initial commit of ebook 7474HEADmain

18 files changed, 19286 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/7474-8.txt b/7474-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e65648
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4735 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Ancient East
+
+Author: D. G. Hogarh
+
+Posting Date: February 12, 2015 [EBook #7474]
+Release Date: February, 2005
+First Posted: May 6, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+No. 92
+
+
+_Editors_:
+
+HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.
+PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LITT.D., LL.D., F.B.A.
+PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
+PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT EAST
+
+
+BY
+
+
+D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A., F.S.A.
+
+KEEPER OF THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD;
+AUTHOR OF "IONIA AND THE EAST,"
+"THE NEARER EAST," ETC.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+I    THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.
+
+II   THE EAST IN 800 B.C.
+
+III  THE EAST IN 600 B.C.
+
+IV   THE EAST IN 400 B.C.
+
+V    THE VICTORY OF THE WEST
+
+VI   EPILOGUE
+
+NOTE ON BOOKS
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF MAPS
+
+
+1. THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS
+
+2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III
+
+3. HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.
+
+4. ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF ASHURBANIPAL
+
+5. PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS HYSTASPIS
+
+6. HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT EAST
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+The title of this book needs a word of explanation, since each of its
+terms can legitimately be used to denote more than one conception both
+of time and place. "The East" is understood widely and vaguely nowadays
+to include all the continent and islands of Asia, some part of
+Africa--the northern part where society and conditions of life are most
+like the Asiatic--and some regions also of South-Eastern and Eastern
+Europe. Therefore it may appear arbitrary to restrict it in the present
+book to Western Asia. But the qualifying term in my title must be
+invoked in justification. It is the East not of to-day but of antiquity
+with which I have to deal, and, therefore, I plead that it is not
+unreasonable to understand by "The East" what in antiquity European
+historians understood by that term. To Herodotus and his contemporary
+Greeks Egypt, Arabia and India were the South; Thrace and Scythia were
+the North; and Hither Asia was the East: for they conceived nothing
+beyond except the fabled stream of Ocean. It can be pleaded also that my
+restriction, while not in itself arbitrary, does, in fact, obviate an
+otherwise inevitable obligation to fix arbitrary bounds to the East. For
+the term, as used in modern times, implies a geographical area
+characterized by society of a certain general type, and according to his
+opinion of this type, each person, who thinks or writes of the East,
+expands or contracts its geographical area.
+
+It is more difficult to justify the restriction which will be imposed in
+the following chapters on the word Ancient. This term is used even more
+vaguely and variously than the other. If generally it connotes the
+converse of "Modern," in some connections and particularly in the study
+of history the Modern is not usually understood to begin where the
+Ancient ended but to stand only for the comparatively Recent. For
+example, in History, the ill-defined period called the Middle and Dark
+Ages makes a considerable hiatus before, in the process of
+retrospection, we get back to a civilization which (in Europe at least)
+we ordinarily regard as Ancient. Again, in History, we distinguish
+commonly two provinces within the undoubted area of the Ancient, the
+Prehistoric and the Historic, the first comprising all the time to which
+human memory, as communicated by surviving literature, ran not, or, at
+least, not consciously, consistently and credibly. At the same time it
+is not implied that we can have no knowledge at all of the Prehistoric
+province. It may even be better known to us than parts of the Historic,
+through sure deduction from archaeological evidence. But what we learn
+from archaeological records is annalistic not historic, since such
+records have not passed through the transforming crucible of a human
+intelligence which reasons on events as effects of causes. The boundary
+between Prehistoric and Historic, however, depends too much on the
+subjectivity of individual historians and is too apt to vary with the
+progress of research to be a fixed moment. Nor can it be the same for
+all civilizations. As regards Egypt, for example, we have a body of
+literary tradition which can reasonably be called Historic, relating to
+a time much earlier than is reached by respectable literary tradition of
+Elam and Babylonia, though their civilizations were probably older than
+the Egyptian.
+
+For the Ancient East as here understood, we possess two bodies of
+historic literary tradition and two only, the Greek and the Hebrew; and
+as it happens, both (though each is independent of the other) lose
+consistency and credibility when they deal with history before 1000 B.C.
+Moreover, Prof. Myres has covered the prehistoric period in the East in
+his brilliant _Dawn of History_. Therefore, on all accounts, in treating
+of the historic period, I am absolved from looking back more than a
+thousand years before our era.
+
+It is not so obvious where I may stop. The overthrow of Persia by
+Alexander, consummating a long stage in a secular contest, which it is
+my main business to describe, marks an epoch more sharply than any other
+single event in the history of the Ancient East. But there are grave
+objections to breaking off abruptly at that date. The reader can hardly
+close a book which ends then, with any other impression than that since
+the Greek has put the East under his feet, the history of the centuries,
+which have still to elapse before Rome shall take over Asia, will simply
+be Greek history writ large--the history of a Greater Greece which has
+expanded over the ancient East and caused it to lose its distinction
+from the ancient West. Yet this impression does not by any means
+coincide with historical truth. The Macedonian conquest of Hither Asia
+was a victory won by men of Greek civilization, but only to a very
+partial extent a victory of that civilization. The West did not
+assimilate the East except in very small measure then, and has not
+assimilated it in any very large measure to this day. For certain
+reasons, among which some geographical facts--the large proportion of
+steppe-desert and of the human type which such country breeds--are
+perhaps the most powerful, the East is obstinately unreceptive of
+western influences, and more than once it has taken its captors captive.
+Therefore, while, for the sake of convenience and to avoid entanglement
+in the very ill-known maze of what is called "Hellenistic" history, I
+shall not attempt to follow the consecutive course of events after 330
+B.C., I propose to add an epilogue which may prepare readers for what
+was destined to come out of Western Asia after the Christian era, and
+enable them to understand in particular the religious conquest of the
+West by the East. This has been a more momentous fact in the history of
+the world than any political conquest of the East by the West.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the further hope of enabling readers to retain a clear idea of the
+evolution of the history, I have adopted the plan of looking out over
+the area which is here called the East, at certain intervals, rather
+than the alternative and more usual plan of considering events
+consecutively in each several part of that area. Thus, without
+repetition and overlapping, one may expect to convey a sense of the
+history of the whole East as the sum of the histories of particular
+parts. The occasions on which the surveys will be taken are purely
+arbitrary chronological points two centuries apart. The years 1000, 800,
+600, 400 B.C. are not, any of them, distinguished by known events of the
+kind that is called epoch-making; nor have round numbers been chosen for
+any peculiar historic significance. They might just as well have been
+1001, 801 and so forth, or any other dates divided by equal intervals.
+Least of all is any mysterious virtue to be attached to the millenary
+date with which I begin. But it is a convenient starting-point, not only
+for the reason already stated, that Greek literary memory--the only
+literary memory of antiquity worth anything for early history--goes back
+to about that date; but also because the year 1000 B.C. falls within a
+period of disturbance during which certain racial elements and groups,
+destined to exert predominant influence on subsequent history, were
+settling down into their historic homes.
+
+A westward and southward movement of peoples, caused by some obscure
+pressure from the north-west and north-east, which had been disturbing
+eastern and central Asia Minor for more than a century and apparently
+had brought to an end the supremacy of the Cappadocian Hatti, was
+quieting down, leaving the western peninsula broken up into small
+principalities. Indirectly the same movement had brought about a like
+result in northern Syria. A still more important movement of Iranian
+peoples from the farther East had ended in the coalescence of two
+considerable social groups, each containing the germs of higher
+development, on the north-eastern and eastern fringes of the old
+Mesopotamian sphere of influence. These were the Medic and the Persian.
+A little earlier, a period of unrest in the Syrian and Arabian deserts,
+marked by intermittent intrusions of nomads into the western
+fringe-lands, had ended in the formation of new Semitic states in all
+parts of Syria from Shamal in the extreme north-west (perhaps even from
+Cilicia beyond Amanus) to Hamath, Damascus and Palestine. Finally there
+is this justification for not trying to push the history of the Asiatic
+East much behind 1000 B.C.--that nothing like a sure chronological basis
+of it exists before that date. Precision in the dating of events in West
+Asia begins near the end of the tenth century with the Assyrian Eponym
+lists, that is, lists of annual chief officials; while for Babylonia
+there is no certain chronology till nearly two hundred years later. In
+Hebrew history sure chronological ground is not reached till the
+Assyrian records themselves begin to touch upon it during the reign of
+Ahab over Israel. For all the other social groups and states of Western
+Asia we have to depend on more or less loose and inferential
+synchronisms with Assyrian, Babylonian or Hebrew chronology, except for
+some rare events whose dates may be inferred from the alien histories of
+Egypt and Greece.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The area, whose social state we shall survey in 1000 B.C. and re-survey
+at intervals, contains Western Asia bounded eastwards by an imaginary
+line drawn from the head of the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. This
+line, however, is not to be drawn rigidly straight, but rather should
+describe a shallow outward curve, so as to include in the Ancient East
+all Asia situated on this side of the salt deserts of central Persia.
+This area is marked off by seas on three sides and by desert on the
+fourth side. Internally it is distinguished into some six divisions
+either by unusually strong geographical boundaries or by large
+differences of geographical character. These divisions are as follows--
+
+(1) A western peninsular projection, bounded by seas on three sides and
+divided from the rest of the continent by high and very broad mountain
+masses, which has been named, not inappropriately, _Asia Minor_, since
+it displays, in many respects, an epitome of the general characteristics
+of the continent. (2) A tangled mountainous region filling almost all
+the rest of the northern part of the area and sharply distinct in
+character not only from the plateau land of Asia Minor to the west but
+also from the great plain lands of steppe character lying to the south,
+north and east. This has perhaps never had a single name, though the
+bulk of it has been included in "Urartu" (Ararat), "Armenia" or
+"Kurdistan" at various epochs; but for convenience we shall call it
+_Armenia_. (3) A narrow belt running south from both the former
+divisions and distinguished from them by much lower general elevation.
+Bounded on the west by the sea and on the south and east by broad tracts
+of desert, it has, since Greek times at least, been generally known as
+_Syria_. (4) A great southern peninsula largely desert, lying high and
+fringed by sands on the land side, which has been called, ever since
+antiquity, _Arabia_. (5) A broad tract stretching into the continent
+between Armenia and Arabia and containing the middle and lower basins of
+the twin rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, which, rising in Armenia, drain
+the greater part of the whole area. It is of diversified surface,
+ranging from sheer desert in the west and centre, to great fertility in
+its eastern parts; but, until it begins to rise northward towards the
+frontier of "Armenia" and eastward towards that of the sixth division,
+about to be described, it maintains a generally low elevation. No common
+name has ever included all its parts, both the interfluvial region and
+the districts beyond Tigris; but since the term _Mesopotamia_, though
+obviously incorrect, is generally understood nowadays to designate it,
+this name may be used for want of a better. (6) A high plateau, walled
+off from Mesopotamia and Armenia by high mountain chains, and extending
+back to the desert limits of the Ancient East. To this region, although
+it comprises only the western part of what should be understood by
+_Iran_, this name may be appropriated "without prejudice."
+
+[Plate 1: THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS]
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.
+
+
+In 1000 B.C. West Asia was a mosaic of small states and contained, so
+far as we know, no imperial power holding wide dominion over aliens.
+Seldom in its history could it so be described. Since it became
+predominantly Semitic, over a thousand years before our survey, it had
+fallen under simultaneous or successive dominations, exercised from at
+least three regions within itself and from one without.
+
+
+SECTION 1. BABYLONIAN EMPIRE
+
+The earliest of these centres of power to develop foreign empire was
+also that destined, after many vicissitudes, to hold it latest, because
+it was the best endowed by nature to repair the waste which empire
+entails. This was the region which would be known later as Babylonia
+from the name of the city which in historic times dominated it, but, as
+we now know, was neither an early seat of power nor the parent of its
+distinctive local civilization. This honour, if due to any one city,
+should be credited to Ur, whose also was the first and the only truly
+"Babylonian" empire. The primacy of Babylonia had not been the work of
+its aboriginal Sumerian population, the authors of what was highest in
+the local culture, but of Semitic intruders from a comparatively
+barbarous region; nor again, had it been the work of the earliest of
+these intruders (if we follow those who now deny that the dominion of
+Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-sin ever extended beyond the lower
+basins of the Twin Rivers), but of peoples who entered with a second
+series of Semitic waves. These surged out of Arabia, eternal motherland
+of vigorous migrants, in the middle centuries of the third millennium
+B.C. While this migration swamped South Syria with "Canaanites," it
+ultimately gave to Egypt the Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings," to Assyria its
+permanent Semitic population, and to Sumer and Akkad what later
+chroniclers called the First Babylonian Dynasty. Since, however, those
+Semitic interlopers had no civilization of their own comparable with
+either the contemporary Egyptian or the Sumerian (long ago adopted by
+earlier Semitic immigrants), they inevitably and quickly assimilated
+both these civilizations as they settled down.
+
+At the same time they did not lose, at least not in Mesopotamia, which
+was already half Semitized, certain Bedawi ideas and instincts, which
+would profoundly affect their later history. Of these the most important
+historically was a religious idea which, for want of a better term, may
+be called Super-Monotheism. Often found rooted in wandering peoples and
+apt long to survive their nomadic phase, it consists in a belief that,
+however many tribal and local gods there may be, one paramount deity
+exists who is not only singular and indivisible but dwells in one spot,
+alone on earth. His dwelling may be changed by a movement of his people
+_en masse_, but by nothing less; and he can have no real rival in
+supreme power. The fact that the paramount Father-God of the Semites
+came through that migration _en masse_ to take up his residence in
+Babylon and in no other city of the wide lands newly occupied, caused
+this city to retain for many centuries, despite social and political
+changes, a predominant position not unlike that to be held by Holy Rome
+from the Dark Ages to modern times.
+
+Secondly the Arabs brought with them their immemorial instinct of
+restlessness. This habit also is apt to persist in a settled society,
+finding satisfaction in annual recourse to tent or hut life and in
+annual predatory excursions. The custom of the razzia or summer raid,
+which is still obligatory in Arabia on all men of vigour and spirit, was
+held in equal honour by the ancient Semitic world. Undertaken as a
+matter of course, whether on provocation or not, it was the origin and
+constant spring of those annual marches to the frontiers, of which royal
+Assyrian monuments vaingloriously tell us, to the exclusion of almost
+all other information. Chederlaomer, Amraphel and the other three kings
+were fulfilling their annual obligation in the Jordan valley when Hebrew
+tradition believed that they met with Abraham; and if, as seems agreed,
+Amraphel was Hammurabi himself, that tradition proves the custom of the
+razzia well established under the First Babylonian Dynasty.
+
+Moreover, the fact that these annual campaigns of Babylonian and
+Assyrian kings were simply Bedawi razzias highly organized and on a
+great scale should be borne in mind when we speak of Semitic "empires,"
+lest we think too territorially. No permanent organization of
+territorial dominion in foreign parts was established by Semitic rulers
+till late in Assyrian history. The earlier Semitic overlords, that is,
+all who preceded Ashurnatsirpal of Assyria, went a-raiding to plunder,
+assault, destroy, or receive submissive payments, and their ends
+achieved, returned, without imposing permanent garrisons of their own
+followers, permanent viceroys, or even a permanent tributary burden, to
+hinder the stricken foe from returning to his own way till his turn
+should come to be raided again. The imperial blackmailer had possibly
+left a record of his presence and prowess on alien rocks, to be defaced
+at peril when his back was turned; but for the rest only a sinister
+memory. Early Babylonian and Early Assyrian "empire," therefore, meant,
+territorially, no more than a geographical area throughout which an
+emperor could, and did, raid without encountering effective opposition.
+
+Nevertheless, such constant raiding on a great scale was bound to
+produce some of the fruits of empire, and by its fruits, not its
+records, we know most surely how far Babylonian Empire had made itself
+felt. The best witnesses to its far-reaching influence are first, the
+Babylonian element in the Hittite art of distant Asia Minor, which shows
+from the very first (so far as we know it, i.e. from at least 1500 B.C.)
+that native artists were hardly able to realize any native ideas without
+help from Semitic models; and secondly, the use of Babylonian writing
+and language and even Babylonian books by the ruling classes in Asia
+Minor and Syria at a little later time. That governors of Syrian cities
+should have written their official communications to Pharaohs of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty in Babylonian cuneiform (as the archives found at
+Amarna in Upper Egypt twenty years ago show us they did) had already
+afforded such conclusive proof of early and long maintained Babylonian
+influence, that the more recent discovery that Hittite lords of
+Cappadocia used the same script and language for diplomatic purposes has
+hardly surprised us.
+
+It has been said already that Babylonia was a region so rich and
+otherwise fortunate that empire both came to it earlier and stayed later
+than in the other West Asian lands which ever enjoyed it at all. When we
+come to take our survey of Western Asia in 400 B.C. we shall see an
+emperor still ruling it from a throne set in the lower Tigris basin,
+though not actually in Babylon. But for certain reasons Babylonian
+empire never endured for any long period continuously. The aboriginal
+Akkadian and Sumerian inhabitants were settled, cultivated and home
+keeping folk, while the establishment of Babylonian empire had been the
+work of more vigorous intruders. These, however, had to fear not only
+the imperfect sympathy of their own aboriginal subjects, who again and
+again gathered their sullen forces in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf and attacked the dominant Semites in the rear, but also
+incursions of fresh strangers; for Babylonia is singularly open on all
+sides. Accordingly, revolts of the "Sea Land" folk, inrushing hordes
+from Arabia, descents of mountain warriors from the border hills of Elam
+on the south-eastern edge of the twin river basin, pressure from the
+peoples of more invigorating lands on the higher Euphrates and
+Tigris--one, or more than one such danger ever waited on imperial
+Babylon and brought her low again and again. A great descent of Hatti
+raiders from the north about 1800 B.C. seems to have ended the imperial
+dominion of the First Dynasty. On their retirement Babylonia, falling
+into weak native hands, was a prey to a succession of inroads from the
+Kassite mountains beyond Elam, from Elam itself, from the growing
+Semitic power of Asshur, Babylon's former vassal, from the Hittite
+Empire founded in Cappadocia about 1500 B.C., from the fresh wave of
+Arabian overflow which is distinguished as the Aramaean, and from yet
+another following it, which is usually called Chaldaean; and it was not
+till almost the close of the twelfth century that one of these intruding
+elements attained sufficient independence and security of tenure to
+begin to exalt Babylonia again into a mistress of foreign empire. At
+that date the first Nebuchadnezzar, a part of whose own annals has been
+recovered, seems to have established overlordship in some part of
+Mediterranean Asia--_Martu_, the West Land; but this empire perished
+again with its author. By 1000 B.C. Babylon was once more a small state
+divided against itself and threatened by rivals in the east and the
+north.
+
+
+SECTION 2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT
+
+During the long interval since the fall of the First Babylonian Dynasty,
+however, Western Asia had not been left masterless. Three other imperial
+powers had waxed and waned in her borders, of which one was destined to
+a second expansion later on. The earliest of these to appear on the
+scene established an imperial dominion of a kind which we shall not
+observe again till Asia falls to the Greeks; for it was established in
+Asia by a non-Asiatic power. In the earlier years of the fifteenth
+century a Pharaoh of the strong Eighteenth Dynasty, Thothmes III, having
+overrun almost all Syria up to Carchemish on the Euphrates, established
+in the southern part of that country an imperial organization which
+converted his conquests for a time into provincial dependencies of
+Egypt. Of the fact we have full evidence in the archives of Thothmes'
+dynastic successors, found by Flinders Petrie at Amarna; for they
+include many reports from officials and client princes in Palestine and
+Phoenicia.
+
+If, however, the word empire is to be applied (as in fact we have
+applied it in respect of early Babylonia) to a sphere of habitual
+raiding, where the exclusive right of one power to plunder is
+acknowledged implicitly or explicitly by the raided and by surrounding
+peoples, this "Empire" of Egypt must both be set back nearly a hundred
+years before Thothmes III and also be credited with wider limits than
+those of south Syria. Invasions of Semitic Syria right up to the
+Euphrates were first conducted by Pharaohs in the early part of the
+sixteenth century as a sequel to the collapse of the power of the
+Semitic "Hyksos" in Egypt. They were wars partly of revenge, partly of
+natural Egyptian expansion into a neighbouring fertile territory, which
+at last lay open, and was claimed by no other imperial power, while the
+weak Kassites ruled Babylon, and the independence of Assyria was in
+embryo. But the earlier Egyptian armies seem to have gone forth to Syria
+simply to ravage and levy blackmail. They avoided all fenced places, and
+returned to the Nile leaving no one to hold the ravaged territory. No
+Pharaoh before the successor of Queen Hatshepsut made Palestine and
+Phoenicia his own. It was Thothmes III who first reduced such
+strongholds as Megiddo, and occupied the Syrian towns up to Arvad on the
+shore and almost to Kadesh inland--he who by means of a few forts,
+garrisoned perhaps by Egyptian or Nubian troops and certainly in some
+instances by mercenaries drawn from Mediterranean islands and coasts, so
+kept the fear of himself in the minds of native chiefs that they paid
+regular tribute to his collectors and enforced the peace of Egypt on all
+and sundry Hebrews and Amorites who might try to raid from east or
+north.
+
+In upper Syria, however, he and his successors appear to have attempted
+little more than Thothmes I had done, that is to say, they made
+periodical armed progresses through the fertile parts, here and there
+taking a town, but for the most part taking only blackmail. Some strong
+places, such as Kadesh, it is probable they never entered at all. Their
+raids, however, were frequent and effective enough for all Syria to come
+to be regarded by surrounding kings and kinglets as an Egyptian sphere
+of influence within which it was best to acknowledge Pharaoh's rights
+and to placate him by timely presents. So thought and acted the kings of
+Mitanni across Euphrates, the kings of Hatti beyond Taurus, and the
+distant Iranians of the Kassite dynasty in Babylonia.
+
+Until the latter years of Thothmes' third successor, Amenhetep III, who
+ruled in the end of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the
+fourteenth, the Egyptian peace was observed and Pharaoh's claim to Syria
+was respected. Moreover, an interesting experiment appears to have been
+made to tighten Egypt's hold on her foreign province. Young Syrian
+princes were brought for education to the Nile, in the hope that when
+sent back to their homes they would be loyal viceroys of Pharaoh: but
+the experiment seems to have produced no better ultimate effect than
+similar experiments tried subsequently by imperial nations from the
+Romans to ourselves.
+
+[Plate 2: ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III]
+
+Beyond this conception of imperial organization the Egyptians never
+advanced. Neither effective military occupation nor effective
+administration of Syria by an Egyptian military or civil staff was so
+much as thought of. Traces of the cultural influence of Egypt on the
+Syrian civilization of the time (so far as excavation has revealed its
+remains) are few and far between; and we must conclude that the number
+of genuine Egyptians who resided in, or even passed through, the Asiatic
+province was very small. Unadventurous by nature, and disinclined to
+embark on foreign trade, the Nilots were content to leave Syria in
+vicarious hands, so they derived some profit from it. It needed,
+therefore, only the appearance of some vigorous and numerous tribe in
+the province itself, or of some covetous power on its borders, to end
+such an empire. Both had appeared before Amenhetep's death--the Amorites
+in mid Syria, and a newly consolidated Hatti power on the confines of
+the north. The inevitable crisis was met with no new measures by his
+son, the famous Akhenaten, and before the middle of the fourteenth
+century the foreign empire of Egypt had crumbled to nothing but a sphere
+of influence in southernmost Palestine, having lasted, for better or
+worse, something less than two hundred years. It was revived, indeed, by
+the kings of the Dynasty succeeding, but had even less chance of
+duration than of old. Rameses II, in dividing it to his own great
+disadvantage with the Hatti king by a Treaty whose provisions are known
+to us from surviving documents of both parties, confessed Egyptian
+impotence to make good any contested claim; and by the end of the
+thirteenth century the hand of Pharaoh was withdrawn from Asia, even
+from that ancient appanage of Egypt, the peninsula of Sinai. Some
+subsequent Egyptian kings would make raids into Syria, but none was
+able, or very desirous, to establish there a permanent Empire.
+
+
+SECTION 3. EMPIRE OF THE HATTI
+
+[Plate 3: HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.]
+
+The empire which pressed back the Egyptians is the last but one which we
+have to consider before 1000 B.C. It has long been known that the
+Hittites, variously called _Kheta_ by Egyptians and _Heth_ or _Hatti_ by
+Semites and by themselves, developed into a power in westernmost Asia at
+least as early as the fifteenth century; but it was not until their
+cuneiform archives were discovered in 1907 at Boghazkeui in northern
+Cappadocia that the imperial nature of their power, the centre from
+which it was exerted, and the succession of the rulers who wielded it
+became clear. It will be remembered that a great Hatti raid broke the
+imperial sway of the First Babylonian Dynasty about 1800 B.C. Whence
+those raiders came we have still to learn. But, since a Hatti people,
+well enough organized to invade, conquer and impose its garrisons, and
+(much more significant) its own peculiar civilization, on distant
+territories, was seated at Boghazkeui (it is best to use this modern
+name till better assured of an ancient one) in the fifteenth century, we
+may reasonably believe Eastern Asia Minor to have been the homeland of
+the Hatti three centuries before. As an imperial power they enter
+history with a king whom his own archives name Subbiluliuma (but
+Egyptian records, Sapararu), and they vanish something less than two
+centuries later. The northern half of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and
+probably almost all Asia Minor were conquered by the Hatti before 1350
+B.C. and rendered tributary; Egypt was forced out of Asia; the Semitic
+settlements on the twin rivers and the tribes in the desert were
+constrained to deference or defence. A century and a half later the
+Hatti had returned into a darkness even deeper than that from which they
+emerged. The last king of Boghazkeui, of whose archives any part has
+come to light, is one Arnaunta, reigning in the end of the thirteenth
+century. He may well have had successors whose documents may yet be
+found; but on the other hand, we know from Assyrian annals, dated only a
+little later, that a people, possibly kin to the Hatti and certainly
+civilized by them, but called by another name, Mushkaya or Mushki (we
+shall say more of them presently), overran most, if not all, the Hatti
+realm by the middle of the twelfth century. And since, moreover, the
+excavated ruins at both Boghazkeui, the capital of the Hatti, and
+Carchemish, their chief southern dependency, show unmistakable signs of
+destruction and of a subsequent general reconstruction, which on
+archaeological grounds must be dated not much later than Arnaunta's
+time, it seems probable that the history of Hatti empire closed with
+that king. What happened subsequently to surviving detachments of this
+once imperial people and to other communities so near akin by blood or
+civilization, that the Assyrians, when speaking generally of western
+foes or subjects, long continued to call them Hatti, we shall consider
+presently.
+
+
+SECTION 4. EARLY ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
+
+Remains Assyria, which before 1000 B.C. had twice conquered an empire of
+the same kind as that credited to the First Babylonian Dynasty and twice
+recoiled. The early Assyrian expansions are, historically, the most
+noteworthy of the early West Asian Empires because, unlike the rest,
+they were preludes to an ultimate territorial overlordship which would
+come nearer to anticipating Macedonian and Roman imperial systems than
+any others precedent. Assyria, rather than Babylon or Egypt, heads the
+list of aspirants to the Mastership of the World.
+
+There will be so much to say of the third and subsequent expansion of
+Assyria, that her earlier empires may be passed over briefly. The middle
+Tigris basin seems to have received a large influx of Semites of the
+Canaanitic wave at least as early as Babylonia, and thanks to various
+causes--to the absence of a prior local civilization as advanced as the
+Sumerian, to greater distance from such enterprising fomenters of
+disturbance as Elam and Arabia, and to a more invigorating
+climate--these Semites settled down more quickly and thoroughly into an
+agricultural society than the Babylonians and developed it in greater
+purity. Their earliest social centre was Asshur in the southern part of
+their territory. There, in proximity to Babylonia, they fell inevitably
+under the domination of the latter; but after the fall of the First
+Dynasty of Babylon and the subsequent decline of southern Semitic
+vigour, a tendency manifested itself among the northern Semites to
+develop their nationality about more central points. Calah, higher up
+the river, replaced Asshur in the thirteenth century B.C., only to be
+replaced in turn by Nineveh, a little further still upstream; and
+ultimately Assyria, though it had taken its name from the southern city,
+came to be consolidated round a north Mesopotamian capital into a power
+able to impose vassalage on Babylon and to send imperial raiders to the
+Mediterranean, and to the Great Lakes of Armenia. The first of her kings
+to attain this sort of imperial position was Shalmaneser I, who early in
+the thirteenth century B.C. appears to have crushed the last strength of
+the north Mesopotamian powers of Mitanni and Khani and laid the way open
+to the west lands. The Hatti power, however, tried hard to close the
+passages and it was not until its catastrophe and the retirement of
+those who brought it about--the Mushki and their allies--that about 1100
+Tiglath Pileser I could lead his Assyrian raiders into Syria, and even,
+perhaps, a short distance across Taurus. Why his empire died with him we
+do not know precisely. A new invasion of Arabian Semites, the Aramaeans,
+whom he attacked at Mt. Bishri (Tell Basher), may have been the cause.
+But, in any case, the fact is certain. The sons of the great king, who
+had reached Phoenician Aradus and there embarked vaingloriously on
+shipboard to claim mastery of the Western Sea, were reduced to little
+better than vassals of their father's former vassal, Babylon; and up to
+the close of the eleventh century Assyria had not revived.
+
+
+SECTION 5. NEW FORCES IN 1000 B.C.
+
+Thus in 1000 B.C., we look round the East, and, so far as our vision can
+penetrate the clouds, see no one dominant power. Territories which
+formerly were overridden by the greater states, Babylonia, Egypt,
+Cappadocia and Assyria, seem to be not only self-governing but free from
+interference, although the vanished empires and a recent great movement
+of peoples have left them with altered political boundaries and
+sometimes with new dynasties. None of the political units has a much
+larger area than another, and it would not have been easy at the moment
+to prophesy which, or if any one, would grow at the expense of the rest.
+
+The great movement of peoples, to which allusion has just been made, had
+been disturbing West Asia for two centuries. On the east, where the well
+organized and well armed societies of Babylonia and Assyria offered a
+serious obstacle to nomadic immigrants, the inflow had been pent back
+beyond frontier mountains. But in the west the tide seems to have flowed
+too strongly to be resisted by such force as the Hatti empire of
+Cappadocia could oppose, and to have swept through Asia Minor even to
+Syria and Mesopotamia. Records of Rameses III tell how a great host of
+federated peoples appeared on the Asian frontier of Egypt very early in
+the twelfth century. Among them marched men of the "Kheta" or Hatti, but
+not as leaders. These strong foes and allies of Seti I and Rameses II,
+not a century before, had now fallen from their imperial estate to
+follow in the wake of newcomers, who had lately humbled them in their
+Cappadocian home. The geographical order in which the scribes of Rameses
+enumerated their conquests shows clearly the direction from which the
+federals had come and the path they followed. In succession they had
+devastated Hatti (i.e. Cappadocia), Kedi (i.e. Cilicia), Carchemish and
+central Syria. Their victorious progress began, therefore, in northern
+Asia Minor, and followed the great roads through the Cilician passes to
+end at last on the very frontiers of Egypt. The list of these newcomers
+has long interested historians; for outlandish as their names were to
+Egyptians, they seem to our eyes not unfamiliar, and are possibly
+travesties of some which are writ large on pages of later history. Such
+are the Pulesti or Philistines, and a group hailing apparently from Asia
+Minor and the Isles, Tjakaray, Shakalsha, Danaau and Washasha,
+successors of Pisidian and other Anatolian allies of the Hittites in the
+time of Rameses II, and of the Lycian, Achaean and Sardinian pirates
+whom Egypt used sometimes to beat from her borders, sometimes to enlist
+in her service. Some of these peoples, from whatever quarters they had
+come, settled presently into new homes as the tide receded. The Pulesti,
+if they were indeed the historic Philistines, stranded and stayed on the
+confines of Egypt, retaining certain memories of an earlier state, which
+had been theirs in some Minoan land. Since the Tjakaray and the Washasha
+seem to have sprung from lands now reckoned in Europe, we may count this
+occasion the first in history on which the west broke in force into the
+east.
+
+Turn to the annals of Assyria and you will learn, from records of
+Tiglath Pileser I, that this northern wave was followed up in the same
+century by a second, which bore on its crest another bold horde from
+Asia Minor. Its name, Mushki, we now hear for the first time, but shall
+hear again in time to come. A remnant of this race would survive far
+into historic times as the Moschi of Greek geographers, an obscure
+people on the borders of Cappadocia and Armenia. But who precisely the
+first Mushki were, whence they had originally come, and whither they
+went when pushed back out of Mesopotamia, are questions still debated.
+Two significant facts are known about their subsequent history; first,
+that two centuries later than our date they, or some part of them, were
+settled in Cappadocia, apparently rather in the centre and north of that
+country than in the south: second, that at that same epoch and later
+they had kings of the name Mita, which is thought to be identical with
+the name Midas, known to early Greek historians as borne by kings of
+Phrygia.
+
+Because of this last fact, the Mushki have been put down as
+proto-Phrygians, risen to power after the fall of the Cappadocian Hatti.
+This contention will be considered hereafter, when we reach the date of
+the first known contact between Assyria and any people settled in
+western Asia Minor. But meanwhile, let it be borne in mind that their
+royal name Mita does not necessarily imply a connection between the
+Mushki and Phrygia; for since the ethnic "Mitanni" of north Mesopotamia
+means "Mita's men," that name must have long been domiciled much farther
+east.
+
+On the whole, whatever their later story, the truth about the Mushki,
+who came down into Syria early in the twelfth century and retired to
+Cappadocia some fifty years later after crossing swords with Assyria, is
+probably this--that they were originally a mountain people from northern
+Armenia or the Caucasus, distinct from the Hatti, and that, having
+descended from the north-east in a primitive nomadic state into the seat
+of an old culture possessed by an enfeebled race, they adopted the
+latter's civilization as they conquered it and settled down. But
+probably they did not fix themselves definitely in Cappadocia till the
+blow struck by Tiglath Pileser had checked their lust of movement and
+weakened their confidence of victory. In any case, the northern storms
+had subsided by 1000 B.C., leaving Asia Minor, Armenia and Syria
+parcelled among many princes.
+
+
+SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR
+
+Had one taken ship with Achaeans or Ionians for the western coast of
+Anatolia in the year 1000, one would have expected to disembark at or
+near some infant settlement of men, not natives by extraction, but newly
+come from the sea and speaking Greek or another Aegean tongue. These men
+had ventured so far to seize the rich lands at the mouths of the long
+Anatolian valleys, from which their roving forefathers had been almost
+entirely debarred by the provincial forces of some inland power,
+presumably the Hatti Empire of Cappadocia. In earlier days the Cretans,
+or their kin of Mycenaean Greece in the latest Aegean age, had been able
+to plant no more than a few inconsiderable colonies of traders on
+Anatolian shores. Now, however, their descendants were being steadily
+reinforced from the west by members of a younger Aryan race, who mixed
+with the natives of the coast, and gradually mastered or drove them
+inland. Inconsiderable as this European soakage into the fringe of the
+neighbouring continent must have seemed at that moment, we know that it
+was inaugurating a process which ultimately would affect profoundly all
+the history of Hither Asia. That Greek Ionian colonization first
+attracts notice round about 1000 B.C. marks the period as a cardinal
+point in history. We cannot say for certain, with our present knowledge,
+that any one of the famous Greek cities had already begun to grow on the
+Anatolian coasts. There is better evidence for the so early existence of
+Miletus, where the German excavators have found much pottery of the
+latest Aegean age, than of any other. But, at least, it is probable that
+Greeks were already settled on the sites of Cnidus, Teos, Smyrna,
+Colophon, Phocea, Cyme and many more; while the greater islands Rhodes,
+Samos, Chios and Mitylene had apparently received western settlers
+several generations ago, perhaps before even the first Achaean raids
+into Asia.
+
+The western visitor, if he pushed inland, would have avoided the
+south-western districts of the peninsula, where a mountainous country,
+known later as Caria, Lycia, and Pisidia, was held by primitive hill-men
+settled in detached tribal fashion like modern Albanians. They had never
+yet been subdued, and as soon as the rising Greek ports on their coasts
+should open a way for them to the outer world, they would become known
+as admirable mercenary soldiery, following a congenial trade which, if
+the Pedasu, who appear in records of Egyptian campaigns of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty, were really Pisidians, was not new to them. North of
+their hills, however, lay broader valleys leading up to the central
+plateau; and, if Herodotus is to be believed, an organized monarchical
+society, ruled by the "Heraclids" of Sardes, was already developed
+there. We know practically nothing about it; but since some three
+centuries later the Lydian people was rich and luxurious in the Hermus
+valley, which had once been a fief of the Hatti, we must conclude that
+it had been enjoying security as far back as 1000 B.C. Who those
+Heraclid princes were exactly is obscure. The dynastic name given to
+them by Herodotus probably implies that they traced their origin (i.e.
+owed especial allegiance) to a God of the Double War-Axe, whom the
+Greeks likened to Heracles, but we liken to Sandan, god of Tarsus and of
+the lands of the south-east. We shall say more of him and his
+worshippers presently.
+
+Leaving aside the northern fringe-lands as ill known and of small
+account (as we too shall leave them), our traveller would pass up from
+the Lydian vales to find the Cappadocian Hatti no longer the masters of
+the plateau as of old. No one of equal power seems to have taken their
+place; but there is reason to think that the Mushki, who had brought
+them low, now filled some of their room in Asia Minor. But these Mushki
+had so far adopted Hatti civilization either before or since their great
+raiding expedition which Tiglath Pileser I of Assyria repelled, that
+their domination can scarcely have made much difference to the social
+condition of Asia Minor. Their capital was probably where the Hatti
+capital had been--at Boghazkeui; but how far their lordship radiated
+from that centre is not known.
+
+In the south-east of Asia Minor we read of several principalities, both
+in the Hatti documents of earlier centuries and in Assyrian annals of
+later date; and since some of their names appear in both these sets of
+records, we may safely assign them to the same localities during the
+intermediate period. Such are Kas in later Lycaonia, Tabal or Tubal in
+south-eastern Cappadocia, Khilakku, which left its name to historical
+Cilicia, and Kue in the rich eastern Cilician plain and the
+north-eastern hills. In north Syria again we find both in early and in
+late times Kummukh, which left to its district the historic name,
+Commagene. All these principalities, as their earlier monuments prove,
+shared the same Hatti civilization as the Mushki and seem to have had
+the same chief deities, the axe-bearing Sandan, or Teshup, or Hadad,
+whose sway we have noted far west in Lydia, and also a Great Mother, the
+patron of peaceful increase, as he was of warlike conquest. But whether
+this uniformity of civilization implies any general overlord, such as
+the Mushki king, is very questionable. The past supremacy of the Hatti
+is enough to account for large community of social features in 1000 B.C.
+over all Asia Minor and north Syria.
+
+
+SECTION 7. SYRIA
+
+It is time for our traveller to move on southward into "Hatti-land," as
+the Assyrians would long continue to call the southern area of the old
+Hatti civilization. He would have found Syria in a state of greater or
+less disintegration from end to end. Since the withdrawal of the strong
+hands of the Hatti from the north and the Egyptians from the south, the
+disorganized half-vacant land had been attracting to itself successive
+hordes of half-nomadic Semites from the eastern and southern steppes. By
+1000 B.C. these had settled down as a number of Aramaean societies each
+under its princeling. All were great traders. One such society
+established itself in the north-west, in Shamal, where, influenced by
+the old Hatti culture, an art came into being which was only saved
+ultimately by Semitic Assyria from being purely Hittite. Its capital,
+which lay at modern Sinjerli, one of the few Syrian sites scientifically
+explored, we shall notice later on. South lay Patin and Bit Agusi; south
+of these again, Hamath and below it Damascus--all new Aramaean states,
+which were waiting for quiet times to develop according to the measure
+of their respective territories and their command of trade routes. Most
+blessed in both natural fertility and convenience of position was
+Damascus (Ubi or Hobah), which had been receiving an Aramaean influx for
+at least three hundred years. It was destined to outstrip the rest of
+those new Semitic states; but for the moment it was little stronger than
+they. As for the Phoenician cities on the Lebanon coast, which we know
+from the Amarna archives and other Egyptian records to have long been
+settled with Canaanitic Semites, they were to appear henceforward in a
+light quite other than that in which the reports of their Egyptian
+governors and visitors had hitherto shown them. Not only did they very
+rapidly become maritime traders instead of mere local territorial
+centres, but (if we may infer it from the lack of known monuments of
+their higher art or of their writing before 1000 B.C.) they were making
+or just about to make a sudden advance in social development. It should
+be remarked that our evidence, that other Syrian Semites had taken to
+writing in scripts of their own, begins not much later at various
+points--in Shamal, in Moab and in Samaria.
+
+This rather sudden expansion of the Phoenicians into a maritime power
+about 1000 B.C. calls for explanation. Herodotus thought that the
+Phoenicians were driven to take to the sea simply by the growing
+inadequacy of their narrow territory to support the natural increase of
+its inhabitants, and probably he was partly right, the crisis of their
+fate being hastened by Armaean pressure from inland. But the advance in
+their culture, which is marked by the development of their art and their
+writing, was too rapid and too great to have resulted only from new
+commerce with the sea; nor can it have been due to any influence of the
+Aramaean elements which were comparatively fresh from the Steppes. To
+account for the facts in Syria we seem to require, not long previous to
+this time, a fresh accession of population from some area of higher
+culture. When we observe, therefore, among the earlier Phoenician and
+south Syrian antiquities much that was imported, and more that derived
+its character, from Cyprus and even remoter centres of the Aegean
+culture of the latest Minoan Age, we cannot regard as fantastic the
+belief of the Cretan discoverer, Arthur Evans, that the historic
+Phoenician civilization, and especially the Phoenician script, owed
+their being in great measure to an immigration from those nearest
+oversea lands which had long possessed a fully developed art and a
+system of writing. After the fall of the Cnossian Dynasty we know that a
+great dispersal of Cretans began, which was continued and increased
+later by the descent of the Achaeans into Greece. It has been said
+already that the Pulesti or Philistines, who had followed the first
+northern horde to the frontiers of Egypt early in the twelfth century,
+are credibly supposed to have come from some area affected by Minoan
+civilization, while the Tjakaray and Washasha, who accompanied them,
+were probably actual Cretans. The Pulesti stayed, as we know, in
+Philistia: the Tjakaray settled at Dor on the South Phoenician coast,
+where Unamon, an envoy of Rameses XI, found them. These settlers are
+quite sufficient to account for the subsequent development of a higher
+culture in mid and south Syria, and there may well have been some
+further immigration from Cyprus and other Aegean lands which, as time
+went on, impelled the cities of Phoenicia, so well endowed by nature, to
+develop a new culture apace about 1000 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PALESTINE
+
+If the Phoenicians were feeling the thrust of Steppe peoples, their
+southern neighbours, the Philistines, who had lived and grown rich on
+the tolls and trade of the great north road from Egypt for at least a
+century and a half, were feeling it too. During some centuries past
+there had come raiding from the south-east deserts certain sturdy and
+well-knit tribes, which long ago had displaced or assimilated the
+Canaanites along the highlands west of Jordan, and were now tending to
+settle down into a national unity, cemented by a common worship. They
+had had long intermittent struggles, traditions of which fill the Hebrew
+Book of Judges--struggles not only with the Canaanites, but also with
+the Amorites of the upper Orontes valley, and later with the Aramaeans
+of the north and east, and with fresh incursions of Arabs from the
+south; and most lately of all they had had to give way for about half a
+century before an expansive movement of the Philistines, which carried
+the latter up to Galilee and secured to them the profits of all the
+Palestinian stretch of the great North Road. But about a generation
+before our date the northernmost of those bold "Habiri," under an
+elective _sheikh_ Saul, had pushed the Philistines out of Bethshan and
+other points of vantage in mid-Palestine, and had become once more free
+of the hills which they had held in the days of Pharaoh Menephthah.
+Though, at the death of Saul, the enemy regained most of what he had
+lost, he was not to hold it long. A greater chief, David, who had risen
+to power by Philistine help and now had the support of the southern
+tribes, was welding both southern and northern Hebrews into a single
+monarchical society and, having driven his old masters out of the north
+once more, threatened the southern stretch of the great North Road from
+a new capital, Jerusalem. Moreover, by harrying repeatedly the lands
+east of Jordan up to the desert edge, David had stopped further
+incursions from Arabia; and, though the Aramaean state of Damascus was
+growing into a formidable danger, he had checked for the present its
+tendency to spread southwards, and had strengthened himself by
+agreements with another Aramaean prince, him of Hamath, who lay on the
+north flank of Damascus, and with the chief of the nearest Phoenician
+city, Tyre. The latter was not yet the rich place which it would grow to
+be in the next century, but it was strong enough to control the coast
+road north of the Galilean lowlands. Israel not only was never safer,
+but would never again hold a position of such relative importance in
+Syria, as was hers in a day of many small and infant states about 1000
+B.C.: and in later times, under the shadow of Assyria and the menace of
+Egypt, the Jews would look back to the reigns of David and his successor
+with some reason as their golden age.
+
+The traveller would not have ventured into Arabia; nor shall we. It was
+then an unknown land lying wholly outside history. We have no record (if
+that mysterious embassy of the "Queen of Sheba," who came to hear the
+wisdom of Solomon, be ruled out) of any relations between a state of the
+civilized East and an Arabian prince before the middle of the ninth
+century. It may be that, as Glaser reckoned, Sabaean society in the
+south-west of the peninsula had already reached the preliminary stage of
+tribal settlement through which Israel passed under its Judges, and was
+now moving towards monarchy; and that of this our traveller might have
+learned something in Syria from the last arrived Aramaeans. But we, who
+can learn nothing, have no choice but to go north with him again,
+leaving to our right the Syrian desert roamed by Bedawis in much the
+same social state as the Anazeh to-day, owing allegiance to no one. We
+can cross Euphrates at Carchemish or at Til Barsip opposite the Sajur
+mouth, or where Thapsacus looked across to the outfall of the Khabur.
+
+
+SECTION 9. MESOPOTAMIA
+
+No annals of Assyria have survived for nearly a century before 1000
+B.C., and very few for the century after that date. Nor do Babylonian
+records make good our deficiency. Though we cannot be certain, we are
+probably safe in saying that during these two centuries Assyrian and
+Babylonian princes had few or no achievements to record of the kind
+which they held, almost alone, worthy to be immortalized on stone or
+clay--that is to say, raids, conquests, sacking of cities, blackmailing
+of princes. Since Tiglath Pileser's time no "Kings of the World" (by
+which title was signified an overlord of Mesopotamia merely) had been
+seated on either of the twin rivers. What exactly had happened in the
+broad tract between the rivers and to the south of Taurus since the
+departure of the Mushki hordes (if, indeed, they did all depart), we do
+not know. The Mitanni, who may have been congeners of the latter, seem
+still to have been holding the north-west; probably all the north-east
+was Assyrian territory. No doubt the Kurds and Armenians of Urartu were
+raiding the plains impartially from autumn to spring, as they always did
+when Assyria was weak. We shall learn a good deal more about Mesopotamia
+proper when the results of the German excavations at Tell Halaf, near
+Ras el-Ain, are complete and published. The most primitive monuments
+found there are perhaps relics of that power of Khani (Harran), which
+was stretched even to include Nineveh before the Semitic _patesis_ of
+Asshur grew to royal estate and moved northward to make imperial
+Assyria. But there are later strata of remains as well which should
+contain evidence of the course of events in mid-Mesopotamia during
+subsequent periods both of Assyrian domination and of local
+independence.
+
+Assyria, as has been said, was without doubt weak at this date, that is,
+she was confined to the proper territory of her own agricultural
+Semites. This state of things, whenever existent throughout her history,
+seems to have implied priestly predominance, in which Babylonian
+influence went for much. The Semitic tendency to super-Monotheism, which
+has already been noticed, constantly showed itself among the eastern
+Semites (when comparatively free from military tyranny) in a reversion
+of their spiritual allegiance to one supreme god enthroned at Babylon,
+the original seat of east Semitic theocracy. And even when this city had
+little military strength the priests of Marduk appear often to have
+succeeded in keeping a controlling hand on the affairs of stronger
+Assyria. We shall see later how much prestige great Ninevite war-lords
+could gain even among their own countrymen by Marduk's formal
+acknowledgment of their sovereignty, and how much they lost by
+disregarding him and doing injury to his local habitation. At their very
+strongest the Assyrian kings were never credited with the natural right
+to rule Semitic Asia which belonged to kings of Babylon. If they desired
+the favour of Marduk they must needs claim it at the sword's point, and
+when that point was lowered, his favour was always withdrawn. From first
+to last they had perforce to remain military tyrants, who relied on no
+acknowledged legitimacy but on the spears of conscript peasants, and at
+the last of mercenaries. No dynasty lasted long in Assyria, where
+popular generals, even while serving on distant campaigns, were often
+elevated to the throne--in anticipation of the imperial history of Rome.
+
+It appears then that our traveller would have found Babylonia, rather
+than Assyria, the leading East Semitic power in 1000 B.C.; but at the
+same time not a strong power, for she had no imperial dominion outside
+lower Mesopotamia. Since a dynasty, whose history is obscure--the
+so-called Pashé kings in whose time there was one strong man,
+Nabu-Kudur-usur (Nebuchadnezzar) I--came to an inglorious end just about
+1000 B.C., one may infer that Babylonia was passing at this epoch
+through one of those recurrent political crises which usually occurred
+when Sumerian cities of the southern "Sea-Land" conspired with some
+foreign invader against the Semitic capital. The contumacious survivors
+of the elder element in the population, however, even when successful,
+seem not to have tried to set up new capitals or to reestablish the
+pre-Semitic state of things. Babylon had so far distanced all the older
+cities now that no other consummation of revolt was desired or believed
+possible than the substitution of one dynasty for another on the throne
+beloved of Marduk. Sumerian forces, however, had not been the only ones
+which had contributed to overthrow the last king of the Pashé dynasty.
+Nomads of the _Suti_ tribes had long been raiding from the western
+deserts into Akkad; and the first king set up by the victorious peoples
+of the Sea-Land had to expel them and to repair their ravages before he
+could seat himself on a throne which was menaced by Elam on the east and
+Assyria on the north, and must fall so soon as either of these found a
+strong leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE EAST IN 800 B.C.
