Great, which took place there in the year 322 B.C.

In the time of Herodotus the fame of Babylon was at its height,
and the father of history has left us a most entertaining account
of what he saw when he visited the wonderful capital.
Unfortunately, Herodotus was not a scholar in the proper
acceptance of the term. He probably had no inkling of the
Babylonian language, so the voluminous records of its literature
were entirely shut off from his observation. He therefore
enlightens us but little regarding the science of the
Babylonians, though his observations on their practical
civilization give us incidental references of no small
importance. Somewhat more detailed references to the scientific
attainments of the Babylonians are found in the fragments that
have come down to us of the writings of the great Babylonian
historian, Berosus,[3] who was born in Babylon about 330 B.C.,
and who was, therefore, a contemporary of Alexander the Great.
But the writings of Berosus also, or at least such parts of them
as have come down to us, leave very much to be desired in point
of explicitness. They give some glimpses of Babylonian history,
and they detail at some length the strange mythical tales of
creation that entered into the Babylonian conception of
cosmogony--details which find their counterpart in the allied
recitals of the Hebrews. But taken all in all, the glimpses of
the actual state of Chaldean[4] learning, as it was commonly
called, amounted to scarcely more than vague wonder-tales. No one
really knew just what interpretation to put upon these tales
until the explorers of the nineteenth century had excavated the
ruins of the Babylonian and Assyrian cities, bringing to light
the relics of their wonderful civilization. But these relics