Incline and Rise

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History of the Incline and Rise of the Babylonian Empire, by Sir Edward Gibbon (as edited, abridged and completed by R. Quiche)

INTRODUCTION

In 1776, Gibbon published the first volume of his monumental fiction, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Citing hundreds of ersatz sources, Gibbon concocted an entire history for his "Romans," which included among its more preposterous details several conquests of Mesopotamia! Gibbon's reasons for inventing a nation and narrating its demise have baffled his biographers for centuries. The answer came in the chance discovery of a cache of his personal papers, which included an unpublished history of Babylon. The History of the Incline and Rise of the Babylonian Empire preceded Gibbon's Roman efforts. It is the work of a self-admitted worshipper of Babylonian culture. While Gibbon's attempt to assemble and relate the history of that civilization were commendable, it was riddled with inaccuracies that would not have withstood the scrutiny of contemporaneous scholars. Despairing of his ability to write history, Gibbon turned to fiction. But for all its errors, the Incline and Rise is deserving of notice, as the first work of the man who invented historical fiction.

R.Q., Houston, TX 2001

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BOOK I

BOOK I: The Diverse Geography of Babylonian Lands

Whilst the borders of the Babylonian state apprehend and encompass only a fractional portion of the terrestrial real estate, the rich resources and industrious inhabitants limned therein have contributed diligently and impressively to the advancement of the human enterprise in a measure that far exceeds what the ignorant might anticipate through the mere perusal of works of cartography. To inaugurate and commence this history of that benighted nation with a geographic inventory is to diminish its more startling innovations and meritorious accomplishments. Nevertheless, the fertile plains of Mesopotamia and the diverse regions adjacent form the stage on which the drama that is Babylon is enacted for our edification and amazement, and for that of all posterity.
Babylon the city is fortuitously sited betwixt two lakes, in the high and windswept plains that originate and assemble the salubrious waters of the Tigris River. The headwaters of that fabled artery cultivate and yield the industrious and elusive beaver, whose tactilely pleasing pelts bolstered the oeconomies of the state and excited the avarice of her enemies. To consolidate their control over this most lucrative and beneficent commerce, the Babylonians erected the city of Ur, the first of the aedifices through which the nurture and expansion of their culture was undertaken and accomplished. Hammurabi, who through the miracle of Babylonian medicaments has not aged in the 5800 years since his empire's nativity, decreed that the expansion of his borders would take precedence over the design and construction of fanciful and nonsensical Wonders that obsessed and oppressed his contemporaries. So whilst Xerxes bedazzled and belabored his subjects with an ambitious and failed effort to raise lofty pyramids above the Persepolopolitan grasslands, the Babylonians occupied and claimed the entirety of Mesopotamia – from the Tigris delta at Kish, to Ninevah, where the mighty Euphrates originates among the towering Caucuses, whose fabulous stores of iron and diamonds were diverted to Babylonian arms and treasure. Following the Euphrates in its lengthy and circuitous meander, we arrive at proud Uruk, the second Babylon, at Samarra, whose deserts cultivate fragrant incense to delight its inhabitants and burden its warehouses and caravansaries, and ultimately and terminally at the Gulph of Zariqun. Such was the imposition and insult of Babylon to the ambitions and migrations of Persia, that from the summits of Ninevah, they could behold and covet the very palaces and boulevards of Persepolis.
With the Persian frontier defined and fortified at the Euphrates to the south, Hammurabi directed his energies and attentions to the forests, hills, and grassland to the north. With no contiguous rival state to contest or claim them, these territories were settled at the leisure and convenience of the Babylonians. Though lacking in the rich and precious luxuries that elevated Mesopotamia to a place of envy among nations, these northern lands were fertile and productive, serving admirably to incubate and multiply the populace and resources of the state. Only from windy Tel Wilaya could the Babylonians survey and bemoan the snowy wastes that baffled and plagued other lands, and the ravenous and migratory herds of caribou that scoured the ice for their meager and miserable sustenance. To the northeast, Babylonian explorations uncovered and illuminated a more temperate peninsula, over which the impregnable towers of Kharsabad were ultimately raised. It was with these ambitious projects and undertakings that the Babylonian expansion was compleated.