+
+
+Two centuries have passed over the East, and at first sight it looks as
+if no radical change has taken place in its political or social
+condition. No new power has entered it from without; only one new state
+of importance, the Phrygian, has arisen within. The peoples, which were
+of most account in 1000, are still of the most account in 800--the
+Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Mushki of Cappadocia, the tribesmen of
+Urartu, the Aramaeans of Damascus, the trading Phoenicians on the Syrian
+coast and the trading Greeks on the Anatolian. Egypt has remained behind
+her frontier except for one raid into Palestine about 925 B.C., from
+which Sheshenk, the Libyan, brought back treasures of Solomon's temple
+to enhance the splendour of Amen. Arabia has not begun to matter. There
+has been, of course, development, but on old lines. The comparative
+values of the states have altered: some have become more decisively the
+superiors of others than they were two hundred years ago, but they are
+those whose growth was foreseen. Wherein, then, lies the great
+difference? For great difference there is. It scarcely needs a second
+glance to detect the change, and any one who looks narrowly will see not
+only certain consequent changes, but in more than one quarter signs and
+warnings of a coming order of things not dreamt of in 1000 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 1. MIDDLE KINGDOM OF ASSYRIA
+
+The obvious novelty is the presence of a predominant power. The mosaic
+of small states is still there, but one holds lordship over most of
+them, and that one is Assyria. Moreover, the foreign dominion which the
+latter has now been enjoying for three-parts of a century is the first
+of its kind established by an Asiatic power. Twice, as we have seen, had
+Assyria conquered in earlier times an empire of the nomad Semitic type,
+that is, a licence to raid unchecked over a wide tract of lands; but, so
+far as we know, neither Shalmaneser I nor Tiglath Pileser I had so much
+as conceived the idea of holding the raided provinces by a permanent
+official organization. But in the ninth century, when Ashurnatsirpal and
+his successor Shalmaneser, second of the name, marched out year by year,
+they passed across wide territories held for them by governors and
+garrisons, before they reached others upon which they hoped to impose
+like fetters. We find Shalmaneser II, for example, in the third year of
+his reign, fortifying, renaming, garrisoning and endowing with a royal
+palace the town of Til Barsip on the Euphrates bank, the better to
+secure for himself free passage at will across the river. He has finally
+deprived Ahuni its local Aramaean chief, and holds the place as an
+Assyrian fortress. Thus far had the Assyrian advanced his territorial
+empire but not farther. Beyond Euphrates he would, indeed, push year by
+year, even to Phoenicia and Damascus and Cilicia, but merely to raid,
+levy blackmail and destroy, like the old emperors of Babylonia or his
+own imperial predecessors of Assyria.
+
+There was then much of the old destructive instinct in Shalmaneser's
+conception of empire; but a constructive principle also was at work
+modifying that conception. If the Great King was still something of a
+Bedawi Emir, bound to go a-raiding summer by summer, he had conceived,
+like Mohammed ibn Rashid, the Arabian prince of Jebel Shammar in our own
+days, the idea of extending his territorial dominion, so that he might
+safely and easily reach fresh fields for wider raids. If we may use
+modern formulas about an ancient and imperfectly realized imperial
+system, we should describe the dominion of Shalmaneser II as made up
+(over and above its Assyrian core) of a wide circle of foreign
+territorial possessions which included Babylonia on the south, all
+Mesopotamia on the west and north, and everything up to Zagros on the
+east; of a "sphere of exclusive influence" extending to Lake Van on the
+north, while on the west it reached beyond the Euphrates into mid-Syria;
+and, lastly, of a licence to raid as far as the frontiers of Egypt.
+Shalmaneser's later expeditions all passed the frontiers of that sphere
+of influence. Having already crossed the Amanus mountains seven times,
+he was in Tarsus in his twenty-sixth summer; Damascus was attacked again
+and again in the middle of his reign; and even Jehu of Samaria paid his
+blackmail in the year 842.
+
+Assyria in the ninth century must have seemed by far the strongest as
+well as the most oppressive power that the East had known. The reigning
+house was passing on its authority from father to son in an unbroken
+dynastic succession, which had not always been, and would seldom
+thereafter be, the rule. Its court was fixed securely in midmost
+Assyria, away from priest-ridden Asshur, which seems to have been always
+anti-imperial and pro-Babylonian; for Ashurnatsirpal had restored Calah
+to the capital rank which it had held under Shalmaneser I but lost under
+Tiglath Pileser, and there the kings of the Middle Empire kept their
+throne. The Assyrian armies were as yet neither composed of soldiers of
+fortune, nor, it appears, swelled by such heterogeneous provincial
+levies as would follow the Great Kings of Asia in later days; but they
+were still recruited from the sturdy peasantry of Assyria itself. The
+monarch was an absolute autocrat directing a supreme military despotism.
+Surely such a power could not but endure. Endure, indeed, it would for
+more than two centuries. But it was not so strong as it appeared. Before
+the century of Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II was at an end, certain
+inherent germs of corporate decay had developed apace in its system.
+
+Natural law appears to decree that a family stock, whose individual
+members have every opportunity and licence for sensual indulgence, shall
+deteriorate both physically and mentally at an ever-increasing rate.
+Therefore, _pari passu_, an Empire which is so absolutely autocratic
+that the monarch is its one mainspring of government, grows weaker as it
+descends from father to son. Its one chance of conserving some of its
+pristine strength is to develop a bureaucracy which, if inspired by the
+ideas and methods of earlier members of the dynasty, may continue to
+realize them in a crystallized system of administration. This chance the
+Middle Assyrian Kingdom never was at any pains to take. There is
+evidence for delegation of military power by its Great Kings to a
+headquarter staff, and for organization of military control in the
+provinces, but none for such delegation of the civil power as might have
+fostered a bureaucracy. Therefore that concentration of power in single
+hands, which at first had been an element of strength, came to breed
+increasing weakness as one member of the dynasty succeeded another.
+
+Again, the irresistible Assyrian armies, which had been led abroad
+summer by summer, were manned for some generations by sturdy peasants
+drawn from the fields of the Middle Tigris basin, chiefly those on the
+left bank. The annual razzia, however, is a Bedawi institution, proper
+to a semi-nomadic society which cultivates little and that lightly, and
+can leave such agricultural, and also such pastoral, work as must needs
+be done in summer to its old men, its young folk and its women, without
+serious loss. But a settled labouring population which has deep lands to
+till, a summer crop to raise and an irrigation system to maintain is in
+very different case. The Assyrian kings, by calling on their
+agricultural peasantry, spring after spring, to resume the life of
+militant nomads, not only exhausted the sources of their own wealth and
+stability, but bred deep discontent. As the next two centuries pass more
+and more will be heard of depletion and misery in the Assyrian lands.
+Already before 800 we have the spectacle of the agricultural district of
+Arbela rebelling against Shalmaneser's sons, and after being appeased
+with difficulty, rising again against Adadnirari III in a revolt which
+is still active when the century closes.
+
+Lastly, this militant monarchy, whose life was war, was bound to make
+implacable enemies both within and without. Among those within were
+evidently the priests, whose influence was paramount at Asshur.
+Remembering who it was that had given the first independent king to
+Assyria they resented that their city, the chosen seat of the earlier
+dynasties, which had been restored to primacy by the great Tiglath
+Pileser, should fall permanently to the second rank. So we find Asshur
+joining the men of Arbela in both the rebellions mentioned above, and it
+appears always to have been ready to welcome attempts by the Babylonian
+Semites to regain their old predominance over Southern Assyria.
+
+
+SECTION 2. URARTU
+
+As we should expect from geographical circumstances, Assyria's most
+perilous and persistent foreign enemies were the fierce hillmen of the
+north. In the east, storms were brewing behind the mountains, but they
+were not yet ready to burst. South and west lay either settled districts
+of old civilization not disposed to fight, or ranging grounds of nomads
+too widely scattered and too ill organized to threaten serious danger.
+But the north was in different case. The wild valleys, through which
+descend the left bank affluents of the Upper Tigris, have always
+sheltered fierce fighting clans, covetous of the winter pasturage and
+softer climate of the northern Mesopotamian downs, and it has been the
+anxious care of one Mesopotamian power after another, even to our own
+day, to devise measures for penning them back. Since the chief weakness
+of these tribes lies in a lack of unity which the subdivided nature of
+their country encourages, it must have caused no small concern to the
+Assyrians that, early in the ninth century, a Kingdom of Urartu or, as
+its own people called it, Khaldia, should begin to gain power over the
+communities about Lake Van and the heads of the valleys which run down
+to Assyrian territory. Both Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser led raid
+after raid into the northern mountains in the hope of weakening the
+tribes from whose adhesion that Vannic Kingdom might derive strength.
+Both kings marched more than once up to the neighbourhood of the Urmia
+Lake, and Shalmaneser struck at the heart of Urartu itself three or four
+times; but with inconclusive success. The Vannic state continued to
+flourish and its kings--whose names are more European in sound than
+Asiatic--Lutipris, Sarduris, Menuas, Argistis, Rusas--built themselves
+strong fortresses which stand to this day about Lake Van, and borrowed a
+script from their southern foes to engrave rocks with records of
+successful wars. One of these inscriptions occurs as far west as the
+left bank of Euphrates over against Malatia. By 800 B.C., in spite of
+efforts made by Shalmaneser's sons to continue their father's policy of
+pushing the war into the enemy's country, the Vannic king had succeeded
+in replacing Assyrian influence by the law of Khaldia in the uppermost
+basin of the Tigris and in higher Mesopotamia--the "Nairi" lands of
+Assyrian scribes; and his successors would raid farther and farther into
+the plains during the coming age.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE MEDES
+
+Menacing as this power of Urartu appeared at the end of the ninth
+century to an enfeebled Assyrian dynasty, there were two other racial
+groups, lately arrived on its horizon, which in the event would prove
+more really dangerous. One of these lay along the north-eastern frontier
+on the farther slopes of the Zagros mountains and on the plateau beyond.
+It was apparently a composite people which had been going through a slow
+process of formation and growth. One element in it seems to have been of
+the same blood as a strong pastoral population which was then ranging
+the steppes of southern Russia and west central Asia, and would come to
+be known vaguely to the earliest Greeks as Cimmerians, and scarcely less
+precisely to their descendants, as Scyths. Its name would be a household
+word in the East before long. A trans-Caucasian offshoot of this had
+settled in modern Azerbaijan, where for a long time past it had been
+receiving gradual reinforcements of eastern migrants, belonging to what
+is called the Iranian group of Aryans. Filtering through the passage
+between the Caspian range and the salt desert, which Teheran now guards,
+these Iranians spread out over north-west Persia and southwards into the
+well-watered country on the western edge of the plateau, overlooking the
+lowlands of the Tigris basin. Some part of them, under the name Parsua,
+seems to have settled down as far north as the western shores of Lake
+Urmia, on the edge of the Ararat kingdom; another part as far south as
+the borders of Elam. Between these extreme points the immigrants appear
+to have amalgamated with the settled Scyths, and in virtue of racial
+superiority to have become predominant partners in the combination. At
+some uncertain period--probably before 800 B.C.--there had arisen from
+the Iranian element an individual, Zoroaster, who converted his people
+from element-worship to a spiritual belief in personal divinity; and by
+this reform of cult both raised its social status and gave it political
+cohesion. The East began to know and fear the combination under the name
+_Manda_, and from Shalmaneser II onwards the Assyrian kings had to
+devote ever more attention to the Manda country, raiding it, sacking it,
+exacting tribute from it, but all the while betraying their growing
+consciousness that a grave peril lurked behind Zagros, the peril of the
+Medes. [Footnote: I venture to adhere throughout to the old
+identification of the _Manda_ power, which ultimately overthrew Assyria,
+with the _Medes_, in spite of high authorities who nowadays assume that
+the latter played no part in that overthrow, but have been introduced
+into this chapter of history by an erroneous identification made by
+Greeks. I cannot believe that both Greek and Hebrew authorities of very
+little later date both fell into such an error.]
+
+
+SECTION 4. THE CHALDAEANS
+
+The other danger, the more imminent of the two, threatened Assyria from
+the south. Once again a Semitic immigration, which we distinguish as
+Chaldaean from earlier Semitic waves, Canaanite and Aramaean, had
+breathed fresh vitality into the Babylonian people. It came, like
+earlier waves, out of Arabia, which, for certain reasons, has been in
+all ages a prime source of ethnic disturbance in West Asia. The great
+southern peninsula is for the most part a highland steppe endowed with a
+singularly pure air and an uncontaminated soil. It breeds, consequently,
+a healthy population whose natality, compared to its death-rate, is
+unusually high; but since the peculiar conditions of its surface and
+climate preclude the development of its internal food-supply beyond a
+point long ago reached, the surplus population which rapidly accumulates
+within it is forced from time to time to seek its sustenance elsewhere.
+The difficulties of the roads to the outer world being what they are
+(not to speak of the certainty of opposition at the other end), the
+intending emigrants rarely set out in small bodies, but move restlessly
+within their own borders until they are grown to a horde, which famine
+and hostility at home compel at last to leave Arabia. As hard to arrest
+as their own blown sands, the moving Arabs fall on the nearest fertile
+regions, there to plunder, fight, and eventually settle down. So in
+comparatively modern times have the Shammar tribesmen moved into Syria
+and Mesopotamia, and so in antiquity moved the Canaanites, the
+Aramaeans, and the Chaldaeans. We find the latter already well
+established by 900 B.C. not only in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf, but also between the Rivers. The Kings of Babylon, who
+opposed Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II, seem to have been of
+Chaldaean extraction; and although their successors, down to 800 B.C.,
+acknowledged the suzerainty of Assyria, they ever strove to repudiate
+it, looking for help to Elam or the western desert tribes. The times,
+however, were not quite ripe. The century closed with the reassertion of
+Assyrian power in Babylon itself by Adadnirari.
+
+
+SECTION 5. SYRIAN EXPANSION OF ASSYRIA
+
+Such were the dangers which, as we now know, lurked on the horizon of
+the Northern Semites in 800 B.C. But they had not yet become patent to
+the world, in whose eyes Assyria seemed still an irresistible power
+pushing ever farther and farther afield. The west offered the most
+attractive field for her expansion. There lay the fragments of the Hatti
+Empire, enjoying the fruits of Hatti civilization; there were the
+wealthy Aramaean states, and still richer Phoenician ports. There urban
+life was well developed, each city standing for itself, sufficient in
+its territory, and living more or less on the caravan trade which
+perforce passed under or near its walls between Egypt on the one hand
+and Mesopotamia and Asia Minor on the other. Never was a fairer field
+for hostile enterprise, or one more easily harried without fear of
+reprisal, and well knowing this, Assyria set herself from
+Ashurnatsirpal's time forward systematically to bully and fleece Syria.
+It was almost the yearly practice of Shalmaneser II to march down to the
+Middle Euphrates, ferry his army across, and levy blackmail on
+Carchemish and the other north Syrian cities as far as Cilicia on the
+one hand and Damascus on the other. That done, he would send forward
+envoys to demand ransom of the Phoenician towns, who grudgingly paid it
+or rashly withheld it according to the measure of his compulsion. Since
+last we looked at the Aramaean states, Damascus has definitely asserted
+the supremacy which her natural advantages must always secure to her
+whenever Syria is not under foreign domination. Her fighting dynasty of
+Benhadads which had been founded, it seems, more than a century before
+Shalmaneser's time, had now spread her influence right across Syria from
+east to west and into the territories of Hamath on the north and of the
+Hebrews on the south. Ashurnatsirpal had never ventured to do more than
+summon at long range the lord of this large and wealthy state to
+contribute to his coffers; but this tributary obligation, if ever
+admitted, was continually disregarded, and Shalmaneser II found he must
+take bolder measures or be content to see his raiding-parties restricted
+to the already harried north. He chose the bold course, and struck at
+Hamath, the northernmost Damascene dependency, in his seventh summer. A
+notable victory, won at Karkar on the Middle Orontes over an army which
+included contingents from most of the south Semitic states--one came,
+for example, from Israel, where Ahab was now king,--opened a way towards
+the Aramaean capital; but it was not till twelve years later that the
+Great King actually attacked Damascus. But he failed to crown his
+successes with its capture, and reinvigorated by the accession of a new
+dynasty, which Hazael, a leader in war, founded in 842, Damascus
+continued to bar the Assyrians from full enjoyment of the southern lands
+for another century.
+
+Nevertheless, though Shalmaneser and his dynastic successors down to
+Adadnirari III were unable to enter Palestine, the shadow of Assyrian
+Empire was beginning to creep over Israel. The internal dissensions of
+the latter, and its fear and jealousy of Damascus had already done much
+to make ultimate disaster certain. In the second generation after David
+the radical incompatibility between the northern and southern Hebrew
+tribes, which under his strong hand and that of his son had seemed one
+nation, reasserted its disintegrating influence. While it is not certain
+if the twelve tribes were ever all of one race, it is quite certain that
+the northern ones had come to be contaminated very largely with Aramaean
+blood and infected by mid-Syrian influences, which the relations
+established and maintained by David and Solomon with Hamath and
+Phoenicia no doubt had accentuated, especially in the territories of
+Asher and Dan. These tribes and some other northerners had never seen
+eye to eye with the southern tribes in a matter most vital to Semitic
+societies, religious ideal and practice. The anthropomorphic monotheism,
+which the southern tribes brought up from Arabia, had to contend in
+Galilee with theriomorphic polytheism, that is, the tendency to embody
+the qualities of divinity in animal forms. For such beliefs as these
+there is ample evidence in the Judaean tradition, even during the
+pre-Palestinian wanderings. Both reptile and bovine incarnations
+manifest themselves in the story of the Exodus, and despite the fervent
+missionary efforts of a series of Prophets, and the adhesion of many,
+even among the northern tribesmen, to the more spiritual creed, these
+cults gathered force in the congenial neighbourhood of Aramaeans and
+Phoenicians, till they led to political separation of the north from the
+south as soon as the long reign of Solomon was ended. Thereafter, until
+the catastrophe of the northern tribes, there would never more be a
+united Hebrew nation. The northern kingdom, harried by Damascus and
+forced to take unwilling part in her quarrels, looked about for foreign
+help. The dynasty of Omri, who, in order to secure control of the great
+North Road, had built himself a capital and a palace (lately discovered)
+on the hill of Samaria, relied chiefly on Tyre. The succeeding dynasty,
+that of Jehu, who had rebelled against Omri's son and his Phoenician
+queen, courted Assyria, and encouraged her to press ever harder on
+Damascus. It was a suicidal policy; for in the continued existence of a
+strong Aramaean state on her north lay Israel's one hope of long life.
+Jeroboam II and his Prophet Jonah ought to have seen that the day of
+reckoning would come quickly for Samaria when once Assyria had settled
+accounts with Damascus.
+
+To some extent, but unfortunately not in all detail, we can trace in the
+royal records the advance of Assyrian territorial dominion in the west.
+The first clear indication of its expansion is afforded by a notice of
+the permanent occupation of a position on the eastern bank of the
+Euphrates, as a base for the passage of the river. This position was Til
+Barsip, situated opposite the mouth of the lowest Syrian affluent, the
+Sajur, and formerly capital of an Aramaean principate. That its
+occupation by Shalmaneser II in the third year of his reign was intended
+to be lasting is proved by its receiving a new name and becoming a royal
+Assyrian residence. Two basaltic lions, which the Great King then set up
+on each side of its Mesopotamian gate and inscribed with commemorative
+texts, have recently been found near Tell Ahmar, the modern hamlet which
+has succeeded the royal city. This measure marked Assyria's definite
+annexation of the lands in Mesopotamia, which had been under Aramaean
+government for at least a century and a half. When this government had
+been established there we do not certainly know; but the collapse of
+Tiglath Pileser's power about 1100 B.C. so nearly follows the main
+Aramaean invasion from the south that it seems probable this invasion
+had been in great measure the cause of that collapse, and that an
+immediate consequence was the formation of Aramaean states east of
+Euphrates. The strongest of them and the last to succumb to Assyria was
+Bit-Adini, the district west of Harran, of which Til Barsip had been the
+leading town.
+
+The next stage of Assyrian expansion is marked by a similar occupation
+of a position on the Syrian side of the Euphrates, to cover the landing
+and be a gathering-place of tribute. Here stood Pitru, formerly a Hatti
+town and, perhaps, the Biblical Pethor, situated beside the Sajur on
+some site not yet identified, but probably near the outfall of the
+stream. It received an Assyrian name in Shalmaneser's sixth year, and
+was used afterwards as a base for all his operations in Syria. It served
+also to mask and overawe the larger and more wealthy city of Carchemish,
+a few miles north, which would remain for a long time to come free of
+permanent Assyrian occupation, though subjected to blackmail on the
+occasion of every western raid by the Great King.
+
+With this last westward advance of his permanent territorial holding,
+Shalmaneser appears to have rested content. He was sure of the Euphrates
+passage and had made his footing good on the Syrian bank. But we cannot
+be certain; for, though his known records mention the renaming of no
+other Syrian cities, many may have been renamed without happening to be
+mentioned in the records, and others may have been occupied by standing
+Assyrian garrisons without receiving new names. Be that as it may, we
+can trace, year by year, the steady pushing forward of Assyrian raiding
+columns into inner Syria. In 854 Shalmaneser's most distant base of
+operations was fixed at Khalman (Aleppo), whence he marched to the
+Orontes to fight, near the site of later Apamea, the battle of Karkar.
+Five years later, swooping down from a Cilician raid, he entered Hamath.
+Six more years passed before he made more ground to the south, though he
+invaded Syria again in force at least once during the interval. In 842,
+however, having taken a new road along the coast, he turned inland from
+Beirut, crossed Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and succeeded in reaching the
+oasis of Damascus and even in raiding some distance towards the Hauran;
+but he did not take (perhaps, like the Bedawi Emir he was, he did not
+try to take) the fenced city itself. He seems to have repeated his visit
+three years later, but never to have gone farther. Certainly he never
+secured to himself Phoenicia, Coele-Syria or Damascus, and still less
+Palestine, by any permanent organization. Indeed, as has been said, we
+have no warrant for asserting that in his day Assyria definitely
+incorporated in her territorial empire any part of Syria except that one
+outpost of observation established at Pitru on the Sajur. Nor can more
+be credited to Shalmaneser's immediate successors; but it must be
+understood that by the end of the century Adadnirari had extended
+Assyria's sphere of influence (as distinct from her territorial holding)
+somewhat farther south to include not only Phoenicia but also northern
+Philistia and Palestine with the arable districts east of Jordan.
+
+
+SECTION 6. CILICIA
+
+When an Assyrian emperor crossed Euphrates and took up quarters in Pitru
+to receive the submission of the western chiefs and collect his forces
+for raiding the lands of any who might be slow to comply, he was much
+nearer the frontiers of Asia Minor than those of Phoenicia or the
+Kingdom of Damascus. Yet on three occasions out of four, the lords of
+the Middle Assyrian Kingdom were content to harry once again the
+oft-plundered lands of mid-Syria, and on the fourth, if they turned
+northward at all, they advanced no farther than eastern Cilicia, that
+is, little beyond the horizon which they might actually see on a clear
+day from any high ground near Pitru. Yet on the other side of the
+snow-streaked wall which bounded the northward view lay desirable
+kingdoms, Khanigalbat with its capital, Milid, comprising the fertile
+district which later would be part of Cataonia; Tabal to west of it,
+extending over the rest of Cataonia and southern Cappadocia; and Kas,
+possessing the Tyanitis and the deep Lycaonian plain. Why, then, did
+those imperial robbers in the ninth century so long hold their hands
+from such tempting prey? No doubt, because they and their armies, which
+were not yet recruited from other populations than the Semites of
+Assyria proper, so far as we know, were by origin Arabs, men of the
+south, to whom the high-lying plateau country beyond Taurus was just as
+deterrent as it has been to all Semites since. Tides of Arab invasion,
+surging again and again to the foot of the Taurus, have broken sometimes
+through the passes and flowed in single streams far on into Asia Minor,
+but they have always ebbed again as quickly. The repugnance felt by the
+Assyrians for Asia Minor may be contrasted with the promptitude which
+their Iranian successors showed in invading the peninsula, and may be
+illustrated by all subsequent history. No permanent footing was ever
+established in Asia Minor by the Saracens, its definite conquest being
+left to the north-country Turks. The short-lived Arab power of Mehemet
+Ali, which rebelled against the Turks some eighty years ago, advanced on
+to the plateau only to recede at once and remain behind the Taurus. The
+present dividing line of peoples which speak respectively Arabic and
+Turkish marks the Semite's immemorial limit. So soon as the land-level
+of northern Syria attains a mean altitude of 2500 feet, the Arab tongue
+is chilled to silence.
+
+We shall never find Assyrian armies, therefore, going far or staying
+long beyond Taurus. But we shall find them going constantly, and as a
+matter of course, into Cilicia, notwithstanding the high mountain wall
+of Amanus which divides it from Syria. Cilicia--all that part of it at
+least which the Assyrians used to raid--lies low, faces south and is
+shielded by high mountains from northerly and easterly chills. It
+enjoys, indeed, a warmer and more equable climate than any part of
+Syria, except the coastal belt, and socially it has always been related
+more nearly to the south lands than to its own geographical whole, Asia
+Minor. A Semitic element was predominant in the population of the plain,
+and especially in its chief town, Tarsus, throughout antiquity. So
+closely was Cilicia linked with Syria that the Prince of Kue (its
+eastern part) joined the Princes of Hamath and of Damascus and their
+south Syrian allies in that combination for common defence against
+Assyrian aggression, which Shalmaneser broke at Karkar in 854: and it
+was in order to neutralize an important factor in the defensive power of
+Syria that the latter proceeded across Patin in 849 and fell on Kue. But
+some uprising at Hamath recalled him then, and it was not till the
+latter part of his reign that eastern Cilicia was systematically
+subdued.
+
+Shalmaneser devoted a surprising amount of attention to this small and
+rather obscure corner of Asia Minor. He records in his twenty-fifth year
+that already he had crossed Amanus seven times; and in the year
+succeeding we find him again entering Cilicia and marching to Tarsus to
+unseat its prince and put another more pliable in his room. Since,
+apparently, he never used Cilicia as a base for further operations in
+force beyond Taurus, being content with a formal acknowledgment of his
+majesty by the Prince of Tabal, one is forced to conclude that he
+invaded the land for its own sake. Nearly three centuries hence, out of
+the mist in which Cilicia is veiled more persistently than almost any
+other part of the ancient East, this small country will loom up suddenly
+as one of the four chief powers of Asia, ruled by a king who, hand in
+hand with Nebuchadnezzar II, negotiates a peace between the Lydians and
+the Medes, each at the height of their power. Then the mist will close
+over it once more, and we shall hear next to nothing of a long line of
+kings who, bearing a royal title which was graecized under the form
+Syennesis, reigned at Tarsus, having little in common with other
+Anatolian princes. But we may reasonably infer from the circumstances of
+the pacific intervention just mentioned that Cilician power had been
+growing for a long time previous; and also from the frequency with which
+Shalmaneser raided the land, that already in the ninth century it was
+rich and civilized. We know it to have been a great centre of Sandan
+worship, and may guess that its kings were kin of the Mushki race and,
+if not the chief survivors of the original stock which invaded Assyria
+in Tiglath Pileser's time, ranked at least among the chief inheritors of
+the old Hatti civilization. Some even date its civilization earlier
+still, believing the Keftiu, who brought rich gifts to the Pharaohs of
+the eighteenth and succeeding dynasties, to have been Cilicians.
+
+Unfortunately, no scientific excavation of early sites in Cilicia has
+yet been undertaken; but for many years past buyers of antiquities have
+been receiving, from Tarsus and its port, engraved stones and seals of
+singularly fine workmanship, which belong to Hittite art but seem of
+later date than most of its products. They display in their decoration
+certain peculiar designs, which have been remarked also in Cyprus, and
+present some peculiarities of form, which occur also in the earliest
+Ionian art. Till other evidence comes to hand these little objects must
+be our witnesses to the existence of a highly developed sub-Hittite
+culture in Cilicia which, as early as the ninth century, had already
+been refined by the influence of the Greek settlements on the Anatolian
+coasts and perhaps, even earlier, by the Cretan art of the Aegean area.
+Cilician civilization offers a link between east and west which is worth
+more consideration and study than have been given to it by historians.
+
+
+SECTION 7. ASIA MINOR
+
+Into Asia Minor beyond Taurus we have no reason to suppose that an
+Assyrian monarch of the ninth century ever marched in person, though
+several raiding columns visited Khanigalbat and Tabal, and tributary
+acknowledgment of Assyrian dominance was made intermittently by the
+princes of both those countries in the latter half of Shalmaneser's
+reign. The farther and larger part of the western peninsula lay outside
+the Great King's reach, and we know as little of it in the year 800 as,
+perhaps, the Assyrians themselves knew. We do know, however, that it
+contained a strong principality centrally situated in the southern part
+of the basin of the Sangarius, which the Asiatic Greeks had begun to
+know as Phrygian. This inland power loomed very large in their world--so
+large, indeed, that it masked Assyria at this time, and passed in their
+eyes for the richest on earth. On the sole ground of its importance in
+early Greek legend, we are quite safe in dating not only its rise but
+its attainment of a dominant position to a period well before 800 B.C.
+But, in fact, there are other good grounds for believing that before the
+ninth century closed this principality dominated a much wider area than
+the later Phrygia, and that its western borders had been pushed outwards
+very nearly to the Ionian coast. In the Iliad, for example, the
+Phrygians are spoken of as immediate neighbours of the Trojans; and a
+considerable body of primitive Hellenic legend is based on the early
+presence of Phrygians not only in the Troad itself, but on the central
+west coast about the Bay of Smyrna and in the Caystrian plain, from
+which points of vantage they held direct relations with the immigrant
+Greeks themselves. It seems, therefore, certain that at some time before
+800 B.C. nearly all the western half of the peninsula owed allegiance
+more or less complete to the power on the Sangarius, and that even the
+Heraclid kings of Lydia were not independent of it.
+
+If Phrygia was powerful enough in the ninth century to hold the west
+Anatolian lands in fee, did it also dominate enough of the eastern
+peninsula to be ranked the imperial heir of the Cappadocian Hatti? The
+answer to this question (if any at all can be returned on very slight
+evidence) will depend on the view taken about the possible identity of
+the Phrygian power with that obscure but real power of the Mushki, of
+which we have already heard. The identity in question is so generally
+accepted nowadays that it has become a commonplace of historians to
+speak of the "Mushki-Phrygians." Very possibly they are right. But, by
+way of caution, it must be remarked that the identification depends
+ultimately on another, namely, that of Mita, King of the Mushki, against
+whom Ashurbanipal would fight more than a century later, with Midas,
+last King of Phrygia, who is mentioned by Herodotus and celebrated in
+Greek myth. To assume this identity is very attractive. Mita of Mushki
+and Midas of Phrygia coincide well enough in date; both ruled in Asia
+Minor; both were apparently leading powers there; both fought with the
+Gimirrai or Cimmerians. But there are also certain difficulties of which
+too little account has perhaps been taken. While Mita seems to have been
+a common name in Asia as far inland as Mesopotamia at a much earlier
+period than this, the name Midas, on the other hand, came much later
+into Phrygia from the west, if there is anything in the Greek tradition
+that the Phryges or Briges had immigrated from south-east Europe. And
+supported as this tradition is not only by the occurrence of similar
+names and similar folk-tales in Macedonia and in Phrygia, but also by
+the western appearance of the later Phrygian art and script, we can
+hardly refuse it credit. Accordingly, if we find the origin of the
+Phrygians in the Macedonian Briges, we must allow that Midas, as a
+Phrygian name, came from Europe very much later than the first
+appearance of kings called Mita in Asia, and we are compelled to doubt
+whether the latter name is necessarily the same as Midas. When allusions
+to the Mushki in Assyrian records give any indication of their local
+habitat, it lies in the east, not the west, of the central Anatolian
+plain--nearly, in fact, where the Moschi lived in later historical
+times. The following points, therefore, must be left open at present:
+(1) whether the Mushki ever settled in Phrygia at all; (2) whether, if
+they did, the Phrygian kings who bore the names Gordius and Midas can
+ever have been Mushkite or have commanded Mushkite allegiance; (3)
+whether the kings called Mita in records of Sargon and Ashurbanipal were
+not lords rather of the eastern Mushki than of Phrygia. It cannot be
+assumed, on present evidence at any rate (though it is not improbable),
+that Phrygian kings ruled the Mushki of Cappadocia, and in virtue of
+that rule had an empire almost commensurate with the lost sway of the
+Hatti.
+
+Nevertheless theirs was a strong power, the strongest in Anatolia, and
+the fame of its wealth and its walled towns dazzled and awed the Greek
+communities, which were thickly planted by now on the western and
+south-western coasts. Some of these had passed through the trials of
+infancy and were grown to civic estate, having established wide trade
+relations both by land and sea. In the coming century Cyme of Aeolis
+would give a wife to a Phrygian king. Ephesus seems to have become
+already an important social as well as religious centre. The objects of
+art found in 1905 on the floor of the earliest temple of Artemis in the
+plain (there was an earlier one in the hills) must be dated--some of
+them--not later than 700, and their design and workmanship bear witness
+to flourishing arts and crafts long established in the locality.
+Miletus, too, was certainly an adult centre of Hellenism and about to
+become a mother of new cities, if she had not already become so. But, so
+early as this year 800, we know little about the Asiatic Greek cities
+beyond the fact of their existence; and it will be wiser to let them
+grow for another two centuries and to speak of them more at length when
+they have become a potent factor in West Asian society. When we ring up
+the curtain again after two hundred years, it will be found that the
+light shed on the eastern scene has brightened; for not only will
+contemporary records have increased in volume and clarity, but we shall
+be able to use the lamp of literary history fed by traditions, which had
+not had to survive the lapse of more than a few generations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE EAST IN 600 B.C.
+
+
+When we look at the East again in 600 B.C. after two centuries of war
+and tumultuous movements we perceive that almost all its lands have
+found fresh masters. The political changes are tremendous. Cataclysm has
+followed hard on cataclysm. The Phrygian dynasty has gone down in
+massacre and rapine, and from another seat of power its former client
+rules Asia Minor in its stead. The strongholds of the lesser Semitic
+peoples have almost all succumbed, and Syria is a well-picked bone
+snatched by one foreign dog from another. The Assyrian colossus which
+bestrid the west Asiatic world has failed and collapsed, and the Medes
+and the Chaldaeans--these two clouds no bigger than a man's hand which
+had lain on Assyria's horizon--fill her seat and her room. As we look
+back on it now, the political revolution is complete; but had we lived
+in the year 600 at Asshur or Damascus or Tyre or Tarsus, it might have
+impressed us less. A new master in the East did not and does not always
+mean either a new earth or a new heaven.
+
+Let us see to how much the change really amounted. The Assyrian Empire
+was no more. This is a momentous fact, not to be esteemed lightly. The
+final catastrophe has happened only six years before our date; but the
+power of Assyria had been going downhill for nearly half a century, and
+it is clear, from the freedom with which other powers were able to move
+about the area of her empire some time before the end, that the East had
+been free of her interference for years. Indeed, so near and vital a
+centre of Assyrian nationality as Calah, the old capital of the Middle
+Empire, had been taken and sacked, ere he who was to be the last "Great
+King" of the northern Semites ascended his throne.
+
+
+SECTION 1. THE NEW ASSYRIAN KINGDOM
+
+For the last hundred and fifty years Assyrian history--a record of black
+oppression abroad and blacker intrigue at home--has recalled the rapid
+gathering and slower passing away of some great storm. A lull marks the
+first half of the ninth century. Then almost without warning the full
+fury of the cloud bursts and rages for nearly a hundred years. Then the
+gloom brightens till all is over. The dynasty of Ashurnatsirpal and
+Shalmaneser II slowly declined to its inevitable end. The capital itself
+rose in revolt in the year 747, and having done with the lawful heirs,
+chose a successful soldier, who may have been, for aught we know, of
+royal blood, but certainly was not in the direct line. Tiglath
+Pileser--for he took a name from earlier monarchs, possibly in
+vindication of legitimacy--saw (or some wise counsellor told him) that
+the militant empire which he had usurped must rely no longer on annual
+levies of peasants from the Assyrian villages, which were fast becoming
+exhausted; nor could it continue to live on uncertain blackmail
+collected at uncertain intervals now beyond Euphrates, now in Armenia,
+now again from eastern and southern neighbours. Such Bedawi ideas and
+methods were outworn. The new Great King tried new methods to express
+new ideas. A soldier by profession, indebted to the sword for his
+throne, he would have a standing and paid force always at his hand, not
+one which had to be called from the plough spring by spring. The lands,
+which used to render blackmail to forces sent expressly all the way from
+the Tigris, must henceforward be incorporated in the territorial empire
+and pay their contributions to resident governors and garrisons.
+Moreover, why should these same lands not bear a part for the empire in
+both defence and attack by supplying levies of their own to the imperial
+armies? Finally the capital, Calah, with its traditions of the dead
+dynasty, the old regime and the recent rebellion, must be replaced by a
+new capital, even as once on a time Asshur, with its Babylonian and
+priestly spirit, had been replaced. Accordingly sites, a little higher
+up the Tigris and more centrally situated in relation to both the
+homeland and the main roads from west and east, must be promoted to be
+capitals. But in the event it was not till after the reign of Sargon
+closed that Nineveh was made the definitive seat of the last Assyrian
+kings.
+
+Organized and strengthened during Tiglath Pileser's reign of eighteen
+years, this new imperial machine, with its standing professional army,
+its myriad levies drawn from all fighting races within its territory,
+its large and secure revenues and its bureaucracy keeping the provinces
+in constant relation to the centre, became the most tremendous power of
+offence which the world had seen. So soon as Assyria was made conscious
+of her new vigour by the ease with which the Urartu raiders, who had
+long been encroaching on Mesopotamia, and even on Syria, were driven
+back across the Nairi lands and penned into their central fastnesses of
+Van; by the ease, too, with which Babylonia was humbled and occupied
+again, and the Phoenician ports and the city of Damascus, impregnable
+theretofore, were taken and held to tribute--she began to dream of world
+empire, the first society in history to conceive this unattainable
+ideal. Certain influences and events, however, would defer awhile any
+attempt to realize the dream. Changes of dynasty took place, thanks
+partly to reactionary forces at home and more to the praetorian basis on
+which the kingdom now reposed, and only one of his house succeeded
+Tiglath Pileser. But the set-back was of brief duration. In the year 722
+another victorious general thrust himself on to the throne and, under
+the famous name of Sargon, set forth to extend the bounds of the empire
+towards Media on the east, and over Cilicia into Tabal on the west,
+until he came into collision with King Mita of the Mushki and held him
+to tribute.
+
+
+SECTION 2. THE EMPIRE OF SARGON
+
+Though at least one large province had still to be added to the Assyrian
+Empire, Sargon's reign may be considered the period of its greatest
+strength. He handed on to Sennacherib no conquests which could not have
+been made good, and the widest extent of territory which the central
+power was adequate to hold. We may pause, then, just before Sargon's
+death in 705, to see what the area of that territory actually was.
+
+Its boundaries cannot be stated, of course, with any approach to the
+precision of a modern political geographer. Occupied territories faded
+imperceptibly into spheres of influence and these again into lands
+habitually, or even only occasionally, raided. In some quarters,
+especially from north-east round to north-west, our present
+understanding of the terms of ancient geography, used by Semitic
+scribes, is very imperfect, and, when an Assyrian king has told us
+carefully what lands, towns, mountains and rivers his army visited, it
+does not follow that we can identify them with any exactness. Nor should
+the royal records be taken quite at their face value. Some discount has
+to be allowed (but how much it is next to impossible to say) on reports,
+which often ascribe all the actions of a campaign not shared in by the
+King in person (as in certain instances can be proved) to his sole
+prowess, and grandiloquently enumerate twoscore princedoms and kingdoms
+which were traversed and subdued in the course of one summer campaign in
+very difficult country. The illusion of immense achievement, which it
+was intended thus to create, has often imposed itself on modern critics,
+and Tiglath Pileser and Sargon are credited with having marched to the
+neighbourhood of the Caspian, conquering or holding to ransom great
+provinces, when their forces were probably doing no more than climbing
+from valley to valley about the headwaters of the Tigris affluents, and
+raiding chiefs of no greater territorial affluence than the Kurdish beys
+of Hakkiari.
+
+East of Assyria proper, the territorial empire of Sargon does not seem
+to have extended quite up to the Zagros watershed; but his sphere of
+influence included not only the heads of the Zab valleys, but also a
+region on the other side of the mountains, reaching as far as Hamadan
+and south-west Azerbaijan, although certainly not the eastern or
+northern districts of the latter province, or Kaswan, or any part of the
+Caspian littoral. On the north, the frontier of Assyrian territorial
+empire could be passed in a very few days' march from Nineveh. The
+shores of neither the Urmia nor the Van Lake were ever regularly
+occupied by Assyria, and, though Sargon certainly brought into his
+sphere of influence the kingdom of Urartu, which surrounded the latter
+lake and controlled the tribes as far as the western shore of the
+former, it is not proved that his armies ever went round the east and
+north of the Urmia Lake, and it is fairly clear that they left the
+northwestern region of mountains between Bitlis and the middle Euphrates
+to its own tribesmen.
+
+Westwards and southwards, however, Sargon's arm swept a wider circuit.
+He held as his own all Mesopotamia up to Diarbekr, and beyond Syria not
+only eastern and central Cilicia, but also some districts north of
+Taurus, namely, the low plain of Milid or Malatia, and the southern part
+of Tabal; but probably his hand reached no farther over the plateau than
+to a line prolonged from the head of the Tokhma Su to the neighbourhood
+of Tyana, and returning thence to the Cilician Gates. Beyond that line
+began a sphere of influence which we cannot hope to define, but may
+guess to have extended over Cappadocia, Lycaonia and the southern part
+of Phrygia. Southward, all Syria was Sargon's, most of it by direct
+occupation, and the rest in virtue of acknowledged overlordship and
+payment of tribute. Even the seven princes of Cyprus made such
+submission. One or two strong Syrian towns, Tyre and Jerusalem, for
+example, withheld payment if no Assyrian army was at hand; but their
+show of independence was maintained only on sufferance. The Philistine
+cities, after Sargon's victory over their forces and Egyptian allies at
+Raphia, in 720, no longer defended their walls, and the Great King's
+sphere of influence stretched eastward right across the Hamad and
+southward over north Arabia. Finally, Babylonia was all his own even to
+the Persian Gulf, the rich merchants supporting him firmly in the
+interests of their caravan trade, however the priests and the peasantry
+might murmur. But Elam, whose king and people had carried serious
+trouble into Assyria itself early in the reign, is hardly to be reckoned
+to Sargon even as a sphere of influence. The marshes of its south-west,
+the tropical plains of the centre and the mountains on the east, made it
+a difficult land for the northern Semites to conquer and hold. Sargon
+had been wise enough to let it be. Neither so prudent nor so fortunate
+would be his son and successors.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT
+
+Such was the empire inherited by Sargon's son, Sennacherib. Not content,
+he would go farther afield to make a conquest which has never remained
+long in the hands of an Asiatic power. It was not only lust of loot,
+however, which now urged Assyria towards Egypt. The Great Kings had long
+found their influence counteracted in southern Syria by that of the
+Pharaohs. Princes of both Hebrew states, of the Phoenician and the
+Philistine cities and even of Damascus, had all relied at one time or
+another on Egypt, and behind their combinations for defence and their
+individual revolts Assyria had felt the power on the Nile. The latter
+generally did no more in the event to save its friends than it had done
+for Israel when Shalmaneser IV beleaguered, and Sargon took and
+garrisoned, Samaria; but even ignorant hopes and empty promises of help
+cause constant unrest. Therefore Sennacherib, after drastic chastisement
+of the southern states in 701 (both Tyre and Jerusalem, however, kept
+him outside their walls), and a long tussle with Chaldaean Babylon, was
+impelled to set out in the last year, or last but one, of his reign for
+Egypt. In southern Palestine he was as successful as before, but,
+thereafter, some signal disaster befell him. Probably an epidemic
+pestilence overtook his army when not far across the frontier, and he
+returned to Assyria only to be murdered.
+
+He bequeathed the venture to the son who, after defeating his parricide
+brothers, secured his throne and reigned eleven years under a name which
+it has been agreed to write Esarhaddon. So soon as movements in Urartu
+and south-western Asia Minor had been suppressed, and, more important,
+Babylon, which his father had dishonoured, was appeased, Esarhaddon took
+up the incomplete conquest. Egypt, then in the hands of an alien dynasty
+from the Upper Nile and divided against itself, gave him little trouble
+at first. In his second expedition (670) he reached Memphis itself,
+carried it by assault, and drove the Cushite Tirhakah past Thebes to the
+Cataracts. The Assyrian proclaimed Egypt his territory and spread the
+net of Ninevite bureaucracy over it as far south as the Thebaid; but
+neither he nor his successors cared to assume the style and titles of
+the Pharaohs, as Persians and Greeks, wiser in their generations, would
+do later on. Presently trouble at home, excited by a son rebelling after
+the immemorial practice of the east, recalled Esarhaddon to Assyria;
+Tirhakah moved up again from the south; the Great King returned to meet
+him and died on the march.
+
+[Plate 4: ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF
+ASHURBANIPAL]
+
+But Memphis was reoccupied by Esarhaddon's successor, and since the
+latter took and ruined Thebes also, and, after Tirhakah's death, drove
+the Cushites right out of Egypt, the doubtful credit of spreading the
+territorial empire of Assyria to the widest limits it ever reached falls
+to Ashurbanipal. Even Tyre succumbed at last, and he stretched his
+sphere of influence over Asia Minor to Lydia. First of Assyrian kings he
+could claim Elam with its capital Susa as his own (after 647), and in
+the east he professed overlordship over all Media. Mesopotamian arts and
+letters now reached the highest point at which they had stood since
+Hammurabi's days, and the fame of the wealth and luxury of "Sardanapal"
+went out even into the Greek lands. About 660 B.C. Assyria seemed in a
+fair way to be mistress of the desirable earth.
+
+
+SECTION 4. DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA
+
+Strong as it seemed in the 7th century, the Assyrian Empire was,
+however, rotten at the core. In ridding itself of some weaknesses it had
+created others. The later Great Kings of Nineveh, raised to power and
+maintained by the spears of paid praetorians, found less support even
+than the old dynasty of Calah had found, in popular religious sentiment,
+which (as usual in the East) was the ultimate basis of Assyrian
+nationality; nor, under the circumstances, could they derive much
+strength from tribal feeling, which sometimes survives the religious
+basis. Throughout the history of the New Kingdom we can detect the
+influence of a strong opposition centred at Asshur. There the last
+monarch of the Middle Kingdom had fixed his dwelling under the wing of
+the priests; there the new dynasty had dethroned him as the consummation
+of an anti-sacerdotal rising of nobles and of peasant soldiery. Sargon
+seems to have owed his elevation two generations later to revenge taken
+for this victory by the city folk; but Sargon's son, Sennacherib, in his
+turn, found priestly domination intolerable, and, in an effort to crush
+it for ever, wrecked Babylon and terrorized the central home of Semitic
+cult, the great sacerdotal establishment of Bel-Marduk. After his
+father's murder, Esarhaddon veered back to the priests, and did so much
+to court religious support, that the military party incited Ashurbanipal
+to rebellion and compelled his father to associate the son in the royal
+power before leaving Assyria for the last time to die (or be killed) on
+the way to Egypt. Thus the whole record of dynastic succession in the
+New Kingdom has been typically Oriental, anticipating, at every change
+of monarch, the history of Islamic Empires. There is no trace of
+unanimous national sentiment for the Great King. One occupant of the
+throne after another gains power by grace of a party and holds it by
+mercenary swords.
+
+Another imperial weakness was even more fatal. So far as can be learned
+from Assyria's own records and those of others, she lived on her
+territorial empire without recognizing the least obligation to render
+anything to her provinces for what they gave--not even to render what
+Rome gave at her worst, namely, peace. She regarded them as existing
+simply to endow her with money and men. When she desired to garrison or
+to reduce to impotence any conquered district, the population of some
+other conquered district would be deported thither, while the new
+subjects took the vacant place. What happened when Sargon captured
+Samaria happened often elsewhere (Ashurbanipal, for example, made Thebes
+and Elam exchange inhabitants), for this was the only method of
+assimilating alien populations ever conceived by Assyria. When she
+attempted to use natives to govern natives the result was such disaster
+as followed Ashurbanipal's appointment of Psammetichus, son of Necho, to
+govern Memphis and the Western Delta.
+
+Rotten within, hated and coveted by vigorous and warlike races on the
+east, the north and the south, Assyria was moving steadily towards her
+catastrophe amid all the glory of "Sardanapal." The pace quickened when
+he was gone. A danger, which had lain long below the eastern horizon,
+was now come up into the Assyrian field of vision. Since Sargon's
+triumphant raids, the Great King's writ had run gradually less and less
+far into Media; and by his retaliatory invasions of Elam, which
+Sennacherib had provoked, Ashurbanipal not only exhausted his military
+resources, but weakened a power which had served to check more dangerous
+foes.
+
+We have seen that the "Mede" was probably a blend of Scythian and
+Iranian, the latter element supplying the ruling and priestly classes.
+The Scythian element, it seems, had been receiving considerable
+reinforcement. Some obscure cause, disturbing the northern steppes,
+forced its warlike shepherds to move southward in the mass. A large
+body, under the name Gimirrai or Cimmerians, descended on Asia Minor in
+the seventh century and swept it to the western edge of the plateau and
+beyond; others pressed into central and eastern Armenia, and, by
+weakening the Vannic king, enabled Ashurbanipal to announce the
+humiliation of Urartu; others again ranged behind Zagros and began to
+break through to the Assyrian valleys. Even while Ashurbanipal was still
+on the throne some of these last had ventured very far into his realm;
+for in the year of his death a band of Scythians appeared in Syria and
+raided southwards even to the frontier of Egypt. It was this raid which
+virtually ended the Assyrian control of Syria and enabled Josiah of
+Jerusalem and others to reassert independence.
+
+The death of Ashurbanipal coincided also with the end of direct Assyrian
+rule over Babylon. After the death of a rebellious brother and viceroy
+in 648, the Great King himself assumed the Babylonian crown and ruled
+the sacred city under a Babylonian name. But there had long been
+Chaldaean principalities in existence, very imperfectly incorporated in
+the Assyrian Empire, and these, inspiring revolts from time to time, had
+already succeeded in placing more than one dynast on the throne of
+Babylon. As soon as "Sardanapal" was no more and the Scythians began to
+overrun Assyria, one of these principalities (it is not known which)
+came to the front and secured the southern crown for its prince
+Nabu-aplu-utsur, or, as the Greeks wrote the name, Nabopolassar. This
+Chaldaean hastened to strengthen himself by marrying his son,
+Nebuchadnezzar, to a Median princess, and threw off the last pretence of
+submission to Assyrian suzerainty. He had made himself master of
+southern Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley trade-route by the year
+609.
+
+At the opening of the last decade of the century, therefore, we have
+this state of things. Scythians and Medes are holding most of eastern
+and central Assyria; Chaldaeans hold south Mesopotamia; while Syria,
+isolated from the old centre of empire, is anyone's to take and keep. A
+claimant appears immediately in the person of the Egyptian Necho, sprung
+from the loins of that Psammetichus who had won the Nile country back
+from Assyria. Pharaoh entered Syria probably in 609, broke easily
+through the barrier which Josiah of Jerusalem, greatly daring in this
+day of Assyrian weakness, threw across his path at Megiddo, went on to
+the north and proceeded to deal as he willed with the west of the
+Assyrian empire for four or five years. The destiny of Nineveh was all
+but fulfilled. With almost everything lost outside her walls, she held
+out against the Scythian assaults till 606, and then fell to the Mede
+Uvakhshatra, known to the Greeks as Kyaxares. The fallen capital of West
+Asia was devastated by the conquerors to such effect that it never
+recovered, and its life passed away for ever across the Tigris, to the
+site on which Mosul stands at the present day.
