Mr. Bryant has discussed this question at large, and he gives the result thus : The chief objection made by these writers [Bochart, and Hyde in his De Relig. Veterum Persarum, etc.] to the common acceptation of the passage arises from this, that Asshur, they say, is here mentioned out of his place, which is the most frivolous and ill-grounded allegation that could be thought of. Nothing is more common with the sacred writers, in giving a list of people, than to introduce some little history of particular persons, as they mentioned them. The person here spoken of is Nimrod, of the line of Ham, who is mentioned as an extraordinary cha racter. As he trespassed upon Asshur, and forced him to leave the land of Shinaar, his history is so blended with that of Asshur, that one could not be mentioned without the other. What is said is so far from being introduced out of its place, that nothing could come in more naturally, or with greater propriety. It was impossible to omit it without rendering the history defective. Nimrod was a bold and powerful man. He seized upon Babylon, and forced Asshur to leave that country; who went out of the land, and built Nineveh and other cities. This is the amount of it : and what can be more natural and proper?' (Ant. lifythol.
vi. 192).
Concerning the subsequent life of Nimrod, the Scriptures give not the slightest information, nor even ground for conjecture. But, after seventeen or more centuries, a dubious and supposititious nar rative got into credit, of which the earliest pro moter that we know was Ctesias, but which, va riously amplified, has been repeated by many com pilers of ancient history down to our own times. Rollin, Shuckford, and Prideaux, seem to have given it a measure of credit. It is briefly to this effect :—Some make Nimrod to be Belus, and consider Nin (for os and us are only the Greek and Latin grammatical terminations) to have been his son ; others identify Nimrod and Ninus. It is further narrated that Ninus, in confederacy with A ric, an Arabian sovereign, in seventeen years, spread his conquests over Mesopotamia, Media, and a large part of Armenia and other countries ; that he married Semiramis, a warlike companion and continuatrix of his conquests, and the builder of Babylon ; that their son Ninyas succeeded, and was followed by more than thirty sovereigns of the same family, he and all the rest being effeminate voluptuaries ; that their indolent and licentious characters transmitted nothing to posterity ; that the crown descended in this unworthy line one thousand three hundred and sixty years ; that the last king of Assyria was Sardanapalus, proverbial for his luxury and dissipation ; that his Median viceroy, Arbaces, with Belesis, a priest of Babylon, rebelled against him, took his capital Nineveh and destroyed it, according to the horrid practice of ancient conquerors, those pests of the earth, while the miserable Sardanapalus perished with his at tendants by setting fire to his palace, in the ninth century before the Christian era.
That some portion of true history lies inter mingled with error or fable in this legend, espe cially the concluding part of it, is probable. Mr. Bryant is of opinion that there are a few scattered notices of the Assyrians and their confederates and opponents in Eupolemus and other authors, of whom fragments are preserved by Eusebius ; and in an obscure passage of Diodorus. To a part of this series, presenting a previous subjugation of some Canaanitish, of course Hamite nations, to the Assyrians, a revolt, and a reduction to the for mer vassalage, Mr. Bryant thinks that the very re markable passage, Gen. xiv. to, refers ; and he supports his argument in an able manner by a variety of ethnological coincidences (A me. illythol., vol. vi., pp. 195-208). But whatever we know with certainty of an Assyrian monarchy commences with Pul, about B. C. 760 ; and we have then the succession in Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, Senna cherib, and Esarhaddon. Under this last it is pro bable that the Assyrian kingdom was absorbed by the Chaldteo-Babylonian.
As a great part of the ancient mythology and idolatry arose from the histories of chiefs and sages, decorated with allegorical fables, it is by no means improbable that the life and actions of Nimrod gave occasion to stories of this kind. Hence, some have supposed him to have been signified by the Indian Bacchus, deriving that name from Bar- Ch us, ` son of Cush : ' and, it is probable, by the Persian giant Gibber (answering to the Hebrew Gibbor, ` mighty man,' hero,' in Gen. x. 8, 9) : and by the Greek Orion, whose fame as a 'mighty is celebrated by Homer, in the Odyssey, xi. The Persian and the Grecian fables are both re• presented by the well-known and magnificent con stellation.—J. P. S.