Assurbanipal
(Chald.)
The Sardanapalus of the Greeks, “the greatest of the Assyrian Sovereigns, far more memorable on account of his magnificent patronage of learning than of the greatness of his empire”, writes the late G. Smith, and adds: “Assurbanipal added more to the Assyrian royal library than all the kings who had gone before him”. As the distinguished Assyriologist tells us in another place of his “Babylonian and Assyrian Literature” (Chald. Account of Genesis) that “the majority of the texts preserved belong to the earlier period previous to B.C. 1600”, and yet asserts that “it is to tablets written in his (Assurbanipal’s) reign (B.C. 673) that we owe almost all our knowledge of the Babylonian early history”, one is well justified in asking, “How do you know?” (TG).
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Shortly: The Sardanapalus of the Greeks, “the greatest of the Assyrian Sovereigns, far more memorable on acco...