+
+
+SECTION 5. THE BABYLONIANS AND THE MEDES
+
+Six years later,--in 600 B.C.--this was the position of that part of the
+East which had been the Assyrian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldaean
+king of Babylon, who had succeeded his father about 605, held the
+greater share of it to obedience and tribute, but not, apparently, by
+means of any such centralized bureaucratic organization as the Assyrians
+had established. Just before his father's death he had beaten the
+Egyptians in a pitched battle under the walls of Carchemish, and
+subsequently had pursued them south through Syria, and perhaps across
+the frontier, before being recalled to take up his succession. He had
+now, therefore, no rival or active competitor in Syria, and this part of
+the lost empire of Assyria seems to have enjoyed a rare interval of
+peace under native client princes who ruled more or less on Assyrian
+lines. The only fenced places which made any show of defiance were Tyre
+and Jerusalem, which both relied on Egypt. The first would outlast an
+intermittent siege of thirteen years; but the other, with far less
+resources, was soon to pay full price for having leaned too long on the
+"staff of a broken reed."
+
+About the east and north a different story would certainly have to be
+told, if we could tell it in full. But though Greek traditions come to
+our aid, they have much less to say about these remote regions than the
+inscribed annals of that empire, which had just come to its end, have
+had hitherto: and unfortunately the Median inheritors of Assyria have
+left no epigraphic records of their own--at least none have been found.
+If, as seems probable, the main element of Kyaxares' war strength was
+Scythian, we can hardly expect to find records either of his conquest or
+the subsequent career of the Medes, even though Ecbatana should be laid
+bare below the site of modern Hamadan; for the predatory Scyth, like the
+mediaeval Mongol, halted too short a time to desire to carve stones, and
+probably lacked skill to inscribe them. To complete our discomfiture,
+the only other possible source of light, the Babylonian annals, sheds
+none henceforward on the north country and very little on any country.
+Nebuchadnezzar--so far as his records have been found and read--did not
+adopt the Assyrian custom of enumerating first and foremost his
+expeditions and his battles; and were it not for the Hebrew Scriptures,
+we should hardly know that his armies ever left Babylonia, the
+rebuilding and redecoration of whose cities and shrines appear to have
+constituted his chief concern. True, that in such silence about warlike
+operations, he follows the precedent of previous Babylonian kings; but
+probably that precedent arose from the fact that for a long time past
+Babylon had been more or less continuously a client state.
+
+We must, therefore, proceed by inference. There are two or three
+recorded events earlier and later than our date, which are of service.
+First, we learn from Babylonian annals that Kyaxares, besides
+overrunning all Assyria and the northern part of Babylonia after the
+fall of Nineveh, took and pillaged Harran and its temple in north-west
+Mesopotamia. Now, from other records of Nabonidus, fourth in succession
+to Nebuchadnezzar, we shall learn further that this temple did not come
+into Babylonian hands till the middle of the following century. The
+reasonable inference is that it had remained since 606 B.C. in the power
+of the Medes, and that northern Mesopotamia, as well as Assyria, formed
+part of a loose-knit Median "Empire" for a full half century before 552
+B.C.
+
+Secondly, Herodotus bears witness to a certain event which occurred
+about the year 585, in a region near enough to his own country for the
+fact to be sufficiently well known to him. He states that, after an
+expedition into Cappadocia and a war with Lydia, the Medes obtained,
+under a treaty with the latter which the king of Babylon and the prince
+of Cilicia promoted, the Halys river as a "scientific frontier" on the
+north-west. This statement leaves us in no doubt that previously the
+power of Ecbatana had been spread through Armenia into the old Hatti
+country of Cappadocia, as well as over all the north of Mesopotamia, in
+the widest sense of this vague term.
+
+Something more, perhaps, may be inferred legitimately from this same
+passage of Herodotus. The mediation of the two kings, so unexpectedly
+coupled, must surely mean that each stood to one of the two belligerents
+as friend and ally. If so (since a Babylonian king can hardly have held
+such a relation to distant Lydia, while the other prince might well have
+been its friend), Cilicia was probably outside the Median "sphere of
+influence," while Babylon fell within it; and Nebuchadnezzar--for he it
+must have been, when the date is considered, though Herodotus calls him
+by a name, Labynetus, otherwise unknown--was not a wholly independent
+ruler, though ruler doubtless of the first and greatest of the client
+states of Media. Perhaps that is why he has told us so little of
+expeditions and battles, and confined his records so narrowly to
+domestic events. If his armies marched only to do the bidding of an
+alien kinsman-in-law, he can have felt but a tepid pride in their
+achievements.
+
+In 600 B.C., then, we must picture a Median "Empire," probably of the
+raiding type, centred in the west of modern Persia and stretching
+westward over all Armenia (where the Vannic kingdom had ceased to be),
+and southward to an ill-defined point in Mesopotamia. Beyond this point
+south and west extended a Median sphere of influence which included
+Babylonia and all that obeyed Nebuchadnezzar even to the border of Elam
+on the one hand and the border of Egypt on the other. Since the heart of
+this "Empire" lay in the north, its main activities took place there
+too, and probably the discretion of the Babylonian king was seldom
+interfered with by his Median suzerain. In expanding their power
+westward to Asia Minor, the Medes followed routes north of Taurus, not
+the old Assyrian war-road through Cilicia. Of so much we can be fairly
+sure. Much else that we are told of Media by Herodotus--his marvellous
+account of Ecbatana and scarcely less wonderful account of the reigning
+house--must be passed by till some confirmation of it comes to light;
+and that, perhaps, will never be.
+
+
+SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR
+
+A good part of the East, however, remains which owed allegiance neither
+to Media nor to Babylon. It is, indeed, a considerably larger area than
+was independent of the Farther East at the date of our last survey. Asia
+Minor was in all likelihood independent from end to end, from the Aegean
+to the Euphrates--for in 600 B.C. Kyaxares had probably not yet come
+through Urartu--and from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Issus. About much
+of this area we have far more trustworthy information now than when we
+looked at it last, because it had happened to fall under the eyes of the
+Greeks of the western coastal cities, and to form relations with them of
+trade and war. But about the residue, which lay too far eastward to
+concern the Greeks much, we have less information than we had in 800
+B.C., owing to the failure of the Assyrian imperial annals.
+
+The dominant fact in Asia Minor in 600 B.C. is the existence of a new
+imperial power, that of Lydia. Domiciled in the central west of the
+peninsula, its writ ran eastwards over the plateau about as far as the
+former limits of the Phrygian power, on whose ruins it had arisen. As
+has been stated already, there is reason to believe that its "sphere of
+influence," at any rate, included Cilicia, and the battle to be fought
+on the Halys, fifteen years after our present survey, will argue that
+some control of Cappadocia also had been attempted. Before we speak of
+the Lydian kingdom, however, and of its rise to its present position, it
+will be best to dispose of that outlying state on the southeast,
+probably an ally or even client of Lydia, which, we are told, was at
+this time one of the "four powers of Asia." These powers included
+Babylon also, and accordingly, if our surmise that the Mede was then the
+overlord of Nebuchadnezzar be correct, this statement of Eusebius, for
+what it is worth, does not imply that Cilicia had attained an imperial
+position. Doubtless of the four "powers," she ranked lowest.
+
+
+SECTION 7. CILICIA
+
+It will be remembered how much attention a great raiding Emperor of the
+Middle Assyrian period, Shalmaneser II, had devoted to this little
+country. The conquering kings of later dynasties had devoted hardly
+less. From Sargon to Ashurbanipal they or their armies had been there
+often, and their governors continuously. Sennacherib is said to have
+rebuilt Tarsus "in the likeness of Babylon," and Ashurbanipal, who had
+to concern himself with the affairs of Asia Minor more than any of his
+predecessors, was so intimately connected with Tarsus that a popular
+tradition of later days placed there the scene of his death and the
+erection of his great tomb. And, in fact, he may have died there for all
+that we know to the contrary; for no Assyrian record tells us that he
+did not. Unlike the rest of Asia Minor, Cilicia was saved by the
+Assyrians from the ravages of the Cimmerians. Their leader, Dugdamme,
+whom the Greeks called Lygdamis, is said to have met his death on the
+frontier hills of Taurus, which, no doubt, he failed to pass. Thus, when
+Ashurbanipal's death and the shrinking of Ninevite power permitted
+distant vassals to resume independence, the unimpaired wealth of Cilicia
+soon gained for her considerable importance. The kings of Tarsus now
+extended their power into adjoining lands, such as Kue on the east and
+Tabal on the north, and probably over even the holding of the Kummukh;
+for Herodotus, writing a century and a half after our date, makes the
+Euphrates a boundary of Cilicia. He evidently understood that the
+northernmost part of Syria, called by later geographers (but never by
+him) Commagene, was then and had long been Cilician territory. His
+geographical ideas, in fact, went back to the greater Cilicia of
+pre-Persian time, which had been one of the "four great powers of Asia."
+
+The most interesting feature of Cilician history, as it is revealed very
+rarely and very dimly in the annals of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+consists in its relation to the earliest eastward venturing of the
+Greeks. The first Assyrian king with whom these western men seem to have
+collided was Sargon, who late in the eighth century, finding their ships
+in what he considered his own waters, i.e. on the coasts of Cyprus and
+Cilicia, boasts that he "caught them like fish." Since this action of
+his, he adds, "gave rest to Kue and Tyre," we may reasonably infer that
+the "Ionian pirates" did not then appear on the shores of Phoenicia and
+Cilicia for the first time; but, on the contrary, that they were already
+a notorious danger in the easternmost Levant. In the year 720 we find a
+nameless Greek of Cyprus (or Ionia) actually ruling Ashdod. Sargon's
+successor, Sennacherib, had serious trouble with the Ionians only a few
+years later, as has been learned from the comparison of a royal record
+of his, only recently recovered and read, with some statements made
+probably in the first place by the Babylonian historian, Berossus, but
+preserved to us in a chronicle of much later date, not hitherto much
+heeded. Piecing these scraps of information together, the Assyrian
+scholar, King, has inferred that, in the important campaign which a
+revolt of Tarsus, aided by the peoples of the Taurus on the west and
+north, compelled the generals of Sennacherib to wage in Cilicia in the
+year 698, Ionians took a prominent part by land, and probably also by
+sea. Sennacherib is said (by a late Greek historian) to have erected an
+"Athenian" temple in Tarsus after the victory, which was hardly won; and
+if this means, as it may well do, an "Ionic" temple, it states a by no
+means incredible fact, seeing that there had been much local contact
+between the Cilicians and the men of the west. Striking similarities of
+form and artistic execution between the early glyptic and toreutic work
+of Ionia and Cilicia respectively have been mentioned in the last
+chapter; and it need only be added here, in conclusion, that if Cilicia
+had relations with Ionia as early as the opening of the seventh
+century--relations sufficient to lead to alliance in war and to
+modification of native arts--it is natural enough that she should be
+found allied a few years later with Lydia rather than with Media.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PHRYGIA
+
+When we last surveyed Asia Minor as a whole it was in large part under
+the dominance of a central power in Phrygia. This power is now no more,
+and its place has been taken by another, which rests on a point nearer
+to the western coast. It is worth notice, in passing, how Anatolian
+dominion has moved stage by stage from east to west--from the Halys
+basin in northern Cappadocia, where its holders had been, broadly
+speaking, in the same cultural group as the Mesopotamian East, to the
+middle basin of the Sangarius, where western influences greatly modified
+the native culture (if we may judge by remains of art and script). Now
+at last it has come to the Hermus valley, up which blows the breath of
+the Aegean Sea. Whatever the East might recover in the future, the
+Anatolian peninsula was leaning more and more on the West, and the
+dominion of it was coming to depend on contact with the vital influence
+of Hellenism, rather than on connection with the heart of west Asia.
+
+A king Mita of the Mushki first appears in the annals of the New
+Assyrian Kingdom as opposing Sargon, when the latter, early in his
+reign, tried to push his sphere of influence, if not his territorial
+empire, beyond the Taurus to include the principalities of Kue and
+Tabal; and the same Mita appears to have been allied with Carchemish in
+the revolt which ended with its siege and final capture in 717 B.C. As
+has been said in the last chapter, it is usual to identify this king
+with one of those "Phrygians" known to the Greeks as Midas--preferably
+with the son of the first Gordius, whose wealth and power have been
+immortalized in mythology. If this identification is correct, we have to
+picture Phrygia at the close of the eighth century as dominating almost
+all Asia Minor, whether by direct or by indirect rule; as prepared to
+measure her forces (though without ultimate success) against the
+strongest power in Asia; and as claiming interests even outside the
+peninsula. Pisiris, king of Carchemish, appealed to Mita as his ally,
+either because the Mushki of Asia Minor sat in the seat of his own
+forbears, the Hatti of Cappadocia, or because he was himself of Mushki
+kin. There can be no doubt that the king thus invoked was king of
+Cappadocia. Whether he was king also of Phrygia, i.e. really the same as
+Midas son of Gordius, is, as has been said already, less certain. Mita's
+relations with Kue, Tabal and Carchemish do not, in themselves, argue
+that his seat of power was anywhere else than in the east of Asia Minor,
+where Moschi did actually survive till much later times: but, on the
+other hand, the occurrence of inscriptions in the distinctive script of
+Phrygia at Eyuk, east of the Halys, and at Tyana, south-east of the
+central Anatolian desert, argue that at some time the filaments of
+Phrygian power did stretch into Cappadocia and towards the land of the
+later Moschi.
+
+It must also be admitted that the splendour of the surviving rock
+monuments near the Phrygian capital is consistent with its having been
+the centre of a very considerable empire, and hardly consistent with its
+having been anything less. The greatest of these, the tomb of a king
+Midas (son not of Gordius but of Atys), has for façade a cliff about a
+hundred feet high, cut back to a smooth face on which an elaborate
+geometric pattern has been left in relief. At the foot is a false door,
+while above the immense stone curtain the rock has been carved into a
+triangular pediment worthy of a Greek temple and engraved with a long
+inscription in a variety of the earliest Greek alphabet. There are many
+other rock-tombs of smaller size but similar plan and decoration in the
+district round the central site, and others which show reliefs of human
+figures and of lions, the latter of immense proportions on two famous
+façades. When these were carved, the Assyrian art of the New Kingdom was
+evidently known in Phrygia (probably in the early seventh century), and
+it is difficult to believe that those who made such great things under
+Assyrian influence can have passed wholly unmentioned by contemporary
+Assyrian records. Therefore, after all, we shall, perhaps, have to admit
+that they were those same Mushki who followed leaders of the name Mita
+to do battle with the Great Kings of Nineveh from Sargon to
+Ashurbanipal.
+
+There is no doubt how the Phrygian kingdom came by its end. Assyrian
+records attest that the Gimirrai or Cimmerians, an Indo-European
+Scythian folk, which has left its name to Crim Tartary, and the present
+Crimea, swept southward and westward about the middle of the seventh
+century, and Greek records tell how they took and sacked the capital of
+Phrygia and put to death or forced to suicide the last King Midas.
+
+
+SECTION 9. LYDIA
+
+It must have been in the hour of that disaster, or but little before,
+that a Mermnad prince of Sardes, called Guggu by Assyrians and Gyges by
+Greeks, threw off any allegiance he may have owed to Phrygia and began
+to exalt his house and land of Lydia. He was the founder of a new
+dynasty, having been by origin, apparently, a noble of the court who
+came to be elevated to the throne by events differently related but
+involving in all the accounts some intrigue with his predecessor's
+queen. One historian, who says that he prevailed by the aid of Carians,
+probably states a fact; for it was this same Gyges who a few years later
+seems to have introduced Carian mercenaries to the notice of
+Psammetichus of Egypt. Having met and repulsed the Cimmerian horde
+without the aid of Ashurbanipal of Assyria, to whom he had applied in
+vain, Gyges allied himself with the Egyptian rebel who had just founded
+the Saite dynasty, and proceeded to enlarge his boundaries by attacking
+the prosperous Greeks on his western hand. But he was successful only
+against Colophon and Magnesia on the Maeander, inland places, and failed
+before Smyrna and Miletus, which could be provisioned by their fleets
+and probably had at their call a larger proportion of those warlike
+"Ionian pirates" who had long been harrying the Levant. In the course of
+a long reign, which Herodotus (an inexact chronologist) puts at
+thirty-eight years, Gyges had time to establish his power and to secure
+for his Lydians the control of the overland trade; and though a fresh
+Cimmerian horde, driven on, says Herodotus, by Scythians (perhaps these
+were not unconnected with the Medes then moving westward, as we know),
+came down from the north, defeated and killed him, sacked the
+unfortified part of his capital and swept on to plunder what it could of
+the land as far as the sea without pausing to take fenced places, his
+son Ardys, who had held out in the citadel of Sardes, and made his
+submission to Ashurbanipal, was soon able to resume the offensive
+against the Greeks. After an Assyrian attack on the Cimmerian flank or
+rear had brought about the death of the chief barbarian leader in the
+Cilician hills, and the dispersal of the storm, the Lydian marched down
+the Maeander again. He captured Priene, but like his predecessor and his
+successor, he failed to snatch the most coveted prize of the Greek
+coast, the wealthy city Miletus at the Maeander mouth.
+
+Up to the date of our present survey, however, and for half a century
+yet to come, these conquests of the Lydian kings in Ionia and Caria
+amounted to little more than forays for plunder and the levy of
+blackmail, like the earlier Mesopotamian razzias. They might result in
+the taking and sacking of a town here and there, but not in the holding
+of it. The Carian Greek Herodotus, born not much more than a century
+later, tells us expressly that up to the time of Croesus, that is, to
+his own father's time, all the Greeks kept their freedom: and even if he
+means by this statement, as possibly he does, that previously no Greeks
+had been subjected to regular slavery, it still supports our point: for,
+if we may judge by Assyrian practice, the enslaving of vanquished
+peoples began only when their land was incorporated in a territorial
+empire. We hear nothing of Lydian governors in the Greek coastal cities
+and find no trace of a "Lydian period" in the strata of such Ionian and
+Carian sites as have been excavated. So it would appear that the Lydians
+and the Greeks lived up to and after 600 B.C. in unquiet contact, each
+people holding its own on the whole and learning about the other in the
+only international school known to primitive men, the school of war.
+
+Herodotus represents that the Greek cities of Asia, according to the
+popular belief of his time, were deeply indebted to Lydia for their
+civilization. The larger part of this debt (if real) was incurred
+probably after 600 B.C.; but some constituent items of the account must
+have been of older date--the coining of money, for example. There is,
+however, much to be set on the other side of the ledger, more than
+Herodotus knew, and more than we can yet estimate. Too few monuments of
+the arts of the earlier Lydians and too few objects of their daily use
+have been found in their ill-explored land for us to say whether they
+owed most to the West or to the East. From the American excavation of
+Sardes, however, we have already learned for certain that their script
+was of a Western type, nearer akin to the Ionian than even the Phrygian
+was; and since their language contained a great number of Indo-European
+words, the Lydians should not, on the whole, be reckoned an Eastern
+people. Though the names given by Herodotus to their earliest kings are
+Mesopotamian and may be reminiscent of some political connection with
+the Far East at a remote epoch--perhaps that of the foreign relations of
+Ur, which seem to have extended to Cappadocia--all the later royal and
+other Lydian names recorded are distinctly Anatolian. At any rate all
+connection with Mesopotamia must have long been forgotten before
+Ashurbanipal's scribes could mention the prayer of "Guggu King of Luddi"
+as coming from a people and a land of which their master and his
+forbears had not so much as heard. As the excavation of Sardes and of
+other sites in Lydia proceeds, we shall perhaps find that the higher
+civilization of the country was a comparatively late growth, dating
+mainly from the rise of the Mermnads, and that its products will show an
+influence of the Hellenic cities which began not much earlier than 600
+B.C., and was most potent in the century succeeding that date.
+
+We know nothing of the extent of Lydian power towards the east, unless
+the suggestions already based on the passage of Herodotus concerning the
+meeting of Alyattes of Lydia with Kyaxares the Mede on the Halys, some
+years later than the date of our present survey, are well founded. If
+they are, then Lydia's sphere of influence may be assumed to have
+included Cilicia on the south-east, and its interests must have been
+involved in Cappadocia on the north-east. It is not unlikely that the
+Mermnad dynasty inherited most of what the Phrygian kings had held
+before the Cimmerian attack; and perhaps it was due to an oppressive
+Lydian occupation of the plateau as far east as the Halys and the foot
+of Anti-Taurus, that the Mushki came to be represented in later times
+only by Moschi in western Armenia, and the men of Tabal by the equally
+remote and insignificant Tibareni.
+
+
+SECTION 10. THE GREEK CITIES
+
+Of the Greek cities on the Anatolian coast something has been said
+already. The great period of the elder ones as free and independent
+communities falls between the opening of the eighth century and the
+close of the sixth. Thus they were in their full bloom about the year
+600. By the foundation of secondary colonies (Miletus alone is said to
+have founded sixty!) and the establishment of trading posts, they had
+pushed Hellenic culture eastwards round the shores of the peninsula, to
+Pontus on the north and to Cilicia on the south. In the eyes of
+Herodotus this was the happy age when "all Hellenes were free" as
+compared with his own experience of Persian overlordship. Miletus, he
+tells us, was then the greatest of the cities, mistress of the sea; and
+certainly some of the most famous among her citizens, Anaximander,
+Anaximenes, Hecataeus and Thales, belong approximately to this epoch, as
+do equally famous names from other Asiatic Greek communities, such as
+Alcaeus and Sappho of Lesbos, Mimnermus of Smyrna or Colophon, Anacreon
+of Teos, and many more. The fact is significant, because studies and
+literary activities like theirs could hardly have been pursued except in
+highly civilized, free and leisured societies where life and wealth were
+secure.
+
+If, however, the brilliant culture of the Asiatic Greeks about the
+opening of the sixth century admits no shadow of doubt, singularly few
+material things, which their arts produced, have been recovered for us
+to see to-day. Miletus has been excavated by Germans to a very
+considerable extent, without yielding anything really worthy of its
+great period, or, indeed, much that can be referred to that period at
+all, except sherds of a fine painted ware. It looks as if the city at
+the mouth of the greatest and largest valley, which penetrates Asia
+Minor from the west coast, was too important in subsequent ages and
+suffered chastisements too drastic and reconstructions too thorough for
+remains of its earlier greatness to survive except in holes and corners.
+Ephesus has given us more archaic treasures, from the deposits bedded
+down under the later reconstructions of its great shrine of Artemis; but
+here again the site of the city itself, though long explored by
+Austrians, has not added to the store. The ruins of the great Roman
+buildings which overlie its earlier strata have proved, perhaps, too
+serious an impediment to the excavators and too seductive a prize.
+Branchidae, with its temple of Apollo and Sacred Way, has preserved for
+us a little archaic statuary, as have also Samos and Chios. We have
+archaic gold work and painted vases from Rhodes, painted sarcophagi from
+Clazomenae, and painted pottery made there and at other places in Asia
+Minor, although found mostly abroad. But all this amounts to a very poor
+representation of the Asiatic Greek civilization of 600 B.C. Fortunately
+the soil still holds far more than has been got out of it. With those
+two exceptions, Miletus and Ephesus, the sites of the elder Hellenic
+cities on or near the Anatolian coast still await excavators who will go
+to the bottom of all things and dig systematically over a large area;
+while some sites await any excavation whatsoever, except such as is
+practised by plundering peasants.
+
+In their free youth the Asiatic Greeks carried into fullest practice the
+Hellenic conception of the city-state, self-governing, self-contained,
+exclusive. Their several societies had in consequence the intensely
+vivid and interested communal existence which develops civilization as a
+hot-house develops plants; but they were not democratic, and they had
+little sense of nationality--defects for which they were to pay dearly
+in the near future. In spite of their associations for the celebration
+of common festivals, such as the League of the twelve Ionian cities, and
+that of the Dorian Hexapolis in the south-west, which led to discussion
+of common political interests, a separatist instinct, reinforced by the
+strong geographical boundaries which divided most of the civic
+territories, continually reasserted itself. The same instinct was ruling
+the history of European Greece as well. But while the disaster, which in
+the end it would entail, was long avoided there through the insular
+situation of the main Greek area as a whole and the absence of any
+strong alien power on its continental frontier, disaster impended over
+Asiatic Greece from the moment that an imperial state should become
+domiciled on the western fringe of the inland plateau. Such a state had
+now appeared and established itself; and if the Greeks of Asia had had
+eyes to read, the writing was on their walls in 600 B.C.
+
+Meanwhile Asiatic traders thronged into eastern Hellas, and the Hellenes
+and their influence penetrated far up into Asia. The hands which carved
+some of the ivories found in the earliest Artemisium at Ephesus worked
+on artistic traditions derived ultimately from the Tigris. So, too,
+worked the smiths who made the Rhodian jewellery, and so, the artists
+who painted the Milesian ware and the Clazomenae sarcophagi. On the
+other side of the ledger (though three parts of its page is still hidden
+from us) we must put to Greek credit the script of Lydia, the rock
+pediments of Phrygia, and the forms and decorative schemes of many
+vessels and small articles in clay and bronze found in the Gordian
+tumuli and at other points on the western plateau from Mysia to
+Pamphylia. The men of "Javan," who had held the Syrian sea for a century
+past, were known to Ezekiel as great workers in metal; and in Cyprus
+they had long met and mingled their culture with that of men from the
+East.
+
+It was implied in the opening of this chapter that in 600 B.C. social
+changes in the East would be found disproportionate to political
+changes; and on the whole they seem so to have been. The Assyrian Empire
+was too lately fallen for any great modification of life to have taken
+place in its area, and, in fact, the larger part of that area was being
+administered still by a Chaldaean monarchy on the established lines of
+Semitic imperialism. Whether the centre of such a government lay at
+Nineveh or at Babylon can have affected the subject populations very
+little. No new religious force had come into the ancient East, unless
+the Mede is to be reckoned one in virtue of his Zoroastrianism. Probably
+he did not affect religion much in his early phase of raiding and
+conquest. The great experience, which was to convert the Jews from
+insignificant and barbarous highlanders into a cultured, commercial and
+cosmopolitan people of tremendous possibilities had indeed begun, but
+only for a part of the race, and so far without obvious result. The
+first incursion of Iranians in force, and that slow soakage of
+Indo-European tribes from Russia, which was to develop the Armenian
+people of history, are the most momentous signs of coming change to be
+noted between 800 and 600 B.C. with one exception, the full import of
+which will be plain at our next survey. This was the eastward movement
+of the Greeks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE EAST IN 400 B.C.
+
+
+As the fifth century draws to its close the East lies revealed at last
+in the light of history written by Greeks. Among the peoples whose
+literary works are known to us, these were the first who showed
+curiosity about the world in which they lived and sufficient
+consciousness of the curiosity of others to record the results of
+inquiry. Before our present date the Greeks had inquired a good deal
+about the East, and not of Orientals alone. Their own public men,
+military and civil, their men of science, their men of letters, their
+merchants in unknown number, even soldiers of theirs in thousands, had
+gone up into Inner Asia and returned. Leading Athenians, Solon, Hippias
+and Themistocles, had been received at Eastern courts or had accompanied
+Eastern sovereigns to war, and one more famous even than these,
+Alcibiades, had lately lived with a Persian satrap. Greek physicians,
+Democedes of Croton, Apollonides of Cos, Ctesias of Cnidus, had
+ministered to kings and queens of Persia in their palaces. Herodotus of
+Halicarnassus had seen Babylon, perhaps, and certainly good part of
+Syria; Ctesias had dwelt at Susa and collected notes for a history of
+the Persian Empire; Xenophon of Attica had tramped from the
+Mediterranean to the Tigris and from the Tigris to the Black Sea, and
+with him had marched more than ten thousand Greeks. Not only have works
+by these three men of letters survived, wholly or in part, to our time,
+but also many notes on the East as it was before 400 B.C. have been
+preserved in excerpts, paraphrases and epitomes by later authors. And we
+still have some archaeological documents to fall back upon. If the
+cuneiform records of the Persian Empire are less abundant than those of
+the later Assyrian Kingdom, they nevertheless include such priceless
+historical inscriptions as that graven by Darius, son of Hystaspes, on
+the rock of Behistun. There are also hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic
+texts of Persian Egypt; inscriptions of Semitic Syria and a few of
+archaic Greece; and much other miscellaneous archaeological material
+from various parts of the East, which, even if uninscribed, can inform
+us of local society and life.
+
+
+SECTION 1. EASTWARD MOVEMENT OF THE GREEKS
+
+The Greek had been pushing eastward for a long time. More than three
+hundred years ago, as has been shown in the last chapter, he had become
+a terror in the farthest Levant. Before another century had passed he
+found his way into Egypt also. Originally hired as mercenaries to
+support a native revolt against Assyria, the Greeks remained in the Nile
+valley not only to fight but to trade. The first introduction of them to
+the Saite Pharaoh, Psammetichus, was promoted by Gyges the Lydian to
+further his own ends, but the first development of their social
+influence in Egypt was due to the enterprise of Miletus in establishing
+a factory on the lowest course of the Canopic Nile. This post and two
+standing camps of Greek mercenaries, one at Tahpanhes watching the
+approach from Asia, the other at Memphis overawing the capital and
+keeping the road to Upper Egypt, served to introduce Ionian civilization
+to the Delta in the seventh century. Indeed, to this day our knowledge
+of the earliest fine painted pottery of Ionia and Caria depends largely
+on the fragments of their vases imported into Egypt which have been
+found at Tahpanhes, Memphis and another Greek colony, Naukratis, founded
+a little later (as will be told presently) to supersede the original
+Milesian factory. Though those foreign vases themselves, with their
+decoration of nude figure subjects which revolted vulgar Egyptian
+sentiment, did not go much beyond the Greek settlements (like the Greek
+courtesans of Naukratis, who perhaps appealed only to the more
+cosmopolitan Saites), their art certainly influenced all the finer art
+of the Saitic age, initiating a renascence whose characteristics of
+excessive refinement and meticulous delicacy survived to be reinforced
+in the Ptolemaic period by a new infusion of Hellenic culture.
+
+So useful or so dangerous--at any rate so numerous--did the Greeks
+become in Lower Egypt by the opening of the sixth century that a
+reservation was assigned to them beside the Egyptian town of Piemro, and
+to this alone, according to Herodotus, newcomers from the sea were
+allowed to make their way. This foreign suburb of Piemro was named
+Naukratis, and nine cities of the Asiatic Greeks founded a common
+sanctuary there. Other maritime communities of the same race (probably
+the more powerful, since Miletus is named among them) had their
+particular sanctuaries also and their proper places. The Greeks had come
+to Egypt to stay. We have learned from the remains of Naukratis that
+throughout the Persian domination, which superseded the Saitic before
+the close of the sixth century, a constant importation of products of
+Ionia, Attica, Sparta, Cyprus and other Hellenic centres was maintained.
+The place was in full life when Herodotus visited Egypt, and it
+continued to prosper until the Greek race, becoming rulers of all the
+land, enthroned Hellenism at Alexandria on the sea itself.
+
+
+SECTION 2. PHOENICIAN CARRIERS
+
+Nor was it only through Greek sea-rovers and settlers in Cilicia, and
+through Greek mercenaries, merchants and courtesans in the Nile-Delta,
+that the East and the West had been making mutual acquaintance. Other
+agencies of communication had been active in bringing Mesopotamian
+models to the artists of the Ionian and Dorian cities in Asia Minor, and
+Ionian models to Mesopotamia and Syria. The results are plain to see, on
+the one hand in the fabric and design of early ivories, jewellery and
+other objects found in the archaic Artemisium at Ephesus, and in the
+decoration of painted pottery produced at Miletus; on the other hand, in
+the carved ivories of the ninth century found at Calah on the Tigris.
+But the processes which produced these results are not so clear. If the
+agents or carriers of those mutual influences were certainly the
+Phoenicians and the Lydians, we cannot yet apportion with confidence to
+each of these peoples the responsibility for the results, or be sure
+that they were the only agents, or independent of other middlemen more
+directly in contact with one party or the other.
+
+The Phoenicians have pushed far afield since we looked at them last. By
+founding Carthage more than half-way towards the Pillars of Hercules the
+city of Tyre completed her occupation of sufficient African harbours,
+beyond the reach of Egypt, and out of the Greek sphere, to appropriate
+to herself by the end of the ninth century the trade of the western
+Mediterranean basin. By means of secondary settlements in west Sicily,
+Sardinia and Spain, she proceeded to convert this sea for a while into
+something like a Phoenician lake. No serious rival had forestalled her
+there or was to arise to dispute her monopoly till she herself, long
+after our date, would provoke Rome. The Greek colonies in Sicily and
+Italy, which looked westward, failed to make head against her at the
+first, and soon dropped out of the running; nor did the one or two
+isolated centres of Hellenism on other shores do better. On the other
+hand, in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, although it was her own
+home-sea, Tyre never succeeded in establishing commercial supremacy, and
+indeed, so far as we know, she never seriously tried to establish it. It
+was the sphere of the Aegean mariners and had been so as far back as
+Phoenician memory ran. The Late Minoan Cretans and men of Argolis, the
+Achaean rovers, the Ionian pirates, the Milesian armed merchantmen had
+successively turned away from it all but isolated and peaceful ships of
+Sidon and Tyre, and even so near a coast as Cyprus remained foreign to
+the Phoenicians for centuries after Tyre had grown to full estate. In
+the Homeric stories ships of the Sidonians, though not unknown, make
+rare appearances, and other early legends of the Greeks, which make
+mention of Phoenician visits to Hellenic coasts, imply that they were
+unusual phenomena, which aroused much local curiosity and were long
+remembered. The strangeness of the Phoenician mariners, the unfamiliar
+charm of their cargoes--such were the impressions left on Greek story by
+the early visits of Phoenician ships.
+
+That they did pay such visits, however, from time to time is certain.
+The little Egyptian trinkets, which occur frequently in Hellenic strata
+of the eighth to the sixth centuries, are sufficient witness of the
+fact. They are most numerous in Rhodes, in Caria and Ionia, and in the
+Peloponnese. But the main stream of Tyrian commerce hugged the south
+rather than the north coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Phoenician
+sailors were essentially southerners--men who, if they would brave now
+and again the cold winds of the Aegean and Adriatic, refused to do so
+oftener than was necessary--men to whom African shores and a climate
+softened by the breath of the Ocean were more congenial.
+
+If, however, the Phoenicians were undoubtedly agents who introduced the
+Egyptian culture to the early Hellenes of both Asia and Europe, did they
+also introduce the Mesopotamian? Not to anything like the same extent,
+if we may judge by the products of excavations. Indeed, wherever
+Mesopotamian influence has left unmistakable traces upon Greek soil, as
+in Cyprus and Ionia or at Corinth and Sparta, it is often either certain
+or probable that the carrying agency was not Phoenician. We find the
+nearest affinities to archaic Cypriote art (where this was indebted to
+Asiatic art at all) in Cilician and in Hittite Syrian art. Early Ionian
+and Carian strata contain very little that is of Egyptian character, but
+much whose inspiration can be traced ultimately to Mesopotamia; and
+research in inner Asia Minor, imperfect though its results are yet, has
+brought to light on the plateau so much parallelism to Ionian
+Orientalizing art, and so many examples of prior stages in its
+development, that we must assume Mesopotamian influence to have reached
+westernmost Asia chiefly by overland ways. As for the European sites,
+since their Orientalism appears to have been drawn from Ionia, it also
+had come through Asia overland.
+
+Therefore on the whole, though Herodotus asserts that the Phoenician
+mariners carried Assyrian cargoes, there is remarkably little evidence
+that those cargoes reached the West, and equally little that Phoenicians
+had any considerable direct trade with Mesopotamia. They may have been
+responsible for the small Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects which have
+been found by the excavators of Carchemish and Sakjegeuzi in strata of
+the ninth and eighth centuries; but the carrying of similar objects
+eastward across the Euphrates was more probably in Hittite hands than
+theirs. The strongest Nilotic influence which affected Mesopotamian art
+is to be noticed during the latter half of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+when there was no need for alien intermediaries to keep Nineveh in
+communication with its own province of Egypt.
+
+Apparently, therefore, it was not through the Phoenicians that the
+Greeks had learned most of what they knew about the East in 400 B.C.
+Other agents had played a greater part and almost all the
+intercommunication had been effected by way, not of the Levant Sea, but
+of the land bridge through Asia Minor. In the earlier part of our story,
+during the latter rule of Assyria in the farther East and the subsequent
+rule of the Medes and the Babylonians in her room, intercourse had been
+carried on almost entirely by intermediaries, among whom (if something
+must be allowed to the Cilicians) the Lydians were undoubtedly the most
+active. In the later part of the story it will be seen that the
+intermediaries have vanished; the barriers are down; the East has itself
+come to the West and intercourse is immediate and direct. How this
+happened--what agency brought Greeks and Orientals into an intimate
+contact which was to have the most momentous consequences to
+both--remains to be told.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE COMING OF THE PERSIANS
+
+We have seen already how a power, which had grown behind the frontier
+mountains of the Tigris basin, forced its way at last through the
+defiles and issued in the riverine plains with fatal results to the
+north Semitic kings. By the opening of the sixth century Assyria had
+passed into Median hands, and these were reaching out through Armenia to
+central Asia Minor. Even the south Semites of Babylonia had had to
+acknowledge the superior power of the newcomers and, probably, to accept
+a kind of vassalage. Thus, since all lower Mesopotamia with most part of
+Syria obeyed the Babylonian, a power, partly Iranian, was already
+overshadowing two-thirds of the East before Cyrus and his Persians
+issued upon the scene. It is important to bear this fact in mind when
+one comes to note the ease with which a hitherto obscure king of Anshan
+in Elam would prove able to possess himself of the whole Semitic Empire,
+and the rapidity with which his arms would appear in the farthest west
+of Asia Minor on the confines of the Greeks themselves. Nebuchadnezzar
+allied with and obedient to the Median king, helping him on the Halys in
+585 B.C. to arrange with Lydia a division of the peninsula of Asia Minor
+on the terms _uti possidetis_--that is the significant situation which
+will prepare us to find Cyrus not quite half a century later lord of
+Babylon, Jerusalem and Sardes.
+
+What events, passing in the far East among the divers groups of the
+Iranians themselves and their Scythian allies, led to this king of a
+district in Elam, whose own claim to have belonged by blood to any of
+those groups is doubtful, consolidating all the Iranians whether of the
+south or north under his single rule into a mighty power of offence, we
+do not know. Stories current among the Greeks and reported by Herodotus
+and Ctesias represented Cyrus as in any case a Persian, but as either
+grandson of a Median king (though not his natural heir) or merely one of
+his court officials. What the Greeks had to account for (and so have we)
+is the subsequent disappearance of the north Iranian kings of the Medes
+and the fusion of their subjects with the Persian Iranians under a
+southern dynasty. And what the Greeks did not know, but we do, from
+cuneiform inscriptions either contemporary with, or very little
+subsequent to, Cyrus' time, only complicates the problem; since these
+bear witness that Cyrus was known at first (as has been indicated
+already) for a king of Elam, and not till later for a king of Persia.
+Ctesias, who lived at Susa itself while at was the Persian capital,
+agrees with Herodotus that Cyrus wrested the lordship of the Medes from
+the native dynasty by force; but Herodotus adds that many Medes were
+consenting parties.
+
+These problems cannot be discussed here. The probability is, summarily,
+this. Some part of the southern or Persian group of Iranians which,
+unlike the northern, was not contaminated with Scyths, had advanced into
+Elam while the Medes were overrunning and weakening the Semitic Empire;
+and in Anshan it consolidated itself into a territorial power with Susa
+for capital. Presently some disaffection arose among the northern
+Iranians owing, perhaps, to favour shown by the Median kings to their
+warlike Scythian subjects, and the malcontents called in the king of
+Anshan. The issue was fought out in central West Persia, which had been
+dominated by the Medes since the time of Kyaxares' father, Phraortes,
+and when it was decided by the secession of good part of the army of
+King Astyages, Cyrus of Anshan took possession of the Median Empire with
+the goodwill of much of the Median population. This empire included
+then, beside the original Median land, not only territories conquered
+from Assyria but also all that part of Persia which lay east of Elam.
+Some time, doubtless, elapsed before the sovereignty of Cyrus was
+acknowledged by all Persia; but, once his lordship over this land was an
+accomplished fact, he naturally became known as king primarily of the
+Persians, and only secondarily of the Medes, while his seat remained at
+Susa in his own original Elamite realm. The Scythian element in and
+about his Median province remained unreconciled, and one day he would
+meet his death in a campaign against it; but the Iranian element
+remained faithful to him and his son, and only after the death of the
+latter gave expression by a general revolt to its discontent with the
+bargain it had made.
+
+
+SECTION 4. FALL OF LYDIA
+
+Cyrus must have met with little or no opposition in the western Median
+provinces, for we find him, within a year or two of his recognition by
+both Persians and Medes, not only on his extreme frontier, the Halys
+river, but able to raid across it and affront the power of Lydia. To
+this action he was provoked by Lydia itself. The fall of the Median
+dynasty, with which the royal house of Lydia had been in close alliance
+since the Halys pact, was a disaster which Croesus, now king of Sardes
+in the room of Alyattes, was rash enough to attempt to repair. He had
+continued with success his father's policy of extending Lydian dominion
+to the Aegean at the expense of the Ionian Greeks; and, master of
+Ephesus, Colophon and Smyrna, as well as predominant partner in the
+Milesian sphere, he secured to Lydia the control and fruition of
+Anatolian trade, perhaps the most various and profitable in the world at
+that time. A byword for wealth and luxury, the Lydians and their king
+had nowadays become soft, slow-moving folk, as unfit to cope with the
+mountaineers of the wild border highlands of Persia as, if Herodotus'
+story is well founded, they were ignorant of their quality. Croesus took
+his time, sending envoys to consult oracles near and far. Herodotus
+tells us that he applied to Delphi not less than thrice and even to the
+oracle of Ammon in the Eastern Sahara. At least a year must have been
+spent in these inquiries alone, not to speak of an embassy to Sparta and
+perhaps others to Egypt and Babylon. These preliminaries at length
+completed, the Lydian gathered the levies of western Asia Minor and set
+out for the East. He found the Halys in flood--it must have been in late
+spring--and having made much ado of crossing it, spent the summer in
+ravaging with his cavalry the old homeland of the Hatti. Thus he gave
+Cyrus time to send envoys to the Ionian cities to beg them attack Lydia
+in the rear, and time to come down himself in force to his far western
+province. Croesus was brought to battle in the first days of the autumn.
+The engagement was indecisive, but the Lydians, having no mind to stay
+out the winter on the bleak Cappadocian highlands and little suspicion
+that the enemy would think of further warfare before spring, went back
+at their leisure to the Hermus valley, only to hear at Sardes itself
+that the Persian was hot in pursuit. A final battle was fought under the
+very walls of the Lydian capital and lost by Croesus; the lower town was
+taken and sacked; and the king, who had shut himself with his guards
+into the citadel and summoned his allies to his rescue come five months,
+was a prisoner of Cyrus within two weeks. It was the end of Lydia and of
+all buffers between the Orient and Greece. East and West were in direct
+contact and the omens boded ill to the West. Cyrus refused terms to the
+Greeks, except the powerful Milesians, and departing for the East again,
+left Lydia to be pacified and all the cities of the western coasts,
+Ionian, Carian, Lycian and what not, excepting only Miletus, to be
+reduced by his viceroys.
+
+
+SECTION 5. PERSIAN EMPIRE
+
+Cyrus himself had still to deal with a part of the East which, not
+having been occupied by the Medes, though in a measure allied and
+subservient to them, saw no reason now to acknowledge the new dynasty.
+This is the part which had been included in the New Babylonian Empire.
+The Persian armies invaded Babylonia. Nabonidus was defeated finally at
+Opis in June 538; Sippara fell, and Cyrus' general appearing before
+Babylon itself received it without a struggle at the hands of the
+disaffected priests of Bel-Marduk. The famous Herodotean tale of Cyrus'
+secret penetration down the dried bed of Euphrates seems to be a
+mistaken memory of a later recapture of the city after a revolt from
+Darius, of which more hereafter. Thus once more it was given to Cyrus to
+close a long chapter of Eastern history--the history of imperial
+Babylon. Neither did he make it his capital, nor would any other lord of
+the East so favour it. If Alexander perhaps intended to revive its
+imperial position, his successor, Seleucus, so soon as he was assured of
+his inheritance, abandoned the Euphratean city for the banks of the
+Tigris and Orontes, leaving it to crumble to the heap which it is
+to-day.
+
+The Syrian fiefs of the Babylonian kings passed _de jure_ to the
+conqueror; but probably Cyrus himself never had leisure or opportunity
+to secure them _de facto_. The last decade of his life seems to have
+been spent in Persia and the north-east, largely in attempts to reduce
+the Scythian element, which threatened the peace of Media; and at the
+last, having brought the enemy to bay beyond the Araxes, he met there
+defeat and death. But Cambyses not only completed his father's work in
+Syria, but fulfilled what is said to have been his further project by
+capturing Egypt and establishing there a foreign domination which was to
+last, with some intervals, nearly two hundred years. By the end of the
+sixth century one territorial empire was spread over the whole East for
+the first time in history; and it was with a colossus, bestriding the
+lands from the Araxes to the Upper Nile and from the Oxus to the Aegean
+Sea, that the Greeks stood face to face in the gate of the West.
+
+Before, however, we become absorbed in contemplation of a struggle which
+will take us into a wider history, let us pause a moment to consider the
+nature of the new power come out of the East, and the condition of such
+of its subject peoples as have mattered most in the later story of
+mankind. It should be remarked that the new universal power is not only
+non-Semitic for the first time in well-certified history, but controlled
+by a very pure Aryan stock, much nearer kin to the peoples of the West
+than any Oriental folk with which they have had intimate relations
+hitherto. The Persians appeared from the Back of Beyond, uncontaminated
+by Alarodian savagery and unhampered by the theocratic prepossessions
+and nomadic traditions of Semites. They were highlanders of unimpaired
+vigour, frugal habit, settled agricultural life, long-established social
+cohesion and spiritual religious conceptions. Possibly, too, before they
+issued from the vast Iranian plateau, they were not wholly unversed in
+the administration of wide territories. In any case, their quick
+intelligence enabled them to profit by models of imperial organization
+which persisted in the lands they now acquired; for relics of the
+Assyrian system had survived under the New Babylonian rule, and perhaps
+also under the Median. Thereafter the experience gained by Cambyses in
+Egypt must have gone for something in the imperial education of his
+successor Darius, to whom historians ascribe the final organization of
+Persian territorial rule. From the latter's reign onward we find a
+regular provincial system linked to the centre as well as might be by a
+postal service passing over state roads. The royal power is delegated to
+several officials, not always of the ruling race, but independent of
+each other and directly responsible to Susa: these live upon their
+provinces but must see to it first and foremost that the centre receives
+a fixed quota of money and a fixed quota of fighting men when required.
+The Great King maintains royal residences in various cities of the
+empire, and not infrequently visits them; but in general his viceroys
+are left singularly free to keep the peace of their own governorates and
+even to deal with foreign neighbours at their proper discretion.
+
+If we compare the Persian theory of Empire with the Assyrian, we note
+still a capital fault. The Great King of Susa recognized no more
+obligation than his predecessors of Nineveh to consider the interests of
+those he ruled and to make return to them for what he took. But while,
+on the one hand, no better imperial theory was conceivable in the sixth
+century B.C., and certainly none was held or acted upon in the East down
+to the nineteenth century A.D., on the other, the Persian imperial
+practice mitigated its bad effects far more than the Assyrian had done.
+Free from the Semitic tradition of annual raiding, the Persians reduced
+the obligation of military service to a bearable burden and avoided
+continual provocation of frontier neighbours. Free likewise from Semitic
+supermonotheistic ideas, they did not seek to impose their creed. Seeing
+that the Persian Empire was extensive, decentralized and provided with
+imperfect means of communication, it could subsist only by practising
+provincial tolerance. Its provincial tolerance seems to have been
+systematic. We know a good deal of the Greeks and the Jews under its
+sway, and in the history of both we miss such signs of religious and
+social oppression as marked Assyrian rule. In western Asia Minor the
+satraps showed themselves on the whole singularly conciliatory towards
+local religious feeling and even personally comformable to it; and in
+Judaea the hope of the Hebrews that the Persian would prove a deliverer
+and a restorer of their estate was not falsified. Hardly an echo of
+outrage on the subjects of Persia in time of peace has reached our ears.
+If the sovereign of the Asiatic Greek cities ran counter to Hellenic
+feeling by insisting on "tyrant" rule, he did no more than continue a
+system under which most of those cities had grown rich. It is clear that
+they had little else to complain of than absence of a democratic freedom
+which, as a matter of fact, some of them had not enjoyed in the day of
+their independence. The satraps seem to have been supplied with few, or
+even no, Persian troops, and with few Persian aides on their
+administrative staff. The Persian element in the provinces must, in
+fact, have been extraordinarily small--so small that an Empire, which
+for more than two centuries comprehended nearly all western Asia, has
+left hardly a single provincial monument of itself, graven on rock or
+carved on stone.
+
+
+SECTION 6. JEWS
+
+If we look particularly at the Jews--those subjects of Persia who
+necessarily share most of our interest with the Greeks--we find that
+Persian imperial rule was no sooner established securely over the former
+Babylonian fief in Palestine than it began to undo the destructive work
+of its predecessors. Vainly expecting help from the restored Egyptian
+power, Jerusalem had held out against Nebuchadnezzar till 587. On its
+capture the dispersion of the southern Jews, which had already begun
+with local emigrations to Egypt, was largely increased by the
+deportation of a numerous body to Babylonia. As early, however, as 538,
+the year of Cyrus' entry into Babylon (doubtless as one result of that
+event), began a return of exiles to Judaea and perhaps also to Samaria.
+By 520 the Jewish population in South Palestine was sufficiently strong
+again to make itself troublesome to Darius, and in 516 the Temple was in
+process of restoration. Before the middle of the next century Jerusalem
+was once more a fortified city and its population had been further
+reinforced by many returned exiles who had imbibed the economic
+civilization, and also the religiosity of Babylonia. Thenceforward the
+development of the Jews into a commercial people proceeds without
+apparent interruption from Persian governors, who (as, for example,
+Nehemiah) could themselves be of the subject race. Even if large
+accretions of other Semites, notably Aramaeans, be allowed
+for--accretions easily accepted by a people which had become rather a
+church than a nation--it remains a striking testimony to Persian
+toleration that after only some six or seven generations the once
+insignificant Jews should have grown numerous enough to contribute an
+important element to the populations of several foreign cities. It is
+worth remark also that even when, presumably, free to return to the home
+of their race, many Jews preferred to remain in distant parts of the
+Persian realm. Names mentioned on contract tablets of Nippur show that
+Jews found it profitable to still sit by the waters of Babylon till late
+in the fifth century; while in another distant province of the Persian
+Empire (as the papyri of Syene have disclosed) a flourishing
+particularist settlement of the same race persisted right down to and
+after 500 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 7. ASIA UNDER PERSIA
+
+On the whole evidence the Persians might justifiably claim that their
+imperial organization in its best days, destitute though it was of
+either the centralized strength or the theoretic justification of modern
+civilized rule, achieved a very considerable advance, and that it is not
+unworthy to be compared even to the Roman in respect of the freedom and
+peace which in effect it secured to its subjects.