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BOOK II

BOOK II: The Temperament and Explorations of the Babylonians

Since the date of its founding in 4000 BC, Babylon has avidly devoted herself to the art and study of religion and science. Whilst the self-appointed sages of modernity perceive and advocate a conflict between these worthy pursuits, none was apparent to Hammurabi and his followers, who willingly and superfluously lined the streets of their cities with a disorderly surfeit of temples, libraries, universities, and cathedrals. Many of these ancient structures have survived the ravages and abuses of time, to challenge the skill of the architect and landscape artist, reward the adventures of the tourist, and humble the ambitions of gouvernments. To stand within the Great Temple of Ur, which has stood unmolested for five millennia, is an honour and privilege that none should deny themselves.
Babylon's encounters with the sundry barbarians that surrounded her produced both opportunity and catastrophe for the young nation. From the shadowy and forgotten Harappan was learned the useful art of iron making. The warlike Minoans forewent their belligerence and rapine to elucidate and explain the mason's craft. Less salutary and productive were her embassies to the Mauryans, the Cuman, and the Cimmerians, each of whom assaulted and insulted the delegations of Babylon before succumbing to the majesty and might of her arms. Over the centuries, Babylonian generals contested for the popular adulation and merit by eradicating and despoiling the tribes of the Kassites, the Hittites, and the Bantu. The last of these conflicts, which not even the most effulgent of Babylonian historians dignify with the lofty sobriquet of war, was brought to its victorious and profitable denouement in 250 B.C. After that happy year, barbarians no longer walked the fortunate lands of Babylon, though they continued to reside in the epics of her poets and in the collective consciousness of her citizens.
Contact and intercourse with civilized states commenced in 2430 B.C. with innocent forays into Persia, with whom the opportunistic Babylonians exchanged knowledge of their alphabet for a demonstration of the potter's art and an explanation of the Persian warrior's code, which efficiency and transmission was enhanced and improved through the novel, alphabetic depiction. Obsessed and diverted by their construction plans, the Persians were ignorant and contemptuous of the lands to their south, which they deemed an impenetrable and uninhabitable jungle. Curious as to what they might discover, the Babylonians braved the tangled vines and fierce creatures to explore the fertile valleys of Germany and the frigid steppes of Zululand. In 1500 B.C., an exchange of embassies and a fruitful dialogue was commenced with those nations, which brought knowledge of mathematics home to Babylon, for the utility and delight of her inhabitants.
Against the precepts and caveats of Hammurabi, the ambitious citizens of Ashur undertook and compleated the construction of diverse Wonders, which elevated that bovine-favored metropolis to a place of primacy in the eyes of nations. The first of these monuments to the folly and pretensions of man was a voluminous and unsightly contrivance of bronze, which while modestly enhancing the Ashurian fisc, excited the envy and wonder of the capital. Of more noteworthy benefit and import was a Great Lighthouse, a contraption which enhanced the efficacy and range of Babylonian navigation, and which still affords hope and succor to the distressed mariner. In 680 B.C., Babylonian sailors beheld and marveled at the shores of India, whose devout and avaricious people share a continent with the surly and impecunious Russians. In that same fateful year, Babylonian prows invaded the coasts of the Orient, to the consternation and alarm of pacific China and bellicose Japan.

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BOOK III

BOOK III: The Pacific Evolution of Babylonian Culture

Whilst the historians of other lands devoted their minds and pens to the conduct and vicissitudes of war, the chroniclers of Babylon were forced to gaze beyond the oceans for inspiration in this most noble and stirring pursuit. Whether the pacific policies of Hammurabi may be attributed to that long-lived monarch's wisdom and foresight, or to the pusillanimity of his counsel, is a topic on which even the wise must reserve judgment. It suffices for our present purposes to note that for fifty three centuries the military enterprise of Babylon was devoted entirely to the removal of pernicious and uncouth barbarians from the wild lands that surrounded her.
The pacific and benevolent programmes and policies of Hammurabi conferred the blessings of material and intellectual progress upon a content and complacent populace. In 610 B.C., radical innovations in political thought drove Hammurabi to abandon the trappings and tyranny of the despot and assume the majestic and ceremonial mantle of monarchy. In 350 A.D., more revolutionary stirrings and whisperings prompted the orderly transition of the state to republican gouvernment, and throughout the lands of Babylon, eager citizens removed themselves from their ziggurats to debate and deliberate the weighty issues of the day. The superiority and excellence of democratic gouvernment were first perceived in 1080, and embraced as official policy immediately thereafter.
With this political evolution and innovation, the role of Hammurabi in Babylonian statecraft regressed from the autocratic to the symbolic, and his prior prescripts on the pursuit and elevation of arrogant and ostentatious Wonders were gleefully disregarded then abandoned. In these grandiose perversions, none could surpass the industry and alacrity of the Ashurians, who (in 780) explained the Art of War to their baffled and pacific conationalists, (in 1000) completed a great Observatory to track the motion of the celestial orbs, and (in 1285) dedicated a prestigious College to elucidate and explain that motion, along with the mysteries of the calculus and the polychromicity of light. Of greater import to the commonweal and happiness of Babylon were the Chapel of Ur, with its stunning yet fading frescoes, and the Cathedral of Ellipi, where rapt parishioners feasted on an aural cornucopia of tonicity and polyphony.
These diligent and praiseworthy activities did not pass unnoticed in the histories, and the repute and fame of Babylon progressed significantly from the scurrilous accounts of Pliny (ca. 3000 B.C.) deriding the puniness of her geography, to the fulsome encomiums and praise that Thucydides (ca. 420 A.D.) heaped upon her happiness. But lest the reader be duped into scorning and contemning the Babylonians for their want of martial and manly ardor, this history must now concern itself with the enterprise of Mars.

