Men in the mean time became wicked; they lost the habit of offering sacrifices to the gods, and the gods, justly indignant at this negligence, resolved to be avenged.* Now, Shamashnapishtim I was reigning at this time in Shurippak, the “town of the ship:”  he and all his family were saved, and he related afterwards to one of his descendants how Ea had snatched him from the disaster which fell upon his people.** “Shurippak, the city which thou thyself knowest, is situated on the bank of the Euphrates; it was already an ancient town when the hearts of the gods who resided in it impelled them to bring the deluge upon it—­the great gods as many as they are; their father Anu, their counsellor Bel the warrior, their throne-bearer Ninib, their prince Innugi.  The master of wisdom, Ea, took his seat with them,*** and, moved with pity, was anxious to warn Shamashnapishtim, his servant, of the peril which threatened him;” but it was a very serious affair to betray to a mortal a secret of heaven, and as he did not venture to do so in a direct manner, his inventive mind suggested to him an artifice.

* The account of Bcrossus implies this as a cause of the Deluge, since he mentions the injunction imposed upon the survivors by a mysterious voice to be henceforward respectful towards the gods, [Greek word].  The Chalaean account considers the Deluge to have been sent as a punishment upon men for their sins against the gods, since it represents towards the end (cf. p. 52 of this History) Ea as reproaching Bel for having confounded the innocent and the guilty in one punishment.

** The name of this individual has been read in various ways:  Shamashnapishtim, “sun of life,” Sitnapishtim, “the saved,” and Pirnapishtim.  In one passage at least we find, in place of Shamashnapishtim, the name or epithet of Aclrakhasis, or by inversion Khasisadra, which appears to signify “the very shrewd,” and is explained by the skill with which he interpreted the oracle of Ea.  Khasisadra is most probably the form which the Greeks have transcribed by Xisuthros, Sisuthros, Sisithes.

*** The account of the Deluge covers the eleventh tablet of the poem of Gilgames.  The hero, threatened with death, proceeds to rejoin his ancestor Shamashnapishtim to demand from him the secret of immortality, and the latter tells him the manner in which he escaped from the waters:  he had saved his life only at the expense of the destruction of men.  The text of it was published by Smith and by Haupt, fragment by fragment, and then restored consecutively.  The studies of which it is the object would make a complete library.  The principal translations are those of Smith, of Oppert, of Lenor-mant, of Haupt, of Jensen, of A. Jeremias, of Sauveplane, and of Zimmern.

[Illustration:  045.jpg Page with ONE OF THE TABLETS OF THE DELUGE SERIES.]

     Facsimile by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph published by
     G. Smith, Chaldaean Account of the Deluge from terra-cotta
     tablets found at Nineveh.