+
+[Plate 5: PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS
+HYSTASPIS]
+
+Not much more need--or can--be said about the other conquered peoples
+before we revert to the Greeks. Though Cyrus did not live to receive in
+person the submission of all the west Asian peoples, his son Cambyses
+had received it before his short reign of eight years came to an end.
+Included in the empire now were not only all the mainland territories
+once dominated by the Medes and the Babylonians, but also much wider
+lands east, west and south, and even Mediterranean islands which lay
+near the Asiatic shores. Among these last was Cyprus, now more closely
+linked to Phoenicia than of old, and combining with the latter to
+provide navies for the Great King's needs. On the East, the Iranian
+plateau, watched from two royal residences, Pasargadae in the south and
+Ecbatana in the north, swelled this realm to greater dimensions than any
+previous eastern empire had boasted. On the south, Cambyses added Cyrene
+and, less surely, Nabia to Egypt proper, which Assyria had possessed for
+a short time, as we have seen. On the west, Cyrus and his generals had
+already secured all Asia which lay outside the Median limit, including
+Cilicia, where (as also in other realms, e.g. Phoenicia, Cyprus, Caria)
+the native dynasty accepted a client position.
+
+This, however, is not to be taken to mean that all the East settled down
+at once into contented subservience. Cambyses, by putting his brother to
+death, had cut off the direct line of succession. A pretender appeared
+in the far East; Cambyses died on the march to meet him, and at once all
+the oriental provinces, except the homeland of Persia, were up in
+revolt. But a young cognate of the royal house, Darius, son of
+Hystaspes, a strong man, slew the pretender, and once secure on the
+throne, brought Media, Armenia, Elam and at last Babylonia, back to
+obedience. The old imperial city on the Euphrates would make one more
+bid for freedom six years later and then relapse into the estate of a
+provincial town. Darius spent some twenty years in organizing his empire
+on the satrap system, well known to us from Greek sources, and in
+strengthening his frontiers. To promote the latter end he passed over
+into Europe, even crossing the Danube in 511 to check Scythian raids;
+and he secured the command of the two straits and the safety of his
+northwest Asiatic possessions by annexing the south-east of the Balkan
+peninsula with the flourishing Greek cities on its coasts.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PERSIA AND THE GREEKS
+
+The sixth century closed and the fifth century ran three years of its
+course in apparently unbroken peace between East and West. But trouble
+was near at hand. Persia had imposed herself on cities which possessed a
+civilization superior, not only potentially but actually, to her own; on
+cities where individual and communal passion for freedom constituted the
+one religion incompatible with her tolerant sway; on cities conscious of
+national identity with a powerful group outside the Persian Empire, and
+certain sooner or later to engage that group in warfare on their behalf.
+
+Large causes, therefore, lay behind the friction and intrigue which,
+after a generation of subjection, caused the Ionian cities, led, as of
+old, by Miletus, to ring up the first act of a dramatic struggle
+destined to make history for a very long time to come. We cannot examine
+here in detail the particular events which induced the Ionian Revolt.
+Sufficient to say they all had their spring in the great city of
+Miletus, whose merchant princes and merchant people were determined to
+regain the power and primacy which they had enjoyed till lately. A
+preliminary failure to aggrandize themselves with the goodwill of Persia
+actually brought on their revolt, but it only precipitated a struggle
+inevitable ultimately on one side of the Aegean or the other.
+
+After setting the whole Anatolian coast from the Bosporus to Pamphylia
+and even Cyprus in a blaze for two years, the Ionian Revolt failed,
+owing as much to the particularist jealousies of the Greek cities
+themselves as to vigorous measures taken against them by Darius on land
+and his obedient Phoenicians at sea. A naval defeat sealed the fate of
+Miletus, whose citizens found, to the horror of all Greece, that, on
+occasion, the Persian would treat rebels like a loyal successor of
+Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar. But even though it failed, the Revolt
+brought on a second act in the drama. For, on the one hand, it had
+involved in Persian politics certain cities of the Greek motherlands,
+notably Athens, whose contingent, greatly daring, affronted the Great
+King by helping to burn the lower town of Sardes; and on the other, it
+had prompted a despot on the European shore of the Dardanelles, one
+Miltiades, an Athenian destined to immortal fame, to incense Darius yet
+more by seizing his islands of Lemnos and Imbros.
+
+Evidently neither could Asiatic Greeks be trusted, even though their
+claws were cut by disarmament and their motives for rebellion had been
+lessened by the removal of their despots, nor could the Balkan province
+be held securely, while the western Greeks remained defiant and Athens,
+in particular, aiming at the control of Aegean trade, supported the
+Ionian colonies. Therefore Darius determined to strike at this city
+whose exiled despot, Hippias, promised a treacherous co-operation; and
+he summoned other Greek states to make formal submission and keep the
+peace. A first armada sent to coast round the northern shore in 492
+added Macedonia to the Persian Empire; but it was crippled and stayed by
+storms. A second, sent two years later direct across the Aegean, reduced
+the Cyclad isles, revenged itself on Eretria, one of the minor culprits
+in the Sardian affair, and finally brought up by the Attic shore at
+Marathon. The world-famous defeat which its landing parties suffered
+there should be related by a historian rather of Greece than of the
+East; and so too should the issue of a third and last invasion which,
+ten years later, after old Darius' death, Xerxes led in person to defeat
+at Salamis, and left to meet final rout under his generalissimo at
+Plataea. For our purpose it will be enough to note the effects which
+this momentous series of events had on the East itself.
+
+
+SECTION 9. RESULTS OF THE PERSIAN ATTACKS ON GREECE
+
+Obviously the European failure of Persia affected the defeated less than
+the victorious party. Except upon the westernmost fringe of the Persian
+Empire we have no warrant for saying that it had any serious political
+result at all. A revolt of Egypt which broke out in the last year of
+Darius, and was easily suppressed by his successor, seems not to have
+been connected with the Persian disaster at Marathon; and even when two
+more signal defeats had been suffered in Greece, and a fourth off the
+shore of Asia itself--the battle of Mycale--upon which followed closely
+the loss of Sestus, the European key of the Hellespont, and more
+remotely the loss not only of all Persian holdings in the Balkans and
+the islands, but also of the Ionian Greek cities and most of the
+Aeolian, and at last (after the final naval defeat off the Eurymedon) of
+the whole littoral of Anatolia from Pamphylia right round to the
+Propontis--not even after all these defeats and losses did the Persian
+power suffer diminution in inner Asia or loss of prestige in inland Asia
+Minor. Some years, indeed, had still to elapse before the ever-restless
+Egyptian province used the opportunity of Xerxes' death to league itself
+with the new power and make a fresh attempt to shake off the Persian
+yoke; but once more it tried in vain.
+
+When Persia abandoned direct sovereignty over the Anatolian littoral she
+suffered little commercial loss and became more secure. It is clear that
+her satraps continued to manage the western trade and equally clear that
+the wealth of her empire increased in greater ratio than that of the
+Greek cities. There is little evidence for Hellenic commercial expansion
+consequent on the Persian wars, but much for continued and even
+increasing Hellenic poverty. In the event Persia found herself in a
+position almost to regain by gold what she had lost by battle, and to
+exercise a financial influence on Greece greater and longer lasting than
+she ever established by arms. Moreover, her empire was less likely to be
+attacked when it was limited by the western edge of the Anatolian
+plateau, and no longer tried to hold any European territory. There is a
+geographical diversity between the Anatolian littoral and the plateau.
+In all ages the latter alone has been an integral part of inner Asia,
+and the society and politics of the one have remained distinct from
+those of the other. The strong frontier of Asia at its western
+peninsular extremity lies not on, but behind the coast.
+
+At the same time, although their immediate results to the Persian Empire
+were not very hurtful, those abortive expeditions to Europe had sown the
+seeds of ultimate catastrophe. As a direct consequence of them the
+Greeks acquired consciousness of their own fighting value on both land
+and sea as compared with the peoples of inner Asia and the Phoenicians.
+Their former fear of numerical superiorities was allayed, and much of
+the mystery, which had hitherto magnified and shielded Oriental power,
+was dissipated. No less obviously those expeditions served to suggest to
+the Greeks for the first time that there existed both a common enemy of
+all their race and an external field for their own common encroachment
+and plundering. So far as an idea of nationality was destined ever to be
+operative on Greek minds it would draw its inspiration thenceforward
+from a sense of common superiority and common hostility to the Oriental.
+Persia, in a word, had laid the foundations and promoted the development
+of a Greek nationality in a common ambition directed against herself. It
+was her fate also, by forcing Athens into the front of the Greek states,
+to give the nascent nation the most inspiriting and enterprising of
+leaders--the one most fertile in imperial ideas and most apt to proceed
+to their realization: and in her retreat before that nation she drew her
+pursuer into a world which, had she herself never advanced into Europe,
+would probably not have seen him for centuries to come.
+
+Moreover, by a subsequent change of attitude towards her victorious
+foe--though that change was not wholly to her discredit--Persia bred in
+the Greeks a still better conceit of themselves and a better
+understanding of her weakness. The Persians, with the intelligence and
+versatility for which their race has always been remarkable, passed very
+rapidly from overweening contempt to excessive admiration of the Greeks.
+They set to work almost at once to attract Hellenic statesmen and men of
+science to their own society, and to make use of Hellenic soldiers and
+sailors. We soon find western satraps cultivating cordial relations with
+the Ionian cities, hospitably entertaining Greeks of distinction and
+conciliating Greek political and religious prepossessions. They must
+have attained considerable success, while thus unwittingly preparing
+disaster. When, a little more than a century later, western Europe would
+come eastward in force, to make an end of Persian dominion, some of the
+greater Ionian and Carian cities would offer a prolonged resistance to
+it which is not to be accounted for only by the influence of Persian
+gold or of a Persian element in their administration. Miletus and
+Halicarnassus shut their gates and defended their walls desperately
+against Alexander because they conceived their own best interests to be
+involved in the continuance of the Persian Empire. Nor were the Persians
+less successful with Greeks actually taken into their service. The Greek
+mercenaries remained to a man loyal to the Great King when the Greek
+attack came, and gave Alexander his hardest fighting in the three great
+battles which decided the fate of the East. None the less, such an
+attitude towards Greeks was suicidal. It exalted the spirit of Europe
+while it depraved the courage and sapped the self-reliance of Asia.
+
+
+SECTION 10. THE FIRST COUNTER-ATTACKS
+
+This, however, is to anticipate the sequel. Let us finally fix our eyes
+on the Eastern world in 400 B.C. and review it as it must then have
+appeared to eyes from which the future was all concealed. The coasts of
+Asia Minor, generally speaking, were in Greek hands, the cities being
+autonomous trading communities, as Greeks understood autonomy; but most
+of them until four years previously had acknowledged the suzerainty or
+rather federal leadership of Athens and now were acknowledging less
+willingly a Spartan supremacy established at first with Persian
+co-operation. Many of these cities, which had long maintained very close
+relations with the Persian governors of the nearer _hinterland_, not
+only shaped their policy to please the latter, but even acknowledged
+Persian suzerainty; and since, as it happens, at this particular moment
+Sparta had fallen out with Persia, and a Spartan army, under
+Dercyllidas, was occupying the Aeolian district of the north, the
+"medizing" cities of Ionia and Caria were in some doubt of their future.
+On the whole they inclined still to the satraps. Persian influence and
+even control had, in fact, greatly increased on the western coast since
+the supersession of Athens by a power unaccustomed to imperial politics
+and notoriously inapt in naval matters; and the fleets of Phoenicia and
+Cyprus, whose Greek princes had fallen under Phoenician domination, had
+regained supremacy at sea.
+
+Yet, only a year before, "Ten Thousand" heavy-armed Greeks (and near
+half as many again of all arms), mostly Spartan, had marched right
+through western Asia. They went as mercenary allies of a larger native
+force led by Cyrus, Persian prince-governor of west central Anatolia,
+who coveted the diadem of his newly enthroned brother. Having traversed
+the old Lydian and Phrygian kingdoms they moved down into Cilicia and up
+again over north Syria to the Euphrates, bound (though they only learned
+it at last by the waters of the Great River itself) for Babylon. But
+they never reached that city. Cyrus met death and his oriental soldiers
+accepted defeat at Cunaxa, some four days' march short of the goal. But
+the undefeated Greeks, refusing to surrender, and, few though they were,
+so greatly dreaded by the Persians that they were not directly molested,
+had to get back to their own land as best they might. How, robbed of
+their original leaders they yet reached the Black Sea and safety by way
+of the Tigris valley and the wild passes of Kurdish Armenia all readers
+of Xenophon, the Athenian who succeeded to the command, know well. Now
+in 400 B.C. they were reappearing in the cities of west Asia and Europe
+to tell how open was the inner continent to bold plunderers and how
+little ten Orientals availed in attack or defence against one Greek.
+Such stories then and there incited Sparta to a forward policy, and one
+day would encourage a stronger Western power than hers to march to the
+conquest of the East.
+
+We are fortunate in having Xenophon's detailed narrative of the
+adventures of these Greeks, if only because it throws light by the way
+on inner Asia almost at the very moment of our survey. We see Sardes
+under Persia what it had been under Lydia, the capital city of Anatolia;
+we see the great valley plains of Lydia and Phrygia, north and south,
+well peopled, well supplied, and well in hand, while the rough foothills
+and rougher heights of Taurus are held by contumacious mountaineers who
+are kept out of the plains only by such periodic chastisement as Cyrus
+allowed his army to inflict in Pisidia and Lycaonia. Cilicia is being
+administered and defended by its own prince, who bears the same name or
+title as his predecessor in the days of Sennacherib, but is feudally
+accountable to the Great King. His land is so far his private property
+that Cyrus, though would-be lord of all the empire, encourages the
+pillage of the rich provincial capital. The fleet of Cyrus lands men and
+stores unmolested in north Syria, while the inner country up to the
+Euphrates and down its valley as far as Babylonia is at peace. The Great
+King is able to assemble above half a million men from the east and
+south to meet his foe, besides the levy of Media, a province which now
+seems to include most of the ancient Assyria. These hundreds of
+thousands constitute a host untrained, undisciplined, unstable, unused
+to service, little like the ordered battalions of an essentially
+military power such as the Assyrian had been.
+
+From the story of the Retreat certain further inferences may be drawn.
+First, Babylonia was a part of the empire not very well affected to the
+Great King; or else the Greeks would have been neither allowed by the
+local militia to enter it so easily nor encouraged by the Persians to
+leave it. Second, the ancient Assyria was a peaceful province not
+coerced by a standing Persian force or garrisons of any strength. Third,
+southern Kurdistan was not held by or for the Great King and it paid
+tribute only to occasional pressure. Fourth, the rest of Kurdistan and
+Armenia as far north as the upper arm of the Euphrates was held,
+precariously, by the Persians; and lastly, north of the Euphrates valley
+up to the Black Sea all was practical independence. We do not know
+anything precise about the far eastern provinces or the south Syrian in
+this year, 400. Artaxerxes, the Great King, came from Susa to meet his
+rebellious brother, but to Babylon he returned to put to death the
+betrayed leaders of the Greeks. At this moment Ctesias, the Cnidian
+Greek, was his court physician and no friend either to Cyrus or to
+Spartans; he was even then in correspondence with the Athenian Conon who
+would presently be made a Persian admiral and smash the Spartan fleet.
+Of his history of Persia some few fragments and some epitomized extracts
+relating to this time have survived. These have a value, which the mass
+of his book seems not to have had; for they relate what a contemporary,
+singularly well placed to learn court news, heard and saw. One gathers
+that king and court had fallen away from the ideas and practice of the
+first Cyrus. Artaxerxes was unwarlike, lax in religion (though he had
+been duly consecrated at Pasargadae) and addicted to non-Zoroastrian
+practices. Many Persians great and small were disaffected towards him
+and numbers rallied to his brother; but he had some Western adventurers
+in his army. Royal ladies wielded almost more power at the court than
+the Great King, and quarrelled bitterly with one another.
+
+Plutarch, who drew material for his life of Artaxerxes not only from
+Ctesias, but also from authorities now lost to us, leaves us with much
+the same impression of the lords of the East at the close of the fifth
+century B.C. Corrupt and treacherous central rule, largely directed by
+harem intrigue; an unenthusiastic body of subjects, abandoned to the
+schemes of satraps; inefficient and casually collected armies in which
+foreign mercenaries were almost the only genuine soldiers--such was
+Persia now. It was something very unlike the vigorous rule of Cyrus and
+the imperial system of the first Darius--something very like the Ottoman
+Empire in the eighteenth century A.D.--something which would collapse
+before the first Western leader of men who could command money of his
+own making and a professional army of his own people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE VICTORY OF THE WEST
+
+
+The climax was reached in about seventy years more. When these had
+passed into history, so had also the Persian Empire, and the East, as
+the Greeks had conceived it thus far and we have understood it, was
+subject to the European race which a century and a half before it had
+tried to subdue in Europe itself. To this race (and to the historian
+also) "the East," as a geographical term, standing equally for a spatial
+area and for a social idea, has ceased to mean what it once meant: and
+the change would be lasting. It is true that the East did not cease to
+be distinguished as such; for it would gradually shake itself free
+again, not only from control by the West, but from the influence of the
+latter's social ideas. Nevertheless, since the Western men, when they
+went back to their own land, had brought the East into the world known
+to them--into a circle of lands accepted as the dwelling of civilized
+man--the date of Alexander's overthrow of the Persian Empire makes an
+epoch which divides universal history as hardly any other divides it.
+
+Dramatic as the final catastrophe would be, it will not surprise us when
+it comes, nor did it, as a matter of fact, surprise the generation which
+witnessed it. The romantic conception of Alexander, as a little David
+who dared a huge Goliath, ignores the facts of previous history, and
+would have occurred to no contemporary who had read the signs of the
+times. The Eastern colossus had been dwindling so fast for nearly a
+century that a Macedonian king, who had already subdued the Balkan
+peninsula, loomed at least as large in the world's eye, when he crossed
+the Hellespont, as the titular Emperor of contumacious satraps and
+ever-rebelling provinces of western Asia. To accept this view we have
+only to look back over seventy years since that march of Ten Thousand
+Greeks, with which our last survey closed.
+
+
+SECTION 1. PERSIA AND ITS PROVINCES
+
+Before the expedition of Cyrus there may have been, and evidently were,
+enough seeds of corruption in the state of Persia; but they had not
+become known by their fruits. No satrap for a century past had tried to
+detach himself and his province from the Empire; hardly a subject people
+had attempted to re-assert its independence. There were, indeed, two
+exceptions, both of them peoples which had never identified themselves
+at any time with the fortunes of their alien masters. One of these was,
+of course, the Asiatic Greek, the other was the Egyptian people; but the
+contumacy of the first threatened a danger not yet realized by Asia; the
+rebellious spirit of the last concerned, as yet, itself alone.
+
+It was Egypt, however, which really gave the first warning of Persian
+dissolution. The weakest spot in the Assyrian Empire proved weakest in
+the Persian. The natural barriers of desert, swamp and sea, set between
+Egypt and the neighbouring continent, are so strong that no Asiatic
+Power, which has been tempted to conquer the rich Nile valley, has ever
+been able to keep it long. Under its own leaders or some rebellious
+officer of its new masters it has reasserted independence sooner or
+later, and all history is witness that no one, whether in Asia or in
+Europe, holds Egypt as a foreign province unless he holds also the sea.
+During the century which had elapsed since Cambyses' conquest the
+Egyptians had rebelled more than once (most persistently about 460),
+calling in the sea-lords to their help on each occasion. Finally, just
+before the death of Darius Nothus, and some five years before Cyrus left
+Sardes, they rose again under an Egyptian, and thereafter, for about
+sixty years, not the kings of Susa, but three native dynasties in
+succession, were to rule Egypt. The harm done to the Persian Empire by
+this defection was not measured by the mere loss of the revenues of a
+province. The new kings of Egypt, who owed much to Greek support, repaid
+this by helping every enemy of the Great King and every rebel against
+his authority. It was they who gave asylum to the admiral and fleet of
+Cyrus after Cunaxa, and sent corn to Agesilaus when he invaded Asia
+Minor; they supplied money and ships to the Spartan fleet in 394, and
+helped Evagoras of Cyprus in a long resistance to his suzerain. When
+Tyre and the cities of the Cilician coast revolted in 380, Egypt was
+privy to their designs, and she made common cause with the satraps and
+governors of Western Asia, Syria and Phoenicia when, in combination,
+they planned rebellion in 373 to the grave peril of the Empire. Twelve
+years later we find an Egyptian king marching in person to raise
+Phoenicia.
+
+The Persian made more than one effort to recover his province. After
+conspicuous failure with his own generals Artaxerxes adopted tardily the
+course which Clearchus, captain of the Ten Thousand, is said to have
+advised after the battle of Cunaxa, and tried his fortune once more with
+Greek _condottieri_, only to find Greek generals and Greek mercenaries
+arrayed against them. It had come to this, that the Persian king and his
+revolted province equally depended on mercenary swords, neither daring
+to meet Greek except with Greek. Well had the lesson of the march of the
+Ten Thousand been read, marked and digested in the East!
+
+
+SECTION 2. PERSIA AND THE WEST
+
+It had been marked in the West as well, and its fruits were patent
+within five years. The dominant Greek state of the hour, avowing an
+ambition which no Greek had betrayed before, sent its king, Agesilaus,
+across to Asia Minor to follow up the establishment of Spartan hegemony
+on the coasts by an invasion of inland Persia. He never penetrated
+farther than about half-way up the Maeander Valley, and did Persia no
+harm worth speaking of; for he was not the leader, nor had he the
+resources in men and in money, to carry through so distant and doubtful
+an adventure. But Agesilaus' campaigning in Asia Minor between 397 and
+394 has this historical significance: it demonstrates that Greeks had
+come to regard a march on Susa as feasible and desirable.
+
+It was not, however, in fact feasible even then. Apart from the lack of
+a military force in any one state of Greece large enough, sufficiently
+trained, and led by a leader of the necessary magnetism and genius for
+organization, to undertake, unaided by allies on the way, a successful
+march to a point many months distant from its base--apart from this
+deficiency, the Empire to be conquered had not yet been really shaken.
+The Ten Thousand Greeks would in all likelihood never have got under
+Clearchus to Cunaxa or anywhere within hundreds of miles of it, but for
+the fact that Cyrus was with them and the adherents of his rising star
+were supplying their wants and had cleared a road for them through Asia
+Minor and Syria. In their Retreat they were desperate men, of whom the
+Great King was glad to be quit. The successful accomplishment of that
+retreat must not blind us to the almost certain failure which would have
+befallen the advance had it been attempted under like conditions.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE SATRAPS
+
+What, ultimately, was to reduce the Persian Empire to such weakness that
+a Western power would be able to strike at its heart with little more
+than forty thousand men, was the disease of disloyalty which spread
+among the great officers during the first half of the fourth century.
+Before Cyrus' expedition we have not heard of either satraps or client
+provinces raising the standard of revolt (except in Egypt), since the
+Empire had been well established; and if there was evident collusion
+with that expedition on the part of provincial officers in Asia Minor
+and Syria, the fact has little political significance, seeing that Cyrus
+was a scion of the royal House, and the favourite of the Queen-Mother.
+But the fourth century is hardly well begun before we find satraps and
+princes aiding the king's enemies and fighting for their own hand
+against him or a rival officer. Agesilaus was helped in Asia Minor both
+by the prince of Paphlagonia and by a Persian noble. Twenty years later
+Ariobarzanes of Pontus rises in revolt; and hard on his defection
+follows a great rebellion planned by the satraps of Caria, Ionia, Lydia,
+Phrygia and Cappadocia--nearly all Asia Minor in fact--in concert with
+coastal cities of Syria and Phoenicia. Another ten years pass and new
+governors of Mysia and Lydia rise against their king with the help of
+the Egyptians and Mausolus, client prince of Halicarnassus. Treachery or
+lack of resources and stability brought these rebels one after another
+to disaster; but an Empire whose great officers so often dare such
+adventures is drawing apace to its catastrophe.
+
+The causes of this growing disaffection among the satraps are not far to
+seek. At the close of the last chapter we remarked the deterioration of
+the harem-ridden court in the early days of Artaxerxes; and as time
+passed, the spectacle of a Great King governing by treachery, buying his
+enemies, and impotent to recover Egypt even with their mercenary help
+had its effect. Belief gained ground that the ship of Empire was
+sinking, and even in Susa the fear grew that a wind from the West was to
+finish her. The Great King's court officers watched Greek politics
+during the first seventy years of the fourth century with ever closer
+attention. Not content with enrolling as many Greeks as possible in the
+royal service, they used the royal gold to such effect to buy or support
+Greek politicians whose influence could be directed to hindering a union
+of Greek states and checking the rising power of any unit, that a Greek
+orator said in a famous passage that the archers stamped on the Great
+King's coins were already a greater danger to Greece than his real
+archers had ever been.
+
+By such lavish corruption, by buying the soldiers and the politicians of
+the enemy, a better face was put for a while on the fortunes of the
+dynasty and the Empire. Before the death of the aged Artaxerxes Mnemon
+in 358, the revolt of the Western satraps had collapsed. His successor,
+Ochus, who, to reach the throne, murdered his kin like any
+eighteenth-century sultan of Stambul, overcame Egyptian obstinacy about
+346, after two abortive attempts, by means of hireling Greek troops, and
+by similar vicarious help he recovered Sidon and the Isle of Cyprus. But
+it was little more than the dying flicker of a flame fanned for the
+moment by that same Western wind which was already blowing up to the
+gale that would extinguish it. The heart of the Empire was not less
+rotten because its shell was patched, and in the event, when the storm
+broke a few years later, nothing in West Asia was able to make any stand
+except two or three maritime cities, which fought, not for Persia, but
+for their own commercial monopolies.
+
+
+SECTION 4. MACEDONIA
+
+The storm had been gathering on the Western horizon for some time past.
+Twenty years earlier there had come to the throne of Macedonia a man of
+singular constructive ability and most definite ambition. His
+heritage--or rather his prize, for he was not next of kin to his
+predecessor--was the central southern part of the Balkan peninsula, a
+region of broad fat plains fringed and crossed by rough hills. It was
+inhabited by sturdy gentry and peasantry and by agile highlanders, all
+composed of the same racial elements as the Greeks, with perhaps a
+preponderant infusion of northern blood which had come south long ago
+with emigrants from the Danubian lands. The social development of the
+Macedonians--to give various peoples one generic name--had, for certain
+reasons, not been nearly so rapid as that of their southern cousins.
+They had never come in contact with the higher Aegean civilization, nor
+had they mixed their blood with that of cultivated predecessors; their
+land was continental, poor in harbours, remote from the luxurious
+centres of life, and of comparatively rigorous climate; its
+configuration had offered them no inducement to form city-states and
+enter on intense political life. But, in compensation, they entered the
+fourth century unexhausted, without tribal or political impediments to
+unity, and with a broad territory of greater natural resources than any
+southern Greek state. Macedonia could supply itself with the best cereal
+foods and to spare, and had unexploited veins of gold ore. But the most
+important thing to remark is this--that, compared with Greece, Macedonia
+was a region of Central Europe. In the latter's progress to imperial
+power we shall watch for the first time in recorded history a
+continental European folk bearing down peninsular populations of the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Philip of Macedon, who had been trained in the arts of both war and
+peace in a Greek city, saw the weakness of the divided Hellenes, and the
+possible strength of his own people, and he set to work from the first
+with abounding energy, dogged persistence and immense talent for
+organization to make a single armed nation, which should be more than a
+match for the many communities of Hellas. How he accomplished his
+purpose in about twenty years: how he began by opening mines of precious
+metal on his south-eastern coast, and with the proceeds hired
+mercenaries: how he had Macedonian peasants drilled to fight in a
+phalanx formation more mobile than the Theban and with a longer spear,
+while the gentry were trained as heavy cavalry: how he made experiments
+with his new soldiers on the inland tribes, and so enlarged his
+effective dominions that he was able to marshal henceforward far more
+than his own Emathian clansmen: how for six years he perfected this
+national army till it was as professional a fighting machine as any
+condottiere's band of that day, while at the same time larger and of
+much better temper: how, when it was ready in the spring of the year
+353, he began a fifteen years' war of encroachment on the holdings of
+the Greek states and particularly of Athens, attacking some of her
+maritime colonies in Macedonia and Thrace: how, after a campaign in
+inland Thrace and on the Chersonese, he appeared in Greece, where he
+pushed at last through Thermopylae: how, again, he withdrew for several
+seasons into the Balkan Peninsula, raided it from the Adriatic to the
+Black Sea, and ended with an attack on the last and greatest of its free
+Greek coastal cities, Perinthus and Byzantium: how, finally, in 338,
+coming south in full force, he crushed in the single battle of Chaeronea
+the two considerable powers of Greece, Athens and Thebes, and secured at
+last from every Greek state except Sparta (which he could afford to
+neglect) recognition of his suzerainty--these stages in Philip's making
+of a European nation and a European empire must not be described more
+fully here. What concerns us is the end of it all; for the end was the
+arraying of that new nation and that new empire for a descent on Asia. A
+year after Chaeronea Philip was named by the Congress of Corinth
+Captain-General of all Greeks to wreak the secular vengeance of Hellas
+on Persia.
+
+How long he had consciously destined his fighting machine to an ultimate
+invasion of Asia we do not know. The Athenians had explicitly stated to
+the Great King in 341 that such was the Macedonian's ambition, and four
+years earlier public suggestion of it had been made by the famous
+orator, Isocrates, in an open letter written to Philip himself. Since
+the last named was a man of long sight and sustained purpose, it is not
+impossible that he had conceived such an ambition in youth and had been
+cherishing it all along. While Philip was in Thebes as a young man, old
+Agesilaus, who first of Greeks had conceived the idea of invading the
+inland East, was still seeking a way to realize his oft-frustrated
+project; and in the end he went off to Egypt to make a last effort after
+Philip was already on the throne. The idea had certainly been long in
+the air that any military power which might dominate Hellas would be
+bound primarily by self-interest and secondarily by racial duty to turn
+its arms against Asia. The Great King himself knew this as well as any
+one. After the Athenian warning in 341, his satraps in the north-west of
+Asia Minor were bidden assist Philip's enemies in every possible way;
+and it was thanks in no small measure to their help, that the Byzantines
+repulsed the Macedonians from their walls in 339.
+
+Philip had already made friends of the princely house of Caria, and was
+now at pains to secure a footing in north-west Asia Minor. He threw,
+therefore, an advance column across the Dardanelles under his chief
+lieutenant, Parmenio, and proposed to follow it in the autumn of the
+year 336 with a Grand Army which he had been recruiting, training and
+equipping for a twelvemonth. The day of festival which should inaugurate
+his great venture arrived; but the venture was not to be his. As he
+issued from his tent to attend the games he fell by the hand of a
+private enemy; and his young son, Alexander, had at first enough to do
+to re-establish a throne which proved to have more foes than friends.
+
+
+SECTION 5. ALEXANDER'S CONQUEST OF THE EAST
+
+A year and a half later Alexander's friends and foes knew that a greater
+soldier and empire-maker than Philip ruled in his stead, and that the
+father's plan of Asiatic conquest would suffer nothing at the hands of
+the son. The neighbours of Macedonia as far as the Danube and all the
+states of the Greek peninsula had been cowed to submission again in one
+swift and decisive campaign. The States-General of Greece, re-convoked
+at Corinth, confirmed Philip's son in the Captain-Generalship of Hellas,
+and Parmenio, once more despatched to Asia, secured the farther shore of
+the Hellespont. With about forty thousand seasoned horse and foot, and
+with auxiliary services unusually efficient for the age, Alexander
+crossed to Persian soil in the spring of 334.
+
+There was no other army in Asia Minor to offer him battle in form than a
+force about equal in numbers to his own, which had been collected
+locally by the western satraps. Except for its contingent of Greek
+mercenaries, this was much inferior to the Macedonian force in fighting
+value. Fended by Parmenio from the Hellespontine shore, it did the best
+it could by waiting on the farther bank of the Granicus, the nearest
+considerable stream which enters the Marmora, in order either to draw
+Alexander's attack, or to cut his communications, should he move on into
+the continent. It did not wait long. The heavy Macedonian cavalry dashed
+through the stream late on an afternoon, made short work of the Asiatic
+constituents, and having cleared a way for the phalanx helped it to cut
+up the Greek contingent almost to a man before night fell. Alexander was
+left with nothing but city defences and hill tribes to deal with till a
+fuller levy could be collected from other provinces of the Persian
+Empire and brought down to the west, a process which would take many
+months, and in fact did take a full year. But some of the Western cities
+offered no small impediment to his progress. If Aeolia, Lydia and Ionia
+made no resistance worth mentioning, the two chief cities of Caria,
+Miletus and Halicarnassus, which had been enjoying in virtual freedom a
+lion's share of Aegean trade for the past century, were not disposed to
+become appanages of a military empire. The pretension of Alexander to
+lead a crusade against the ancient oppressor of the Hellenic race
+weighed neither with them, nor, for that matter, with any of the Greeks
+in Asia or Europe, except a few enthusiasts. During the past seventy
+years, ever since celebrations of the deliverance of Hellas from the
+Persian had been replaced by aspirations towards counter invasion, the
+desire to wreak holy vengeance had gone for little or nothing, but
+desire to plunder Persia had gone for a great deal. Therefore, any
+definite venture into Asia aroused envy, not enthusiasm, among those who
+would be forestalled by its success. Neither with ships nor men had any
+leading Greek state come forward to help Alexander, and by the time he
+had taken Miletus he realized that he must play his game alone, with his
+own people for his own ends. Thenceforward, neglecting the Greeks, he
+postponed his march into the heart of the Persian Empire till he had
+secured every avenue leading thither from the sea, whether through Asia
+Minor or Syria or Egypt.
+
+After reducing Halicarnassus and Caria, Alexander did no more in Asia
+Minor than parade the western part of it, the better to secure the
+footing he had gained in the continent. Here and there he had a brush
+with hill-men, who had long been unused to effective control, while with
+one or two of their towns he had to make terms; but on the approach of
+winter, Anatolia was at his feet, and he seated himself at Gordion, in
+the Sakaria valley, where he could at once guard his communications with
+the Hellespont and prepare for advance into farther Asia by an easy
+road. Eastern Asia Minor, that is Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, he
+left alone, and its contingents would still be arrayed on the Persian
+side in both the great battles to come. Certain northern districts also,
+which had long been practically independent of Persia, e.g. Bithynia and
+Paphlagonia, had not been touched yet. It was not worth his while at
+that moment to spend time in fighting for lands which would fall in any
+case if the Empire fell, and could easily be held in check from western
+Asia Minor in the meantime. His goal was far inland, his danger he well
+knew, on the sea--danger of possible co-operation between Greek fleets
+and the greater coastal cities of the Aegean and the Levant. Therefore,
+with the first of the spring he moved down into Cilicia to make the
+ports of Syria and Egypt his, before striking at the heart of the
+Empire.
+
+The Great King, last and weakest of the Darius name, had realized the
+greatness of his peril and come down with the levy of all the Empire to
+try to crush the invader in the gate of the south lands. Letting his foe
+pass round the angle of the Levant coast, Darius, who had been waiting
+behind the screen of Amanus, slipped through the hills and cut off the
+Macedonian's retreat in the defile of Issus between mountain and sea.
+Against another general and less seasoned troops a compact and
+disciplined Oriental force would probably have ended the invasion there
+and then; but that of Darius was neither compact nor disciplined. The
+narrowness of the field compressed it into a mob; and Alexander and his
+men, facing about, saw the Persians delivered into their hand. The fight
+lasted little longer than at Granicus and the result was as decisive a
+butchery. Camp, baggage-train, the royal harem, letters from Greek
+states, and the persons of Greek envoys sent to devise the destruction
+of the Captain-General--all fell to Alexander.
+
+Assured against meeting another levy of the Empire for at least a
+twelvemonth, he moved on into Syria. In this narrow land his chief
+business, as we have seen, was with the coast towns. He must have all
+the ports in his hand before going up into Asia. The lesser dared not
+gainsay the victorious phalanx; but the queen of them all, Tyre,
+mistress of the eastern trade, shut the gates of her island citadel and
+set the western intruder the hardest military task of his life. But the
+capture of the chief base of the hostile fleets which still ranged the
+Aegean was all essential to Alexander, and he bridged the sea to effect
+it. One other city, Gaza, commanding the road to Egypt, showed the same
+spirit with less resources, and the year was far spent before the
+Macedonians appeared on the Nile to receive the ready submission of a
+people which had never willingly served the Persian. Here again,
+Alexander's chief solicitude was for the coasts. Independent Cyrene,
+lying farthest west, was one remaining danger and the openness of the
+Nile mouths another. The first danger dissolved with the submission,
+which Cyrene sent to meet him as he moved into Marmarica to the attack;
+the second was conjured by the creation of the port of Alexandria,
+perhaps the most signal act of Alexander's life, seeing to what stature
+the city would grow, what part play in the development of Greek and Jew,
+and what vigour retain to this day. For the moment, however, the new
+foundation served primarily to rivet its founder's hold on the shores of
+the Greek and Persian waters. Within a few months the hostile fleets
+disappeared from the Levant and Alexander obtained at last that command
+of the sea without which invasion of inner Asia would have been more
+than perilous, and permanent retention of Egypt impossible.
+
+Thus secure of his base, he could strike inland. He went up slowly in
+the early part of 331 by the traditional North Road through Philistia
+and Palestine and round the head of the Syrian Hamad to Thapsacus on
+Euphrates, paying, on the way, a visit of precaution to Tyre, which had
+cost him so much toil and time a year before. None opposed his crossing
+of the Great River; none stayed him in Mesopotamia; none disputed his
+passage of the Tigris, though the ferrying of his force took five days.
+The Great King himself, however, was lying a few marches south of the
+mounds of Nineveh, in the plain of Gaugamela, to which roads converging
+from south, east and north had brought the levies of all the empire
+which remained to him. To hordes drawn from fighting tribes living as
+far distant as frontiers of India, banks of the Oxus, and foothills of
+the Caucasus, was added a phalanx of hireling Greeks more than three
+times as numerous as that which had been cut up on the Granicus. Thus
+awaited by ten soldiers to each one of his own on open ground chosen by
+his enemy, Alexander went still more slowly forward and halted four and
+twenty hours to breathe his army in sight of the Persian out posts.
+Refusing to risk an attack on that immense host in the dark, he slept
+soundly within his entrenchments till sunrise of the first day of
+October, and then in the full light led out his men to decide the fate
+of Persia. It was decided by sundown, and half a million broken men were
+flying south and east into the gathering night. But the Battle of
+Arbela, as it is commonly called--the greatest contest of armies before
+the rise of Rome--had not been lightly won. The active resistance of the
+Greek mercenaries, and the passive resistance of the enormous mass of
+the Asiatic hordes, which stayed attack by mere weight of flesh and
+closed again behind every penetrating column, made the issue doubtful,
+till Darius himself, terrified at the oncoming of the heavy Macedonian
+cavalry, turned his chariot and lost the day. Alexander's men had to
+thank the steadiness which Philip's system had given them, but also, in
+the last resort, the cowardice of the opposing chief.
+
+The Persian King survived to be hunted a year later, and caught, a dying
+man, on the road to Central Asia; but long before that and without
+another pitched battle the Persian throne had passed to Alexander.
+Within six months he had marched to and entered in turn, without other
+let or hindrance than resistance of mountain tribesmen in the passes,
+the capitals of the Empire--Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana; and
+since these cities all held by him during his subsequent absence of six
+years in farther Asia, the victory of the West over the Ancient East may
+be regarded as achieved on the day of Arbela.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+Less than ten years later, Alexander lay dead in Babylon. He had gone
+forward to the east to acquire more territories than we have surveyed in
+any chapter of this book or his fathers had so much as known to exist.
+The broad lands which are now Afghanistan, Russian Turkestan, the
+Punjab, Scinde, and Beluchistan had been subdued by him in person and
+were being held by his governors and garrisons. This Macedonian Greek
+who had become an emperor of the East greater than the greatest
+theretofore, had already determined that his Seat of Empire should be
+fixed in inner Asia; and he proposed that under his single sway East and
+West be distinct no longer, but one indivisible world, inhabited by
+united peoples. Then, suddenly, he was called to his account, leaving no
+legitimate heir of his body except a babe in its mother's womb. What
+would happen? What, in fact, did happen?
+
+It is often said that the empire which Alexander created died with him.
+This is true if we think of empire as the realm of a single emperor. As
+sole ruler of the vast area between the Danube and the Sutlej Alexander
+was to have no successor. But if we think of an empire as the realm of a
+race or nation, Greater Macedonia, though destined gradually to be
+diminished, would outlive its founder by nearly three hundred years; and
+moreover, in succession to it, another Western empire, made possible by
+his victory and carried on in some respects under his forms, was to
+persist in the East for several centuries more. As a political conquest,
+Alexander's had results as long lasting as can be credited to almost any
+conquest in history. As the victory of one civilization over another it
+was never to be brought quite to nothing, and it had certain permanent
+effects. These this chapter is designed to show: but first, since the
+development of the victorious civilization on alien soil depended
+primarily on the continued political supremacy of the men in whom it was
+congenital, it is necessary to see how long and to what extent political
+dominion was actually held in the East by men who were Greeks, either by
+birth or by training.
+
+Out of the turmoil and stress of the thirty years which followed
+Alexander's death, two Macedonians emerged to divide the Eastern Empire
+between them. The rest--transient embarrassed phantoms of the Royal
+House, regents of the Empire hardly less transient, upstart satraps, and
+even one-eyed Antigonus, who for a brief moment claimed jurisdiction
+over all the East--never mattered long to the world at large and matter
+not at all here and now. The end of the fourth century sees Seleucus of
+Babylonia lording it over the most part of West Asia which was best
+worth having, except the southern half of Syria and the coasts of Asia
+Minor and certain isles in sight of them, which, if not subject to
+Ptolemy of Egypt, were free of both kings or dominated by a third,
+resident in Europe and soon to disappear. In the event those two,
+Seleucus and Ptolemy, alone of all the Macedonian successors, would
+found dynasties destined to endure long enough in kingdoms great enough
+to affect the general history of civilization in the Ancient East.
+
+Seleucus has no surviving chronicler of the first or the second rank,
+and consequently remains one of the most shadowy of the greater men of
+action in antiquity. We can say little of him personally, except that he
+was quick and fearless in action, prepared to take chances, a born
+leader in war, and a man of long sight and persistent purpose. Alexander
+had esteemed and distinguished him highly, and, marrying him to Apama, a
+noble Iranian lady, convinced him of his own opinion that the point from
+which to rule an Asiatic empire was Babylonia. Seleucus let the first
+partition of the dead man's lands go by, and not till the first turmoil
+was over and his friend Ptolemy was securely seated in Egypt, did he ask
+for a province. The province was Babylonia. Ejected by the malevolence
+of Antigonus, he regained it by grace of Ptolemy in 312, established
+ascendency over all satraps to east of him during the next half-dozen
+years, letting only India go, and then came west in 305 to conquer and
+slay Antigonus at Ipsus in central Asia Minor. The third king,
+Lysimachus of Thrace, was disposed of in 281, and Seleucus, dying a few
+months later, left to his dynastic successors an Asiatic empire of
+seventy-two provinces, very nearly equal to Alexander's, with important
+exceptions in Asia Minor.
+
+In Asia Minor neither Seleucus nor the Seleucids ever held anything
+effectively except the main lines of communication from East to West and
+the district in which these come down to the Aegean Sea. The south
+coast, as has been said, remained in Egyptian hands almost all through
+the Seleucid period. The southwest obeyed the island republic of Rhodes.
+Most of the Greek maritime cities of the northwest and north kept their
+freedom more or less inviolate; while inland a purely Greek monarchy,
+that of Pergamum, gradually extended its sway up to the central desert.
+In the north a formidable barrier to Seleucid expansion arose within
+five years of Seleucus' death, namely, a settlement of Gauls who had
+been invited across the straits by a king of Bithynia. After charging
+and raiding in all directions these intractable allies were penned by
+the repeated efforts of both the Seleucid and the Pergamene kings into
+the upper Sakaria basin (henceforth to be known as Galatia) and there
+they formed a screen behind which Bithynia and Paphlagonia maintained
+sturdy independence. The north-east also was the seat of independent
+monarchies. Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, ruled by princes of Iranian
+origin, were never integral parts of the Seleucid Empire, though
+consistently friendly to its rulers. Finally, in the hill-regions of the
+centre, as of the coasts, the Seleucid writ did not run.
+
+Looked at as a whole, however, and not only from a Seleucid point of
+view, the Ancient East, during the century following Seleucus' death
+(forty-three years after Alexander's), was dominated politically by
+Hellenes over fully nine-tenths of its area. About those parts of it
+held by cities actually Greek, or by Pergamum, no more need be said. As
+for Seleucus and his successors, though the latter, from Antiochus Soter
+onward, had a strain of Iranian blood, they held and proved themselves
+essentially Hellenic. Their portraits from first to last show European
+features, often fine. Ptolemy Lagus and all the Lagidae remained
+Macedonian Greeks to a man and a woman and to the bitter end, with the
+greatest Hellenic city in the world for their seat. As for the remaining
+tenth part of the East, almost the whole of it was ruled by princes who
+claimed the title "philhellene," and justified it not only by political
+friendliness to the Seleucidae and the Western Greeks, but also by
+encouraging Greek settlers and Greek manners. So far as patronage and
+promotion by the highest powers could further it, Hellenism had a fair
+chance in West Asia from the conquest of Alexander down to the
+appearance of Rome in the East. What did it make of this chance? How far
+in the event did those Greek and Macedonian rulers, philhellenic Iranian
+princes and others, hellenize West Asia? If they did succeed in a
+measure, but not so completely that the East ceased to be distinct from
+the West, what measure was set to their several influences, and why?
+
+[Plate 6: HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.]
+
+Let us see, first, what precisely Hellenism implied as it was brought to
+Asia by Alexander and practised by his successors. Politically it
+implied recognition by the individual that the society of which he was a
+member had an indefeasible and virtually exclusive claim on his good
+will and his good offices. The society so recognized was not a family or
+a tribe, but a city and its proper district, distinguished from all
+other cities and their districts. The geographical configuration and the
+history of Greece, a country made up in part of small plains ringed in
+by hills and sea, in part of islands, had brought about this limitation
+of political communities, and had made patriotism mean to the Greek
+devotion to his city-state. To a wider circle he was not capable of
+feeling anything like the same sense of obligation or, indeed, any
+compelling obligation at all. If he recognized the claim of a group of
+city-states, which remotely claimed common origin with his own, it was
+an academic feeling: if he was conscious of his community with all
+Hellenes as a nation it was only at moments of particular danger at the
+hands of a common non-Hellenic foe. In short, while not insensible to
+the principle of nationality he was rarely capable of applying it
+practically except in regard to a small society with whose members he
+could be acquainted personally and among whom he could make his own
+individuality felt. He had no feudal tradition, and no instinctive
+belief that the individualities composing a community must be
+subordinate to any one individual in virtue of the latter's patriarchal
+or representative relation to them.
+
+Let us deal with this political implication of Hellenism before we pass
+on to its other qualities. In its purity political Hellenism was
+obviously not compatible with the monarchical Macedonian state, which
+was based on feudal recognition of the paternal or representative
+relation of a single individual to many peoples composing a nation. The
+Macedonians themselves, therefore, could not carry to Asia, together
+with their own national patriotism (somewhat intensified, perhaps, by
+intercourse during past generations with Greek city-states) any more
+than an outside knowledge of the civic patriotism of the Greeks. Since,
+however, they brought in their train a great number of actual Greeks and
+had to look to settlement of these in Asia for indispensable support of
+their own rule, commerce and civilization, they were bound to create
+conditions under which civic patriotism, of which they knew the value as
+well as the danger, might continue to exist in some measure. Their
+obvious policy was to found cities wherever they wished to settle
+Greeks, and to found them along main lines of communication, where they
+might promote trade and serve as guardians of the roads; while at the
+same time, owing to their continual intercourse with each other, their
+exposure to native sojourners and immigrants and their necessary
+dependence on the centre of government, they could hardly repeat in Asia
+the self-centred exclusiveness characteristic of cities in either
+European Greece or the strait and sharply divided valleys of the west
+Anatolian coast. In fact, by design or not, most Seleucid foundations
+were planted in comparatively open country. Seleucus alone is said to
+have been responsible for seventy-five cities, of which the majority
+clustered in that great meeting-place of through routes, North Syria,
+and along the main highway through northern Asia Minor to Ephesus. In
+this city, Seleucus himself spent most of his last years. We know of few
+Greek colonies, or none, founded by him or his dynasty beyond the
+earlier limits of the Ancient East, where, in Afghanistan, Turkestan and
+India, Alexander had planted nearly all his new cities. Possibly his
+successor held these to be sufficient; probably he saw neither prospect
+of advantage nor hope of success in creating Greek cities in a region so
+vast and so alien; certainly neither he nor his dynasty was ever in such
+a position to support or maintain them, if founded east of Media, as
+Alexander was and proposed to be, had longer life been his. But in
+western Asia from Seleucia on Tigris, an immense city of over half a
+million souls, to Laodicea on Lycus and the confines of the old Ionian
+littoral, Seleucus and his successors created urban life, casting it in
+a Hellenic mould whose form, destined to persist for many centuries to
+come, would exercise momentous influence on the early history of the
+Christian religion.
+
+By founding so many urban communities of Greek type the Macedonian kings
+of West Asia undeniably introduced Hellenism as an agent of political
+civilization into much of the Ancient East, which needed it badly and
+profited by it. But the influence of their Hellenism was potent and
+durable only in those newly founded, or newly organized, urban
+communities and their immediate neighbourhood. Where these clustered
+thickly, as along the Lower Orontes and on the Syrian coast-line, or
+where Greek farmers had settled in the interspaces, as in Cyrrhestica
+(i.e. roughly, central North Syria), Hellenism went far to make whole
+districts acquire a civic spirit, which, though implying much less sense
+of personal freedom and responsibility than in Attica or Laconia, would
+have been recognized by an Athenian or a Spartan as kin to his own
+patriotism. But where the cities were strung on single lines of
+communication at considerable intervals, as in central Asia Minor and in
+Mesopotamia, they exerted little political influence outside their own
+walls. For Hellenism was and remained essentially a property of
+communities small enough for each individual to exert his own personal
+influence on political and social practice. So soon as a community
+became, in numbers or distribution, such as to call for centralized, or
+even representative, administration, patriotism of the Hellenic type
+languished and died. It was quite incapable of permeating whole peoples
+or of making a nation, whether in the East or anywhere else. Yet in the
+East peoples have always mattered more than cities, by whomsoever
+founded and maintained.
