(4) The Babylonian Dragon has progeny in the later apocalyptic literature, where we find very similar descriptions of the creatures’ size.  Among them we may perhaps include the dragon in the Apocalypse of Baruch, who, according to the Slavonic Version, apparently every day drinks a cubit’s depth from the sea, and yet the sea does not sink because of the three hundred and sixty rivers that flow into it (cf.  James, “Apocrypha Anecdota”, Second Series, in Armitage Robinson’s Texts and Studies, V, No. 1, pp. lix ff.).  But Egypt’s Dragon motif was even more prolific, and the Pistis Sophia undoubtedly suggested descriptions of the Serpent, especially in connexion with Hades.

A further version of the Dragon myth has now been identified on one of the tablets recovered during the recent excavations at Ashur,(1) and in it the dragon is not entirely of serpent form, but is a true dragon with legs.  Like the one just described, he is a male monster.  The description occurs as part of a myth, of which the text is so badly preserved that only the contents of one column can be made out with any certainty.  In it a god, whose name is wanting, announces the presence of the dragon:  “In the water he lies and I (. . .)!” Thereupon a second god cries successively to Aruru, the mother-goddess, and to Pallil, another deity, for help in his predicament.  And then follows the description of the dragon: 

     In the sea was the Serpent cre(ated). 
     Sixty beru is his length;
     Thirty beru high is his he(ad).(2)
     For half (a beru) each stretches the surface of his ey(es);(3)
     For twenty beru go (his feet).(4)
     He devours fish, the creatures (of the sea),
     He devours birds, the creatures (of the heaven),
     He devours wild asses, the creatures (of the field),
     He devours men,(5) to the peoples (he . . .).

     (1) For the text, see Ebeling, Assurtexte I, No. 6; it is
     translated by him in Orient.  Lit.-Zeit., Vol.  XIX, No. 4
     (April, 1916).

(2) The line reads:  30 beru sa-ka-a ri-(sa-a-su).  Dr. Ebeling renders ri-sa-a as “heads” (Koepfe), implying that the dragon had more than one head.  It may be pointed out that, if we could accept this translation, we should have an interesting parallel to the description of some of the primaeval monsters, preserved from Berossus, as {soma men ekhontas en, kephalas de duo}.  But the common word for “head” is kakkadu, and there can be little doubt that risa is here used in its ordinary sense of “head, summit, top” when applied to a high building.

(3) The line reads:  a-na 1/2 ta-am la-bu-na li-bit en(a- su).  Dr. Ebeling translates, “auf je eine Haelfte ist ein Ziegel (ihrer) Auge(n) gelegt”.  But libittu is clearly used here, not with its ordinary meaning of “brick”, which