BABYLON AND PERSIA

26oMEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.in collections of fables and anecdotes or shortstories.27. These are not the only school-exercises thathave survived, and the method of impressing thingson the mind by writing them out does not appearto have been limited to children.Mr. H. Rassamhas brought home many fragments containing lawtextsfrom the " tablets of precedents," copied outcarefully three times, evidently by law-students, forpurposes of memorizing.As for the class of docu¬ments known as " contract-tablets," they do not byany means cease with the Babylonian Empire.Strayspecimens bring down the use of them to an aston¬ishingly late periodas late as the first centuriesafter Christ,if we are to trust one which is datedfrom the reign of a Persian king who reigned about100 A.D.,showing that the use of cuneiform writingdied out very gradually and prevailed much longerthan had at first been supposed. .