8　没有钱的富庶之地

你们一定在童话故事里看到过这样的地方：在那里，糕点、糖果和棒棒糖都是长在树上，你们想要吃的、玩的，伸手便可以摘到。是的，很久、很久以前，人们曾经认为，世界上确实有过这样的一个国家；你们觉得，人们说的这个国家位于哪儿呢？就在底格里斯河与幼发拉底河附近的一个地方，他们将这个地方称作“伊甸园”；这两条名字古怪的河流，我曾经要你们记住，你们还记得吗？我们并不知道这个国家的准确位置，因为如今没有哪个地方再有人们所认为的“伊甸园”那样奇妙了。

古埃及这个国度只有一条河流，即尼罗河。而两河流域这片土地，却有着种种不同的名称。

假设我们坐在一架飞机上飞过这个国家，并且往下俯瞰这两条河流之间的那片大地。这片土地叫作美索不达米亚；“美索不达米亚”其实是由两个希腊语单词组成的，只是指“位于河流之间”罢了。

看一看底格里斯河上游的那个地方，那里叫亚述。

看一看两河交汇之处附近的那个地方，那里叫巴比伦尼亚。

看一看两河入海口的附近，那里叫迦勒底。

再看一看，那里还有亚拉拉特山脉；传说大洪水过后，诺亚的方舟就停在那儿呢。

Here are a lot of new names. A young friend of mine had a train of toy cars.He had noticed that the cars on which he had ridden had names,and so he gave his toy cars names also.He called them：

Assyria　Mesopotamia

Babylonia　Ararat

Chaldea　Euphrates

Babylonia was a very rich country,for the two rivers brought down and dropped great quantities of earth just as the Nile did in Egypt,and this made very rich soil. Wheat,from which we make bread,is called the staff of life.It is the most valuable of all foods which grow.It is supposed that wheat first grew in Babylonia.Dates in that part of the world are almost as important a food as wheat.Dates,too,grow there very plentifully.Now,you may think dates are something to be eaten almost like candy,but in Babylonia dates took

这里又出现了一大堆的新名称。我认识的一位小朋友有许多辆玩具汽车。他注意到，自己坐过的许多汽车都有名字，于是他也给自己的玩具汽车一一取了名字。他把自己那些玩具汽车

分别叫作：

亚述　美索不达米亚

巴比伦尼亚　亚拉拉特

迦勒底　幼发拉底河

巴比伦尼亚是个非常富庶的国家，因为底格里斯和与幼发拉底两条河流携带并沉积下来大量的泥沙，就像埃及境内的尼罗河那样，而这些泥沙又形成了非常肥沃的土壤。我们用来做面包的小麦，被称为“生命支柱”。在人类种植的所有粮食作物当中，小麦是最重要的一种。人们认为，小麦是在巴比伦尼亚最先种植出来的。这个地方种植的枣椰，也是与小麦差不多同样重要的一种粮食。该地的枣椰也种植得非常多。注意，你们可能会以为，枣椰是与糖果差不多相似的一种零食；可是在巴比伦尼亚，枣椰却是用来代替燕麦的主食呢。这两条河流当中盛产优质鱼类；由于当时

the place of oatmeal. In the rivers there were quantities of good fish,and as fishing was just fun,you see that the people who lived in Babylonia—the Babylonians,as they were called—had plenty of good food.No one had any money in those days；people had pigs and sheep and goats,and a man was rich who had much of these goods.Early on,if a man wanted to buy or sell,he had to buy or sell by trading something he had for something he wanted.

Somewhere in Babylonia the people built a great tower called the Tower of Babel,which you have probably heard about. It was more like a mountain than a tower.They built other towers,too.Some say the Tower of Babel and towers like it were built so that the people might have a high place to which they could climb in case of another flood.Others give a different reason.They say that the people who built these towers came to Babylonia from farther north where there were mountains.In this northern land they had always placed their altars on the top of a mountain,to be close to heaven.So when they moved to a flat country like Mesopotamia and Babylonia,where there were not mountains,they built mountains in order to have a high place for the altar on top.To reach the top of these mountains or towers,they made,instead of a staircase on the inside,a slanting roadway that wound around the outside in somewhat the way a road winds around a mountain.