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BOOK IV

BOOK IV: The First Persian War, and the Folly of China

The origins of Babylonian foreign policy may be traced to the fortuitous accident of geography that placed an impoverished and enfeebled Persia between the Euphrates and the northern jungles of Germany. Recognizing that the conquest of Persia would serve only to extend her borders to those of a more powerful and belligerent adversary, Babylon declined and thereby avoided any test of Persian arms. When (in 750 B.C.) the emissaries and ambassadors of Xerxes insulted and abused Hammurabi with politely-phrased demands for the secrets of polytheism, accusations of cowardice and appeasement levied by the detractors of that eternal monarch drove him to rebuff that ultimatum. Whilst this incident enraged and emboldened the Babylonian people against the arrogance and aggrandizement of Xerxes, the counsels of Hammurabi applied themselves to the opposite programme, through the diligent and futile pursuit of an alliance with Persia against German pretensions and aggression. As the insolence of Bismarck's embassies waxed, the Persophilic elements of Babylonian diplomacy espied and attempted repeated opportunities to compleat an alliance. But none of the blandishments and bribery of the Babylonians could move Xerxes from a policy that led ultimately to the destruction and ruin of his state.
The end of the thirteenth century was marked by a circumstantial confluence of events that forever altered what was deemed by the wise as the fixed cartography of the continent. In 1280, the streets of Babylon ran riot with news that Persia had allied herself with the Zulus to the detriment and distress of Germany. The outbreak of hostilities commenced before this ambitious accord was announced in the streets of Zimbabwe and Persepolis. In 1285, Babylonian scientists compleated their pioneering work on the physiks of magnetism whilst the Ashurians compleated their College, thereby prompting the sages and analysts of the Babylonian state to announce to an elated republic that it had entered an era that was both industrious and golden. Whilst Babylon's generals bemoaned the numerical parity of the nations, her prophets foretold an impending age of qualitative superiority. It was the latter optimistic prognostications that prompted Hammurabi to discard the prejudice and policies of centuries and appraise the Persian heartland with a fresh and avaricious eye. Recognizing that the recent (1150) construction of the Forbidden Palace of Uruk would extend the diligent and deterrent effects of the capital through much of Persian territory, he urged the Babylonians to devote the enhanced wealth and labor of Babylon to the production and deployment of arms, so that the principal cities of Persia might be wrested from the tyrannical and unsuspecting Xerxes and invested with the civilized precepts of Babylonian culture.
Whilst Zimbabwe and Persepolis assaulted and diminished the perquisites and prestige of Berlin, strategic positions on the left bank of the Euphrates were fortified and manned to chastise and deter Persian adventures and reprisals. In 1300, two contingents of cannon and rifle crossed the Persian frontier, a breach and insult not attempted by the Babylonians in almost five thousand years. Xerxes's feeble protests were assuaged by the duplicitous diplomacy of Hammurabi, who negociated a pact with the immortal Bismarck and thereby served his people their first taste of the bitter fruit of war.
In the same year that hostilities commenced, the diligence and genius of Babylonian social science elucidated a means for instilling a Military Tradition within that heretofore passive state. The chivalry of Babylon, most of which huddled in Uruk whilst the infantry secured the approaches to Persia, were promptly equipped as cavalry, and Passagardae fell beneath the assault of Babylonian cannon and the hooves of Babylonian horse. Arbela succumbed in 1305 to the superiority of Babylonian arms and perspicacity of Babylonian strategy, thereby depriving Persia of the horse that is essential to the precepts and practice of chivalry. Overmatched and demoralized, Xerxes watched with consternation and disbelief as the nation he once contumned for its passivity overran Tarsus (1310), Ergili (1315), Persepolis (1325), and Tyre (1330). Abandoning his capital to the tender ministrations of Babylonian rapine, Xerxes importuned and received an ignominious peace that left Babylon in possession of the most ancient and productive centres of his empire. The Persian prince attempted and undertook a feeble and ineffectual vengeance by persuading his Zulu allies to join in an embargo of Babylonian exchange. When this counterstrike was announced within the Babylonian Senate, it was greeted with derisive hoots of laughter, since Zululand possessed no tradable commodities whilst the silk that formed the foundation of Persian commerce passed into Babylonian hands with the capture and investment of Tarsus.
Babylonian scorn for the power and pretensions of other states was confirmed and magnified by the origins and outcome of a second war. Hypothesizing an adversary bleeding and weakened through the rigours of conflict, China dispatched a fleet of two caravels bearing the sword, spear, and bow that the arrogant and misinformed Mao deemed sufficient to seize and hold the Kharsabad peninsula. These intrepid adventurers promptly succumbed to the six divisions of cavalry that garrisoned the hills to the north, and the Babylonians, who greeted this insult to their territory not with howls of outrage but with snickers of amusement, deigned to accept the peace that was offered them. Emboldened with these palms and laurels of victory, Babylonian hubris was checked only by the recognition that for all their fecundity, the lands of Babylon, even as augmented by the Persian conquests, contained not a lump of coal nor a drop of oil.

[Jeremy]

I'm not the only one who likes this, am I?

[Pisthetaerus]

Wow, its just like Gibbons! Sorry man that you had to read that thing! The only thing missing to make it perfect Gibbons is the constant references to God and Jesus the savior!