+
+Hellenism, however, had, by this time, not only a political implication
+but also moral and intellectual implications which were partly effects,
+partly causes, of its political energy. As has been well said by a
+modern historian of the Seleucid house, Hellenism meant, besides a
+politico-social creed, also a certain attitude of mind. The
+characteristic feature of this attitude was what has been called
+Humanism, this word being used in a special sense to signify
+intellectual interest confined to human affairs, but free within the
+range of these. All Greeks were not, of course, equally humanistic in
+this sense. Among them, as in all societies, there were found
+temperaments to which transcendental speculation appealed, and these
+increasing in number, as with the loss of their freedom the city-states
+ceased to stand for the realization of the highest possible good in this
+world, made Orphism and other mystic cults prevail ever more and more in
+Hellas. But when Alexander carried Hellenism to Asia it was still
+broadly true that the mass of civilized Hellenes regarded anything that
+could not be apprehended by the intellect through the senses as not only
+outside their range of interest but non-existent. Further, while nothing
+was held so sacred that it might not be probed or discussed with the
+full vigour of an inquirer's intelligence, no consideration except the
+logic of apprehended facts should determine his conclusion. An argument
+was to be followed wherever it might lead, and its consequences must be
+faced in full without withdrawal behind any non-intellectual screen.
+Perfect freedom of thought and perfect freedom of discussion over the
+whole range of human matters; perfect freedom of consequent action, so
+the community remained uninjured--this was the typical Hellene's ideal.
+An instinctive effort to realize it was his habitual attitude towards
+life. His motto anticipated the Roman poet's "I am human: nothing human
+do I hold no business of mine!"
+
+By the time the Western conquest of Asia was complete, this attitude,
+which had grown more and more prevalent in the centres of Greek life
+throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, had come to exclude anything
+like religiosity from the typical Hellenic character. A religion the
+Greek had of course, but he held it lightly, neither possessed by it nor
+even looking to it for guidance in the affairs of his life. If he
+believed in a world beyond the grave, he thought little about it or not
+at all, framing his actions with a view solely to happiness in the
+flesh. A possible fate in the hereafter seemed to him to have no bearing
+on his conduct here. That disembodied he might spend eternity with the
+divine, or, absorbed into the divine essence, become himself
+divine--such ideas, though not unknown or without attraction to rarer
+spirits, were wholly impotent to combat the vivid interest in life and
+the lust of strenuous endeavour which were bred in the small worlds of
+the city-states.
+
+The Greeks, then, who passed to Asia in Alexander's wake had no
+religious message for the East, and still less had the Macedonian
+captains who succeeded him. Born and bred to semibarbaric superstitions,
+they had long discarded these, some for the freethinking attitude of the
+Greek, and all for the cult of the sword. The only thing which, in their
+Emperor's lifetime, stood to them for religion was a feudal devotion to
+himself and his house. For a while this feeling survived in the ranks of
+the army, as Eumenes, wily Greek that he was, proved by the manner and
+success of his appeals to dynastic loyalty in the first years of the
+struggle for the succession; and perhaps, we may trace it longer still
+in the leaders, as an element, blended with something of homesickness
+and something of national tradition, in that fatality which impelled
+each Macedonian lord of Asia, first Antigonus, then Seleucus, finally
+Antiochus the Great, to hanker after the possession of Macedonia and be
+prepared to risk the East to win back the West. Indeed, it is a
+contributory cause of the comparative failure of the Seleucids to keep
+their hold on their Asiatic Empire that their hearts were never wholly
+in it.
+
+For the rest, they and all the Macedonian captains alike were
+conspicuously irreligious men, whose gods were themselves. They were
+what the age had made them, and what all similar ages make men of
+action. Theirs was a time of wide conquests recently achieved by right
+of might alone, and left to whomsoever should be mightiest. It was a
+time when the individual had suddenly found that no accidental
+defects--lack of birth, or property, or allies--need prevent him from
+exploiting for himself a vast field of unmeasured possibilities, so he
+had a sound brain, a stout heart and a strong arm. As it would be again
+in the age of the Crusades, in that of the Grand Companies, and in that
+of the Napoleonic conquests, every soldier knew that it rested only with
+himself and with opportunity, whether or no he should die a prince. It
+was a time for reaping harvests which others had sown, for getting
+anything for nothing, for frank and unashamed lust of loot, for selling
+body and soul to the highest bidder, for being a law to oneself. In such
+ages the voice of the priest goes for as little as the voice of
+conscience, and the higher a man climbs, the less is his faith in a
+power above him.
+
+Having won the East, however, these irreligious Macedonians found they
+had under their hand a medley of peoples, diverse in many
+characteristics, but almost all alike in one, and that was their
+religiosity. Deities gathered and swarmed in Asia. Men showed them
+fierce fanatic devotion or spent lives in contemplation of the idea of
+them, careless of everything which Macedonians held worth living for,
+and even of life itself. Alexander had been quick to perceive the
+religiosity of the new world into which he had come. If his power in the
+East was to rest on a popular basis he knew that basis must be
+religious. Beginning with Egypt he set an example (not lost on the man
+who would be his successor there) of not only conciliating priests but
+identifying himself with the chief god in the traditional manner of
+native kings since immemorial time; and there is no doubt that the cult
+of himself, which he appears to have enjoined increasingly on his
+followers, his subjects and his allies, as time went on, was consciously
+devised to meet and captivate the religiosity of the East. In Egypt he
+must be Ammon, in Syria he would be Baal, in Babylon Bel. He left the
+faith of his fathers behind him when he went up to the East, knowing as
+well as his French historian knew in the nineteenth century, that in
+Asia the "dreams of Olympus were less worth than the dreams of the Magi
+and the mysteries of India, pregnant with the divine." With these last,
+indeed, he showed himself deeply impressed, and his recorded attitude
+towards the Brahmans of the Punjab implies the earliest acknowledgment
+made publicly by a Greek, that in religion the West must learn from the
+East.
+
+Alexander, who has never been forgotten by the traditions and myths of
+the East, might possibly, with longer life, have satisfied Asiatic
+religiosity with an apotheosis of himself. His successors failed either
+to keep his divinity alive or to secure any general acceptance of their
+own godhead. That they tried to meet the demand of the East with a new
+universal cult of imperial utility and that some, like Antiochus IV, the
+tyrant of early Maccabaean history, tried very hard, is clear. That they
+failed and that Rome failed after them is writ large in the history of
+the expansion of half-a-dozen Eastern cults before the Christian era,
+and of Christianity itself.
+
+Only in the African province did Macedonian rule secure a religious
+basis. What an Alexander could hardly have achieved in Asia, a Ptolemy
+did easily in Egypt. There the _de facto_ ruler, of whatever race, had
+been installed a god since time out of mind, and an omnipotent
+priesthood, dominating a docile people, stood about the throne. The
+Assyrian conquerors had stiffened their backs in Egypt to save
+affronting the gods of their fatherland; but the Ptolemies, like the
+Persians, made no such mistake, and had three centuries of secure rule
+for their reward. The knowledge that what the East demanded could be
+provided easily and safely even by Macedonians in the Nile valley alone
+was doubtless present to the sagacious mind of Ptolemy when, letting all
+wider lands pass to others, he selected Egypt in the first partition of
+the provinces.
+
+The Greek, in a word, had only his philosophies to offer to the
+religiosity of the East. But a philosophy of religion is a complement
+to, a modifying influence on, religion, not a substitute sufficient to
+satisfy the instinctive and profound craving of mankind for God. While
+this craving always possessed the Asiatic mind, the Greek himself, never
+naturally insensible to it, became more and more conscious of his own
+void as he lived in Asia. What had long stood to him for religion,
+namely passionate devotion to the community, was finding less and less
+to feed on under the restricted political freedom which was now his lot
+everywhere. Superior though he felt his culture to be in most respects,
+it lacked one thing needful, which inferior cultures around him
+possessed in full. As time went on he became curious, then receptive, of
+the religious systems among whose adherents he found himself, being
+coerced insensibly by nature's abhorrence of a vacuum. Not that he
+swallowed any Eastern religion whole, or failed, while assimilating what
+he took, to transform it with his own essence. Nor again should it be
+thought that he gave nothing at all in return. He gave a philosophy
+which, acting almost as powerfully on the higher intelligences of the
+East as their religions acted on his intelligence, created the
+"Hellenistic" type, properly so called, that is the oriental who
+combined the religious instinct of Asia with the philosophic spirit of
+Greece--such an oriental as (to take two very great names), the Stoic
+apostle Zeno, a Phoenician of Cyprus, or the Christian apostle, Saul the
+Jew of Tarsus. By the creation of this type, East and West were brought
+at last very near together, divided only by the distinction of religious
+philosophy in Athens from philosophic religion in Syria.
+
+The history of the Near East during the last three centuries before the
+Christian era is the history of the gradual passing of Asiatic religions
+westward to occupy the Hellenic vacuum, and of Hellenic philosophical
+ideas eastward to supplement and purify the religious systems of West
+Asia. How far the latter eventually penetrated into the great Eastern
+continent, whether even to India or China, this is no place to discuss:
+how far the former would push westward is written in the modern history
+of Europe and the New World. The expansion of Mithraism and of
+half-a-dozen other Asiatic and Egyptian cults, which were drawn from the
+East to Greece and beyond before the first century of the Hellenistic
+Age closed, testifies to the early existence of that spiritual void in
+the West which a greater and purer religion, about to be born in Galilee
+and nurtured in Antioch, was at last to fill. The instrumentality of
+Alexander and his successors in bringing about or intensifying that
+contact and intercourse between Semite and Greek, which begot the
+philosophic morality of Christianity and rendered its westward expansion
+inevitable, stands to their credit as a historic fact of such tremendous
+import that it may be allowed to atone for more than all their sins.
+
+This, then, the Seleucids did--they so brought West and East together
+that each learned from the other. But more than that cannot be claimed
+for them. They did not abolish the individuality of either; they did not
+Hellenize even so much of West Asia as they succeeded in holding to the
+end. In this they failed not only for the reasons just considered--lack
+of vital religion in their Macedonians and their Greeks, and
+deterioration of the Hellenism of Hellenes when they ceased to be
+citizens of free city-states--but also through individual faults of
+their own, which appear again and again as the dynasty runs its course;
+and perhaps even more for some deeper reason, not understood by us yet,
+but lying behind the empirical law that East is East and West is West.
+
+As for the Seleucid kings themselves they leave on us, ill-known as
+their characters and actions are, a clear impression of approximation to
+the traditional type of the Greek of the Roman age and since. As a
+dynasty they seem to have been quickly spoilt by power, to have been
+ambitious but easily contented with the show and surface of success, to
+have been incapable and contemptuous of thorough organization, and to
+have had little in the way of policy, and less perseverance in the
+pursuit of it. It is true that our piecemeal information comes largely
+from writers who somewhat despised them; but the known history of the
+Seleucid Empire, closed by an extraordinarily facile and ignominious
+collapse before Rome, supports the judgment that, taken one with
+another, its kings were shallow men and haphazard rulers who owed it
+more to chance than to prudence that their dynasty endured so long.
+
+Their strongest hold was on Syria, and in the end their only hold. We
+associate them in our minds particularly with the great city of Antioch,
+which the first Seleucus founded on the Lower Orontes to gather up trade
+from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor in the North Syrian country. But,
+as a matter of fact, that city owes its fame mainly to subsequent Roman
+masters. For it did not become the capital of Seleucid preference till
+the second century B.C.--till, by the year 180, the dynasty, which had
+lost both the Western and the Eastern provinces, had to content itself
+with Syria and Mesopotamia alone. Not only had the Parthians then come
+down from Turkestan to the south of the Caspian (their kings assumed
+Iranian names but were they not, like the present rulers of Persia,
+really Turks?), but Media too had asserted independence and Persia was
+fallen away to the rule of native princes in Fars. Seleucia on Tigris
+had become virtually a frontier city facing an Iranian and Parthian
+peril which the imperial incapacity of the Seleucids allowed to develop,
+and even Rome would never dispel. On the other flank of the empire a
+century of Seleucid efforts to plant headquarters in Western Asia Minor,
+whether at Ephesus or Sardes, and thence to prosecute ulterior designs
+on Macedonia and Greece, had been settled in favour of Pergamum by the
+arms and mandate of the coming arbiter of the East, the Republic of
+Rome. Bidden retire south of Taurus after the battle of Magnesia in 190,
+summarily ordered out of Egypt twenty years later, when Antiochus
+Epiphanes was hoping to compensate the loss of west and east with gain
+of the south, the Seleucids had no choice of a capital. It must
+thenceforth be Antioch or nothing.
+
+That, however, a Macedonian dynasty was forced to concentrate in north
+Syria whatever Hellenism it had (though after Antiochus Epiphanes its
+Hellenism steadily grew less) during the last two centuries before the
+Christian era was to have a momentous effect on the history of the
+world. For it was one of the two determining causes of an increase in
+the influence of Hellenism upon the Western Semites, which issued
+ultimately in the Christian religion. From Cilicia on the north to
+Phoenicia and Palestine in the south, such higher culture, such
+philosophical study as there were came more and more under the influence
+of Greek ideas, particularly those of the Stoic School, whose founder
+and chief teacher (it should never be forgotten) had been a Semite, born
+some three hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth. The Hellenized
+University of Tarsus, which educated Saul, and the Hellenistic party in
+Palestine, whose desire to make Jerusalem a southern Antioch brought on
+the Maccabaean struggle, both owed in a measure their being and their
+continued vitality to the existence and larger growth of Antioch on the
+Orontes.
+
+But Phoenicia and Palestine owed as much of their Hellenism (perhaps
+more) to another Hellenized city and another Macedonian dynasty--to
+Alexandria and to the Ptolemies. Because the short Maccabaean period of
+Palestinian history, during which a Seleucid did happen to be holding
+all Syria, is very well and widely known, it is apt to be forgotten
+that, throughout almost all other periods of the Hellenistic Age,
+southern Syria, that is Palestine and Phoenicia as well as Cyprus and
+the Levant coast right round to Pamphylia, was under the political
+domination of Egypt. The first Ptolemy added to his province some of
+these Asiatic districts and cities, and in particular Palestine and
+Coele-Syria, very soon after he had assumed command of Egypt, and making
+no secret of his intention to retain them, built a fleet to secure his
+end. He knew very well that if Egypt is to hold in permanency any
+territory outside Africa, she must be mistress of the sea. After a brief
+set-back at the hands of Antigonus' son, Ptolemy made good his hold when
+the father was dead; and Cyprus also became definitely his in 294. His
+successor, in whose favour he abdicated nine years later, completed the
+conquest of the mainland coasts right round the Levant at the expense of
+Seleucus' heir. In the event, the Ptolemies kept almost all that the
+first two kings of the dynasty had thus won until they were supplanted
+by Rome, except for an interval of a little more than fifty years from
+199 to about 145; and even during the latter part of this period south
+Syria was under Egyptian influence once more, though nominally part of
+the tottering Seleucid realm.
+
+The object pursued by the Macedonian kings of Egypt in conquering and
+holding a thin coastal fringe of mainland outside Africa and certain
+island posts from Cyprus to the Cyclades was plainly commercial, to get
+control of the general Levant trade and of certain particular supplies
+(notably ship-timber) for their royal port of Alexandria. The first
+Ptolemy had well understood why his master had founded this city after
+ruining Tyre, and why he had taken so great pains both earlier and later
+to secure his Mediterranean coasts. Their object the Ptolemies obtained
+sufficiently, although they never eliminated the competition of the
+Rhodian republic and had to resign to it the command of the Aegean after
+the battle of Cos in 246. But Alexandria had already become a great
+Semitic as well as Grecian city, and continued to be so for centuries to
+come. The first Ptolemy is said to have transplanted to Egypt many
+thousands of Jews who quickly reconciled themselves to their exile, if
+indeed it had ever been involuntary; and how large its Jewish population
+was by the reign of the second Ptolemy and how open to Hellenic
+influence, may be illustrated sufficiently by the fact that at
+Alexandria, during that reign, the Hebrew scriptures were translated
+into Greek by the body of Semitic scholars which has been known since as
+the Septuagint. Although it was consistent Ptolemaic policy not to
+countenance Hellenic proselytism, the inevitable influence of Alexandria
+on south Syria was stronger than that consciously exerted by Antiochus
+Epiphanes or any other Seleucid; and if Phoenician cities had become
+homes of Hellenic science and philosophy by the middle of the third
+century, and if Yeshua or Jason, High Priest of Jehovah, when he applied
+to his suzerain a hundred years later for leave to make Jerusalem a
+Greek city, had at his back a strong party anxious to wear hats in the
+street and nothing at all in the gymnasium, Alexandria rather than
+Antioch should have the chief credit--or chief blame!
+
+Before, however, all this blending of Semitic religiosity with Hellenic
+philosophical ideas, and with something of the old Hellenic mansuetude,
+which had survived even under Macedonian masters to modify Asiatic
+minds, could issue in Christianity, half the East, with its dispersed
+heirs of Alexander, had passed under the common and stronger yoke of
+Rome. Ptolemaic Alexandria and Seleucid Antioch had prepared Semitic
+ground for seed of a new religion, but it was the wide and sure peace of
+the Roman Empire that brought it to birth and gave it room to grow. It
+was to grow, as all the world knows, westward not eastward, making
+patent by its first successes and by its first failures how much
+Hellenism had gone to the making of it. The Asian map of Christianity at
+the end, say, of the fourth century of the latter's existence, will show
+it very exactly bounded by the limits to which the Seleucid Empire had
+carried Greeks in any considerable body, and the further limits to which
+the Romans, who ruled effectively a good deal left aside by their
+Macedonian predecessors--much of central and eastern Asia Minor for
+example, and all Armenia--had advanced their Graeco-Roman subjects.
+
+Beyond these bounds neither Hellenism nor Christianity was fated in that
+age to strike deep roots or bear lasting fruit. The Farther East--the
+East, that is to say, beyond Euphrates--remained unreceptive and
+intolerant of both influences. We have seen how almost all of it had
+fallen away from the Seleucids many generations before the birth of
+Christ, when a ring of principalities, Median, Parthian, Persian,
+Nabathsean, had emancipated the heart of the Orient from its short
+servitude to the West; and though Rome, and Byzantium after her, would
+push the frontier of effective European influence somewhat eastward
+again, their Hellenism could never capture again that heart which the
+Seleucids had failed to hold. This is not to say that nothing of
+Hellenism passed eastward of Mesopotamia and made an abiding mark.
+Parthian and Sassanian art, the earlier Buddhist art of north-western
+India and Chinese Turkestan, some features even of early Mohammedan art,
+and some, too, of early Mohammedan doctrine and imperial policy,
+disprove any sweeping assertion that nothing Greek took root beyond the
+bounds of the Roman Empire. But it was very little of Hellenism and not
+at all its essence. We must not be deceived by mere borrowings of exotic
+things or momentary appreciations of foreign luxuries. That the
+Parthians were witnessing a performance of the Bacchae of Euripides,
+when the head of hapless Crassus was brought to Ctesiphon, no more
+argues that they had the Western spirit than our taste for Chinese
+curios or Japanese plays proves us informed with the spirit of the East.
+
+The East, in fine, remained the East. It was so little affected after
+all by the West that in due time its religiosity would be pregnant with
+yet another religion, antithetical to Hellenism, and it was so little
+weakened that it would win back again all it had lost and more, and keep
+Hither Asia in political and cultural independence of the West until our
+own day. If modern Europe has taken some parts of the gorgeous East in
+fee which were never held by Macedonian or Roman, let us remember in our
+pride of race that almost all that the Macedonians and the Romans did
+hold in Asia has been lost to the West ever since. Europe may and
+probably will prevail there again; but since it must be by virtue of a
+civilization in whose making a religion born of Asia has been the
+paramount indispensable factor, will the West even then be more creditor
+than debtor of the East?
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ON BOOKS
+
+The authorities cited at the end of Prof. J. L. Myres' _Dawn of History_
+(itself an authority), in the Home University Library, are to a great
+extent suitable for those who wish to read more widely round the theme
+of the present volume, since those (e.g. the geographical works given in
+_Dawn of History_, p. 253, paragraph 2) which are not more or less
+essential preliminaries to a study of the Ancient East at any period,
+mostly deal with the historic as well as the prehistoric age. To spare
+readers reference to another volume, however, I will repeat here the
+most useful books in Prof. Myres' list, adding at the same time certain
+others, some of which have appeared since the issue of his volume.
+
+For the history of the whole region in the period covered by my volume,
+E. Meyer's _Geschichte Alterthums_, of a new edition of which a French
+translation is in progress and has already been partly issued, is the
+most authoritative. Sir G. Maspero's _Histoire ancienne des peuples de
+l'Orient classique_ (English translation in 3 vols. under the titles
+_The Dawn of Civilization_ (Egypt and Chaldaea); _The Struggle of the
+Nations_ (Egypt, Syria, and Assyria); _The Passing of the Empires_) is
+still valuable, but rather out of date. There has appeared recently a
+more modern and handy book than either, Mr. H. R. Hall's _The Ancient
+History of the Near East_ (1913), which gathers up, not only what was in
+the books by Mr. Hall and Mr. King cited by Prof. Myres, but also the
+contents of Meyer's and Maspero's books, and others, and the results of
+more recent research, in some of which the author has taken part. This
+book includes in its scope both Egypt and the Aegean area, besides
+Western Asia.
+
+For the special history of Babylonia and Assyria and their Empires, R.
+W. Rogers' _History of Babylonia and Assyria_, 2 vols., has been kept up
+to date and is the most convenient summary for an English reader. H.
+Winckler's _History of Babylonia and Assyria_ (translated from the
+German by J. A. Craig, 1907) is more brilliant and suggestive, but needs
+to be used with more caution. A. T. Olmstead's _Western Asia in the Days
+of Sargon of Assyria_ (1908) is an instructive study of the Assyrian
+Empire at its height.
+
+For the Hittite Empire and civilization J. Garstang's _The Land of the
+Hittites_ (1910) is the best recent book which aims at being
+comprehensive. But it must be borne in mind that this subject is in the
+melting-pot at present, that excavations now in progress have added
+greatly to the available evidence, and that very few of the Boghazkeui
+archives were published when Garstang's book was issued. D. G. Hogarth's
+articles on the Hittites, in Enc. Brit, and Enc. Brit. Year-book,
+summarize some more recent research; but there is no compendium of
+Hittite research which is really up to date.
+
+For Semitic Syrian history, Rogers and Winckler, as cited above, will
+probably be found sufficient; and also for the Urartu peoples. For
+Western Asia Minor and the Greeks, besides D.G. Hogarth's _Ionia and
+the East_, the new edition of Beloch's _Griechische Geschichte_ gives
+all, and more than all, that the general reader will require. If German
+is a difficulty to him, he must turn to J.B. Bury's _History of Greece_
+and to the later part of Hall's _Ancient History of the Near East_,
+cited above. For Alexander's conquest he can go to J. Karst, _Geschichte
+des hellenistischen Zeitalters_, Vol. I (1901), B. Niese, _Geschichte
+der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten_ (1899), or D.G. Hogarth,
+_Philip and Alexander of Macedon_ (1897); but the great work of J.G.
+Droysen, _Das Hellenismus_ (French translation), lies behind all these.
+
+Finally, the fourth English volume of A. Holm's _History of Greece_
+(1898) and E.R. Bevan's _House of Seleucus_ (1902) will supply most
+that is known of the Hellenistic Age in Asia.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarh
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+***** This file should be named 7474-8.txt or 7474-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/7/7474/
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
+specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
+eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
+away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
+not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
+trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country outside the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
+  are located before using this ebook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
+Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
+mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
+volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
+locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
+Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
+date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
+official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+    Chief Executive and Director
+    gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/7474-8.zip b/7474-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5690b02
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-8.zip
diff --git a/7474-h.zip b/7474-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5d75746
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h.zip
diff --git a/7474-h/7474-h.htm b/7474-h/7474-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ecef648
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h/7474-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,5137 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of My Book, by A. N. Author</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
+body {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background-color: white}
+img {border: 0;}
+h1,h2,h3 {text-align: center;}
+.ind {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;}
+.ctr {text-align: center;}
+-->
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Ancient East
+
+Author: D. G. Hogarh
+
+Posting Date: February 12, 2015 [EBook #7474]
+Release Date: February, 2005
+First Posted: May 6, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h2>HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE</h2>
+
+<h3>No. 92</h3>
+
+<h3><i>Editors</i>:</h3>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<b>HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.</b>
+<br>
+<b>PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LITT.D., LL.D., F.B.A.</b>
+<br>
+<b>PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.</b>
+<br>
+<b>PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.</b>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h1>THE ANCIENT EAST</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A., F.S.A.</h2>
+
+<h3>
+KEEPER OF THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD;
+AUTHOR OF "IONIA AND THE EAST,"
+"THE NEARER EAST," ETC.
+</h3>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#intro">INTRODUCTORY</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#i">I    THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#ii">II   THE EAST IN 800 B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#iii">III  THE EAST IN 600 B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#iv">IV   THE EAST IN 400 B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#v">V    THE VICTORY OF THE WEST</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#vi">VI   EPILOGUE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#books">NOTE ON BOOKS</a>
+</p>
+
+
+<h3>LIST OF MAPS</h3>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/map1.gif">1. THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/map2.gif">2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/map3.gif">3. HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/map4.gif">4. ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF ASHURBANIPAL</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/map5.gif">5. PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS HYSTASPIS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/map6.gif">6. HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h1>
+THE ANCIENT EAST
+</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="intro">INTRODUCTORY</a></h2>
+
+<p>
+The title of this book needs a word of explanation, since each of its
+terms can legitimately be used to denote more than one conception both
+of time and place. "The East" is understood widely and vaguely nowadays
+to include all the continent and islands of Asia, some part of
+Africa--the northern part where society and conditions of life are most
+like the Asiatic--and some regions also of South-Eastern and Eastern
+Europe. Therefore it may appear arbitrary to restrict it in the present
+book to Western Asia. But the qualifying term in my title must be
+invoked in justification. It is the East not of to-day but of antiquity
+with which I have to deal, and, therefore, I plead that it is not
+unreasonable to understand by "The East" what in antiquity European
+historians understood by that term. To Herodotus and his contemporary
+Greeks Egypt, Arabia and India were the South; Thrace and Scythia were
+the North; and Hither Asia was the East: for they conceived nothing
+beyond except the fabled stream of Ocean. It can be pleaded also that my
+restriction, while not in itself arbitrary, does, in fact, obviate an
+otherwise inevitable obligation to fix arbitrary bounds to the East. For
+the term, as used in modern times, implies a geographical area
+characterized by society of a certain general type, and according to his
+opinion of this type, each person, who thinks or writes of the East,
+expands or contracts its geographical area.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is more difficult to justify the restriction which will be imposed in
+the following chapters on the word Ancient. This term is used even more
+vaguely and variously than the other. If generally it connotes the
+converse of "Modern," in some connections and particularly in the study
+of history the Modern is not usually understood to begin where the
+Ancient ended but to stand only for the comparatively Recent. For
+example, in History, the ill-defined period called the Middle and Dark
+Ages makes a considerable hiatus before, in the process of
+retrospection, we get back to a civilization which (in Europe at least)
+we ordinarily regard as Ancient. Again, in History, we distinguish
+commonly two provinces within the undoubted area of the Ancient, the
+Prehistoric and the Historic, the first comprising all the time to which
+human memory, as communicated by surviving literature, ran not, or, at
+least, not consciously, consistently and credibly. At the same time it
+is not implied that we can have no knowledge at all of the Prehistoric
+province. It may even be better known to us than parts of the Historic,
+through sure deduction from archaeological evidence. But what we learn
+from archaeological records is annalistic not historic, since such
+records have not passed through the transforming crucible of a human
+intelligence which reasons on events as effects of causes. The boundary
+between Prehistoric and Historic, however, depends too much on the
+subjectivity of individual historians and is too apt to vary with the
+progress of research to be a fixed moment. Nor can it be the same for
+all civilizations. As regards Egypt, for example, we have a body of
+literary tradition which can reasonably be called Historic, relating to
+a time much earlier than is reached by respectable literary tradition of
+Elam and Babylonia, though their civilizations were probably older than
+the Egyptian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the Ancient East as here understood, we possess two bodies of
+historic literary tradition and two only, the Greek and the Hebrew; and
+as it happens, both (though each is independent of the other) lose
+consistency and credibility when they deal with history before 1000 B.C.
+Moreover, Prof. Myres has covered the prehistoric period in the East in
+his brilliant <i>Dawn of History</i>. Therefore, on all accounts, in treating
+of the historic period, I am absolved from looking back more than a
+thousand years before our era.
+
+It is not so obvious where I may stop. The overthrow of Persia by
+Alexander, consummating a long stage in a secular contest, which it is
+my main business to describe, marks an epoch more sharply than any other
+single event in the history of the Ancient East. But there are grave
+objections to breaking off abruptly at that date. The reader can hardly
+close a book which ends then, with any other impression than that since
+the Greek has put the East under his feet, the history of the centuries,
+which have still to elapse before Rome shall take over Asia, will simply
+be Greek history writ large--the history of a Greater Greece which has
+expanded over the ancient East and caused it to lose its distinction
+from the ancient West. Yet this impression does not by any means
+coincide with historical truth. The Macedonian conquest of Hither Asia
+was a victory won by men of Greek civilization, but only to a very
+partial extent a victory of that civilization. The West did not
+assimilate the East except in very small measure then, and has not
+assimilated it in any very large measure to this day. For certain
+reasons, among which some geographical facts--the large proportion of
+steppe-desert and of the human type which such country breeds--are
+perhaps the most powerful, the East is obstinately unreceptive of
+western influences, and more than once it has taken its captors captive.
+Therefore, while, for the sake of convenience and to avoid entanglement
+in the very ill-known maze of what is called "Hellenistic" history, I
+shall not attempt to follow the consecutive course of events after 330
+B.C., I propose to add an epilogue which may prepare readers for what
+was destined to come out of Western Asia after the Christian era, and
+enable them to understand in particular the religious conquest of the
+West by the East. This has been a more momentous fact in the history of
+the world than any political conquest of the East by the West.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>
+In the further hope of enabling readers to retain a clear idea of the
+evolution of the history, I have adopted the plan of looking out over
+the area which is here called the East, at certain intervals, rather
+than the alternative and more usual plan of considering events
+consecutively in each several part of that area. Thus, without
+repetition and overlapping, one may expect to convey a sense of the
+history of the whole East as the sum of the histories of particular
+parts. The occasions on which the surveys will be taken are purely
+arbitrary chronological points two centuries apart. The years 1000, 800,
+600, 400 B.C. are not, any of them, distinguished by known events of the
+kind that is called epoch-making; nor have round numbers been chosen for
+any peculiar historic significance. They might just as well have been
+1001, 801 and so forth, or any other dates divided by equal intervals.
+Least of all is any mysterious virtue to be attached to the millenary
+date with which I begin. But it is a convenient starting-point, not only
+for the reason already stated, that Greek literary memory--the only
+literary memory of antiquity worth anything for early history--goes back
+to about that date; but also because the year 1000 B.C. falls within a
+period of disturbance during which certain racial elements and groups,
+destined to exert predominant influence on subsequent history, were
+settling down into their historic homes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A westward and southward movement of peoples, caused by some obscure
+pressure from the north-west and north-east, which had been disturbing
+eastern and central Asia Minor for more than a century and apparently
+had brought to an end the supremacy of the Cappadocian Hatti, was
+quieting down, leaving the western peninsula broken up into small
+principalities. Indirectly the same movement had brought about a like
+result in northern Syria. A still more important movement of Iranian
+peoples from the farther East had ended in the coalescence of two
+considerable social groups, each containing the germs of higher
+development, on the north-eastern and eastern fringes of the old
+Mesopotamian sphere of influence. These were the Medic and the Persian.
+A little earlier, a period of unrest in the Syrian and Arabian deserts,
+marked by intermittent intrusions of nomads into the western
+fringe-lands, had ended in the formation of new Semitic states in all
+parts of Syria from Shamal in the extreme north-west (perhaps even from
+Cilicia beyond Amanus) to Hamath, Damascus and Palestine. Finally there
+is this justification for not trying to push the history of the Asiatic
+East much behind 1000 B.C.--that nothing like a sure chronological basis
+of it exists before that date. Precision in the dating of events in West
+Asia begins near the end of the tenth century with the Assyrian Eponym
+lists, that is, lists of annual chief officials; while for Babylonia
+there is no certain chronology till nearly two hundred years later. In
+Hebrew history sure chronological ground is not reached till the
+Assyrian records themselves begin to touch upon it during the reign of
+Ahab over Israel. For all the other social groups and states of Western
+Asia we have to depend on more or less loose and inferential
+synchronisms with Assyrian, Babylonian or Hebrew chronology, except for
+some rare events whose dates may be inferred from the alien histories of
+Egypt and Greece.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>
+The area, whose social state we shall survey in 1000 B.C. and re-survey
+at intervals, contains Western Asia bounded eastwards by an imaginary
+line drawn from the head of the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. This
+line, however, is not to be drawn rigidly straight, but rather should
+describe a shallow outward curve, so as to include in the Ancient East
+all Asia situated on this side of the salt deserts of central Persia.
+This area is marked off by seas on three sides and by desert on the
+fourth side. Internally it is distinguished into some six divisions
+either by unusually strong geographical boundaries or by large
+differences of geographical character. These divisions are as follows--
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(1) A western peninsular projection, bounded by seas on three sides and
+divided from the rest of the continent by high and very broad mountain
+masses, which has been named, not inappropriately, <i>Asia Minor</i>, since
+it displays, in many respects, an epitome of the general characteristics
+of the continent. (2) A tangled mountainous region filling almost all
+the rest of the northern part of the area and sharply distinct in
+character not only from the plateau land of Asia Minor to the west but
+also from the great plain lands of steppe character lying to the south,
+north and east. This has perhaps never had a single name, though the
+bulk of it has been included in "Urartu" (Ararat), "Armenia" or
+"Kurdistan" at various epochs; but for convenience we shall call it
+<i>Armenia</i>. (3) A narrow belt running south from both the former
+divisions and distinguished from them by much lower general elevation.
+Bounded on the west by the sea and on the south and east by broad tracts
+of desert, it has, since Greek times at least, been generally known as
+<i>Syria</i>. (4) A great southern peninsula largely desert, lying high and
+fringed by sands on the land side, which has been called, ever since
+antiquity, <i>Arabia</i>. (5) A broad tract stretching into the continent
+between Armenia and Arabia and containing the middle and lower basins of
+the twin rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, which, rising in Armenia, drain
+the greater part of the whole area. It is of diversified surface,
+ranging from sheer desert in the west and centre, to great fertility in
+its eastern parts; but, until it begins to rise northward towards the
+frontier of "Armenia" and eastward towards that of the sixth division,
+about to be described, it maintains a generally low elevation. No common
+name has ever included all its parts, both the interfluvial region and
+the districts beyond Tigris; but since the term <i>Mesopotamia</i>, though
+obviously incorrect, is generally understood nowadays to designate it,
+this name may be used for want of a better. (6) A high plateau, walled
+off from Mesopotamia and Armenia by high mountain chains, and extending
+back to the desert limits of the Ancient East. To this region, although
+it comprises only the western part of what should be understood by
+<i>Iran</i>, this name may be appropriated "without prejudice."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="images/map1.gif">Plate 1: THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS</a>
+</p>
+
+
+<h2><a name="i">CHAPTER I</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.</h3>
+
+<p>
+In 1000 B.C. West Asia was a mosaic of small states and contained, so
+far as we know, no imperial power holding wide dominion over aliens.
+Seldom in its history could it so be described. Since it became
+predominantly Semitic, over a thousand years before our survey, it had
+fallen under simultaneous or successive dominations, exercised from at
+least three regions within itself and from one without.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 1. BABYLONIAN EMPIRE</h4>
+
+<p>
+The earliest of these centres of power to develop foreign empire was
+also that destined, after many vicissitudes, to hold it latest, because
+it was the best endowed by nature to repair the waste which empire
+entails. This was the region which would be known later as Babylonia
+from the name of the city which in historic times dominated it, but, as
+we now know, was neither an early seat of power nor the parent of its
+distinctive local civilization. This honour, if due to any one city,
+should be credited to Ur, whose also was the first and the only truly
+"Babylonian" empire. The primacy of Babylonia had not been the work of
+its aboriginal Sumerian population, the authors of what was highest in
+the local culture, but of Semitic intruders from a comparatively
+barbarous region; nor again, had it been the work of the earliest of
+these intruders (if we follow those who now deny that the dominion of
+Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-sin ever extended beyond the lower
+basins of the Twin Rivers), but of peoples who entered with a second
+series of Semitic waves. These surged out of Arabia, eternal motherland
+of vigorous migrants, in the middle centuries of the third millennium
+B.C. While this migration swamped South Syria with "Canaanites," it
+ultimately gave to Egypt the Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings," to Assyria its
+permanent Semitic population, and to Sumer and Akkad what later
+chroniclers called the First Babylonian Dynasty. Since, however, those
+Semitic interlopers had no civilization of their own comparable with
+either the contemporary Egyptian or the Sumerian (long ago adopted by
+earlier Semitic immigrants), they inevitably and quickly assimilated
+both these civilizations as they settled down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time they did not lose, at least not in Mesopotamia, which
+was already half Semitized, certain Bedawi ideas and instincts, which
+would profoundly affect their later history. Of these the most important
+historically was a religious idea which, for want of a better term, may
+be called Super-Monotheism. Often found rooted in wandering peoples and
+apt long to survive their nomadic phase, it consists in a belief that,
+however many tribal and local gods there may be, one paramount deity
+exists who is not only singular and indivisible but dwells in one spot,
+alone on earth. His dwelling may be changed by a movement of his people
+<i>en masse</i>, but by nothing less; and he can have no real rival in
+supreme power. The fact that the paramount Father-God of the Semites
+came through that migration <i>en masse</i> to take up his residence in
+Babylon and in no other city of the wide lands newly occupied, caused
+this city to retain for many centuries, despite social and political
+changes, a predominant position not unlike that to be held by Holy Rome
+from the Dark Ages to modern times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Secondly the Arabs brought with them their immemorial instinct of
+restlessness. This habit also is apt to persist in a settled society,
+finding satisfaction in annual recourse to tent or hut life and in
+annual predatory excursions. The custom of the razzia or summer raid,
+which is still obligatory in Arabia on all men of vigour and spirit, was
+held in equal honour by the ancient Semitic world. Undertaken as a
+matter of course, whether on provocation or not, it was the origin and
+constant spring of those annual marches to the frontiers, of which royal
+Assyrian monuments vaingloriously tell us, to the exclusion of almost
+all other information. Chederlaomer, Amraphel and the other three kings
+were fulfilling their annual obligation in the Jordan valley when Hebrew
+tradition believed that they met with Abraham; and if, as seems agreed,
+Amraphel was Hammurabi himself, that tradition proves the custom of the
+razzia well established under the First Babylonian Dynasty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover, the fact that these annual campaigns of Babylonian and
+Assyrian kings were simply Bedawi razzias highly organized and on a
+great scale should be borne in mind when we speak of Semitic "empires,"
+lest we think too territorially. No permanent organization of
+territorial dominion in foreign parts was established by Semitic rulers
+till late in Assyrian history. The earlier Semitic overlords, that is,
+all who preceded Ashurnatsirpal of Assyria, went a-raiding to plunder,
+assault, destroy, or receive submissive payments, and their ends
+achieved, returned, without imposing permanent garrisons of their own
+followers, permanent viceroys, or even a permanent tributary burden, to
+hinder the stricken foe from returning to his own way till his turn
+should come to be raided again. The imperial blackmailer had possibly
+left a record of his presence and prowess on alien rocks, to be defaced
+at peril when his back was turned; but for the rest only a sinister
+memory. Early Babylonian and Early Assyrian "empire," therefore, meant,
+territorially, no more than a geographical area throughout which an
+emperor could, and did, raid without encountering effective opposition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, such constant raiding on a great scale was bound to
+produce some of the fruits of empire, and by its fruits, not its
+records, we know most surely how far Babylonian Empire had made itself
+felt. The best witnesses to its far-reaching influence are first, the
+Babylonian element in the Hittite art of distant Asia Minor, which shows
+from the very first (so far as we know it, i.e. from at least 1500 B.C.)
+that native artists were hardly able to realize any native ideas without
+help from Semitic models; and secondly, the use of Babylonian writing
+and language and even Babylonian books by the ruling classes in Asia
+Minor and Syria at a little later time. That governors of Syrian cities
+should have written their official communications to Pharaohs of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty in Babylonian cuneiform (as the archives found at
+Amarna in Upper Egypt twenty years ago show us they did) had already
+afforded such conclusive proof of early and long maintained Babylonian
+influence, that the more recent discovery that Hittite lords of
+Cappadocia used the same script and language for diplomatic purposes has
+hardly surprised us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has been said already that Babylonia was a region so rich and
+otherwise fortunate that empire both came to it earlier and stayed later
+than in the other West Asian lands which ever enjoyed it at all. When we
+come to take our survey of Western Asia in 400 B.C. we shall see an
+emperor still ruling it from a throne set in the lower Tigris basin,
+though not actually in Babylon. But for certain reasons Babylonian
+empire never endured for any long period continuously. The aboriginal
+Akkadian and Sumerian inhabitants were settled, cultivated and home
+keeping folk, while the establishment of Babylonian empire had been the
+work of more vigorous intruders. These, however, had to fear not only
+the imperfect sympathy of their own aboriginal subjects, who again and
+again gathered their sullen forces in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf and attacked the dominant Semites in the rear, but also
+incursions of fresh strangers; for Babylonia is singularly open on all
+sides. Accordingly, revolts of the "Sea Land" folk, inrushing hordes
+from Arabia, descents of mountain warriors from the border hills of Elam
+on the south-eastern edge of the twin river basin, pressure from the
+peoples of more invigorating lands on the higher Euphrates and
+Tigris--one, or more than one such danger ever waited on imperial
+Babylon and brought her low again and again. A great descent of Hatti
+raiders from the north about 1800 B.C. seems to have ended the imperial
+dominion of the First Dynasty. On their retirement Babylonia, falling
+into weak native hands, was a prey to a succession of inroads from the
+Kassite mountains beyond Elam, from Elam itself, from the growing
+Semitic power of Asshur, Babylon's former vassal, from the Hittite
+Empire founded in Cappadocia about 1500 B.C., from the fresh wave of
+Arabian overflow which is distinguished as the Aramaean, and from yet
+another following it, which is usually called Chaldaean; and it was not
+till almost the close of the twelfth century that one of these intruding
+elements attained sufficient independence and security of tenure to
+begin to exalt Babylonia again into a mistress of foreign empire. At
+that date the first Nebuchadnezzar, a part of whose own annals has been
+recovered, seems to have established overlordship in some part of
+Mediterranean Asia--<i>Martu</i>, the West Land; but this empire perished
+again with its author. By 1000 B.C. Babylon was once more a small state
+divided against itself and threatened by rivals in the east and the
+north.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT</h4>
+
+<p>
+During the long interval since the fall of the First Babylonian Dynasty,
+however, Western Asia had not been left masterless. Three other imperial
+powers had waxed and waned in her borders, of which one was destined to
+a second expansion later on. The earliest of these to appear on the
+scene established an imperial dominion of a kind which we shall not
+observe again till Asia falls to the Greeks; for it was established in
+Asia by a non-Asiatic power. In the earlier years of the fifteenth
+century a Pharaoh of the strong Eighteenth Dynasty, Thothmes III, having
+overrun almost all Syria up to Carchemish on the Euphrates, established
+in the southern part of that country an imperial organization which
+converted his conquests for a time into provincial dependencies of
+Egypt. Of the fact we have full evidence in the archives of Thothmes'
+dynastic successors, found by Flinders Petrie at Amarna; for they
+include many reports from officials and client princes in Palestine and
+Phoenicia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, however, the word empire is to be applied (as in fact we have
+applied it in respect of early Babylonia) to a sphere of habitual
+raiding, where the exclusive right of one power to plunder is
+acknowledged implicitly or explicitly by the raided and by surrounding
+peoples, this "Empire" of Egypt must both be set back nearly a hundred
+years before Thothmes III and also be credited with wider limits than
+those of south Syria. Invasions of Semitic Syria right up to the
+Euphrates were first conducted by Pharaohs in the early part of the
+sixteenth century as a sequel to the collapse of the power of the
+Semitic "Hyksos" in Egypt. They were wars partly of revenge, partly of
+natural Egyptian expansion into a neighbouring fertile territory, which
+at last lay open, and was claimed by no other imperial power, while the
+weak Kassites ruled Babylon, and the independence of Assyria was in
+embryo. But the earlier Egyptian armies seem to have gone forth to Syria
+simply to ravage and levy blackmail. They avoided all fenced places, and
+returned to the Nile leaving no one to hold the ravaged territory. No
+Pharaoh before the successor of Queen Hatshepsut made Palestine and
+Phoenicia his own. It was Thothmes III who first reduced such
+strongholds as Megiddo, and occupied the Syrian towns up to Arvad on the
+shore and almost to Kadesh inland--he who by means of a few forts,
+garrisoned perhaps by Egyptian or Nubian troops and certainly in some
+instances by mercenaries drawn from Mediterranean islands and coasts, so
+kept the fear of himself in the minds of native chiefs that they paid
+regular tribute to his collectors and enforced the peace of Egypt on all
+and sundry Hebrews and Amorites who might try to raid from east or
+north.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In upper Syria, however, he and his successors appear to have attempted
+little more than Thothmes I had done, that is to say, they made
+periodical armed progresses through the fertile parts, here and there
+taking a town, but for the most part taking only blackmail. Some strong
+places, such as Kadesh, it is probable they never entered at all. Their
+raids, however, were frequent and effective enough for all Syria to come
+to be regarded by surrounding kings and kinglets as an Egyptian sphere
+of influence within which it was best to acknowledge Pharaoh's rights
+and to placate him by timely presents. So thought and acted the kings of
+Mitanni across Euphrates, the kings of Hatti beyond Taurus, and the
+distant Iranians of the Kassite dynasty in Babylonia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Until the latter years of Thothmes' third successor, Amenhetep III, who
+ruled in the end of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the
+fourteenth, the Egyptian peace was observed and Pharaoh's claim to Syria
+was respected. Moreover, an interesting experiment appears to have been
+made to tighten Egypt's hold on her foreign province. Young Syrian
+princes were brought for education to the Nile, in the hope that when
+sent back to their homes they would be loyal viceroys of Pharaoh: but
+the experiment seems to have produced no better ultimate effect than
+similar experiments tried subsequently by imperial nations from the
+Romans to ourselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="images/map2.gif">Plate 2: ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beyond this conception of imperial organization the Egyptians never
+advanced. Neither effective military occupation nor effective
+administration of Syria by an Egyptian military or civil staff was so
+much as thought of. Traces of the cultural influence of Egypt on the
+Syrian civilization of the time (so far as excavation has revealed its
+remains) are few and far between; and we must conclude that the number
+of genuine Egyptians who resided in, or even passed through, the Asiatic
+province was very small. Unadventurous by nature, and disinclined to
+embark on foreign trade, the Nilots were content to leave Syria in
+vicarious hands, so they derived some profit from it. It needed,
+therefore, only the appearance of some vigorous and numerous tribe in
+the province itself, or of some covetous power on its borders, to end
+such an empire. Both had appeared before Amenhetep's death--the Amorites
+in mid Syria, and a newly consolidated Hatti power on the confines of
+the north. The inevitable crisis was met with no new measures by his
+son, the famous Akhenaten, and before the middle of the fourteenth
+century the foreign empire of Egypt had crumbled to nothing but a sphere
+of influence in southernmost Palestine, having lasted, for better or
+worse, something less than two hundred years. It was revived, indeed, by
+the kings of the Dynasty succeeding, but had even less chance of
+duration than of old. Rameses II, in dividing it to his own great
+disadvantage with the Hatti king by a Treaty whose provisions are known
+to us from surviving documents of both parties, confessed Egyptian
+impotence to make good any contested claim; and by the end of the
+thirteenth century the hand of Pharaoh was withdrawn from Asia, even
+from that ancient appanage of Egypt, the peninsula of Sinai. Some
+subsequent Egyptian kings would make raids into Syria, but none was
+able, or very desirous, to establish there a permanent Empire.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 3. EMPIRE OF THE HATTI</h4>
+
+<p>
+<a href="images/map3.gif">Plate 3: HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The empire which pressed back the Egyptians is the last but one which we
+have to consider before 1000 B.C. It has long been known that the
+Hittites, variously called <i>Kheta</i> by Egyptians and <i>Heth</i> or <i>Hatti</i> by
+Semites and by themselves, developed into a power in westernmost Asia at
+least as early as the fifteenth century; but it was not until their
+cuneiform archives were discovered in 1907 at Boghazkeui in northern
+Cappadocia that the imperial nature of their power, the centre from
+which it was exerted, and the succession of the rulers who wielded it
+became clear. It will be remembered that a great Hatti raid broke the
+imperial sway of the First Babylonian Dynasty about 1800 B.C. Whence
+those raiders came we have still to learn. But, since a Hatti people,
+well enough organized to invade, conquer and impose its garrisons, and
+(much more significant) its own peculiar civilization, on distant
+territories, was seated at Boghazkeui (it is best to use this modern
+name till better assured of an ancient one) in the fifteenth century, we
+may reasonably believe Eastern Asia Minor to have been the homeland of
+the Hatti three centuries before. As an imperial power they enter
+history with a king whom his own archives name Subbiluliuma (but
+Egyptian records, Sapararu), and they vanish something less than two
+centuries later. The northern half of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and
+probably almost all Asia Minor were conquered by the Hatti before 1350
+B.C. and rendered tributary; Egypt was forced out of Asia; the Semitic
+settlements on the twin rivers and the tribes in the desert were
+constrained to deference or defence. A century and a half later the
+Hatti had returned into a darkness even deeper than that from which they
+emerged. The last king of Boghazkeui, of whose archives any part has
+come to light, is one Arnaunta, reigning in the end of the thirteenth
+century. He may well have had successors whose documents may yet be
+found; but on the other hand, we know from Assyrian annals, dated only a
+little later, that a people, possibly kin to the Hatti and certainly
+civilized by them, but called by another name, Mushkaya or Mushki (we
+shall say more of them presently), overran most, if not all, the Hatti
+realm by the middle of the twelfth century. And since, moreover, the
+excavated ruins at both Boghazkeui, the capital of the Hatti, and
+Carchemish, their chief southern dependency, show unmistakable signs of
+destruction and of a subsequent general reconstruction, which on
+archaeological grounds must be dated not much later than Arnaunta's
+time, it seems probable that the history of Hatti empire closed with
+that king. What happened subsequently to surviving detachments of this
+once imperial people and to other communities so near akin by blood or
+civilization, that the Assyrians, when speaking generally of western
+foes or subjects, long continued to call them Hatti, we shall consider
+presently.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 4. EARLY ASSYRIAN EMPIRE</h4>
+
+<p>
+Remains Assyria, which before 1000 B.C. had twice conquered an empire of
+the same kind as that credited to the First Babylonian Dynasty and twice
+recoiled. The early Assyrian expansions are, historically, the most
+noteworthy of the early West Asian Empires because, unlike the rest,
+they were preludes to an ultimate territorial overlordship which would
+come nearer to anticipating Macedonian and Roman imperial systems than
+any others precedent. Assyria, rather than Babylon or Egypt, heads the
+list of aspirants to the Mastership of the World.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There will be so much to say of the third and subsequent expansion of
+Assyria, that her earlier empires may be passed over briefly. The middle
+Tigris basin seems to have received a large influx of Semites of the
+Canaanitic wave at least as early as Babylonia, and thanks to various
+causes--to the absence of a prior local civilization as advanced as the
+Sumerian, to greater distance from such enterprising fomenters of
+disturbance as Elam and Arabia, and to a more invigorating
+climate--these Semites settled down more quickly and thoroughly into an
+agricultural society than the Babylonians and developed it in greater
+purity. Their earliest social centre was Asshur in the southern part of
+their territory. There, in proximity to Babylonia, they fell inevitably
+under the domination of the latter; but after the fall of the First
+Dynasty of Babylon and the subsequent decline of southern Semitic
+vigour, a tendency manifested itself among the northern Semites to
+develop their nationality about more central points. Calah, higher up
+the river, replaced Asshur in the thirteenth century B.C., only to be
+replaced in turn by Nineveh, a little further still upstream; and
+ultimately Assyria, though it had taken its name from the southern city,
+came to be consolidated round a north Mesopotamian capital into a power
+able to impose vassalage on Babylon and to send imperial raiders to the
+Mediterranean, and to the Great Lakes of Armenia. The first of her kings
+to attain this sort of imperial position was Shalmaneser I, who early in
+the thirteenth century B.C. appears to have crushed the last strength of
+the north Mesopotamian powers of Mitanni and Khani and laid the way open
+to the west lands. The Hatti power, however, tried hard to close the
+passages and it was not until its catastrophe and the retirement of
+those who brought it about--the Mushki and their allies--that about 1100
+Tiglath Pileser I could lead his Assyrian raiders into Syria, and even,
+perhaps, a short distance across Taurus. Why his empire died with him we
+do not know precisely. A new invasion of Arabian Semites, the Aramaeans,
+whom he attacked at Mt. Bishri (Tell Basher), may have been the cause.