There was hardly any stone either in or near Babylonia as there was in Egypt,and so the Babylonians built their buildings of bricks,which were made of mud formed into blocks and dried in the sun.In the course of time,bricks of this sort crumble and turn back into dust again,just as mud pies that you might make would do.This is the reason why

捕鱼只是一种消遣，所以你们便看得出，那些生活在巴比伦尼亚的人（他们被称为巴比伦人）有多么丰富的美食了。那时的人并没有钱；人们有的只是绵羊、山羊，因此饲养了许多这类家畜的人，就是富人。在早期的时候，一个人倘若想要买卖什么东西，他就只能用自己已有的东西去交换想要的东西。

在巴比伦尼亚的一个地方，人们还建造了一座叫作“通天塔”的高塔；你们很可能听说过它的故事呢。它更像是一座山峰，而不像是一座塔。人们还建造了其他的一些高塔。有人说，古巴比伦人之所以建造通天塔和其他类似的高塔，是为了再发洪水时人们有高处可爬。其他人却给出了不同的解释。他们说，建造这些高塔的人，都是从遥远的、有着高山的北方来到巴比伦尼亚的。在北方，这些人往往将祭坛建在山顶上，以便更靠近天堂。因此，当他们迁徙到像美索不达米亚和巴比伦尼亚这样没有高山的平原地带之后，为了有一个可以将祭坛放置上去的高地，他们便建造出了一座座高山。为了到达这些高山或者高塔顶上，他们可不是在高塔内部修建楼梯，而是在塔身外面修筑了一条斜路，绕着塔身蜿蜒而上，有点儿像是如今的盘山公路呢。

与古埃及不同，古巴比伦王国境内和附近地区并没有石头，因此古巴比伦人都是用砖块来建造房屋的；这些砖块，都是先用湿泥做成块状，然后晒干形成的。随着时光流逝，这种砖块会破碎、重新变成了泥土，就像你们玩的泥巴团干了后就会碎裂一样。很久以前用砖块建造的这些高塔和其他建筑，如今之所以全都只剩下了

all that is left of the towers and the other buildings that were put up so long ago are now simply hills of clay into which the brick has turned.

The Egyptians wrote on papyrus or carved their history in stone,but the Babylonians had neither papyrus nor stone. All they had were bricks.So they wrote on bricks before they were dried,while they were still soft clay.This writing was made by punching marks into the clay with the end of a stick.It was called cuneiform,which means wedge-shaped,for it looked like little groups of wedge-shaped marks,like chicken-tracks,made in the mud.I have seen boys'writing that looked more like cuneiform than it did like English.

As the Babylonians watched their flocks by day and night,they watched also the sun and the moon and the stars moving across the sky. So they came to know a great deal about these heavenly bodies.

Did you ever see the moon in the daytime?

Oh,yes,you can.

Well,every once in a great while the moon as it moves across the sky gets in front of the sun and shuts out its light—just as,if you should put a plate in front of an electric lamp,the plate would block the light from the lamp. It may be ten o'clock in the morning and broad daylight,when suddenly the sun is covered up by the moon,and it becomes night and the stars shine out,and chickens,thinking it is night,go to roost.But in a few moments the moon passes by and the sun shines out once again.This is called an eclipse of the sun.

