so endowed with wisdom was, indeed, destined to triumph over its neighbours, and the latter would have no chance of resisting such a nation unless they borrowed from it its manners, customs, industry, writing, and all the arts and sciences which had brought about their superiority.

Chaldaeann civilization spread into Elam and took possession of the inhabitants of the shores of the Persian Gulf, and then, since its course was impeded on the south by the sea, on the west by the desert, and on the east by the mountains, it turned in the direction of the great northern plains and proceeded up the two rivers, beside whose lower waters it had been cradled.

It was at this very time that the Pharaohs of the XIIIth dynasty had just completed the conquest of Nubia.

Greater Egypt, made what she was by the efforts of twenty generations, had become an African power.

The sea formed her northern boundary, the desert and the mountains enclosed her on all sides, and the Nile appeared the only natural outlet into a new world: she followed it indefatigably from one cataract to another, colonizing as she passed all the lands fertilized by its waters.

Every step which she made in this direction increased the distance between her capitals and the Mediterranean, and brought her armies further south.

Asia would have practically ceased to exist, as far as Egypt was concerned, had not the repeated incursions of the Bedouin obliged her to make advances from time to time in that direction; still she crossed the frontier as seldom as possible, and recalled her troops as soon as they had reduced the marauders to order: Ethiopia alone attracted her, and it was there that she firmly established her empire.

The two great civilized peoples of the ancient world, therefore, had each their field of action clearly marked out, and neither of them had ever ventured into that of the other.

There had been no lack of intercourse between them, and the encounter of their armies, if it ever really had taken place, had been accidental, had merely produced passing results, and up till then had terminated without bringing to either side a decisive advantage.

[Illustration: 354. jpg MAGIC NAIL OF TERRA COTTA] [Illustration: 355. jpg EGYPTIAN CORNICE BEARING THE CARTOUCHES OF RAMSES I.

] APPENDIX--THE PHARAOHS OF THE ANCIENT AND MIDDLE EMPIRES