+But, in any case, the fact is certain. The sons of the great king, who
+had reached Phoenician Aradus and there embarked vaingloriously on
+shipboard to claim mastery of the Western Sea, were reduced to little
+better than vassals of their father's former vassal, Babylon; and up to
+the close of the eleventh century Assyria had not revived.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 5. NEW FORCES IN 1000 B.C.</h4>
+
+<p>
+Thus in 1000 B.C., we look round the East, and, so far as our vision can
+penetrate the clouds, see no one dominant power. Territories which
+formerly were overridden by the greater states, Babylonia, Egypt,
+Cappadocia and Assyria, seem to be not only self-governing but free from
+interference, although the vanished empires and a recent great movement
+of peoples have left them with altered political boundaries and
+sometimes with new dynasties. None of the political units has a much
+larger area than another, and it would not have been easy at the moment
+to prophesy which, or if any one, would grow at the expense of the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great movement of peoples, to which allusion has just been made, had
+been disturbing West Asia for two centuries. On the east, where the well
+organized and well armed societies of Babylonia and Assyria offered a
+serious obstacle to nomadic immigrants, the inflow had been pent back
+beyond frontier mountains. But in the west the tide seems to have flowed
+too strongly to be resisted by such force as the Hatti empire of
+Cappadocia could oppose, and to have swept through Asia Minor even to
+Syria and Mesopotamia. Records of Rameses III tell how a great host of
+federated peoples appeared on the Asian frontier of Egypt very early in
+the twelfth century. Among them marched men of the "Kheta" or Hatti, but
+not as leaders. These strong foes and allies of Seti I and Rameses II,
+not a century before, had now fallen from their imperial estate to
+follow in the wake of newcomers, who had lately humbled them in their
+Cappadocian home. The geographical order in which the scribes of Rameses
+enumerated their conquests shows clearly the direction from which the
+federals had come and the path they followed. In succession they had
+devastated Hatti (i.e. Cappadocia), Kedi (i.e. Cilicia), Carchemish and
+central Syria. Their victorious progress began, therefore, in northern
+Asia Minor, and followed the great roads through the Cilician passes to
+end at last on the very frontiers of Egypt. The list of these newcomers
+has long interested historians; for outlandish as their names were to
+Egyptians, they seem to our eyes not unfamiliar, and are possibly
+travesties of some which are writ large on pages of later history. Such
+are the Pulesti or Philistines, and a group hailing apparently from Asia
+Minor and the Isles, Tjakaray, Shakalsha, Danaau and Washasha,
+successors of Pisidian and other Anatolian allies of the Hittites in the
+time of Rameses II, and of the Lycian, Achaean and Sardinian pirates
+whom Egypt used sometimes to beat from her borders, sometimes to enlist
+in her service. Some of these peoples, from whatever quarters they had
+come, settled presently into new homes as the tide receded. The Pulesti,
+if they were indeed the historic Philistines, stranded and stayed on the
+confines of Egypt, retaining certain memories of an earlier state, which
+had been theirs in some Minoan land. Since the Tjakaray and the Washasha
+seem to have sprung from lands now reckoned in Europe, we may count this
+occasion the first in history on which the west broke in force into the
+east.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turn to the annals of Assyria and you will learn, from records of
+Tiglath Pileser I, that this northern wave was followed up in the same
+century by a second, which bore on its crest another bold horde from
+Asia Minor. Its name, Mushki, we now hear for the first time, but shall
+hear again in time to come. A remnant of this race would survive far
+into historic times as the Moschi of Greek geographers, an obscure
+people on the borders of Cappadocia and Armenia. But who precisely the
+first Mushki were, whence they had originally come, and whither they
+went when pushed back out of Mesopotamia, are questions still debated.
+Two significant facts are known about their subsequent history; first,
+that two centuries later than our date they, or some part of them, were
+settled in Cappadocia, apparently rather in the centre and north of that
+country than in the south: second, that at that same epoch and later
+they had kings of the name Mita, which is thought to be identical with
+the name Midas, known to early Greek historians as borne by kings of
+Phrygia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Because of this last fact, the Mushki have been put down as
+proto-Phrygians, risen to power after the fall of the Cappadocian Hatti.
+This contention will be considered hereafter, when we reach the date of
+the first known contact between Assyria and any people settled in
+western Asia Minor. But meanwhile, let it be borne in mind that their
+royal name Mita does not necessarily imply a connection between the
+Mushki and Phrygia; for since the ethnic "Mitanni" of north Mesopotamia
+means "Mita's men," that name must have long been domiciled much farther
+east.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the whole, whatever their later story, the truth about the Mushki,
+who came down into Syria early in the twelfth century and retired to
+Cappadocia some fifty years later after crossing swords with Assyria, is
+probably this--that they were originally a mountain people from northern
+Armenia or the Caucasus, distinct from the Hatti, and that, having
+descended from the north-east in a primitive nomadic state into the seat
+of an old culture possessed by an enfeebled race, they adopted the
+latter's civilization as they conquered it and settled down. But
+probably they did not fix themselves definitely in Cappadocia till the
+blow struck by Tiglath Pileser had checked their lust of movement and
+weakened their confidence of victory. In any case, the northern storms
+had subsided by 1000 B.C., leaving Asia Minor, Armenia and Syria
+parcelled among many princes.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR</h4>
+
+<p>
+Had one taken ship with Achaeans or Ionians for the western coast of
+Anatolia in the year 1000, one would have expected to disembark at or
+near some infant settlement of men, not natives by extraction, but newly
+come from the sea and speaking Greek or another Aegean tongue. These men
+had ventured so far to seize the rich lands at the mouths of the long
+Anatolian valleys, from which their roving forefathers had been almost
+entirely debarred by the provincial forces of some inland power,
+presumably the Hatti Empire of Cappadocia. In earlier days the Cretans,
+or their kin of Mycenaean Greece in the latest Aegean age, had been able
+to plant no more than a few inconsiderable colonies of traders on
+Anatolian shores. Now, however, their descendants were being steadily
+reinforced from the west by members of a younger Aryan race, who mixed
+with the natives of the coast, and gradually mastered or drove them
+inland. Inconsiderable as this European soakage into the fringe of the
+neighbouring continent must have seemed at that moment, we know that it
+was inaugurating a process which ultimately would affect profoundly all
+the history of Hither Asia. That Greek Ionian colonization first
+attracts notice round about 1000 B.C. marks the period as a cardinal
+point in history. We cannot say for certain, with our present knowledge,
+that any one of the famous Greek cities had already begun to grow on the
+Anatolian coasts. There is better evidence for the so early existence of
+Miletus, where the German excavators have found much pottery of the
+latest Aegean age, than of any other. But, at least, it is probable that
+Greeks were already settled on the sites of Cnidus, Teos, Smyrna,
+Colophon, Phocea, Cyme and many more; while the greater islands Rhodes,
+Samos, Chios and Mitylene had apparently received western settlers
+several generations ago, perhaps before even the first Achaean raids
+into Asia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The western visitor, if he pushed inland, would have avoided the
+south-western districts of the peninsula, where a mountainous country,
+known later as Caria, Lycia, and Pisidia, was held by primitive hill-men
+settled in detached tribal fashion like modern Albanians. They had never
+yet been subdued, and as soon as the rising Greek ports on their coasts
+should open a way for them to the outer world, they would become known
+as admirable mercenary soldiery, following a congenial trade which, if
+the Pedasu, who appear in records of Egyptian campaigns of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty, were really Pisidians, was not new to them. North of
+their hills, however, lay broader valleys leading up to the central
+plateau; and, if Herodotus is to be believed, an organized monarchical
+society, ruled by the "Heraclids" of Sardes, was already developed
+there. We know practically nothing about it; but since some three
+centuries later the Lydian people was rich and luxurious in the Hermus
+valley, which had once been a fief of the Hatti, we must conclude that
+it had been enjoying security as far back as 1000 B.C. Who those
+Heraclid princes were exactly is obscure. The dynastic name given to
+them by Herodotus probably implies that they traced their origin (i.e.
+owed especial allegiance) to a God of the Double War-Axe, whom the
+Greeks likened to Heracles, but we liken to Sandan, god of Tarsus and of
+the lands of the south-east. We shall say more of him and his
+worshippers presently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Leaving aside the northern fringe-lands as ill known and of small
+account (as we too shall leave them), our traveller would pass up from
+the Lydian vales to find the Cappadocian Hatti no longer the masters of
+the plateau as of old. No one of equal power seems to have taken their
+place; but there is reason to think that the Mushki, who had brought
+them low, now filled some of their room in Asia Minor. But these Mushki
+had so far adopted Hatti civilization either before or since their great
+raiding expedition which Tiglath Pileser I of Assyria repelled, that
+their domination can scarcely have made much difference to the social
+condition of Asia Minor. Their capital was probably where the Hatti
+capital had been--at Boghazkeui; but how far their lordship radiated
+from that centre is not known.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the south-east of Asia Minor we read of several principalities, both
+in the Hatti documents of earlier centuries and in Assyrian annals of
+later date; and since some of their names appear in both these sets of
+records, we may safely assign them to the same localities during the
+intermediate period. Such are Kas in later Lycaonia, Tabal or Tubal in
+south-eastern Cappadocia, Khilakku, which left its name to historical
+Cilicia, and Kue in the rich eastern Cilician plain and the
+north-eastern hills. In north Syria again we find both in early and in
+late times Kummukh, which left to its district the historic name,
+Commagene. All these principalities, as their earlier monuments prove,
+shared the same Hatti civilization as the Mushki and seem to have had
+the same chief deities, the axe-bearing Sandan, or Teshup, or Hadad,
+whose sway we have noted far west in Lydia, and also a Great Mother, the
+patron of peaceful increase, as he was of warlike conquest. But whether
+this uniformity of civilization implies any general overlord, such as
+the Mushki king, is very questionable. The past supremacy of the Hatti
+is enough to account for large community of social features in 1000 B.C.
+over all Asia Minor and north Syria.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 7. SYRIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+It is time for our traveller to move on southward into "Hatti-land," as
+the Assyrians would long continue to call the southern area of the old
+Hatti civilization. He would have found Syria in a state of greater or
+less disintegration from end to end. Since the withdrawal of the strong
+hands of the Hatti from the north and the Egyptians from the south, the
+disorganized half-vacant land had been attracting to itself successive
+hordes of half-nomadic Semites from the eastern and southern steppes. By
+1000 B.C. these had settled down as a number of Aramaean societies each
+under its princeling. All were great traders. One such society
+established itself in the north-west, in Shamal, where, influenced by
+the old Hatti culture, an art came into being which was only saved
+ultimately by Semitic Assyria from being purely Hittite. Its capital,
+which lay at modern Sinjerli, one of the few Syrian sites scientifically
+explored, we shall notice later on. South lay Patin and Bit Agusi; south
+of these again, Hamath and below it Damascus--all new Aramaean states,
+which were waiting for quiet times to develop according to the measure
+of their respective territories and their command of trade routes. Most
+blessed in both natural fertility and convenience of position was
+Damascus (Ubi or Hobah), which had been receiving an Aramaean influx for
+at least three hundred years. It was destined to outstrip the rest of
+those new Semitic states; but for the moment it was little stronger than
+they. As for the Phoenician cities on the Lebanon coast, which we know
+from the Amarna archives and other Egyptian records to have long been
+settled with Canaanitic Semites, they were to appear henceforward in a
+light quite other than that in which the reports of their Egyptian
+governors and visitors had hitherto shown them. Not only did they very
+rapidly become maritime traders instead of mere local territorial
+centres, but (if we may infer it from the lack of known monuments of
+their higher art or of their writing before 1000 B.C.) they were making
+or just about to make a sudden advance in social development. It should
+be remarked that our evidence, that other Syrian Semites had taken to
+writing in scripts of their own, begins not much later at various
+points--in Shamal, in Moab and in Samaria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This rather sudden expansion of the Phoenicians into a maritime power
+about 1000 B.C. calls for explanation. Herodotus thought that the
+Phoenicians were driven to take to the sea simply by the growing
+inadequacy of their narrow territory to support the natural increase of
+its inhabitants, and probably he was partly right, the crisis of their
+fate being hastened by Armaean pressure from inland. But the advance in
+their culture, which is marked by the development of their art and their
+writing, was too rapid and too great to have resulted only from new
+commerce with the sea; nor can it have been due to any influence of the
+Aramaean elements which were comparatively fresh from the Steppes. To
+account for the facts in Syria we seem to require, not long previous to
+this time, a fresh accession of population from some area of higher
+culture. When we observe, therefore, among the earlier Phoenician and
+south Syrian antiquities much that was imported, and more that derived
+its character, from Cyprus and even remoter centres of the Aegean
+culture of the latest Minoan Age, we cannot regard as fantastic the
+belief of the Cretan discoverer, Arthur Evans, that the historic
+Phoenician civilization, and especially the Phoenician script, owed
+their being in great measure to an immigration from those nearest
+oversea lands which had long possessed a fully developed art and a
+system of writing. After the fall of the Cnossian Dynasty we know that a
+great dispersal of Cretans began, which was continued and increased
+later by the descent of the Achaeans into Greece. It has been said
+already that the Pulesti or Philistines, who had followed the first
+northern horde to the frontiers of Egypt early in the twelfth century,
+are credibly supposed to have come from some area affected by Minoan
+civilization, while the Tjakaray and Washasha, who accompanied them,
+were probably actual Cretans. The Pulesti stayed, as we know, in
+Philistia: the Tjakaray settled at Dor on the South Phoenician coast,
+where Unamon, an envoy of Rameses XI, found them. These settlers are
+quite sufficient to account for the subsequent development of a higher
+culture in mid and south Syria, and there may well have been some
+further immigration from Cyprus and other Aegean lands which, as time
+went on, impelled the cities of Phoenicia, so well endowed by nature, to
+develop a new culture apace about 1000 B.C.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 8. PALESTINE</h4>
+
+<p>
+If the Phoenicians were feeling the thrust of Steppe peoples, their
+southern neighbours, the Philistines, who had lived and grown rich on
+the tolls and trade of the great north road from Egypt for at least a
+century and a half, were feeling it too. During some centuries past
+there had come raiding from the south-east deserts certain sturdy and
+well-knit tribes, which long ago had displaced or assimilated the
+Canaanites along the highlands west of Jordan, and were now tending to
+settle down into a national unity, cemented by a common worship. They
+had had long intermittent struggles, traditions of which fill the Hebrew
+Book of Judges--struggles not only with the Canaanites, but also with
+the Amorites of the upper Orontes valley, and later with the Aramaeans
+of the north and east, and with fresh incursions of Arabs from the
+south; and most lately of all they had had to give way for about half a
+century before an expansive movement of the Philistines, which carried
+the latter up to Galilee and secured to them the profits of all the
+Palestinian stretch of the great North Road. But about a generation
+before our date the northernmost of those bold "Habiri," under an
+elective <i>sheikh</i> Saul, had pushed the Philistines out of Bethshan and
+other points of vantage in mid-Palestine, and had become once more free
+of the hills which they had held in the days of Pharaoh Menephthah.
+Though, at the death of Saul, the enemy regained most of what he had
+lost, he was not to hold it long. A greater chief, David, who had risen
+to power by Philistine help and now had the support of the southern
+tribes, was welding both southern and northern Hebrews into a single
+monarchical society and, having driven his old masters out of the north
+once more, threatened the southern stretch of the great North Road from
+a new capital, Jerusalem. Moreover, by harrying repeatedly the lands
+east of Jordan up to the desert edge, David had stopped further
+incursions from Arabia; and, though the Aramaean state of Damascus was
+growing into a formidable danger, he had checked for the present its
+tendency to spread southwards, and had strengthened himself by
+agreements with another Aramaean prince, him of Hamath, who lay on the
+north flank of Damascus, and with the chief of the nearest Phoenician
+city, Tyre. The latter was not yet the rich place which it would grow to
+be in the next century, but it was strong enough to control the coast
+road north of the Galilean lowlands. Israel not only was never safer,
+but would never again hold a position of such relative importance in
+Syria, as was hers in a day of many small and infant states about 1000
+B.C.: and in later times, under the shadow of Assyria and the menace of
+Egypt, the Jews would look back to the reigns of David and his successor
+with some reason as their golden age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The traveller would not have ventured into Arabia; nor shall we. It was
+then an unknown land lying wholly outside history. We have no record (if
+that mysterious embassy of the "Queen of Sheba," who came to hear the
+wisdom of Solomon, be ruled out) of any relations between a state of the
+civilized East and an Arabian prince before the middle of the ninth
+century. It may be that, as Glaser reckoned, Sabaean society in the
+south-west of the peninsula had already reached the preliminary stage of
+tribal settlement through which Israel passed under its Judges, and was
+now moving towards monarchy; and that of this our traveller might have
+learned something in Syria from the last arrived Aramaeans. But we, who
+can learn nothing, have no choice but to go north with him again,
+leaving to our right the Syrian desert roamed by Bedawis in much the
+same social state as the Anazeh to-day, owing allegiance to no one. We
+can cross Euphrates at Carchemish or at Til Barsip opposite the Sajur
+mouth, or where Thapsacus looked across to the outfall of the Khabur.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 9. MESOPOTAMIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+No annals of Assyria have survived for nearly a century before 1000
+B.C., and very few for the century after that date. Nor do Babylonian
+records make good our deficiency. Though we cannot be certain, we are
+probably safe in saying that during these two centuries Assyrian and
+Babylonian princes had few or no achievements to record of the kind
+which they held, almost alone, worthy to be immortalized on stone or
+clay--that is to say, raids, conquests, sacking of cities, blackmailing
+of princes. Since Tiglath Pileser's time no "Kings of the World" (by
+which title was signified an overlord of Mesopotamia merely) had been
+seated on either of the twin rivers. What exactly had happened in the
+broad tract between the rivers and to the south of Taurus since the
+departure of the Mushki hordes (if, indeed, they did all depart), we do
+not know. The Mitanni, who may have been congeners of the latter, seem
+still to have been holding the north-west; probably all the north-east
+was Assyrian territory. No doubt the Kurds and Armenians of Urartu were
+raiding the plains impartially from autumn to spring, as they always did
+when Assyria was weak. We shall learn a good deal more about Mesopotamia
+proper when the results of the German excavations at Tell Halaf, near
+Ras el-Ain, are complete and published. The most primitive monuments
+found there are perhaps relics of that power of Khani (Harran), which
+was stretched even to include Nineveh before the Semitic <i>patesis</i> of
+Asshur grew to royal estate and moved northward to make imperial
+Assyria. But there are later strata of remains as well which should
+contain evidence of the course of events in mid-Mesopotamia during
+subsequent periods both of Assyrian domination and of local
+independence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Assyria, as has been said, was without doubt weak at this date, that is,
+she was confined to the proper territory of her own agricultural
+Semites. This state of things, whenever existent throughout her history,
+seems to have implied priestly predominance, in which Babylonian
+influence went for much. The Semitic tendency to super-Monotheism, which
+has already been noticed, constantly showed itself among the eastern
+Semites (when comparatively free from military tyranny) in a reversion
+of their spiritual allegiance to one supreme god enthroned at Babylon,
+the original seat of east Semitic theocracy. And even when this city had
+little military strength the priests of Marduk appear often to have
+succeeded in keeping a controlling hand on the affairs of stronger
+Assyria. We shall see later how much prestige great Ninevite war-lords
+could gain even among their own countrymen by Marduk's formal
+acknowledgment of their sovereignty, and how much they lost by
+disregarding him and doing injury to his local habitation. At their very
+strongest the Assyrian kings were never credited with the natural right
+to rule Semitic Asia which belonged to kings of Babylon. If they desired
+the favour of Marduk they must needs claim it at the sword's point, and
+when that point was lowered, his favour was always withdrawn. From first
+to last they had perforce to remain military tyrants, who relied on no
+acknowledged legitimacy but on the spears of conscript peasants, and at
+the last of mercenaries. No dynasty lasted long in Assyria, where
+popular generals, even while serving on distant campaigns, were often
+elevated to the throne--in anticipation of the imperial history of Rome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It appears then that our traveller would have found Babylonia, rather
+than Assyria, the leading East Semitic power in 1000 B.C.; but at the
+same time not a strong power, for she had no imperial dominion outside
+lower Mesopotamia. Since a dynasty, whose history is obscure--the
+so-called Pashé kings in whose time there was one strong man,
+Nabu-Kudur-usur (Nebuchadnezzar) I--came to an inglorious end just about
+1000 B.C., one may infer that Babylonia was passing at this epoch
+through one of those recurrent political crises which usually occurred
+when Sumerian cities of the southern "Sea-Land" conspired with some
+foreign invader against the Semitic capital. The contumacious survivors
+of the elder element in the population, however, even when successful,
+seem not to have tried to set up new capitals or to reestablish the
+pre-Semitic state of things. Babylon had so far distanced all the older
+cities now that no other consummation of revolt was desired or believed
+possible than the substitution of one dynasty for another on the throne
+beloved of Marduk. Sumerian forces, however, had not been the only ones
+which had contributed to overthrow the last king of the Pashé dynasty.
+Nomads of the <i>Suti</i> tribes had long been raiding from the western
+deserts into Akkad; and the first king set up by the victorious peoples
+of the Sea-Land had to expel them and to repair their ravages before he
+could seat himself on a throne which was menaced by Elam on the east and
+Assyria on the north, and must fall so soon as either of these found a
+strong leader.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<h2><a name="ii">CHAPTER II</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE EAST IN 800 B.C.</h3>
+
+<p>
+Two centuries have passed over the East, and at first sight it looks as
+if no radical change has taken place in its political or social
+condition. No new power has entered it from without; only one new state
+of importance, the Phrygian, has arisen within. The peoples, which were
+of most account in 1000, are still of the most account in 800--the
+Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Mushki of Cappadocia, the tribesmen of
+Urartu, the Aramaeans of Damascus, the trading Phoenicians on the Syrian
+coast and the trading Greeks on the Anatolian. Egypt has remained behind
+her frontier except for one raid into Palestine about 925 B.C., from
+which Sheshenk, the Libyan, brought back treasures of Solomon's temple
+to enhance the splendour of Amen. Arabia has not begun to matter. There
+has been, of course, development, but on old lines. The comparative
+values of the states have altered: some have become more decisively the
+superiors of others than they were two hundred years ago, but they are
+those whose growth was foreseen. Wherein, then, lies the great
+difference? For great difference there is. It scarcely needs a second
+glance to detect the change, and any one who looks narrowly will see not
+only certain consequent changes, but in more than one quarter signs and
+warnings of a coming order of things not dreamt of in 1000 B.C.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 1. MIDDLE KINGDOM OF ASSYRIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+The obvious novelty is the presence of a predominant power. The mosaic
+of small states is still there, but one holds lordship over most of
+them, and that one is Assyria. Moreover, the foreign dominion which the
+latter has now been enjoying for three-parts of a century is the first
+of its kind established by an Asiatic power. Twice, as we have seen, had
+Assyria conquered in earlier times an empire of the nomad Semitic type,
+that is, a licence to raid unchecked over a wide tract of lands; but, so
+far as we know, neither Shalmaneser I nor Tiglath Pileser I had so much
+as conceived the idea of holding the raided provinces by a permanent
+official organization. But in the ninth century, when Ashurnatsirpal and
+his successor Shalmaneser, second of the name, marched out year by year,
+they passed across wide territories held for them by governors and
+garrisons, before they reached others upon which they hoped to impose
+like fetters. We find Shalmaneser II, for example, in the third year of
+his reign, fortifying, renaming, garrisoning and endowing with a royal
+palace the town of Til Barsip on the Euphrates bank, the better to
+secure for himself free passage at will across the river. He has finally
+deprived Ahuni its local Aramaean chief, and holds the place as an
+Assyrian fortress. Thus far had the Assyrian advanced his territorial
+empire but not farther. Beyond Euphrates he would, indeed, push year by
+year, even to Phoenicia and Damascus and Cilicia, but merely to raid,
+levy blackmail and destroy, like the old emperors of Babylonia or his
+own imperial predecessors of Assyria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was then much of the old destructive instinct in Shalmaneser's
+conception of empire; but a constructive principle also was at work
+modifying that conception. If the Great King was still something of a
+Bedawi Emir, bound to go a-raiding summer by summer, he had conceived,
+like Mohammed ibn Rashid, the Arabian prince of Jebel Shammar in our own
+days, the idea of extending his territorial dominion, so that he might
+safely and easily reach fresh fields for wider raids. If we may use
+modern formulas about an ancient and imperfectly realized imperial
+system, we should describe the dominion of Shalmaneser II as made up
+(over and above its Assyrian core) of a wide circle of foreign
+territorial possessions which included Babylonia on the south, all
+Mesopotamia on the west and north, and everything up to Zagros on the
+east; of a "sphere of exclusive influence" extending to Lake Van on the
+north, while on the west it reached beyond the Euphrates into mid-Syria;
+and, lastly, of a licence to raid as far as the frontiers of Egypt.
+Shalmaneser's later expeditions all passed the frontiers of that sphere
+of influence. Having already crossed the Amanus mountains seven times,
+he was in Tarsus in his twenty-sixth summer; Damascus was attacked again
+and again in the middle of his reign; and even Jehu of Samaria paid his
+blackmail in the year 842.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Assyria in the ninth century must have seemed by far the strongest as
+well as the most oppressive power that the East had known. The reigning
+house was passing on its authority from father to son in an unbroken
+dynastic succession, which had not always been, and would seldom
+thereafter be, the rule. Its court was fixed securely in midmost
+Assyria, away from priest-ridden Asshur, which seems to have been always
+anti-imperial and pro-Babylonian; for Ashurnatsirpal had restored Calah
+to the capital rank which it had held under Shalmaneser I but lost under
+Tiglath Pileser, and there the kings of the Middle Empire kept their
+throne. The Assyrian armies were as yet neither composed of soldiers of
+fortune, nor, it appears, swelled by such heterogeneous provincial
+levies as would follow the Great Kings of Asia in later days; but they
+were still recruited from the sturdy peasantry of Assyria itself. The
+monarch was an absolute autocrat directing a supreme military despotism.
+Surely such a power could not but endure. Endure, indeed, it would for
+more than two centuries. But it was not so strong as it appeared. Before
+the century of Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II was at an end, certain
+inherent germs of corporate decay had developed apace in its system.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Natural law appears to decree that a family stock, whose individual
+members have every opportunity and licence for sensual indulgence, shall
+deteriorate both physically and mentally at an ever-increasing rate.
+Therefore, <i>pari passu</i>, an Empire which is so absolutely autocratic
+that the monarch is its one mainspring of government, grows weaker as it
+descends from father to son. Its one chance of conserving some of its
+pristine strength is to develop a bureaucracy which, if inspired by the
+ideas and methods of earlier members of the dynasty, may continue to
+realize them in a crystallized system of administration. This chance the
+Middle Assyrian Kingdom never was at any pains to take. There is
+evidence for delegation of military power by its Great Kings to a
+headquarter staff, and for organization of military control in the
+provinces, but none for such delegation of the civil power as might have
+fostered a bureaucracy. Therefore that concentration of power in single
+hands, which at first had been an element of strength, came to breed
+increasing weakness as one member of the dynasty succeeded another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, the irresistible Assyrian armies, which had been led abroad
+summer by summer, were manned for some generations by sturdy peasants
+drawn from the fields of the Middle Tigris basin, chiefly those on the
+left bank. The annual razzia, however, is a Bedawi institution, proper
+to a semi-nomadic society which cultivates little and that lightly, and
+can leave such agricultural, and also such pastoral, work as must needs
+be done in summer to its old men, its young folk and its women, without
+serious loss. But a settled labouring population which has deep lands to
+till, a summer crop to raise and an irrigation system to maintain is in
+very different case. The Assyrian kings, by calling on their
+agricultural peasantry, spring after spring, to resume the life of
+militant nomads, not only exhausted the sources of their own wealth and
+stability, but bred deep discontent. As the next two centuries pass more
+and more will be heard of depletion and misery in the Assyrian lands.
+Already before 800 we have the spectacle of the agricultural district of
+Arbela rebelling against Shalmaneser's sons, and after being appeased
+with difficulty, rising again against Adadnirari III in a revolt which
+is still active when the century closes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lastly, this militant monarchy, whose life was war, was bound to make
+implacable enemies both within and without. Among those within were
+evidently the priests, whose influence was paramount at Asshur.
+Remembering who it was that had given the first independent king to
+Assyria they resented that their city, the chosen seat of the earlier
+dynasties, which had been restored to primacy by the great Tiglath
+Pileser, should fall permanently to the second rank. So we find Asshur
+joining the men of Arbela in both the rebellions mentioned above, and it
+appears always to have been ready to welcome attempts by the Babylonian
+Semites to regain their old predominance over Southern Assyria.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 2. URARTU</h4>
+
+<p>
+As we should expect from geographical circumstances, Assyria's most
+perilous and persistent foreign enemies were the fierce hillmen of the
+north. In the east, storms were brewing behind the mountains, but they
+were not yet ready to burst. South and west lay either settled districts
+of old civilization not disposed to fight, or ranging grounds of nomads
+too widely scattered and too ill organized to threaten serious danger.
+But the north was in different case. The wild valleys, through which
+descend the left bank affluents of the Upper Tigris, have always
+sheltered fierce fighting clans, covetous of the winter pasturage and
+softer climate of the northern Mesopotamian downs, and it has been the
+anxious care of one Mesopotamian power after another, even to our own
+day, to devise measures for penning them back. Since the chief weakness
+of these tribes lies in a lack of unity which the subdivided nature of
+their country encourages, it must have caused no small concern to the
+Assyrians that, early in the ninth century, a Kingdom of Urartu or, as
+its own people called it, Khaldia, should begin to gain power over the
+communities about Lake Van and the heads of the valleys which run down
+to Assyrian territory. Both Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser led raid
+after raid into the northern mountains in the hope of weakening the
+tribes from whose adhesion that Vannic Kingdom might derive strength.
+Both kings marched more than once up to the neighbourhood of the Urmia
+Lake, and Shalmaneser struck at the heart of Urartu itself three or four
+times; but with inconclusive success. The Vannic state continued to
+flourish and its kings--whose names are more European in sound than
+Asiatic--Lutipris, Sarduris, Menuas, Argistis, Rusas--built themselves
+strong fortresses which stand to this day about Lake Van, and borrowed a
+script from their southern foes to engrave rocks with records of
+successful wars. One of these inscriptions occurs as far west as the
+left bank of Euphrates over against Malatia. By 800 B.C., in spite of
+efforts made by Shalmaneser's sons to continue their father's policy of
+pushing the war into the enemy's country, the Vannic king had succeeded
+in replacing Assyrian influence by the law of Khaldia in the uppermost
+basin of the Tigris and in higher Mesopotamia--the "Nairi" lands of
+Assyrian scribes; and his successors would raid farther and farther into
+the plains during the coming age.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 3. THE MEDES</h4>
+
+<p>
+Menacing as this power of Urartu appeared at the end of the ninth
+century to an enfeebled Assyrian dynasty, there were two other racial
+groups, lately arrived on its horizon, which in the event would prove
+more really dangerous. One of these lay along the north-eastern frontier
+on the farther slopes of the Zagros mountains and on the plateau beyond.
+It was apparently a composite people which had been going through a slow
+process of formation and growth. One element in it seems to have been of
+the same blood as a strong pastoral population which was then ranging
+the steppes of southern Russia and west central Asia, and would come to
+be known vaguely to the earliest Greeks as Cimmerians, and scarcely less
+precisely to their descendants, as Scyths. Its name would be a household
+word in the East before long. A trans-Caucasian offshoot of this had
+settled in modern Azerbaijan, where for a long time past it had been
+receiving gradual reinforcements of eastern migrants, belonging to what
+is called the Iranian group of Aryans. Filtering through the passage
+between the Caspian range and the salt desert, which Teheran now guards,
+these Iranians spread out over north-west Persia and southwards into the
+well-watered country on the western edge of the plateau, overlooking the
+lowlands of the Tigris basin. Some part of them, under the name Parsua,
+seems to have settled down as far north as the western shores of Lake
+Urmia, on the edge of the Ararat kingdom; another part as far south as
+the borders of Elam. Between these extreme points the immigrants appear
+to have amalgamated with the settled Scyths, and in virtue of racial
+superiority to have become predominant partners in the combination. At
+some uncertain period--probably before 800 B.C.--there had arisen from
+the Iranian element an individual, Zoroaster, who converted his people
+from element-worship to a spiritual belief in personal divinity; and by
+this reform of cult both raised its social status and gave it political
+cohesion. The East began to know and fear the combination under the name
+<i>Manda</i>, and from Shalmaneser II onwards the Assyrian kings had to
+devote ever more attention to the Manda country, raiding it, sacking it,
+exacting tribute from it, but all the while betraying their growing
+consciousness that a grave peril lurked behind Zagros, the peril of the
+Medes. [<a href="#f1">1</a>]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a name="f1">1.</a> I venture to adhere throughout to the old
+identification of the <i>Manda</i> power, which ultimately overthrew Assyria,
+with the <i>Medes</i>, in spite of high authorities who nowadays assume that
+the latter played no part in that overthrow, but have been introduced
+into this chapter of history by an erroneous identification made by
+Greeks. I cannot believe that both Greek and Hebrew authorities of very
+little later date both fell into such an error.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 4. THE CHALDAEANS</h4>
+
+<p>
+The other danger, the more imminent of the two, threatened Assyria from
+the south. Once again a Semitic immigration, which we distinguish as
+Chaldaean from earlier Semitic waves, Canaanite and Aramaean, had
+breathed fresh vitality into the Babylonian people. It came, like
+earlier waves, out of Arabia, which, for certain reasons, has been in
+all ages a prime source of ethnic disturbance in West Asia. The great
+southern peninsula is for the most part a highland steppe endowed with a
+singularly pure air and an uncontaminated soil. It breeds, consequently,
+a healthy population whose natality, compared to its death-rate, is
+unusually high; but since the peculiar conditions of its surface and
+climate preclude the development of its internal food-supply beyond a
+point long ago reached, the surplus population which rapidly accumulates
+within it is forced from time to time to seek its sustenance elsewhere.
+The difficulties of the roads to the outer world being what they are
+(not to speak of the certainty of opposition at the other end), the
+intending emigrants rarely set out in small bodies, but move restlessly
+within their own borders until they are grown to a horde, which famine
+and hostility at home compel at last to leave Arabia. As hard to arrest
+as their own blown sands, the moving Arabs fall on the nearest fertile
+regions, there to plunder, fight, and eventually settle down. So in
+comparatively modern times have the Shammar tribesmen moved into Syria
+and Mesopotamia, and so in antiquity moved the Canaanites, the
+Aramaeans, and the Chaldaeans. We find the latter already well
+established by 900 B.C. not only in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf, but also between the Rivers. The Kings of Babylon, who
+opposed Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II, seem to have been of
+Chaldaean extraction; and although their successors, down to 800 B.C.,
+acknowledged the suzerainty of Assyria, they ever strove to repudiate
+it, looking for help to Elam or the western desert tribes. The times,
+however, were not quite ripe. The century closed with the reassertion of
+Assyrian power in Babylon itself by Adadnirari.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 5. SYRIAN EXPANSION OF ASSYRIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+Such were the dangers which, as we now know, lurked on the horizon of
+the Northern Semites in 800 B.C. But they had not yet become patent to
+the world, in whose eyes Assyria seemed still an irresistible power
+pushing ever farther and farther afield. The west offered the most
+attractive field for her expansion. There lay the fragments of the Hatti
+Empire, enjoying the fruits of Hatti civilization; there were the
+wealthy Aramaean states, and still richer Phoenician ports. There urban
+life was well developed, each city standing for itself, sufficient in
+its territory, and living more or less on the caravan trade which
+perforce passed under or near its walls between Egypt on the one hand
+and Mesopotamia and Asia Minor on the other. Never was a fairer field
+for hostile enterprise, or one more easily harried without fear of
+reprisal, and well knowing this, Assyria set herself from
+Ashurnatsirpal's time forward systematically to bully and fleece Syria.
+It was almost the yearly practice of Shalmaneser II to march down to the
+Middle Euphrates, ferry his army across, and levy blackmail on
+Carchemish and the other north Syrian cities as far as Cilicia on the
+one hand and Damascus on the other. That done, he would send forward
+envoys to demand ransom of the Phoenician towns, who grudgingly paid it
+or rashly withheld it according to the measure of his compulsion. Since
+last we looked at the Aramaean states, Damascus has definitely asserted
+the supremacy which her natural advantages must always secure to her
+whenever Syria is not under foreign domination. Her fighting dynasty of
+Benhadads which had been founded, it seems, more than a century before
+Shalmaneser's time, had now spread her influence right across Syria from
+east to west and into the territories of Hamath on the north and of the
+Hebrews on the south. Ashurnatsirpal had never ventured to do more than
+summon at long range the lord of this large and wealthy state to
+contribute to his coffers; but this tributary obligation, if ever
+admitted, was continually disregarded, and Shalmaneser II found he must
+take bolder measures or be content to see his raiding-parties restricted
+to the already harried north. He chose the bold course, and struck at
+Hamath, the northernmost Damascene dependency, in his seventh summer. A
+notable victory, won at Karkar on the Middle Orontes over an army which
+included contingents from most of the south Semitic states--one came,
+for example, from Israel, where Ahab was now king,--opened a way towards
+the Aramaean capital; but it was not till twelve years later that the
+Great King actually attacked Damascus. But he failed to crown his
+successes with its capture, and reinvigorated by the accession of a new
+dynasty, which Hazael, a leader in war, founded in 842, Damascus
+continued to bar the Assyrians from full enjoyment of the southern lands
+for another century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, though Shalmaneser and his dynastic successors down to
+Adadnirari III were unable to enter Palestine, the shadow of Assyrian
+Empire was beginning to creep over Israel. The internal dissensions of
+the latter, and its fear and jealousy of Damascus had already done much
+to make ultimate disaster certain. In the second generation after David
+the radical incompatibility between the northern and southern Hebrew
+tribes, which under his strong hand and that of his son had seemed one
+nation, reasserted its disintegrating influence. While it is not certain
+if the twelve tribes were ever all of one race, it is quite certain that
+the northern ones had come to be contaminated very largely with Aramaean
+blood and infected by mid-Syrian influences, which the relations
+established and maintained by David and Solomon with Hamath and
+Phoenicia no doubt had accentuated, especially in the territories of
+Asher and Dan. These tribes and some other northerners had never seen
+eye to eye with the southern tribes in a matter most vital to Semitic
+societies, religious ideal and practice. The anthropomorphic monotheism,
+which the southern tribes brought up from Arabia, had to contend in
+Galilee with theriomorphic polytheism, that is, the tendency to embody
+the qualities of divinity in animal forms. For such beliefs as these
+there is ample evidence in the Judaean tradition, even during the
+pre-Palestinian wanderings. Both reptile and bovine incarnations
+manifest themselves in the story of the Exodus, and despite the fervent
+missionary efforts of a series of Prophets, and the adhesion of many,
+even among the northern tribesmen, to the more spiritual creed, these
+cults gathered force in the congenial neighbourhood of Aramaeans and
+Phoenicians, till they led to political separation of the north from the
+south as soon as the long reign of Solomon was ended. Thereafter, until
+the catastrophe of the northern tribes, there would never more be a
+united Hebrew nation. The northern kingdom, harried by Damascus and
+forced to take unwilling part in her quarrels, looked about for foreign
+help. The dynasty of Omri, who, in order to secure control of the great
+North Road, had built himself a capital and a palace (lately discovered)
+on the hill of Samaria, relied chiefly on Tyre. The succeeding dynasty,
+that of Jehu, who had rebelled against Omri's son and his Phoenician
+queen, courted Assyria, and encouraged her to press ever harder on
+Damascus. It was a suicidal policy; for in the continued existence of a
+strong Aramaean state on her north lay Israel's one hope of long life.
+Jeroboam II and his Prophet Jonah ought to have seen that the day of
+reckoning would come quickly for Samaria when once Assyria had settled
+accounts with Damascus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To some extent, but unfortunately not in all detail, we can trace in the
+royal records the advance of Assyrian territorial dominion in the west.
+The first clear indication of its expansion is afforded by a notice of
+the permanent occupation of a position on the eastern bank of the
+Euphrates, as a base for the passage of the river. This position was Til
+Barsip, situated opposite the mouth of the lowest Syrian affluent, the
+Sajur, and formerly capital of an Aramaean principate. That its
+occupation by Shalmaneser II in the third year of his reign was intended
+to be lasting is proved by its receiving a new name and becoming a royal
+Assyrian residence. Two basaltic lions, which the Great King then set up
+on each side of its Mesopotamian gate and inscribed with commemorative
+texts, have recently been found near Tell Ahmar, the modern hamlet which
+has succeeded the royal city. This measure marked Assyria's definite
+annexation of the lands in Mesopotamia, which had been under Aramaean
+government for at least a century and a half. When this government had
+been established there we do not certainly know; but the collapse of
+Tiglath Pileser's power about 1100 B.C. so nearly follows the main
+Aramaean invasion from the south that it seems probable this invasion
+had been in great measure the cause of that collapse, and that an
+immediate consequence was the formation of Aramaean states east of
+Euphrates. The strongest of them and the last to succumb to Assyria was
+Bit-Adini, the district west of Harran, of which Til Barsip had been the
+leading town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next stage of Assyrian expansion is marked by a similar occupation
+of a position on the Syrian side of the Euphrates, to cover the landing
+and be a gathering-place of tribute. Here stood Pitru, formerly a Hatti
+town and, perhaps, the Biblical Pethor, situated beside the Sajur on
+some site not yet identified, but probably near the outfall of the
+stream. It received an Assyrian name in Shalmaneser's sixth year, and
+was used afterwards as a base for all his operations in Syria. It served
+also to mask and overawe the larger and more wealthy city of Carchemish,
+a few miles north, which would remain for a long time to come free of
+permanent Assyrian occupation, though subjected to blackmail on the
+occasion of every western raid by the Great King.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this last westward advance of his permanent territorial holding,
+Shalmaneser appears to have rested content. He was sure of the Euphrates
+passage and had made his footing good on the Syrian bank. But we cannot
+be certain; for, though his known records mention the renaming of no
+other Syrian cities, many may have been renamed without happening to be
+mentioned in the records, and others may have been occupied by standing
+Assyrian garrisons without receiving new names. Be that as it may, we
+can trace, year by year, the steady pushing forward of Assyrian raiding
+columns into inner Syria. In 854 Shalmaneser's most distant base of
+operations was fixed at Khalman (Aleppo), whence he marched to the
+Orontes to fight, near the site of later Apamea, the battle of Karkar.
+Five years later, swooping down from a Cilician raid, he entered Hamath.
+Six more years passed before he made more ground to the south, though he
+invaded Syria again in force at least once during the interval. In 842,
+however, having taken a new road along the coast, he turned inland from
+Beirut, crossed Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and succeeded in reaching the
+oasis of Damascus and even in raiding some distance towards the Hauran;
+but he did not take (perhaps, like the Bedawi Emir he was, he did not
+try to take) the fenced city itself. He seems to have repeated his visit
+three years later, but never to have gone farther. Certainly he never
+secured to himself Phoenicia, Coele-Syria or Damascus, and still less
+Palestine, by any permanent organization. Indeed, as has been said, we
+have no warrant for asserting that in his day Assyria definitely
+incorporated in her territorial empire any part of Syria except that one
+outpost of observation established at Pitru on the Sajur. Nor can more
+be credited to Shalmaneser's immediate successors; but it must be
+understood that by the end of the century Adadnirari had extended
+Assyria's sphere of influence (as distinct from her territorial holding)
+somewhat farther south to include not only Phoenicia but also northern
+Philistia and Palestine with the arable districts east of Jordan.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 6. CILICIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+When an Assyrian emperor crossed Euphrates and took up quarters in Pitru
+to receive the submission of the western chiefs and collect his forces
+for raiding the lands of any who might be slow to comply, he was much
+nearer the frontiers of Asia Minor than those of Phoenicia or the
+Kingdom of Damascus. Yet on three occasions out of four, the lords of
+the Middle Assyrian Kingdom were content to harry once again the
+oft-plundered lands of mid-Syria, and on the fourth, if they turned
+northward at all, they advanced no farther than eastern Cilicia, that
+is, little beyond the horizon which they might actually see on a clear
+day from any high ground near Pitru. Yet on the other side of the
+snow-streaked wall which bounded the northward view lay desirable
+kingdoms, Khanigalbat with its capital, Milid, comprising the fertile
+district which later would be part of Cataonia; Tabal to west of it,
+extending over the rest of Cataonia and southern Cappadocia; and Kas,
+possessing the Tyanitis and the deep Lycaonian plain. Why, then, did
+those imperial robbers in the ninth century so long hold their hands
+from such tempting prey? No doubt, because they and their armies, which
+were not yet recruited from other populations than the Semites of
+Assyria proper, so far as we know, were by origin Arabs, men of the
+south, to whom the high-lying plateau country beyond Taurus was just as
+deterrent as it has been to all Semites since. Tides of Arab invasion,
+surging again and again to the foot of the Taurus, have broken sometimes
+through the passes and flowed in single streams far on into Asia Minor,
+but they have always ebbed again as quickly. The repugnance felt by the
+Assyrians for Asia Minor may be contrasted with the promptitude which
+their Iranian successors showed in invading the peninsula, and may be
+illustrated by all subsequent history. No permanent footing was ever
+established in Asia Minor by the Saracens, its definite conquest being
+left to the north-country Turks. The short-lived Arab power of Mehemet
+Ali, which rebelled against the Turks some eighty years ago, advanced on
+to the plateau only to recede at once and remain behind the Taurus. The
+present dividing line of peoples which speak respectively Arabic and
+Turkish marks the Semite's immemorial limit. So soon as the land-level
+of northern Syria attains a mean altitude of 2500 feet, the Arab tongue
+is chilled to silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We shall never find Assyrian armies, therefore, going far or staying
+long beyond Taurus. But we shall find them going constantly, and as a
+matter of course, into Cilicia, notwithstanding the high mountain wall
+of Amanus which divides it from Syria. Cilicia--all that part of it at
+least which the Assyrians used to raid--lies low, faces south and is
+shielded by high mountains from northerly and easterly chills. It
+enjoys, indeed, a warmer and more equable climate than any part of
+Syria, except the coastal belt, and socially it has always been related
+more nearly to the south lands than to its own geographical whole, Asia
+Minor. A Semitic element was predominant in the population of the plain,
+and especially in its chief town, Tarsus, throughout antiquity. So
+closely was Cilicia linked with Syria that the Prince of Kue (its
+eastern part) joined the Princes of Hamath and of Damascus and their
+south Syrian allies in that combination for common defence against
+Assyrian aggression, which Shalmaneser broke at Karkar in 854: and it
+was in order to neutralize an important factor in the defensive power of
+Syria that the latter proceeded across Patin in 849 and fell on Kue. But
+some uprising at Hamath recalled him then, and it was not till the
+latter part of his reign that eastern Cilicia was systematically
+subdued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shalmaneser devoted a surprising amount of attention to this small and
+rather obscure corner of Asia Minor. He records in his twenty-fifth year
+that already he had crossed Amanus seven times; and in the year
+succeeding we find him again entering Cilicia and marching to Tarsus to
+unseat its prince and put another more pliable in his room. Since,
+apparently, he never used Cilicia as a base for further operations in
+force beyond Taurus, being content with a formal acknowledgment of his
+majesty by the Prince of Tabal, one is forced to conclude that he
+invaded the land for its own sake. Nearly three centuries hence, out of
+the mist in which Cilicia is veiled more persistently than almost any
+other part of the ancient East, this small country will loom up suddenly
+as one of the four chief powers of Asia, ruled by a king who, hand in
+hand with Nebuchadnezzar II, negotiates a peace between the Lydians and
+the Medes, each at the height of their power. Then the mist will close
+over it once more, and we shall hear next to nothing of a long line of
+kings who, bearing a royal title which was graecized under the form
+Syennesis, reigned at Tarsus, having little in common with other
+Anatolian princes. But we may reasonably infer from the circumstances of
+the pacific intervention just mentioned that Cilician power had been
+growing for a long time previous; and also from the frequency with which
+Shalmaneser raided the land, that already in the ninth century it was
+rich and civilized. We know it to have been a great centre of Sandan
+worship, and may guess that its kings were kin of the Mushki race and,
+if not the chief survivors of the original stock which invaded Assyria
+in Tiglath Pileser's time, ranked at least among the chief inheritors of
+the old Hatti civilization. Some even date its civilization earlier
+still, believing the Keftiu, who brought rich gifts to the Pharaohs of
+the eighteenth and succeeding dynasties, to have been Cilicians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unfortunately, no scientific excavation of early sites in Cilicia has
+yet been undertaken; but for many years past buyers of antiquities have
+been receiving, from Tarsus and its port, engraved stones and seals of
+singularly fine workmanship, which belong to Hittite art but seem of
+later date than most of its products. They display in their decoration
+certain peculiar designs, which have been remarked also in Cyprus, and
+present some peculiarities of form, which occur also in the earliest
+Ionian art. Till other evidence comes to hand these little objects must
+be our witnesses to the existence of a highly developed sub-Hittite
+culture in Cilicia which, as early as the ninth century, had already
+been refined by the influence of the Greek settlements on the Anatolian
+coasts and perhaps, even earlier, by the Cretan art of the Aegean area.