Now you may never have seen an eclipse of the sun,but some day you may.If you do,I hope you do not think the way ignorant people always have：they think that something

一座座土堆，原因就在这里。

古埃及人在纸草上记录或者在石头上刻下他们的历史，可古巴比伦人却既无纸草，又没有石头。他们有的，只是砖块。于是，他们便趁着砖块还没有晒干、还是很湿软的黏土之时，在砖块上写字。这种写法，就是用棍子的一头，把符号压进黏土里。这种文字被称为“楔形文字”；所谓楔形，指的是像楔子一样，因为这种文字看起来全都是小小的楔形符号，就像小鸡在泥地里留下的爪印那样。我可看到过，有些小朋友写出来的字更像是楔形文字，而不像是英语呢。

在古巴比伦人日夜照料家畜的过程中，他们也注意到了天空中的太阳、月亮及星辰的运行情况。于是，他们便开始了解到了这些天体的许多知识。

你们在白天有没有看到过月亮呢？

哦，是的，你们可能都看到过。

没错，每隔很久一段时间，在天空中移动的月亮便会运行到太阳的前面，挡住太阳的光线；就像是你把一个盘子放到一盏电灯前面，盘子便会挡住灯光那样。此时可能是上午十点，正是大白天。突然之间，太阳便被月亮遮挡住了，白天一下子变成了黑夜，而小鸡们则以为到了晚上，纷纷进窝去了。但不一会儿，月亮移走之后，到处便又是阳光普照。这种现象，就叫作“日食”。

尽管你们现在可能从来没有看到过日食，但总有一日你们都会看到的。如果的确看到了日食，那我希望，你们可不要像一些愚昧的人往往所想的那样；只是因为他们以前从来没有见过这种奇观，不知道那是一种经常出现的自然现象，不知道这

dreadful is going to happen—the end of the world,perhaps,just because they have never seen such a strange sight before and do not know that it is a thing that happens regularly and that no harm comes from it.

Well,nearly twenty-three hundred years before Christ,in 2300 B. C.，the Babylonians told beforehand just when there was going to be an eclipse of the sun.They had watched the moon moving across the sky and they had figured out how long it would be before it would catch up with the sun and cross directly over it.You see how much the old Babylonians knew about such things.Men who study the stars and other heavenly bodies are called astronomers,and the Babylonians,therefore,were famous astronomers.The Babylonians worshiped these wonderful heavenly bodies the sun,moon,and stars—that they knew so well.

The first king of Babylonia whom we know much about—and that much is very little—was Sargon I,who may have lived about the same time that the pyramids were built in Egypt.

About 1770 B. C.Babylonia had a king known far and wide for the laws he made.His name was Hammurabi,and we still have the code of laws he made though we no longer obey them.They were carved into a stone in cuneiform,and we have the stone.Sargon and Hammurabi are strange names like no one's name you ever heard before,yet they are real names of real kings who ruled over real people.

种现象并无危害，所以那些愚昧者便认为，日食意味着世上即将发生什么可怕的事情，或许还是世界末日即将到来了哩。

在基督降生以前的2300年左右，即在公元前2300年左右，古巴比伦人便已经预测出了日食发生的时间。他们已经观察到月亮横过天空，已经算出月亮多久后会赶上太阳并径直横过太阳。你们都看得出，古巴比伦人在这些方面的知识有多么丰富了吧。那些研究星星和其他天体的人，被称为“天文学家”；因此，古巴比伦人可都是著名的天文学家呢。古巴比伦人崇拜日、月、星辰这些奇妙的天体，并且对它们都了如指掌。

我们了解较多的、古代阿卡德王国的第一位国王，就是萨尔贡一世；这种所谓“较多”的了解，其实还是非常微小的。萨尔贡一世所在的时代，差不多就是埃及修建金字塔的那一时期。

在公元前1700年左右，古巴比伦出了一位国王，并且因为他颁布了一部律法而变得远近闻名了。这位国王叫作汉谟拉比；我们如今仍然看得到他制定的那部法典，只是我们如今不再遵守这部法典了。这部法典，用楔形文字刻在一块石头上，而我们也将这块石头保存下来了。尽管“萨尔贡”和“汉谟拉比”这两个名字很古怪，你们以前从来没有听说过这样的人名，可它们确实是这两位国王的真名；而这两位真正的国王，统治的也是真正的人民呢。