some of the improvements in astronomy attributed to this people. With the
decline of Babylon their influence declined, and they were afterwards
known to the Greeks and Romans only as astrologers, magicians, and
soothsayers.

2. THE CUNEIFORM LETTERS.--These characters, borrowed by the Semitic
conquerors of the Accadians, the Babylonians, and Assyrians, were
originally hieroglyphics, each denoting an object or an idea, but they
were gradually corrupted into the forms we see on Assyrian monuments. They
underwent many changes, and the various periods are distinguished as
Archaic, hieratic, Assyrian, and later Babylonian.

3. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN REMAINS.--The origin and history of this
civilization have only been made known to us by the very recent
decipherment of native monuments. Before these discoveries the principal
source of information was found in the writings of Borosus, a priest of
Babylon, who lived about 300 B.C., and who translated the records of
astronomy into Greek. Though his works have perished, we have quotations
from them in Eusebius and other writers, which have been strikingly
verified by the inscriptions. The chief work on astronomy, compiled for
Sargon, one of the earliest Babylonian monarchs, is inscribed on seventy
tablets, a copy of which is in the British Museum. The Babylonians
understood the movements of the heavenly bodies, and Calisthenes, who
accompanied Alexander on his eastern expedition, brought with him on his
return the observations of 1903 years. The main purpose of all Babylonian
astronomical observation, however, was astrological, to cast horoscopes,
or to predict the weather. Babylon retained for a long time its ancient
splendor after the conquest by Cyrus and the final fall of the empire, and
in the first period of the Macedonian sway. But soon after that time its
fame was extinguished, and its monuments, arts, and sciences perished.