+Cilician civilization offers a link between east and west which is worth
+more consideration and study than have been given to it by historians.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 7. ASIA MINOR</h4>
+
+<p>
+Into Asia Minor beyond Taurus we have no reason to suppose that an
+Assyrian monarch of the ninth century ever marched in person, though
+several raiding columns visited Khanigalbat and Tabal, and tributary
+acknowledgment of Assyrian dominance was made intermittently by the
+princes of both those countries in the latter half of Shalmaneser's
+reign. The farther and larger part of the western peninsula lay outside
+the Great King's reach, and we know as little of it in the year 800 as,
+perhaps, the Assyrians themselves knew. We do know, however, that it
+contained a strong principality centrally situated in the southern part
+of the basin of the Sangarius, which the Asiatic Greeks had begun to
+know as Phrygian. This inland power loomed very large in their world--so
+large, indeed, that it masked Assyria at this time, and passed in their
+eyes for the richest on earth. On the sole ground of its importance in
+early Greek legend, we are quite safe in dating not only its rise but
+its attainment of a dominant position to a period well before 800 B.C.
+But, in fact, there are other good grounds for believing that before the
+ninth century closed this principality dominated a much wider area than
+the later Phrygia, and that its western borders had been pushed outwards
+very nearly to the Ionian coast. In the Iliad, for example, the
+Phrygians are spoken of as immediate neighbours of the Trojans; and a
+considerable body of primitive Hellenic legend is based on the early
+presence of Phrygians not only in the Troad itself, but on the central
+west coast about the Bay of Smyrna and in the Caystrian plain, from
+which points of vantage they held direct relations with the immigrant
+Greeks themselves. It seems, therefore, certain that at some time before
+800 B.C. nearly all the western half of the peninsula owed allegiance
+more or less complete to the power on the Sangarius, and that even the
+Heraclid kings of Lydia were not independent of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Phrygia was powerful enough in the ninth century to hold the west
+Anatolian lands in fee, did it also dominate enough of the eastern
+peninsula to be ranked the imperial heir of the Cappadocian Hatti? The
+answer to this question (if any at all can be returned on very slight
+evidence) will depend on the view taken about the possible identity of
+the Phrygian power with that obscure but real power of the Mushki, of
+which we have already heard. The identity in question is so generally
+accepted nowadays that it has become a commonplace of historians to
+speak of the "Mushki-Phrygians." Very possibly they are right. But, by
+way of caution, it must be remarked that the identification depends
+ultimately on another, namely, that of Mita, King of the Mushki, against
+whom Ashurbanipal would fight more than a century later, with Midas,
+last King of Phrygia, who is mentioned by Herodotus and celebrated in
+Greek myth. To assume this identity is very attractive. Mita of Mushki
+and Midas of Phrygia coincide well enough in date; both ruled in Asia
+Minor; both were apparently leading powers there; both fought with the
+Gimirrai or Cimmerians. But there are also certain difficulties of which
+too little account has perhaps been taken. While Mita seems to have been
+a common name in Asia as far inland as Mesopotamia at a much earlier
+period than this, the name Midas, on the other hand, came much later
+into Phrygia from the west, if there is anything in the Greek tradition
+that the Phryges or Briges had immigrated from south-east Europe. And
+supported as this tradition is not only by the occurrence of similar
+names and similar folk-tales in Macedonia and in Phrygia, but also by
+the western appearance of the later Phrygian art and script, we can
+hardly refuse it credit. Accordingly, if we find the origin of the
+Phrygians in the Macedonian Briges, we must allow that Midas, as a
+Phrygian name, came from Europe very much later than the first
+appearance of kings called Mita in Asia, and we are compelled to doubt
+whether the latter name is necessarily the same as Midas. When allusions
+to the Mushki in Assyrian records give any indication of their local
+habitat, it lies in the east, not the west, of the central Anatolian
+plain--nearly, in fact, where the Moschi lived in later historical
+times. The following points, therefore, must be left open at present:
+(1) whether the Mushki ever settled in Phrygia at all; (2) whether, if
+they did, the Phrygian kings who bore the names Gordius and Midas can
+ever have been Mushkite or have commanded Mushkite allegiance; (3)
+whether the kings called Mita in records of Sargon and Ashurbanipal were
+not lords rather of the eastern Mushki than of Phrygia. It cannot be
+assumed, on present evidence at any rate (though it is not improbable),
+that Phrygian kings ruled the Mushki of Cappadocia, and in virtue of
+that rule had an empire almost commensurate with the lost sway of the
+Hatti.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless theirs was a strong power, the strongest in Anatolia, and
+the fame of its wealth and its walled towns dazzled and awed the Greek
+communities, which were thickly planted by now on the western and
+south-western coasts. Some of these had passed through the trials of
+infancy and were grown to civic estate, having established wide trade
+relations both by land and sea. In the coming century Cyme of Aeolis
+would give a wife to a Phrygian king. Ephesus seems to have become
+already an important social as well as religious centre. The objects of
+art found in 1905 on the floor of the earliest temple of Artemis in the
+plain (there was an earlier one in the hills) must be dated--some of
+them--not later than 700, and their design and workmanship bear witness
+to flourishing arts and crafts long established in the locality.
+Miletus, too, was certainly an adult centre of Hellenism and about to
+become a mother of new cities, if she had not already become so. But, so
+early as this year 800, we know little about the Asiatic Greek cities
+beyond the fact of their existence; and it will be wiser to let them
+grow for another two centuries and to speak of them more at length when
+they have become a potent factor in West Asian society. When we ring up
+the curtain again after two hundred years, it will be found that the
+light shed on the eastern scene has brightened; for not only will
+contemporary records have increased in volume and clarity, but we shall
+be able to use the lamp of literary history fed by traditions, which had
+not had to survive the lapse of more than a few generations.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="iii">CHAPTER III</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE EAST IN 600 B.C.</h3>
+
+<p>
+When we look at the East again in 600 B.C. after two centuries of war
+and tumultuous movements we perceive that almost all its lands have
+found fresh masters. The political changes are tremendous. Cataclysm has
+followed hard on cataclysm. The Phrygian dynasty has gone down in
+massacre and rapine, and from another seat of power its former client
+rules Asia Minor in its stead. The strongholds of the lesser Semitic
+peoples have almost all succumbed, and Syria is a well-picked bone
+snatched by one foreign dog from another. The Assyrian colossus which
+bestrid the west Asiatic world has failed and collapsed, and the Medes
+and the Chaldaeans--these two clouds no bigger than a man's hand which
+had lain on Assyria's horizon--fill her seat and her room. As we look
+back on it now, the political revolution is complete; but had we lived
+in the year 600 at Asshur or Damascus or Tyre or Tarsus, it might have
+impressed us less. A new master in the East did not and does not always
+mean either a new earth or a new heaven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us see to how much the change really amounted. The Assyrian Empire
+was no more. This is a momentous fact, not to be esteemed lightly. The
+final catastrophe has happened only six years before our date; but the
+power of Assyria had been going downhill for nearly half a century, and
+it is clear, from the freedom with which other powers were able to move
+about the area of her empire some time before the end, that the East had
+been free of her interference for years. Indeed, so near and vital a
+centre of Assyrian nationality as Calah, the old capital of the Middle
+Empire, had been taken and sacked, ere he who was to be the last "Great
+King" of the northern Semites ascended his throne.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 1. THE NEW ASSYRIAN KINGDOM</h4>
+
+<p>
+For the last hundred and fifty years Assyrian history--a record of black
+oppression abroad and blacker intrigue at home--has recalled the rapid
+gathering and slower passing away of some great storm. A lull marks the
+first half of the ninth century. Then almost without warning the full
+fury of the cloud bursts and rages for nearly a hundred years. Then the
+gloom brightens till all is over. The dynasty of Ashurnatsirpal and
+Shalmaneser II slowly declined to its inevitable end. The capital itself
+rose in revolt in the year 747, and having done with the lawful heirs,
+chose a successful soldier, who may have been, for aught we know, of
+royal blood, but certainly was not in the direct line. Tiglath
+Pileser--for he took a name from earlier monarchs, possibly in
+vindication of legitimacy--saw (or some wise counsellor told him) that
+the militant empire which he had usurped must rely no longer on annual
+levies of peasants from the Assyrian villages, which were fast becoming
+exhausted; nor could it continue to live on uncertain blackmail
+collected at uncertain intervals now beyond Euphrates, now in Armenia,
+now again from eastern and southern neighbours. Such Bedawi ideas and
+methods were outworn. The new Great King tried new methods to express
+new ideas. A soldier by profession, indebted to the sword for his
+throne, he would have a standing and paid force always at his hand, not
+one which had to be called from the plough spring by spring. The lands,
+which used to render blackmail to forces sent expressly all the way from
+the Tigris, must henceforward be incorporated in the territorial empire
+and pay their contributions to resident governors and garrisons.
+Moreover, why should these same lands not bear a part for the empire in
+both defence and attack by supplying levies of their own to the imperial
+armies? Finally the capital, Calah, with its traditions of the dead
+dynasty, the old regime and the recent rebellion, must be replaced by a
+new capital, even as once on a time Asshur, with its Babylonian and
+priestly spirit, had been replaced. Accordingly sites, a little higher
+up the Tigris and more centrally situated in relation to both the
+homeland and the main roads from west and east, must be promoted to be
+capitals. But in the event it was not till after the reign of Sargon
+closed that Nineveh was made the definitive seat of the last Assyrian
+kings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Organized and strengthened during Tiglath Pileser's reign of eighteen
+years, this new imperial machine, with its standing professional army,
+its myriad levies drawn from all fighting races within its territory,
+its large and secure revenues and its bureaucracy keeping the provinces
+in constant relation to the centre, became the most tremendous power of
+offence which the world had seen. So soon as Assyria was made conscious
+of her new vigour by the ease with which the Urartu raiders, who had
+long been encroaching on Mesopotamia, and even on Syria, were driven
+back across the Nairi lands and penned into their central fastnesses of
+Van; by the ease, too, with which Babylonia was humbled and occupied
+again, and the Phoenician ports and the city of Damascus, impregnable
+theretofore, were taken and held to tribute--she began to dream of world
+empire, the first society in history to conceive this unattainable
+ideal. Certain influences and events, however, would defer awhile any
+attempt to realize the dream. Changes of dynasty took place, thanks
+partly to reactionary forces at home and more to the praetorian basis on
+which the kingdom now reposed, and only one of his house succeeded
+Tiglath Pileser. But the set-back was of brief duration. In the year 722
+another victorious general thrust himself on to the throne and, under
+the famous name of Sargon, set forth to extend the bounds of the empire
+towards Media on the east, and over Cilicia into Tabal on the west,
+until he came into collision with King Mita of the Mushki and held him
+to tribute.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 2. THE EMPIRE OF SARGON</h4>
+
+<p>
+Though at least one large province had still to be added to the Assyrian
+Empire, Sargon's reign may be considered the period of its greatest
+strength. He handed on to Sennacherib no conquests which could not have
+been made good, and the widest extent of territory which the central
+power was adequate to hold. We may pause, then, just before Sargon's
+death in 705, to see what the area of that territory actually was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Its boundaries cannot be stated, of course, with any approach to the
+precision of a modern political geographer. Occupied territories faded
+imperceptibly into spheres of influence and these again into lands
+habitually, or even only occasionally, raided. In some quarters,
+especially from north-east round to north-west, our present
+understanding of the terms of ancient geography, used by Semitic
+scribes, is very imperfect, and, when an Assyrian king has told us
+carefully what lands, towns, mountains and rivers his army visited, it
+does not follow that we can identify them with any exactness. Nor should
+the royal records be taken quite at their face value. Some discount has
+to be allowed (but how much it is next to impossible to say) on reports,
+which often ascribe all the actions of a campaign not shared in by the
+King in person (as in certain instances can be proved) to his sole
+prowess, and grandiloquently enumerate twoscore princedoms and kingdoms
+which were traversed and subdued in the course of one summer campaign in
+very difficult country. The illusion of immense achievement, which it
+was intended thus to create, has often imposed itself on modern critics,
+and Tiglath Pileser and Sargon are credited with having marched to the
+neighbourhood of the Caspian, conquering or holding to ransom great
+provinces, when their forces were probably doing no more than climbing
+from valley to valley about the headwaters of the Tigris affluents, and
+raiding chiefs of no greater territorial affluence than the Kurdish beys
+of Hakkiari.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+East of Assyria proper, the territorial empire of Sargon does not seem
+to have extended quite up to the Zagros watershed; but his sphere of
+influence included not only the heads of the Zab valleys, but also a
+region on the other side of the mountains, reaching as far as Hamadan
+and south-west Azerbaijan, although certainly not the eastern or
+northern districts of the latter province, or Kaswan, or any part of the
+Caspian littoral. On the north, the frontier of Assyrian territorial
+empire could be passed in a very few days' march from Nineveh. The
+shores of neither the Urmia nor the Van Lake were ever regularly
+occupied by Assyria, and, though Sargon certainly brought into his
+sphere of influence the kingdom of Urartu, which surrounded the latter
+lake and controlled the tribes as far as the western shore of the
+former, it is not proved that his armies ever went round the east and
+north of the Urmia Lake, and it is fairly clear that they left the
+northwestern region of mountains between Bitlis and the middle Euphrates
+to its own tribesmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Westwards and southwards, however, Sargon's arm swept a wider circuit.
+He held as his own all Mesopotamia up to Diarbekr, and beyond Syria not
+only eastern and central Cilicia, but also some districts north of
+Taurus, namely, the low plain of Milid or Malatia, and the southern part
+of Tabal; but probably his hand reached no farther over the plateau than
+to a line prolonged from the head of the Tokhma Su to the neighbourhood
+of Tyana, and returning thence to the Cilician Gates. Beyond that line
+began a sphere of influence which we cannot hope to define, but may
+guess to have extended over Cappadocia, Lycaonia and the southern part
+of Phrygia. Southward, all Syria was Sargon's, most of it by direct
+occupation, and the rest in virtue of acknowledged overlordship and
+payment of tribute. Even the seven princes of Cyprus made such
+submission. One or two strong Syrian towns, Tyre and Jerusalem, for
+example, withheld payment if no Assyrian army was at hand; but their
+show of independence was maintained only on sufferance. The Philistine
+cities, after Sargon's victory over their forces and Egyptian allies at
+Raphia, in 720, no longer defended their walls, and the Great King's
+sphere of influence stretched eastward right across the Hamad and
+southward over north Arabia. Finally, Babylonia was all his own even to
+the Persian Gulf, the rich merchants supporting him firmly in the
+interests of their caravan trade, however the priests and the peasantry
+might murmur. But Elam, whose king and people had carried serious
+trouble into Assyria itself early in the reign, is hardly to be reckoned
+to Sargon even as a sphere of influence. The marshes of its south-west,
+the tropical plains of the centre and the mountains on the east, made it
+a difficult land for the northern Semites to conquer and hold. Sargon
+had been wise enough to let it be. Neither so prudent nor so fortunate
+would be his son and successors.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 3. THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT</h4>
+
+<p>
+Such was the empire inherited by Sargon's son, Sennacherib. Not content,
+he would go farther afield to make a conquest which has never remained
+long in the hands of an Asiatic power. It was not only lust of loot,
+however, which now urged Assyria towards Egypt. The Great Kings had long
+found their influence counteracted in southern Syria by that of the
+Pharaohs. Princes of both Hebrew states, of the Phoenician and the
+Philistine cities and even of Damascus, had all relied at one time or
+another on Egypt, and behind their combinations for defence and their
+individual revolts Assyria had felt the power on the Nile. The latter
+generally did no more in the event to save its friends than it had done
+for Israel when Shalmaneser IV beleaguered, and Sargon took and
+garrisoned, Samaria; but even ignorant hopes and empty promises of help
+cause constant unrest. Therefore Sennacherib, after drastic chastisement
+of the southern states in 701 (both Tyre and Jerusalem, however, kept
+him outside their walls), and a long tussle with Chaldaean Babylon, was
+impelled to set out in the last year, or last but one, of his reign for
+Egypt. In southern Palestine he was as successful as before, but,
+thereafter, some signal disaster befell him. Probably an epidemic
+pestilence overtook his army when not far across the frontier, and he
+returned to Assyria only to be murdered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He bequeathed the venture to the son who, after defeating his parricide
+brothers, secured his throne and reigned eleven years under a name which
+it has been agreed to write Esarhaddon. So soon as movements in Urartu
+and south-western Asia Minor had been suppressed, and, more important,
+Babylon, which his father had dishonoured, was appeased, Esarhaddon took
+up the incomplete conquest. Egypt, then in the hands of an alien dynasty
+from the Upper Nile and divided against itself, gave him little trouble
+at first. In his second expedition (670) he reached Memphis itself,
+carried it by assault, and drove the Cushite Tirhakah past Thebes to the
+Cataracts. The Assyrian proclaimed Egypt his territory and spread the
+net of Ninevite bureaucracy over it as far south as the Thebaid; but
+neither he nor his successors cared to assume the style and titles of
+the Pharaohs, as Persians and Greeks, wiser in their generations, would
+do later on. Presently trouble at home, excited by a son rebelling after
+the immemorial practice of the east, recalled Esarhaddon to Assyria;
+Tirhakah moved up again from the south; the Great King returned to meet
+him and died on the march.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="images/map4.gif">Plate 4: ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF
+ASHURBANIPAL</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Memphis was reoccupied by Esarhaddon's successor, and since the
+latter took and ruined Thebes also, and, after Tirhakah's death, drove
+the Cushites right out of Egypt, the doubtful credit of spreading the
+territorial empire of Assyria to the widest limits it ever reached falls
+to Ashurbanipal. Even Tyre succumbed at last, and he stretched his
+sphere of influence over Asia Minor to Lydia. First of Assyrian kings he
+could claim Elam with its capital Susa as his own (after 647), and in
+the east he professed overlordship over all Media. Mesopotamian arts and
+letters now reached the highest point at which they had stood since
+Hammurabi's days, and the fame of the wealth and luxury of "Sardanapal"
+went out even into the Greek lands. About 660 B.C. Assyria seemed in a
+fair way to be mistress of the desirable earth.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 4. DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+Strong as it seemed in the 7th century, the Assyrian Empire was,
+however, rotten at the core. In ridding itself of some weaknesses it had
+created others. The later Great Kings of Nineveh, raised to power and
+maintained by the spears of paid praetorians, found less support even
+than the old dynasty of Calah had found, in popular religious sentiment,
+which (as usual in the East) was the ultimate basis of Assyrian
+nationality; nor, under the circumstances, could they derive much
+strength from tribal feeling, which sometimes survives the religious
+basis. Throughout the history of the New Kingdom we can detect the
+influence of a strong opposition centred at Asshur. There the last
+monarch of the Middle Kingdom had fixed his dwelling under the wing of
+the priests; there the new dynasty had dethroned him as the consummation
+of an anti-sacerdotal rising of nobles and of peasant soldiery. Sargon
+seems to have owed his elevation two generations later to revenge taken
+for this victory by the city folk; but Sargon's son, Sennacherib, in his
+turn, found priestly domination intolerable, and, in an effort to crush
+it for ever, wrecked Babylon and terrorized the central home of Semitic
+cult, the great sacerdotal establishment of Bel-Marduk. After his
+father's murder, Esarhaddon veered back to the priests, and did so much
+to court religious support, that the military party incited Ashurbanipal
+to rebellion and compelled his father to associate the son in the royal
+power before leaving Assyria for the last time to die (or be killed) on
+the way to Egypt. Thus the whole record of dynastic succession in the
+New Kingdom has been typically Oriental, anticipating, at every change
+of monarch, the history of Islamic Empires. There is no trace of
+unanimous national sentiment for the Great King. One occupant of the
+throne after another gains power by grace of a party and holds it by
+mercenary swords.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another imperial weakness was even more fatal. So far as can be learned
+from Assyria's own records and those of others, she lived on her
+territorial empire without recognizing the least obligation to render
+anything to her provinces for what they gave--not even to render what
+Rome gave at her worst, namely, peace. She regarded them as existing
+simply to endow her with money and men. When she desired to garrison or
+to reduce to impotence any conquered district, the population of some
+other conquered district would be deported thither, while the new
+subjects took the vacant place. What happened when Sargon captured
+Samaria happened often elsewhere (Ashurbanipal, for example, made Thebes
+and Elam exchange inhabitants), for this was the only method of
+assimilating alien populations ever conceived by Assyria. When she
+attempted to use natives to govern natives the result was such disaster
+as followed Ashurbanipal's appointment of Psammetichus, son of Necho, to
+govern Memphis and the Western Delta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rotten within, hated and coveted by vigorous and warlike races on the
+east, the north and the south, Assyria was moving steadily towards her
+catastrophe amid all the glory of "Sardanapal." The pace quickened when
+he was gone. A danger, which had lain long below the eastern horizon,
+was now come up into the Assyrian field of vision. Since Sargon's
+triumphant raids, the Great King's writ had run gradually less and less
+far into Media; and by his retaliatory invasions of Elam, which
+Sennacherib had provoked, Ashurbanipal not only exhausted his military
+resources, but weakened a power which had served to check more dangerous
+foes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have seen that the "Mede" was probably a blend of Scythian and
+Iranian, the latter element supplying the ruling and priestly classes.
+The Scythian element, it seems, had been receiving considerable
+reinforcement. Some obscure cause, disturbing the northern steppes,
+forced its warlike shepherds to move southward in the mass. A large
+body, under the name Gimirrai or Cimmerians, descended on Asia Minor in
+the seventh century and swept it to the western edge of the plateau and
+beyond; others pressed into central and eastern Armenia, and, by
+weakening the Vannic king, enabled Ashurbanipal to announce the
+humiliation of Urartu; others again ranged behind Zagros and began to
+break through to the Assyrian valleys. Even while Ashurbanipal was still
+on the throne some of these last had ventured very far into his realm;
+for in the year of his death a band of Scythians appeared in Syria and
+raided southwards even to the frontier of Egypt. It was this raid which
+virtually ended the Assyrian control of Syria and enabled Josiah of
+Jerusalem and others to reassert independence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The death of Ashurbanipal coincided also with the end of direct Assyrian
+rule over Babylon. After the death of a rebellious brother and viceroy
+in 648, the Great King himself assumed the Babylonian crown and ruled
+the sacred city under a Babylonian name. But there had long been
+Chaldaean principalities in existence, very imperfectly incorporated in
+the Assyrian Empire, and these, inspiring revolts from time to time, had
+already succeeded in placing more than one dynast on the throne of
+Babylon. As soon as "Sardanapal" was no more and the Scythians began to
+overrun Assyria, one of these principalities (it is not known which)
+came to the front and secured the southern crown for its prince
+Nabu-aplu-utsur, or, as the Greeks wrote the name, Nabopolassar. This
+Chaldaean hastened to strengthen himself by marrying his son,
+Nebuchadnezzar, to a Median princess, and threw off the last pretence of
+submission to Assyrian suzerainty. He had made himself master of
+southern Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley trade-route by the year
+609.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the opening of the last decade of the century, therefore, we have
+this state of things. Scythians and Medes are holding most of eastern
+and central Assyria; Chaldaeans hold south Mesopotamia; while Syria,
+isolated from the old centre of empire, is anyone's to take and keep. A
+claimant appears immediately in the person of the Egyptian Necho, sprung
+from the loins of that Psammetichus who had won the Nile country back
+from Assyria. Pharaoh entered Syria probably in 609, broke easily
+through the barrier which Josiah of Jerusalem, greatly daring in this
+day of Assyrian weakness, threw across his path at Megiddo, went on to
+the north and proceeded to deal as he willed with the west of the
+Assyrian empire for four or five years. The destiny of Nineveh was all
+but fulfilled. With almost everything lost outside her walls, she held
+out against the Scythian assaults till 606, and then fell to the Mede
+Uvakhshatra, known to the Greeks as Kyaxares. The fallen capital of West
+Asia was devastated by the conquerors to such effect that it never
+recovered, and its life passed away for ever across the Tigris, to the
+site on which Mosul stands at the present day.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 5. THE BABYLONIANS AND THE MEDES</h4>
+
+<p>
+Six years later,--in 600 B.C.--this was the position of that part of the
+East which had been the Assyrian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldaean
+king of Babylon, who had succeeded his father about 605, held the
+greater share of it to obedience and tribute, but not, apparently, by
+means of any such centralized bureaucratic organization as the Assyrians
+had established. Just before his father's death he had beaten the
+Egyptians in a pitched battle under the walls of Carchemish, and
+subsequently had pursued them south through Syria, and perhaps across
+the frontier, before being recalled to take up his succession. He had
+now, therefore, no rival or active competitor in Syria, and this part of
+the lost empire of Assyria seems to have enjoyed a rare interval of
+peace under native client princes who ruled more or less on Assyrian
+lines. The only fenced places which made any show of defiance were Tyre
+and Jerusalem, which both relied on Egypt. The first would outlast an
+intermittent siege of thirteen years; but the other, with far less
+resources, was soon to pay full price for having leaned too long on the
+"staff of a broken reed."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About the east and north a different story would certainly have to be
+told, if we could tell it in full. But though Greek traditions come to
+our aid, they have much less to say about these remote regions than the
+inscribed annals of that empire, which had just come to its end, have
+had hitherto: and unfortunately the Median inheritors of Assyria have
+left no epigraphic records of their own--at least none have been found.
+If, as seems probable, the main element of Kyaxares' war strength was
+Scythian, we can hardly expect to find records either of his conquest or
+the subsequent career of the Medes, even though Ecbatana should be laid
+bare below the site of modern Hamadan; for the predatory Scyth, like the
+mediaeval Mongol, halted too short a time to desire to carve stones, and
+probably lacked skill to inscribe them. To complete our discomfiture,
+the only other possible source of light, the Babylonian annals, sheds
+none henceforward on the north country and very little on any country.
+Nebuchadnezzar--so far as his records have been found and read--did not
+adopt the Assyrian custom of enumerating first and foremost his
+expeditions and his battles; and were it not for the Hebrew Scriptures,
+we should hardly know that his armies ever left Babylonia, the
+rebuilding and redecoration of whose cities and shrines appear to have
+constituted his chief concern. True, that in such silence about warlike
+operations, he follows the precedent of previous Babylonian kings; but
+probably that precedent arose from the fact that for a long time past
+Babylon had been more or less continuously a client state.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We must, therefore, proceed by inference. There are two or three
+recorded events earlier and later than our date, which are of service.
+First, we learn from Babylonian annals that Kyaxares, besides
+overrunning all Assyria and the northern part of Babylonia after the
+fall of Nineveh, took and pillaged Harran and its temple in north-west
+Mesopotamia. Now, from other records of Nabonidus, fourth in succession
+to Nebuchadnezzar, we shall learn further that this temple did not come
+into Babylonian hands till the middle of the following century. The
+reasonable inference is that it had remained since 606 B.C. in the power
+of the Medes, and that northern Mesopotamia, as well as Assyria, formed
+part of a loose-knit Median "Empire" for a full half century before 552
+B.C.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Secondly, Herodotus bears witness to a certain event which occurred
+about the year 585, in a region near enough to his own country for the
+fact to be sufficiently well known to him. He states that, after an
+expedition into Cappadocia and a war with Lydia, the Medes obtained,
+under a treaty with the latter which the king of Babylon and the prince
+of Cilicia promoted, the Halys river as a "scientific frontier" on the
+north-west. This statement leaves us in no doubt that previously the
+power of Ecbatana had been spread through Armenia into the old Hatti
+country of Cappadocia, as well as over all the north of Mesopotamia, in
+the widest sense of this vague term.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something more, perhaps, may be inferred legitimately from this same
+passage of Herodotus. The mediation of the two kings, so unexpectedly
+coupled, must surely mean that each stood to one of the two belligerents
+as friend and ally. If so (since a Babylonian king can hardly have held
+such a relation to distant Lydia, while the other prince might well have
+been its friend), Cilicia was probably outside the Median "sphere of
+influence," while Babylon fell within it; and Nebuchadnezzar--for he it
+must have been, when the date is considered, though Herodotus calls him
+by a name, Labynetus, otherwise unknown--was not a wholly independent
+ruler, though ruler doubtless of the first and greatest of the client
+states of Media. Perhaps that is why he has told us so little of
+expeditions and battles, and confined his records so narrowly to
+domestic events. If his armies marched only to do the bidding of an
+alien kinsman-in-law, he can have felt but a tepid pride in their
+achievements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 600 B.C., then, we must picture a Median "Empire," probably of the
+raiding type, centred in the west of modern Persia and stretching
+westward over all Armenia (where the Vannic kingdom had ceased to be),
+and southward to an ill-defined point in Mesopotamia. Beyond this point
+south and west extended a Median sphere of influence which included
+Babylonia and all that obeyed Nebuchadnezzar even to the border of Elam
+on the one hand and the border of Egypt on the other. Since the heart of
+this "Empire" lay in the north, its main activities took place there
+too, and probably the discretion of the Babylonian king was seldom
+interfered with by his Median suzerain. In expanding their power
+westward to Asia Minor, the Medes followed routes north of Taurus, not
+the old Assyrian war-road through Cilicia. Of so much we can be fairly
+sure. Much else that we are told of Media by Herodotus--his marvellous
+account of Ecbatana and scarcely less wonderful account of the reigning
+house--must be passed by till some confirmation of it comes to light;
+and that, perhaps, will never be.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR</h4>
+
+<p>
+A good part of the East, however, remains which owed allegiance neither
+to Media nor to Babylon. It is, indeed, a considerably larger area than
+was independent of the Farther East at the date of our last survey. Asia
+Minor was in all likelihood independent from end to end, from the Aegean
+to the Euphrates--for in 600 B.C. Kyaxares had probably not yet come
+through Urartu--and from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Issus. About much
+of this area we have far more trustworthy information now than when we
+looked at it last, because it had happened to fall under the eyes of the
+Greeks of the western coastal cities, and to form relations with them of
+trade and war. But about the residue, which lay too far eastward to
+concern the Greeks much, we have less information than we had in 800
+B.C., owing to the failure of the Assyrian imperial annals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dominant fact in Asia Minor in 600 B.C. is the existence of a new
+imperial power, that of Lydia. Domiciled in the central west of the
+peninsula, its writ ran eastwards over the plateau about as far as the
+former limits of the Phrygian power, on whose ruins it had arisen. As
+has been stated already, there is reason to believe that its "sphere of
+influence," at any rate, included Cilicia, and the battle to be fought
+on the Halys, fifteen years after our present survey, will argue that
+some control of Cappadocia also had been attempted. Before we speak of
+the Lydian kingdom, however, and of its rise to its present position, it
+will be best to dispose of that outlying state on the southeast,
+probably an ally or even client of Lydia, which, we are told, was at
+this time one of the "four powers of Asia." These powers included
+Babylon also, and accordingly, if our surmise that the Mede was then the
+overlord of Nebuchadnezzar be correct, this statement of Eusebius, for
+what it is worth, does not imply that Cilicia had attained an imperial
+position. Doubtless of the four "powers," she ranked lowest.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 7. CILICIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+It will be remembered how much attention a great raiding Emperor of the
+Middle Assyrian period, Shalmaneser II, had devoted to this little
+country. The conquering kings of later dynasties had devoted hardly
+less. From Sargon to Ashurbanipal they or their armies had been there
+often, and their governors continuously. Sennacherib is said to have
+rebuilt Tarsus "in the likeness of Babylon," and Ashurbanipal, who had
+to concern himself with the affairs of Asia Minor more than any of his
+predecessors, was so intimately connected with Tarsus that a popular
+tradition of later days placed there the scene of his death and the
+erection of his great tomb. And, in fact, he may have died there for all
+that we know to the contrary; for no Assyrian record tells us that he
+did not. Unlike the rest of Asia Minor, Cilicia was saved by the
+Assyrians from the ravages of the Cimmerians. Their leader, Dugdamme,
+whom the Greeks called Lygdamis, is said to have met his death on the
+frontier hills of Taurus, which, no doubt, he failed to pass. Thus, when
+Ashurbanipal's death and the shrinking of Ninevite power permitted
+distant vassals to resume independence, the unimpaired wealth of Cilicia
+soon gained for her considerable importance. The kings of Tarsus now
+extended their power into adjoining lands, such as Kue on the east and
+Tabal on the north, and probably over even the holding of the Kummukh;
+for Herodotus, writing a century and a half after our date, makes the
+Euphrates a boundary of Cilicia. He evidently understood that the
+northernmost part of Syria, called by later geographers (but never by
+him) Commagene, was then and had long been Cilician territory. His
+geographical ideas, in fact, went back to the greater Cilicia of
+pre-Persian time, which had been one of the "four great powers of Asia."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most interesting feature of Cilician history, as it is revealed very
+rarely and very dimly in the annals of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+consists in its relation to the earliest eastward venturing of the
+Greeks. The first Assyrian king with whom these western men seem to have
+collided was Sargon, who late in the eighth century, finding their ships
+in what he considered his own waters, i.e. on the coasts of Cyprus and
+Cilicia, boasts that he "caught them like fish." Since this action of
+his, he adds, "gave rest to Kue and Tyre," we may reasonably infer that
+the "Ionian pirates" did not then appear on the shores of Phoenicia and
+Cilicia for the first time; but, on the contrary, that they were already
+a notorious danger in the easternmost Levant. In the year 720 we find a
+nameless Greek of Cyprus (or Ionia) actually ruling Ashdod. Sargon's
+successor, Sennacherib, had serious trouble with the Ionians only a few
+years later, as has been learned from the comparison of a royal record
+of his, only recently recovered and read, with some statements made
+probably in the first place by the Babylonian historian, Berossus, but
+preserved to us in a chronicle of much later date, not hitherto much
+heeded. Piecing these scraps of information together, the Assyrian
+scholar, King, has inferred that, in the important campaign which a
+revolt of Tarsus, aided by the peoples of the Taurus on the west and
+north, compelled the generals of Sennacherib to wage in Cilicia in the
+year 698, Ionians took a prominent part by land, and probably also by
+sea. Sennacherib is said (by a late Greek historian) to have erected an
+"Athenian" temple in Tarsus after the victory, which was hardly won; and
+if this means, as it may well do, an "Ionic" temple, it states a by no
+means incredible fact, seeing that there had been much local contact
+between the Cilicians and the men of the west. Striking similarities of
+form and artistic execution between the early glyptic and toreutic work
+of Ionia and Cilicia respectively have been mentioned in the last
+chapter; and it need only be added here, in conclusion, that if Cilicia
+had relations with Ionia as early as the opening of the seventh
+century--relations sufficient to lead to alliance in war and to
+modification of native arts--it is natural enough that she should be
+found allied a few years later with Lydia rather than with Media.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 8. PHRYGIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+When we last surveyed Asia Minor as a whole it was in large part under
+the dominance of a central power in Phrygia. This power is now no more,
+and its place has been taken by another, which rests on a point nearer
+to the western coast. It is worth notice, in passing, how Anatolian
+dominion has moved stage by stage from east to west--from the Halys
+basin in northern Cappadocia, where its holders had been, broadly
+speaking, in the same cultural group as the Mesopotamian East, to the
+middle basin of the Sangarius, where western influences greatly modified
+the native culture (if we may judge by remains of art and script). Now
+at last it has come to the Hermus valley, up which blows the breath of
+the Aegean Sea. Whatever the East might recover in the future, the
+Anatolian peninsula was leaning more and more on the West, and the
+dominion of it was coming to depend on contact with the vital influence
+of Hellenism, rather than on connection with the heart of west Asia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A king Mita of the Mushki first appears in the annals of the New
+Assyrian Kingdom as opposing Sargon, when the latter, early in his
+reign, tried to push his sphere of influence, if not his territorial
+empire, beyond the Taurus to include the principalities of Kue and
+Tabal; and the same Mita appears to have been allied with Carchemish in
+the revolt which ended with its siege and final capture in 717 B.C. As
+has been said in the last chapter, it is usual to identify this king
+with one of those "Phrygians" known to the Greeks as Midas--preferably
+with the son of the first Gordius, whose wealth and power have been
+immortalized in mythology. If this identification is correct, we have to
+picture Phrygia at the close of the eighth century as dominating almost
+all Asia Minor, whether by direct or by indirect rule; as prepared to
+measure her forces (though without ultimate success) against the
+strongest power in Asia; and as claiming interests even outside the
+peninsula. Pisiris, king of Carchemish, appealed to Mita as his ally,
+either because the Mushki of Asia Minor sat in the seat of his own
+forbears, the Hatti of Cappadocia, or because he was himself of Mushki
+kin. There can be no doubt that the king thus invoked was king of
+Cappadocia. Whether he was king also of Phrygia, i.e. really the same as
+Midas son of Gordius, is, as has been said already, less certain. Mita's
+relations with Kue, Tabal and Carchemish do not, in themselves, argue
+that his seat of power was anywhere else than in the east of Asia Minor,
+where Moschi did actually survive till much later times: but, on the
+other hand, the occurrence of inscriptions in the distinctive script of
+Phrygia at Eyuk, east of the Halys, and at Tyana, south-east of the
+central Anatolian desert, argue that at some time the filaments of
+Phrygian power did stretch into Cappadocia and towards the land of the
+later Moschi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must also be admitted that the splendour of the surviving rock
+monuments near the Phrygian capital is consistent with its having been
+the centre of a very considerable empire, and hardly consistent with its
+having been anything less. The greatest of these, the tomb of a king
+Midas (son not of Gordius but of Atys), has for façade a cliff about a
+hundred feet high, cut back to a smooth face on which an elaborate
+geometric pattern has been left in relief. At the foot is a false door,
+while above the immense stone curtain the rock has been carved into a
+triangular pediment worthy of a Greek temple and engraved with a long
+inscription in a variety of the earliest Greek alphabet. There are many
+other rock-tombs of smaller size but similar plan and decoration in the
+district round the central site, and others which show reliefs of human
+figures and of lions, the latter of immense proportions on two famous
+façades. When these were carved, the Assyrian art of the New Kingdom was
+evidently known in Phrygia (probably in the early seventh century), and
+it is difficult to believe that those who made such great things under
+Assyrian influence can have passed wholly unmentioned by contemporary
+Assyrian records. Therefore, after all, we shall, perhaps, have to admit
+that they were those same Mushki who followed leaders of the name Mita
+to do battle with the Great Kings of Nineveh from Sargon to
+Ashurbanipal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is no doubt how the Phrygian kingdom came by its end. Assyrian
+records attest that the Gimirrai or Cimmerians, an Indo-European
+Scythian folk, which has left its name to Crim Tartary, and the present
+Crimea, swept southward and westward about the middle of the seventh
+century, and Greek records tell how they took and sacked the capital of
+Phrygia and put to death or forced to suicide the last King Midas.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 9. LYDIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+It must have been in the hour of that disaster, or but little before,
+that a Mermnad prince of Sardes, called Guggu by Assyrians and Gyges by
+Greeks, threw off any allegiance he may have owed to Phrygia and began
+to exalt his house and land of Lydia. He was the founder of a new
+dynasty, having been by origin, apparently, a noble of the court who
+came to be elevated to the throne by events differently related but
+involving in all the accounts some intrigue with his predecessor's
+queen. One historian, who says that he prevailed by the aid of Carians,
+probably states a fact; for it was this same Gyges who a few years later
+seems to have introduced Carian mercenaries to the notice of
+Psammetichus of Egypt. Having met and repulsed the Cimmerian horde
+without the aid of Ashurbanipal of Assyria, to whom he had applied in
+vain, Gyges allied himself with the Egyptian rebel who had just founded
+the Saite dynasty, and proceeded to enlarge his boundaries by attacking
+the prosperous Greeks on his western hand. But he was successful only
+against Colophon and Magnesia on the Maeander, inland places, and failed
+before Smyrna and Miletus, which could be provisioned by their fleets
+and probably had at their call a larger proportion of those warlike
+"Ionian pirates" who had long been harrying the Levant. In the course of
+a long reign, which Herodotus (an inexact chronologist) puts at
+thirty-eight years, Gyges had time to establish his power and to secure
+for his Lydians the control of the overland trade; and though a fresh
+Cimmerian horde, driven on, says Herodotus, by Scythians (perhaps these
+were not unconnected with the Medes then moving westward, as we know),
+came down from the north, defeated and killed him, sacked the
+unfortified part of his capital and swept on to plunder what it could of
+the land as far as the sea without pausing to take fenced places, his
+son Ardys, who had held out in the citadel of Sardes, and made his
+submission to Ashurbanipal, was soon able to resume the offensive
+against the Greeks. After an Assyrian attack on the Cimmerian flank or
+rear had brought about the death of the chief barbarian leader in the
+Cilician hills, and the dispersal of the storm, the Lydian marched down
+the Maeander again. He captured Priene, but like his predecessor and his
+successor, he failed to snatch the most coveted prize of the Greek
+coast, the wealthy city Miletus at the Maeander mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up to the date of our present survey, however, and for half a century
+yet to come, these conquests of the Lydian kings in Ionia and Caria
+amounted to little more than forays for plunder and the levy of
+blackmail, like the earlier Mesopotamian razzias. They might result in
+the taking and sacking of a town here and there, but not in the holding
+of it. The Carian Greek Herodotus, born not much more than a century
+later, tells us expressly that up to the time of Croesus, that is, to
+his own father's time, all the Greeks kept their freedom: and even if he
+means by this statement, as possibly he does, that previously no Greeks
+had been subjected to regular slavery, it still supports our point: for,
+if we may judge by Assyrian practice, the enslaving of vanquished
+peoples began only when their land was incorporated in a territorial
+empire. We hear nothing of Lydian governors in the Greek coastal cities
+and find no trace of a "Lydian period" in the strata of such Ionian and
+Carian sites as have been excavated. So it would appear that the Lydians
+and the Greeks lived up to and after 600 B.C. in unquiet contact, each
+people holding its own on the whole and learning about the other in the
+only international school known to primitive men, the school of war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herodotus represents that the Greek cities of Asia, according to the
+popular belief of his time, were deeply indebted to Lydia for their
+civilization. The larger part of this debt (if real) was incurred
+probably after 600 B.C.; but some constituent items of the account must
+have been of older date--the coining of money, for example. There is,
+however, much to be set on the other side of the ledger, more than
+Herodotus knew, and more than we can yet estimate. Too few monuments of
+the arts of the earlier Lydians and too few objects of their daily use
+have been found in their ill-explored land for us to say whether they
+owed most to the West or to the East. From the American excavation of
+Sardes, however, we have already learned for certain that their script
+was of a Western type, nearer akin to the Ionian than even the Phrygian
+was; and since their language contained a great number of Indo-European
+words, the Lydians should not, on the whole, be reckoned an Eastern
+people. Though the names given by Herodotus to their earliest kings are
+Mesopotamian and may be reminiscent of some political connection with
+the Far East at a remote epoch--perhaps that of the foreign relations of
+Ur, which seem to have extended to Cappadocia--all the later royal and
+other Lydian names recorded are distinctly Anatolian. At any rate all
+connection with Mesopotamia must have long been forgotten before
+Ashurbanipal's scribes could mention the prayer of "Guggu King of Luddi"
+as coming from a people and a land of which their master and his
+forbears had not so much as heard. As the excavation of Sardes and of
+other sites in Lydia proceeds, we shall perhaps find that the higher
+civilization of the country was a comparatively late growth, dating
+mainly from the rise of the Mermnads, and that its products will show an
+influence of the Hellenic cities which began not much earlier than 600
+B.C., and was most potent in the century succeeding that date.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We know nothing of the extent of Lydian power towards the east, unless
+the suggestions already based on the passage of Herodotus concerning the
+meeting of Alyattes of Lydia with Kyaxares the Mede on the Halys, some
+years later than the date of our present survey, are well founded. If
+they are, then Lydia's sphere of influence may be assumed to have
+included Cilicia on the south-east, and its interests must have been
+involved in Cappadocia on the north-east. It is not unlikely that the
+Mermnad dynasty inherited most of what the Phrygian kings had held
+before the Cimmerian attack; and perhaps it was due to an oppressive
+Lydian occupation of the plateau as far east as the Halys and the foot
+of Anti-Taurus, that the Mushki came to be represented in later times
+only by Moschi in western Armenia, and the men of Tabal by the equally
+remote and insignificant Tibareni.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 10. THE GREEK CITIES</h4>
+
+<p>
+Of the Greek cities on the Anatolian coast something has been said
+already. The great period of the elder ones as free and independent
+communities falls between the opening of the eighth century and the
+close of the sixth. Thus they were in their full bloom about the year
+600. By the foundation of secondary colonies (Miletus alone is said to
+have founded sixty!) and the establishment of trading posts, they had
+pushed Hellenic culture eastwards round the shores of the peninsula, to
+Pontus on the north and to Cilicia on the south. In the eyes of
+Herodotus this was the happy age when "all Hellenes were free" as
+compared with his own experience of Persian overlordship. Miletus, he
+tells us, was then the greatest of the cities, mistress of the sea; and
+certainly some of the most famous among her citizens, Anaximander,
+Anaximenes, Hecataeus and Thales, belong approximately to this epoch, as
+do equally famous names from other Asiatic Greek communities, such as
+Alcaeus and Sappho of Lesbos, Mimnermus of Smyrna or Colophon, Anacreon
+of Teos, and many more. The fact is significant, because studies and
+literary activities like theirs could hardly have been pursued except in
+highly civilized, free and leisured societies where life and wealth were
+secure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, however, the brilliant culture of the Asiatic Greeks about the
+opening of the sixth century admits no shadow of doubt, singularly few
+material things, which their arts produced, have been recovered for us
+to see to-day. Miletus has been excavated by Germans to a very
+considerable extent, without yielding anything really worthy of its
+great period, or, indeed, much that can be referred to that period at
+all, except sherds of a fine painted ware. It looks as if the city at
+the mouth of the greatest and largest valley, which penetrates Asia
+Minor from the west coast, was too important in subsequent ages and
+suffered chastisements too drastic and reconstructions too thorough for
+remains of its earlier greatness to survive except in holes and corners.
+Ephesus has given us more archaic treasures, from the deposits bedded
+down under the later reconstructions of its great shrine of Artemis; but
+here again the site of the city itself, though long explored by
+Austrians, has not added to the store. The ruins of the great Roman
+buildings which overlie its earlier strata have proved, perhaps, too
+serious an impediment to the excavators and too seductive a prize.
+Branchidae, with its temple of Apollo and Sacred Way, has preserved for
+us a little archaic statuary, as have also Samos and Chios. We have
+archaic gold work and painted vases from Rhodes, painted sarcophagi from
+Clazomenae, and painted pottery made there and at other places in Asia
+Minor, although found mostly abroad. But all this amounts to a very poor
+representation of the Asiatic Greek civilization of 600 B.C. Fortunately
+the soil still holds far more than has been got out of it. With those
+two exceptions, Miletus and Ephesus, the sites of the elder Hellenic
+cities on or near the Anatolian coast still await excavators who will go
+to the bottom of all things and dig systematically over a large area;
+while some sites await any excavation whatsoever, except such as is
+practised by plundering peasants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In their free youth the Asiatic Greeks carried into fullest practice the
+Hellenic conception of the city-state, self-governing, self-contained,
+exclusive. Their several societies had in consequence the intensely
+vivid and interested communal existence which develops civilization as a
+hot-house develops plants; but they were not democratic, and they had
+little sense of nationality--defects for which they were to pay dearly
+in the near future. In spite of their associations for the celebration
+of common festivals, such as the League of the twelve Ionian cities, and
+that of the Dorian Hexapolis in the south-west, which led to discussion
+of common political interests, a separatist instinct, reinforced by the
+strong geographical boundaries which divided most of the civic
+territories, continually reasserted itself. The same instinct was ruling
+the history of European Greece as well. But while the disaster, which in
+the end it would entail, was long avoided there through the insular
+situation of the main Greek area as a whole and the absence of any
+strong alien power on its continental frontier, disaster impended over
+Asiatic Greece from the moment that an imperial state should become
+domiciled on the western fringe of the inland plateau. Such a state had
+now appeared and established itself; and if the Greeks of Asia had had
+eyes to read, the writing was on their walls in 600 B.C.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Asiatic traders thronged into eastern Hellas, and the Hellenes
+and their influence penetrated far up into Asia. The hands which carved
+some of the ivories found in the earliest Artemisium at Ephesus worked
+on artistic traditions derived ultimately from the Tigris. So, too,
+worked the smiths who made the Rhodian jewellery, and so, the artists
+who painted the Milesian ware and the Clazomenae sarcophagi. On the
+other side of the ledger (though three parts of its page is still hidden
+from us) we must put to Greek credit the script of Lydia, the rock
+pediments of Phrygia, and the forms and decorative schemes of many
+vessels and small articles in clay and bronze found in the Gordian
+tumuli and at other points on the western plateau from Mysia to
+Pamphylia. The men of "Javan," who had held the Syrian sea for a century
+past, were known to Ezekiel as great workers in metal; and in Cyprus
+they had long met and mingled their culture with that of men from the
+East.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was implied in the opening of this chapter that in 600 B.C. social
+changes in the East would be found disproportionate to political
+changes; and on the whole they seem so to have been. The Assyrian Empire
+was too lately fallen for any great modification of life to have taken
+place in its area, and, in fact, the larger part of that area was being
+administered still by a Chaldaean monarchy on the established lines of
+Semitic imperialism. Whether the centre of such a government lay at
+Nineveh or at Babylon can have affected the subject populations very
+little. No new religious force had come into the ancient East, unless
+the Mede is to be reckoned one in virtue of his Zoroastrianism. Probably
+he did not affect religion much in his early phase of raiding and
+conquest. The great experience, which was to convert the Jews from
+insignificant and barbarous highlanders into a cultured, commercial and
+cosmopolitan people of tremendous possibilities had indeed begun, but
+only for a part of the race, and so far without obvious result. The
+first incursion of Iranians in force, and that slow soakage of
+Indo-European tribes from Russia, which was to develop the Armenian
+people of history, are the most momentous signs of coming change to be
+noted between 800 and 600 B.C. with one exception, the full import of
+which will be plain at our next survey. This was the eastward movement
+of the Greeks.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="iv">CHAPTER IV</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE EAST IN 400 B.C.</h3>
+
+<p>
+As the fifth century draws to its close the East lies revealed at last
+in the light of history written by Greeks. Among the peoples whose
+literary works are known to us, these were the first who showed
+curiosity about the world in which they lived and sufficient
+consciousness of the curiosity of others to record the results of
+inquiry. Before our present date the Greeks had inquired a good deal
+about the East, and not of Orientals alone. Their own public men,
+military and civil, their men of science, their men of letters, their
+merchants in unknown number, even soldiers of theirs in thousands, had
+gone up into Inner Asia and returned. Leading Athenians, Solon, Hippias
+and Themistocles, had been received at Eastern courts or had accompanied
+Eastern sovereigns to war, and one more famous even than these,
+Alcibiades, had lately lived with a Persian satrap. Greek physicians,
+Democedes of Croton, Apollonides of Cos, Ctesias of Cnidus, had
+ministered to kings and queens of Persia in their palaces. Herodotus of
+Halicarnassus had seen Babylon, perhaps, and certainly good part of
+Syria; Ctesias had dwelt at Susa and collected notes for a history of
+the Persian Empire; Xenophon of Attica had tramped from the
+Mediterranean to the Tigris and from the Tigris to the Black Sea, and
+with him had marched more than ten thousand Greeks. Not only have works
+by these three men of letters survived, wholly or in part, to our time,
+but also many notes on the East as it was before 400 B.C. have been
+preserved in excerpts, paraphrases and epitomes by later authors. And we
+still have some archaeological documents to fall back upon. If the
+cuneiform records of the Persian Empire are less abundant than those of
+the later Assyrian Kingdom, they nevertheless include such priceless
+historical inscriptions as that graven by Darius, son of Hystaspes, on
+the rock of Behistun. There are also hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic
+texts of Persian Egypt; inscriptions of Semitic Syria and a few of
+archaic Greece; and much other miscellaneous archaeological material
+from various parts of the East, which, even if uninscribed, can inform
+us of local society and life.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 1. EASTWARD MOVEMENT OF THE GREEKS</h4>
+
+<p>
+The Greek had been pushing eastward for a long time. More than three
+hundred years ago, as has been shown in the last chapter, he had become
+a terror in the farthest Levant. Before another century had passed he
+found his way into Egypt also. Originally hired as mercenaries to
+support a native revolt against Assyria, the Greeks remained in the Nile
+valley not only to fight but to trade. The first introduction of them to
+the Saite Pharaoh, Psammetichus, was promoted by Gyges the Lydian to
+further his own ends, but the first development of their social
+influence in Egypt was due to the enterprise of Miletus in establishing
+a factory on the lowest course of the Canopic Nile. This post and two
+standing camps of Greek mercenaries, one at Tahpanhes watching the
+approach from Asia, the other at Memphis overawing the capital and
+keeping the road to Upper Egypt, served to introduce Ionian civilization
+to the Delta in the seventh century. Indeed, to this day our knowledge
+of the earliest fine painted pottery of Ionia and Caria depends largely
+on the fragments of their vases imported into Egypt which have been
+found at Tahpanhes, Memphis and another Greek colony, Naukratis, founded
+a little later (as will be told presently) to supersede the original
+Milesian factory. Though those foreign vases themselves, with their
+decoration of nude figure subjects which revolted vulgar Egyptian
+sentiment, did not go much beyond the Greek settlements (like the Greek
+courtesans of Naukratis, who perhaps appealed only to the more
+cosmopolitan Saites), their art certainly influenced all the finer art
+of the Saitic age, initiating a renascence whose characteristics of
+excessive refinement and meticulous delicacy survived to be reinforced
+in the Ptolemaic period by a new infusion of Hellenic culture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So useful or so dangerous--at any rate so numerous--did the Greeks
+become in Lower Egypt by the opening of the sixth century that a
+reservation was assigned to them beside the Egyptian town of Piemro, and
+to this alone, according to Herodotus, newcomers from the sea were
+allowed to make their way. This foreign suburb of Piemro was named
+Naukratis, and nine cities of the Asiatic Greeks founded a common
+sanctuary there. Other maritime communities of the same race (probably
+the more powerful, since Miletus is named among them) had their
+particular sanctuaries also and their proper places. The Greeks had come
+to Egypt to stay. We have learned from the remains of Naukratis that
+throughout the Persian domination, which superseded the Saitic before
+the close of the sixth century, a constant importation of products of
+Ionia, Attica, Sparta, Cyprus and other Hellenic centres was maintained.
