Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

NIMROD ICING OF PERSIA. 33
Now Philip, his father, was wont to pay tribute
to the king of Persia, for [Darius] was the first who
had ruled over the land of the kingdom of Nimrod,'
the mighty man, and he it was who had, in times
of old, put on the royal crown [of that country].
Now it was Nimrod who in times of old appeared
in^ the cloud, ^ and he borrowed [from it]
^ According to Mas'udi (ed. Barbier de Meynard, torn, iii,
p. 96) Nimrod the giant, jUs\J\ was the first king of Babel
and he reigned about sixty years; he dug numerous canals
which drew their water from the Euphrates. In his reign
Abraham was born [pp. cit., torn, i, p. 83), and ^the Jews
have a tradition that he cast him into a fiery oven (Eisen-
menger, Entdecktes Judenthum, Bd. i, pp. 490—492).
' Read flaHfti- :
3 According to the Book of Adam and Eve (ed. Malan,
p. 173) Nimrod saw a cloud of hght, which was an apparition
of Satan, and coveting its beauty he ordered Santal^ a carver,
to make him a golden crown like unto it. Santal made the
crown and Nimrod wore it^ wherefore it was said that a
cloud had come down from heaven, and overshadowed him,
and he became so wicked as to think within himself that he
was God. According to Arabic tradition he tried to ascend
into heaven by building a tower five thousand cubits high,
and when God had overthrown it he tried to ascend thither
in a chest borne by four huge birds ; but after he had wan-
dered about in the air for some time he fell down on to a
mountain with such force that it made the mountain shake.
Elsewhere we are told that, for his wickedness^ God sent a
gnat into his brain through his nostril or ear, which grew
larger every day and caused him such severe pain that he
had his head beaten with a hammer to procure some ease.
He suffered this torture for four hundred years. See Sale,