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BABYLONICS

Volume 2 · 196 words · 1797 Edition

BABYLONICA, in natural history, a fragment of the ancient history of the world, ending at 267 years before Christ; and composed by Berosus, or Berossus, a priest of Babylon, about the time of Alexander. Babylonics are sometimes also cited in ancient writers by the title of Caldaics. The babylonics were very consonant with scripture, as Josephus and the ancient Christian chronologers assure; whence the author is usually supposed to have consulted the Jewish writers. Berossus speaks of an universal deluge, an ark, &c. He reckons ten generations between the first man and the deluge; and marks the duration of the several generations by saroi, or periods of 223 lunar months; which, reduced to years, differ not much from the chronology of Moses.—The babylonics consisted of three books, including the history of the ancient Babylonians, Medes, &c. But only a few imperfect extracts are now remaining of the work; preserved chiefly by Josephus and Syncellus, where all the passages of citations of ancient authors out of Berossus are collected with great exactness. Annius of Viterbo, to supply the loss, forged a complete Berossus out of his own head. The world has not thanked him for the imposition.