+The place was in full life when Herodotus visited Egypt, and it
+continued to prosper until the Greek race, becoming rulers of all the
+land, enthroned Hellenism at Alexandria on the sea itself.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 2. PHOENICIAN CARRIERS</h4>
+
+<p>
+Nor was it only through Greek sea-rovers and settlers in Cilicia, and
+through Greek mercenaries, merchants and courtesans in the Nile-Delta,
+that the East and the West had been making mutual acquaintance. Other
+agencies of communication had been active in bringing Mesopotamian
+models to the artists of the Ionian and Dorian cities in Asia Minor, and
+Ionian models to Mesopotamia and Syria. The results are plain to see, on
+the one hand in the fabric and design of early ivories, jewellery and
+other objects found in the archaic Artemisium at Ephesus, and in the
+decoration of painted pottery produced at Miletus; on the other hand, in
+the carved ivories of the ninth century found at Calah on the Tigris.
+But the processes which produced these results are not so clear. If the
+agents or carriers of those mutual influences were certainly the
+Phoenicians and the Lydians, we cannot yet apportion with confidence to
+each of these peoples the responsibility for the results, or be sure
+that they were the only agents, or independent of other middlemen more
+directly in contact with one party or the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Phoenicians have pushed far afield since we looked at them last. By
+founding Carthage more than half-way towards the Pillars of Hercules the
+city of Tyre completed her occupation of sufficient African harbours,
+beyond the reach of Egypt, and out of the Greek sphere, to appropriate
+to herself by the end of the ninth century the trade of the western
+Mediterranean basin. By means of secondary settlements in west Sicily,
+Sardinia and Spain, she proceeded to convert this sea for a while into
+something like a Phoenician lake. No serious rival had forestalled her
+there or was to arise to dispute her monopoly till she herself, long
+after our date, would provoke Rome. The Greek colonies in Sicily and
+Italy, which looked westward, failed to make head against her at the
+first, and soon dropped out of the running; nor did the one or two
+isolated centres of Hellenism on other shores do better. On the other
+hand, in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, although it was her own
+home-sea, Tyre never succeeded in establishing commercial supremacy, and
+indeed, so far as we know, she never seriously tried to establish it. It
+was the sphere of the Aegean mariners and had been so as far back as
+Phoenician memory ran. The Late Minoan Cretans and men of Argolis, the
+Achaean rovers, the Ionian pirates, the Milesian armed merchantmen had
+successively turned away from it all but isolated and peaceful ships of
+Sidon and Tyre, and even so near a coast as Cyprus remained foreign to
+the Phoenicians for centuries after Tyre had grown to full estate. In
+the Homeric stories ships of the Sidonians, though not unknown, make
+rare appearances, and other early legends of the Greeks, which make
+mention of Phoenician visits to Hellenic coasts, imply that they were
+unusual phenomena, which aroused much local curiosity and were long
+remembered. The strangeness of the Phoenician mariners, the unfamiliar
+charm of their cargoes--such were the impressions left on Greek story by
+the early visits of Phoenician ships.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That they did pay such visits, however, from time to time is certain.
+The little Egyptian trinkets, which occur frequently in Hellenic strata
+of the eighth to the sixth centuries, are sufficient witness of the
+fact. They are most numerous in Rhodes, in Caria and Ionia, and in the
+Peloponnese. But the main stream of Tyrian commerce hugged the south
+rather than the north coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Phoenician
+sailors were essentially southerners--men who, if they would brave now
+and again the cold winds of the Aegean and Adriatic, refused to do so
+oftener than was necessary--men to whom African shores and a climate
+softened by the breath of the Ocean were more congenial.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, however, the Phoenicians were undoubtedly agents who introduced the
+Egyptian culture to the early Hellenes of both Asia and Europe, did they
+also introduce the Mesopotamian? Not to anything like the same extent,
+if we may judge by the products of excavations. Indeed, wherever
+Mesopotamian influence has left unmistakable traces upon Greek soil, as
+in Cyprus and Ionia or at Corinth and Sparta, it is often either certain
+or probable that the carrying agency was not Phoenician. We find the
+nearest affinities to archaic Cypriote art (where this was indebted to
+Asiatic art at all) in Cilician and in Hittite Syrian art. Early Ionian
+and Carian strata contain very little that is of Egyptian character, but
+much whose inspiration can be traced ultimately to Mesopotamia; and
+research in inner Asia Minor, imperfect though its results are yet, has
+brought to light on the plateau so much parallelism to Ionian
+Orientalizing art, and so many examples of prior stages in its
+development, that we must assume Mesopotamian influence to have reached
+westernmost Asia chiefly by overland ways. As for the European sites,
+since their Orientalism appears to have been drawn from Ionia, it also
+had come through Asia overland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Therefore on the whole, though Herodotus asserts that the Phoenician
+mariners carried Assyrian cargoes, there is remarkably little evidence
+that those cargoes reached the West, and equally little that Phoenicians
+had any considerable direct trade with Mesopotamia. They may have been
+responsible for the small Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects which have
+been found by the excavators of Carchemish and Sakjegeuzi in strata of
+the ninth and eighth centuries; but the carrying of similar objects
+eastward across the Euphrates was more probably in Hittite hands than
+theirs. The strongest Nilotic influence which affected Mesopotamian art
+is to be noticed during the latter half of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+when there was no need for alien intermediaries to keep Nineveh in
+communication with its own province of Egypt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Apparently, therefore, it was not through the Phoenicians that the
+Greeks had learned most of what they knew about the East in 400 B.C.
+Other agents had played a greater part and almost all the
+intercommunication had been effected by way, not of the Levant Sea, but
+of the land bridge through Asia Minor. In the earlier part of our story,
+during the latter rule of Assyria in the farther East and the subsequent
+rule of the Medes and the Babylonians in her room, intercourse had been
+carried on almost entirely by intermediaries, among whom (if something
+must be allowed to the Cilicians) the Lydians were undoubtedly the most
+active. In the later part of the story it will be seen that the
+intermediaries have vanished; the barriers are down; the East has itself
+come to the West and intercourse is immediate and direct. How this
+happened--what agency brought Greeks and Orientals into an intimate
+contact which was to have the most momentous consequences to
+both--remains to be told.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 3. THE COMING OF THE PERSIANS</h4>
+
+<p>
+We have seen already how a power, which had grown behind the frontier
+mountains of the Tigris basin, forced its way at last through the
+defiles and issued in the riverine plains with fatal results to the
+north Semitic kings. By the opening of the sixth century Assyria had
+passed into Median hands, and these were reaching out through Armenia to
+central Asia Minor. Even the south Semites of Babylonia had had to
+acknowledge the superior power of the newcomers and, probably, to accept
+a kind of vassalage. Thus, since all lower Mesopotamia with most part of
+Syria obeyed the Babylonian, a power, partly Iranian, was already
+overshadowing two-thirds of the East before Cyrus and his Persians
+issued upon the scene. It is important to bear this fact in mind when
+one comes to note the ease with which a hitherto obscure king of Anshan
+in Elam would prove able to possess himself of the whole Semitic Empire,
+and the rapidity with which his arms would appear in the farthest west
+of Asia Minor on the confines of the Greeks themselves. Nebuchadnezzar
+allied with and obedient to the Median king, helping him on the Halys in
+585 B.C. to arrange with Lydia a division of the peninsula of Asia Minor
+on the terms <i>uti possidetis</i>--that is the significant situation which
+will prepare us to find Cyrus not quite half a century later lord of
+Babylon, Jerusalem and Sardes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What events, passing in the far East among the divers groups of the
+Iranians themselves and their Scythian allies, led to this king of a
+district in Elam, whose own claim to have belonged by blood to any of
+those groups is doubtful, consolidating all the Iranians whether of the
+south or north under his single rule into a mighty power of offence, we
+do not know. Stories current among the Greeks and reported by Herodotus
+and Ctesias represented Cyrus as in any case a Persian, but as either
+grandson of a Median king (though not his natural heir) or merely one of
+his court officials. What the Greeks had to account for (and so have we)
+is the subsequent disappearance of the north Iranian kings of the Medes
+and the fusion of their subjects with the Persian Iranians under a
+southern dynasty. And what the Greeks did not know, but we do, from
+cuneiform inscriptions either contemporary with, or very little
+subsequent to, Cyrus' time, only complicates the problem; since these
+bear witness that Cyrus was known at first (as has been indicated
+already) for a king of Elam, and not till later for a king of Persia.
+Ctesias, who lived at Susa itself while at was the Persian capital,
+agrees with Herodotus that Cyrus wrested the lordship of the Medes from
+the native dynasty by force; but Herodotus adds that many Medes were
+consenting parties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These problems cannot be discussed here. The probability is, summarily,
+this. Some part of the southern or Persian group of Iranians which,
+unlike the northern, was not contaminated with Scyths, had advanced into
+Elam while the Medes were overrunning and weakening the Semitic Empire;
+and in Anshan it consolidated itself into a territorial power with Susa
+for capital. Presently some disaffection arose among the northern
+Iranians owing, perhaps, to favour shown by the Median kings to their
+warlike Scythian subjects, and the malcontents called in the king of
+Anshan. The issue was fought out in central West Persia, which had been
+dominated by the Medes since the time of Kyaxares' father, Phraortes,
+and when it was decided by the secession of good part of the army of
+King Astyages, Cyrus of Anshan took possession of the Median Empire with
+the goodwill of much of the Median population. This empire included
+then, beside the original Median land, not only territories conquered
+from Assyria but also all that part of Persia which lay east of Elam.
+Some time, doubtless, elapsed before the sovereignty of Cyrus was
+acknowledged by all Persia; but, once his lordship over this land was an
+accomplished fact, he naturally became known as king primarily of the
+Persians, and only secondarily of the Medes, while his seat remained at
+Susa in his own original Elamite realm. The Scythian element in and
+about his Median province remained unreconciled, and one day he would
+meet his death in a campaign against it; but the Iranian element
+remained faithful to him and his son, and only after the death of the
+latter gave expression by a general revolt to its discontent with the
+bargain it had made.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 4. FALL OF LYDIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus must have met with little or no opposition in the western Median
+provinces, for we find him, within a year or two of his recognition by
+both Persians and Medes, not only on his extreme frontier, the Halys
+river, but able to raid across it and affront the power of Lydia. To
+this action he was provoked by Lydia itself. The fall of the Median
+dynasty, with which the royal house of Lydia had been in close alliance
+since the Halys pact, was a disaster which Croesus, now king of Sardes
+in the room of Alyattes, was rash enough to attempt to repair. He had
+continued with success his father's policy of extending Lydian dominion
+to the Aegean at the expense of the Ionian Greeks; and, master of
+Ephesus, Colophon and Smyrna, as well as predominant partner in the
+Milesian sphere, he secured to Lydia the control and fruition of
+Anatolian trade, perhaps the most various and profitable in the world at
+that time. A byword for wealth and luxury, the Lydians and their king
+had nowadays become soft, slow-moving folk, as unfit to cope with the
+mountaineers of the wild border highlands of Persia as, if Herodotus'
+story is well founded, they were ignorant of their quality. Croesus took
+his time, sending envoys to consult oracles near and far. Herodotus
+tells us that he applied to Delphi not less than thrice and even to the
+oracle of Ammon in the Eastern Sahara. At least a year must have been
+spent in these inquiries alone, not to speak of an embassy to Sparta and
+perhaps others to Egypt and Babylon. These preliminaries at length
+completed, the Lydian gathered the levies of western Asia Minor and set
+out for the East. He found the Halys in flood--it must have been in late
+spring--and having made much ado of crossing it, spent the summer in
+ravaging with his cavalry the old homeland of the Hatti. Thus he gave
+Cyrus time to send envoys to the Ionian cities to beg them attack Lydia
+in the rear, and time to come down himself in force to his far western
+province. Croesus was brought to battle in the first days of the autumn.
+The engagement was indecisive, but the Lydians, having no mind to stay
+out the winter on the bleak Cappadocian highlands and little suspicion
+that the enemy would think of further warfare before spring, went back
+at their leisure to the Hermus valley, only to hear at Sardes itself
+that the Persian was hot in pursuit. A final battle was fought under the
+very walls of the Lydian capital and lost by Croesus; the lower town was
+taken and sacked; and the king, who had shut himself with his guards
+into the citadel and summoned his allies to his rescue come five months,
+was a prisoner of Cyrus within two weeks. It was the end of Lydia and of
+all buffers between the Orient and Greece. East and West were in direct
+contact and the omens boded ill to the West. Cyrus refused terms to the
+Greeks, except the powerful Milesians, and departing for the East again,
+left Lydia to be pacified and all the cities of the western coasts,
+Ionian, Carian, Lycian and what not, excepting only Miletus, to be
+reduced by his viceroys.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 5. PERSIAN EMPIRE</h4>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus himself had still to deal with a part of the East which, not
+having been occupied by the Medes, though in a measure allied and
+subservient to them, saw no reason now to acknowledge the new dynasty.
+This is the part which had been included in the New Babylonian Empire.
+The Persian armies invaded Babylonia. Nabonidus was defeated finally at
+Opis in June 538; Sippara fell, and Cyrus' general appearing before
+Babylon itself received it without a struggle at the hands of the
+disaffected priests of Bel-Marduk. The famous Herodotean tale of Cyrus'
+secret penetration down the dried bed of Euphrates seems to be a
+mistaken memory of a later recapture of the city after a revolt from
+Darius, of which more hereafter. Thus once more it was given to Cyrus to
+close a long chapter of Eastern history--the history of imperial
+Babylon. Neither did he make it his capital, nor would any other lord of
+the East so favour it. If Alexander perhaps intended to revive its
+imperial position, his successor, Seleucus, so soon as he was assured of
+his inheritance, abandoned the Euphratean city for the banks of the
+Tigris and Orontes, leaving it to crumble to the heap which it is
+to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Syrian fiefs of the Babylonian kings passed <i>de jure</i> to the
+conqueror; but probably Cyrus himself never had leisure or opportunity
+to secure them <i>de facto</i>. The last decade of his life seems to have
+been spent in Persia and the north-east, largely in attempts to reduce
+the Scythian element, which threatened the peace of Media; and at the
+last, having brought the enemy to bay beyond the Araxes, he met there
+defeat and death. But Cambyses not only completed his father's work in
+Syria, but fulfilled what is said to have been his further project by
+capturing Egypt and establishing there a foreign domination which was to
+last, with some intervals, nearly two hundred years. By the end of the
+sixth century one territorial empire was spread over the whole East for
+the first time in history; and it was with a colossus, bestriding the
+lands from the Araxes to the Upper Nile and from the Oxus to the Aegean
+Sea, that the Greeks stood face to face in the gate of the West.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before, however, we become absorbed in contemplation of a struggle which
+will take us into a wider history, let us pause a moment to consider the
+nature of the new power come out of the East, and the condition of such
+of its subject peoples as have mattered most in the later story of
+mankind. It should be remarked that the new universal power is not only
+non-Semitic for the first time in well-certified history, but controlled
+by a very pure Aryan stock, much nearer kin to the peoples of the West
+than any Oriental folk with which they have had intimate relations
+hitherto. The Persians appeared from the Back of Beyond, uncontaminated
+by Alarodian savagery and unhampered by the theocratic prepossessions
+and nomadic traditions of Semites. They were highlanders of unimpaired
+vigour, frugal habit, settled agricultural life, long-established social
+cohesion and spiritual religious conceptions. Possibly, too, before they
+issued from the vast Iranian plateau, they were not wholly unversed in
+the administration of wide territories. In any case, their quick
+intelligence enabled them to profit by models of imperial organization
+which persisted in the lands they now acquired; for relics of the
+Assyrian system had survived under the New Babylonian rule, and perhaps
+also under the Median. Thereafter the experience gained by Cambyses in
+Egypt must have gone for something in the imperial education of his
+successor Darius, to whom historians ascribe the final organization of
+Persian territorial rule. From the latter's reign onward we find a
+regular provincial system linked to the centre as well as might be by a
+postal service passing over state roads. The royal power is delegated to
+several officials, not always of the ruling race, but independent of
+each other and directly responsible to Susa: these live upon their
+provinces but must see to it first and foremost that the centre receives
+a fixed quota of money and a fixed quota of fighting men when required.
+The Great King maintains royal residences in various cities of the
+empire, and not infrequently visits them; but in general his viceroys
+are left singularly free to keep the peace of their own governorates and
+even to deal with foreign neighbours at their proper discretion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If we compare the Persian theory of Empire with the Assyrian, we note
+still a capital fault. The Great King of Susa recognized no more
+obligation than his predecessors of Nineveh to consider the interests of
+those he ruled and to make return to them for what he took. But while,
+on the one hand, no better imperial theory was conceivable in the sixth
+century B.C., and certainly none was held or acted upon in the East down
+to the nineteenth century A.D., on the other, the Persian imperial
+practice mitigated its bad effects far more than the Assyrian had done.
+Free from the Semitic tradition of annual raiding, the Persians reduced
+the obligation of military service to a bearable burden and avoided
+continual provocation of frontier neighbours. Free likewise from Semitic
+supermonotheistic ideas, they did not seek to impose their creed. Seeing
+that the Persian Empire was extensive, decentralized and provided with
+imperfect means of communication, it could subsist only by practising
+provincial tolerance. Its provincial tolerance seems to have been
+systematic. We know a good deal of the Greeks and the Jews under its
+sway, and in the history of both we miss such signs of religious and
+social oppression as marked Assyrian rule. In western Asia Minor the
+satraps showed themselves on the whole singularly conciliatory towards
+local religious feeling and even personally comformable to it; and in
+Judaea the hope of the Hebrews that the Persian would prove a deliverer
+and a restorer of their estate was not falsified. Hardly an echo of
+outrage on the subjects of Persia in time of peace has reached our ears.
+If the sovereign of the Asiatic Greek cities ran counter to Hellenic
+feeling by insisting on "tyrant" rule, he did no more than continue a
+system under which most of those cities had grown rich. It is clear that
+they had little else to complain of than absence of a democratic freedom
+which, as a matter of fact, some of them had not enjoyed in the day of
+their independence. The satraps seem to have been supplied with few, or
+even no, Persian troops, and with few Persian aides on their
+administrative staff. The Persian element in the provinces must, in
+fact, have been extraordinarily small--so small that an Empire, which
+for more than two centuries comprehended nearly all western Asia, has
+left hardly a single provincial monument of itself, graven on rock or
+carved on stone.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 6. JEWS</h4>
+
+<p>
+If we look particularly at the Jews--those subjects of Persia who
+necessarily share most of our interest with the Greeks--we find that
+Persian imperial rule was no sooner established securely over the former
+Babylonian fief in Palestine than it began to undo the destructive work
+of its predecessors. Vainly expecting help from the restored Egyptian
+power, Jerusalem had held out against Nebuchadnezzar till 587. On its
+capture the dispersion of the southern Jews, which had already begun
+with local emigrations to Egypt, was largely increased by the
+deportation of a numerous body to Babylonia. As early, however, as 538,
+the year of Cyrus' entry into Babylon (doubtless as one result of that
+event), began a return of exiles to Judaea and perhaps also to Samaria.
+By 520 the Jewish population in South Palestine was sufficiently strong
+again to make itself troublesome to Darius, and in 516 the Temple was in
+process of restoration. Before the middle of the next century Jerusalem
+was once more a fortified city and its population had been further
+reinforced by many returned exiles who had imbibed the economic
+civilization, and also the religiosity of Babylonia. Thenceforward the
+development of the Jews into a commercial people proceeds without
+apparent interruption from Persian governors, who (as, for example,
+Nehemiah) could themselves be of the subject race. Even if large
+accretions of other Semites, notably Aramaeans, be allowed
+for--accretions easily accepted by a people which had become rather a
+church than a nation--it remains a striking testimony to Persian
+toleration that after only some six or seven generations the once
+insignificant Jews should have grown numerous enough to contribute an
+important element to the populations of several foreign cities. It is
+worth remark also that even when, presumably, free to return to the home
+of their race, many Jews preferred to remain in distant parts of the
+Persian realm. Names mentioned on contract tablets of Nippur show that
+Jews found it profitable to still sit by the waters of Babylon till late
+in the fifth century; while in another distant province of the Persian
+Empire (as the papyri of Syene have disclosed) a flourishing
+particularist settlement of the same race persisted right down to and
+after 500 B.C.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 7. ASIA UNDER PERSIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+On the whole evidence the Persians might justifiably claim that their
+imperial organization in its best days, destitute though it was of
+either the centralized strength or the theoretic justification of modern
+civilized rule, achieved a very considerable advance, and that it is not
+unworthy to be compared even to the Roman in respect of the freedom and
+peace which in effect it secured to its subjects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="images/map5.gif">Plate 5: PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS
+HYSTASPIS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not much more need--or can--be said about the other conquered peoples
+before we revert to the Greeks. Though Cyrus did not live to receive in
+person the submission of all the west Asian peoples, his son Cambyses
+had received it before his short reign of eight years came to an end.
+Included in the empire now were not only all the mainland territories
+once dominated by the Medes and the Babylonians, but also much wider
+lands east, west and south, and even Mediterranean islands which lay
+near the Asiatic shores. Among these last was Cyprus, now more closely
+linked to Phoenicia than of old, and combining with the latter to
+provide navies for the Great King's needs. On the East, the Iranian
+plateau, watched from two royal residences, Pasargadae in the south and
+Ecbatana in the north, swelled this realm to greater dimensions than any
+previous eastern empire had boasted. On the south, Cambyses added Cyrene
+and, less surely, Nabia to Egypt proper, which Assyria had possessed for
+a short time, as we have seen. On the west, Cyrus and his generals had
+already secured all Asia which lay outside the Median limit, including
+Cilicia, where (as also in other realms, e.g. Phoenicia, Cyprus, Caria)
+the native dynasty accepted a client position.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This, however, is not to be taken to mean that all the East settled down
+at once into contented subservience. Cambyses, by putting his brother to
+death, had cut off the direct line of succession. A pretender appeared
+in the far East; Cambyses died on the march to meet him, and at once all
+the oriental provinces, except the homeland of Persia, were up in
+revolt. But a young cognate of the royal house, Darius, son of
+Hystaspes, a strong man, slew the pretender, and once secure on the
+throne, brought Media, Armenia, Elam and at last Babylonia, back to
+obedience. The old imperial city on the Euphrates would make one more
+bid for freedom six years later and then relapse into the estate of a
+provincial town. Darius spent some twenty years in organizing his empire
+on the satrap system, well known to us from Greek sources, and in
+strengthening his frontiers. To promote the latter end he passed over
+into Europe, even crossing the Danube in 511 to check Scythian raids;
+and he secured the command of the two straits and the safety of his
+northwest Asiatic possessions by annexing the south-east of the Balkan
+peninsula with the flourishing Greek cities on its coasts.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 8. PERSIA AND THE GREEKS</h4>
+
+<p>
+The sixth century closed and the fifth century ran three years of its
+course in apparently unbroken peace between East and West. But trouble
+was near at hand. Persia had imposed herself on cities which possessed a
+civilization superior, not only potentially but actually, to her own; on
+cities where individual and communal passion for freedom constituted the
+one religion incompatible with her tolerant sway; on cities conscious of
+national identity with a powerful group outside the Persian Empire, and
+certain sooner or later to engage that group in warfare on their behalf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Large causes, therefore, lay behind the friction and intrigue which,
+after a generation of subjection, caused the Ionian cities, led, as of
+old, by Miletus, to ring up the first act of a dramatic struggle
+destined to make history for a very long time to come. We cannot examine
+here in detail the particular events which induced the Ionian Revolt.
+Sufficient to say they all had their spring in the great city of
+Miletus, whose merchant princes and merchant people were determined to
+regain the power and primacy which they had enjoyed till lately. A
+preliminary failure to aggrandize themselves with the goodwill of Persia
+actually brought on their revolt, but it only precipitated a struggle
+inevitable ultimately on one side of the Aegean or the other.
+
+After setting the whole Anatolian coast from the Bosporus to Pamphylia
+and even Cyprus in a blaze for two years, the Ionian Revolt failed,
+owing as much to the particularist jealousies of the Greek cities
+themselves as to vigorous measures taken against them by Darius on land
+and his obedient Phoenicians at sea. A naval defeat sealed the fate of
+Miletus, whose citizens found, to the horror of all Greece, that, on
+occasion, the Persian would treat rebels like a loyal successor of
+Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar. But even though it failed, the Revolt
+brought on a second act in the drama. For, on the one hand, it had
+involved in Persian politics certain cities of the Greek motherlands,
+notably Athens, whose contingent, greatly daring, affronted the Great
+King by helping to burn the lower town of Sardes; and on the other, it
+had prompted a despot on the European shore of the Dardanelles, one
+Miltiades, an Athenian destined to immortal fame, to incense Darius yet
+more by seizing his islands of Lemnos and Imbros.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evidently neither could Asiatic Greeks be trusted, even though their
+claws were cut by disarmament and their motives for rebellion had been
+lessened by the removal of their despots, nor could the Balkan province
+be held securely, while the western Greeks remained defiant and Athens,
+in particular, aiming at the control of Aegean trade, supported the
+Ionian colonies. Therefore Darius determined to strike at this city
+whose exiled despot, Hippias, promised a treacherous co-operation; and
+he summoned other Greek states to make formal submission and keep the
+peace. A first armada sent to coast round the northern shore in 492
+added Macedonia to the Persian Empire; but it was crippled and stayed by
+storms. A second, sent two years later direct across the Aegean, reduced
+the Cyclad isles, revenged itself on Eretria, one of the minor culprits
+in the Sardian affair, and finally brought up by the Attic shore at
+Marathon. The world-famous defeat which its landing parties suffered
+there should be related by a historian rather of Greece than of the
+East; and so too should the issue of a third and last invasion which,
+ten years later, after old Darius' death, Xerxes led in person to defeat
+at Salamis, and left to meet final rout under his generalissimo at
+Plataea. For our purpose it will be enough to note the effects which
+this momentous series of events had on the East itself.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 9. RESULTS OF THE PERSIAN ATTACKS ON GREECE</h4>
+
+<p>
+Obviously the European failure of Persia affected the defeated less than
+the victorious party. Except upon the westernmost fringe of the Persian
+Empire we have no warrant for saying that it had any serious political
+result at all. A revolt of Egypt which broke out in the last year of
+Darius, and was easily suppressed by his successor, seems not to have
+been connected with the Persian disaster at Marathon; and even when two
+more signal defeats had been suffered in Greece, and a fourth off the
+shore of Asia itself--the battle of Mycale--upon which followed closely
+the loss of Sestus, the European key of the Hellespont, and more
+remotely the loss not only of all Persian holdings in the Balkans and
+the islands, but also of the Ionian Greek cities and most of the
+Aeolian, and at last (after the final naval defeat off the Eurymedon) of
+the whole littoral of Anatolia from Pamphylia right round to the
+Propontis--not even after all these defeats and losses did the Persian
+power suffer diminution in inner Asia or loss of prestige in inland Asia
+Minor. Some years, indeed, had still to elapse before the ever-restless
+Egyptian province used the opportunity of Xerxes' death to league itself
+with the new power and make a fresh attempt to shake off the Persian
+yoke; but once more it tried in vain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Persia abandoned direct sovereignty over the Anatolian littoral she
+suffered little commercial loss and became more secure. It is clear that
+her satraps continued to manage the western trade and equally clear that
+the wealth of her empire increased in greater ratio than that of the
+Greek cities. There is little evidence for Hellenic commercial expansion
+consequent on the Persian wars, but much for continued and even
+increasing Hellenic poverty. In the event Persia found herself in a
+position almost to regain by gold what she had lost by battle, and to
+exercise a financial influence on Greece greater and longer lasting than
+she ever established by arms. Moreover, her empire was less likely to be
+attacked when it was limited by the western edge of the Anatolian
+plateau, and no longer tried to hold any European territory. There is a
+geographical diversity between the Anatolian littoral and the plateau.
+In all ages the latter alone has been an integral part of inner Asia,
+and the society and politics of the one have remained distinct from
+those of the other. The strong frontier of Asia at its western
+peninsular extremity lies not on, but behind the coast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time, although their immediate results to the Persian Empire
+were not very hurtful, those abortive expeditions to Europe had sown the
+seeds of ultimate catastrophe. As a direct consequence of them the
+Greeks acquired consciousness of their own fighting value on both land
+and sea as compared with the peoples of inner Asia and the Phoenicians.
+Their former fear of numerical superiorities was allayed, and much of
+the mystery, which had hitherto magnified and shielded Oriental power,
+was dissipated. No less obviously those expeditions served to suggest to
+the Greeks for the first time that there existed both a common enemy of
+all their race and an external field for their own common encroachment
+and plundering. So far as an idea of nationality was destined ever to be
+operative on Greek minds it would draw its inspiration thenceforward
+from a sense of common superiority and common hostility to the Oriental.
+Persia, in a word, had laid the foundations and promoted the development
+of a Greek nationality in a common ambition directed against herself. It
+was her fate also, by forcing Athens into the front of the Greek states,
+to give the nascent nation the most inspiriting and enterprising of
+leaders--the one most fertile in imperial ideas and most apt to proceed
+to their realization: and in her retreat before that nation she drew her
+pursuer into a world which, had she herself never advanced into Europe,
+would probably not have seen him for centuries to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover, by a subsequent change of attitude towards her victorious
+foe--though that change was not wholly to her discredit--Persia bred in
+the Greeks a still better conceit of themselves and a better
+understanding of her weakness. The Persians, with the intelligence and
+versatility for which their race has always been remarkable, passed very
+rapidly from overweening contempt to excessive admiration of the Greeks.
+They set to work almost at once to attract Hellenic statesmen and men of
+science to their own society, and to make use of Hellenic soldiers and
+sailors. We soon find western satraps cultivating cordial relations with
+the Ionian cities, hospitably entertaining Greeks of distinction and
+conciliating Greek political and religious prepossessions. They must
+have attained considerable success, while thus unwittingly preparing
+disaster. When, a little more than a century later, western Europe would
+come eastward in force, to make an end of Persian dominion, some of the
+greater Ionian and Carian cities would offer a prolonged resistance to
+it which is not to be accounted for only by the influence of Persian
+gold or of a Persian element in their administration. Miletus and
+Halicarnassus shut their gates and defended their walls desperately
+against Alexander because they conceived their own best interests to be
+involved in the continuance of the Persian Empire. Nor were the Persians
+less successful with Greeks actually taken into their service. The Greek
+mercenaries remained to a man loyal to the Great King when the Greek
+attack came, and gave Alexander his hardest fighting in the three great
+battles which decided the fate of the East. None the less, such an
+attitude towards Greeks was suicidal. It exalted the spirit of Europe
+while it depraved the courage and sapped the self-reliance of Asia.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 10. THE FIRST COUNTER-ATTACKS</h4>
+
+<p>
+This, however, is to anticipate the sequel. Let us finally fix our eyes
+on the Eastern world in 400 B.C. and review it as it must then have
+appeared to eyes from which the future was all concealed. The coasts of
+Asia Minor, generally speaking, were in Greek hands, the cities being
+autonomous trading communities, as Greeks understood autonomy; but most
+of them until four years previously had acknowledged the suzerainty or
+rather federal leadership of Athens and now were acknowledging less
+willingly a Spartan supremacy established at first with Persian
+co-operation. Many of these cities, which had long maintained very close
+relations with the Persian governors of the nearer <i>hinterland</i>, not
+only shaped their policy to please the latter, but even acknowledged
+Persian suzerainty; and since, as it happens, at this particular moment
+Sparta had fallen out with Persia, and a Spartan army, under
+Dercyllidas, was occupying the Aeolian district of the north, the
+"medizing" cities of Ionia and Caria were in some doubt of their future.
+On the whole they inclined still to the satraps. Persian influence and
+even control had, in fact, greatly increased on the western coast since
+the supersession of Athens by a power unaccustomed to imperial politics
+and notoriously inapt in naval matters; and the fleets of Phoenicia and
+Cyprus, whose Greek princes had fallen under Phoenician domination, had
+regained supremacy at sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet, only a year before, "Ten Thousand" heavy-armed Greeks (and near
+half as many again of all arms), mostly Spartan, had marched right
+through western Asia. They went as mercenary allies of a larger native
+force led by Cyrus, Persian prince-governor of west central Anatolia,
+who coveted the diadem of his newly enthroned brother. Having traversed
+the old Lydian and Phrygian kingdoms they moved down into Cilicia and up
+again over north Syria to the Euphrates, bound (though they only learned
+it at last by the waters of the Great River itself) for Babylon. But
+they never reached that city. Cyrus met death and his oriental soldiers
+accepted defeat at Cunaxa, some four days' march short of the goal. But
+the undefeated Greeks, refusing to surrender, and, few though they were,
+so greatly dreaded by the Persians that they were not directly molested,
+had to get back to their own land as best they might. How, robbed of
+their original leaders they yet reached the Black Sea and safety by way
+of the Tigris valley and the wild passes of Kurdish Armenia all readers
+of Xenophon, the Athenian who succeeded to the command, know well. Now
+in 400 B.C. they were reappearing in the cities of west Asia and Europe
+to tell how open was the inner continent to bold plunderers and how
+little ten Orientals availed in attack or defence against one Greek.
+Such stories then and there incited Sparta to a forward policy, and one
+day would encourage a stronger Western power than hers to march to the
+conquest of the East.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are fortunate in having Xenophon's detailed narrative of the
+adventures of these Greeks, if only because it throws light by the way
+on inner Asia almost at the very moment of our survey. We see Sardes
+under Persia what it had been under Lydia, the capital city of Anatolia;
+we see the great valley plains of Lydia and Phrygia, north and south,
+well peopled, well supplied, and well in hand, while the rough foothills
+and rougher heights of Taurus are held by contumacious mountaineers who
+are kept out of the plains only by such periodic chastisement as Cyrus
+allowed his army to inflict in Pisidia and Lycaonia. Cilicia is being
+administered and defended by its own prince, who bears the same name or
+title as his predecessor in the days of Sennacherib, but is feudally
+accountable to the Great King. His land is so far his private property
+that Cyrus, though would-be lord of all the empire, encourages the
+pillage of the rich provincial capital. The fleet of Cyrus lands men and
+stores unmolested in north Syria, while the inner country up to the
+Euphrates and down its valley as far as Babylonia is at peace. The Great
+King is able to assemble above half a million men from the east and
+south to meet his foe, besides the levy of Media, a province which now
+seems to include most of the ancient Assyria. These hundreds of
+thousands constitute a host untrained, undisciplined, unstable, unused
+to service, little like the ordered battalions of an essentially
+military power such as the Assyrian had been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the story of the Retreat certain further inferences may be drawn.
+First, Babylonia was a part of the empire not very well affected to the
+Great King; or else the Greeks would have been neither allowed by the
+local militia to enter it so easily nor encouraged by the Persians to
+leave it. Second, the ancient Assyria was a peaceful province not
+coerced by a standing Persian force or garrisons of any strength. Third,
+southern Kurdistan was not held by or for the Great King and it paid
+tribute only to occasional pressure. Fourth, the rest of Kurdistan and
+Armenia as far north as the upper arm of the Euphrates was held,
+precariously, by the Persians; and lastly, north of the Euphrates valley
+up to the Black Sea all was practical independence. We do not know
+anything precise about the far eastern provinces or the south Syrian in
+this year, 400. Artaxerxes, the Great King, came from Susa to meet his
+rebellious brother, but to Babylon he returned to put to death the
+betrayed leaders of the Greeks. At this moment Ctesias, the Cnidian
+Greek, was his court physician and no friend either to Cyrus or to
+Spartans; he was even then in correspondence with the Athenian Conon who
+would presently be made a Persian admiral and smash the Spartan fleet.
+Of his history of Persia some few fragments and some epitomized extracts
+relating to this time have survived. These have a value, which the mass
+of his book seems not to have had; for they relate what a contemporary,
+singularly well placed to learn court news, heard and saw. One gathers
+that king and court had fallen away from the ideas and practice of the
+first Cyrus. Artaxerxes was unwarlike, lax in religion (though he had
+been duly consecrated at Pasargadae) and addicted to non-Zoroastrian
+practices. Many Persians great and small were disaffected towards him
+and numbers rallied to his brother; but he had some Western adventurers
+in his army. Royal ladies wielded almost more power at the court than
+the Great King, and quarrelled bitterly with one another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Plutarch, who drew material for his life of Artaxerxes not only from
+Ctesias, but also from authorities now lost to us, leaves us with much
+the same impression of the lords of the East at the close of the fifth
+century B.C. Corrupt and treacherous central rule, largely directed by
+harem intrigue; an unenthusiastic body of subjects, abandoned to the
+schemes of satraps; inefficient and casually collected armies in which
+foreign mercenaries were almost the only genuine soldiers--such was
+Persia now. It was something very unlike the vigorous rule of Cyrus and
+the imperial system of the first Darius--something very like the Ottoman
+Empire in the eighteenth century A.D.--something which would collapse
+before the first Western leader of men who could command money of his
+own making and a professional army of his own people.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="v">CHAPTER V</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE VICTORY OF THE WEST</h3>
+
+<p>
+The climax was reached in about seventy years more. When these had
+passed into history, so had also the Persian Empire, and the East, as
+the Greeks had conceived it thus far and we have understood it, was
+subject to the European race which a century and a half before it had
+tried to subdue in Europe itself. To this race (and to the historian
+also) "the East," as a geographical term, standing equally for a spatial
+area and for a social idea, has ceased to mean what it once meant: and
+the change would be lasting. It is true that the East did not cease to
+be distinguished as such; for it would gradually shake itself free
+again, not only from control by the West, but from the influence of the
+latter's social ideas. Nevertheless, since the Western men, when they
+went back to their own land, had brought the East into the world known
+to them--into a circle of lands accepted as the dwelling of civilized
+man--the date of Alexander's overthrow of the Persian Empire makes an
+epoch which divides universal history as hardly any other divides it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dramatic as the final catastrophe would be, it will not surprise us when
+it comes, nor did it, as a matter of fact, surprise the generation which
+witnessed it. The romantic conception of Alexander, as a little David
+who dared a huge Goliath, ignores the facts of previous history, and
+would have occurred to no contemporary who had read the signs of the
+times. The Eastern colossus had been dwindling so fast for nearly a
+century that a Macedonian king, who had already subdued the Balkan
+peninsula, loomed at least as large in the world's eye, when he crossed
+the Hellespont, as the titular Emperor of contumacious satraps and
+ever-rebelling provinces of western Asia. To accept this view we have
+only to look back over seventy years since that march of Ten Thousand
+Greeks, with which our last survey closed.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 1. PERSIA AND ITS PROVINCES</h4>
+
+<p>
+Before the expedition of Cyrus there may have been, and evidently were,
+enough seeds of corruption in the state of Persia; but they had not
+become known by their fruits. No satrap for a century past had tried to
+detach himself and his province from the Empire; hardly a subject people
+had attempted to re-assert its independence. There were, indeed, two
+exceptions, both of them peoples which had never identified themselves
+at any time with the fortunes of their alien masters. One of these was,
+of course, the Asiatic Greek, the other was the Egyptian people; but the
+contumacy of the first threatened a danger not yet realized by Asia; the
+rebellious spirit of the last concerned, as yet, itself alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Egypt, however, which really gave the first warning of Persian
+dissolution. The weakest spot in the Assyrian Empire proved weakest in
+the Persian. The natural barriers of desert, swamp and sea, set between
+Egypt and the neighbouring continent, are so strong that no Asiatic
+Power, which has been tempted to conquer the rich Nile valley, has ever
+been able to keep it long. Under its own leaders or some rebellious
+officer of its new masters it has reasserted independence sooner or
+later, and all history is witness that no one, whether in Asia or in
+Europe, holds Egypt as a foreign province unless he holds also the sea.
+During the century which had elapsed since Cambyses' conquest the
+Egyptians had rebelled more than once (most persistently about 460),
+calling in the sea-lords to their help on each occasion. Finally, just
+before the death of Darius Nothus, and some five years before Cyrus left
+Sardes, they rose again under an Egyptian, and thereafter, for about
+sixty years, not the kings of Susa, but three native dynasties in
+succession, were to rule Egypt. The harm done to the Persian Empire by
+this defection was not measured by the mere loss of the revenues of a
+province. The new kings of Egypt, who owed much to Greek support, repaid
+this by helping every enemy of the Great King and every rebel against
+his authority. It was they who gave asylum to the admiral and fleet of
+Cyrus after Cunaxa, and sent corn to Agesilaus when he invaded Asia
+Minor; they supplied money and ships to the Spartan fleet in 394, and
+helped Evagoras of Cyprus in a long resistance to his suzerain. When
+Tyre and the cities of the Cilician coast revolted in 380, Egypt was
+privy to their designs, and she made common cause with the satraps and
+governors of Western Asia, Syria and Phoenicia when, in combination,
+they planned rebellion in 373 to the grave peril of the Empire. Twelve
+years later we find an Egyptian king marching in person to raise
+Phoenicia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Persian made more than one effort to recover his province. After
+conspicuous failure with his own generals Artaxerxes adopted tardily the
+course which Clearchus, captain of the Ten Thousand, is said to have
+advised after the battle of Cunaxa, and tried his fortune once more with
+Greek <i>condottieri</i>, only to find Greek generals and Greek mercenaries
+arrayed against them. It had come to this, that the Persian king and his
+revolted province equally depended on mercenary swords, neither daring
+to meet Greek except with Greek. Well had the lesson of the march of the
+Ten Thousand been read, marked and digested in the East!
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 2. PERSIA AND THE WEST</h4>
+
+<p>
+It had been marked in the West as well, and its fruits were patent
+within five years. The dominant Greek state of the hour, avowing an
+ambition which no Greek had betrayed before, sent its king, Agesilaus,
+across to Asia Minor to follow up the establishment of Spartan hegemony
+on the coasts by an invasion of inland Persia. He never penetrated
+farther than about half-way up the Maeander Valley, and did Persia no
+harm worth speaking of; for he was not the leader, nor had he the
+resources in men and in money, to carry through so distant and doubtful
+an adventure. But Agesilaus' campaigning in Asia Minor between 397 and
+394 has this historical significance: it demonstrates that Greeks had
+come to regard a march on Susa as feasible and desirable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not, however, in fact feasible even then. Apart from the lack of
+a military force in any one state of Greece large enough, sufficiently
+trained, and led by a leader of the necessary magnetism and genius for
+organization, to undertake, unaided by allies on the way, a successful
+march to a point many months distant from its base--apart from this
+deficiency, the Empire to be conquered had not yet been really shaken.
+The Ten Thousand Greeks would in all likelihood never have got under
+Clearchus to Cunaxa or anywhere within hundreds of miles of it, but for
+the fact that Cyrus was with them and the adherents of his rising star
+were supplying their wants and had cleared a road for them through Asia
+Minor and Syria. In their Retreat they were desperate men, of whom the
+Great King was glad to be quit. The successful accomplishment of that
+retreat must not blind us to the almost certain failure which would have
+befallen the advance had it been attempted under like conditions.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 3. THE SATRAPS</h4>
+
+<p>
+What, ultimately, was to reduce the Persian Empire to such weakness that
+a Western power would be able to strike at its heart with little more
+than forty thousand men, was the disease of disloyalty which spread
+among the great officers during the first half of the fourth century.
+Before Cyrus' expedition we have not heard of either satraps or client
+provinces raising the standard of revolt (except in Egypt), since the
+Empire had been well established; and if there was evident collusion
+with that expedition on the part of provincial officers in Asia Minor
+and Syria, the fact has little political significance, seeing that Cyrus
+was a scion of the royal House, and the favourite of the Queen-Mother.
+But the fourth century is hardly well begun before we find satraps and
+princes aiding the king's enemies and fighting for their own hand
+against him or a rival officer. Agesilaus was helped in Asia Minor both
+by the prince of Paphlagonia and by a Persian noble. Twenty years later
+Ariobarzanes of Pontus rises in revolt; and hard on his defection
+follows a great rebellion planned by the satraps of Caria, Ionia, Lydia,
+Phrygia and Cappadocia--nearly all Asia Minor in fact--in concert with
+coastal cities of Syria and Phoenicia. Another ten years pass and new
+governors of Mysia and Lydia rise against their king with the help of
+the Egyptians and Mausolus, client prince of Halicarnassus. Treachery or
+lack of resources and stability brought these rebels one after another
+to disaster; but an Empire whose great officers so often dare such
+adventures is drawing apace to its catastrophe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The causes of this growing disaffection among the satraps are not far to
+seek. At the close of the last chapter we remarked the deterioration of
+the harem-ridden court in the early days of Artaxerxes; and as time
+passed, the spectacle of a Great King governing by treachery, buying his
+enemies, and impotent to recover Egypt even with their mercenary help
+had its effect. Belief gained ground that the ship of Empire was
+sinking, and even in Susa the fear grew that a wind from the West was to
+finish her. The Great King's court officers watched Greek politics
+during the first seventy years of the fourth century with ever closer
+attention. Not content with enrolling as many Greeks as possible in the
+royal service, they used the royal gold to such effect to buy or support
+Greek politicians whose influence could be directed to hindering a union
+of Greek states and checking the rising power of any unit, that a Greek
+orator said in a famous passage that the archers stamped on the Great
+King's coins were already a greater danger to Greece than his real
+archers had ever been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By such lavish corruption, by buying the soldiers and the politicians of
+the enemy, a better face was put for a while on the fortunes of the
+dynasty and the Empire. Before the death of the aged Artaxerxes Mnemon
+in 358, the revolt of the Western satraps had collapsed. His successor,
+Ochus, who, to reach the throne, murdered his kin like any
+eighteenth-century sultan of Stambul, overcame Egyptian obstinacy about
+346, after two abortive attempts, by means of hireling Greek troops, and
+by similar vicarious help he recovered Sidon and the Isle of Cyprus. But
+it was little more than the dying flicker of a flame fanned for the
+moment by that same Western wind which was already blowing up to the
+gale that would extinguish it. The heart of the Empire was not less
+rotten because its shell was patched, and in the event, when the storm
+broke a few years later, nothing in West Asia was able to make any stand
+except two or three maritime cities, which fought, not for Persia, but
+for their own commercial monopolies.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 4. MACEDONIA</h4>
+
+<p>
+The storm had been gathering on the Western horizon for some time past.
+Twenty years earlier there had come to the throne of Macedonia a man of
+singular constructive ability and most definite ambition. His
+heritage--or rather his prize, for he was not next of kin to his
+predecessor--was the central southern part of the Balkan peninsula, a
+region of broad fat plains fringed and crossed by rough hills. It was
+inhabited by sturdy gentry and peasantry and by agile highlanders, all
+composed of the same racial elements as the Greeks, with perhaps a
+preponderant infusion of northern blood which had come south long ago
+with emigrants from the Danubian lands. The social development of the
+Macedonians--to give various peoples one generic name--had, for certain
+reasons, not been nearly so rapid as that of their southern cousins.
+They had never come in contact with the higher Aegean civilization, nor
+had they mixed their blood with that of cultivated predecessors; their
+land was continental, poor in harbours, remote from the luxurious
+centres of life, and of comparatively rigorous climate; its
+configuration had offered them no inducement to form city-states and
+enter on intense political life. But, in compensation, they entered the
+fourth century unexhausted, without tribal or political impediments to
+unity, and with a broad territory of greater natural resources than any
+southern Greek state. Macedonia could supply itself with the best cereal
+foods and to spare, and had unexploited veins of gold ore. But the most
+important thing to remark is this--that, compared with Greece, Macedonia
+was a region of Central Europe. In the latter's progress to imperial
+power we shall watch for the first time in recorded history a
+continental European folk bearing down peninsular populations of the
+Mediterranean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip of Macedon, who had been trained in the arts of both war and
+peace in a Greek city, saw the weakness of the divided Hellenes, and the
+possible strength of his own people, and he set to work from the first
+with abounding energy, dogged persistence and immense talent for
+organization to make a single armed nation, which should be more than a
+match for the many communities of Hellas. How he accomplished his
+purpose in about twenty years: how he began by opening mines of precious
+metal on his south-eastern coast, and with the proceeds hired
+mercenaries: how he had Macedonian peasants drilled to fight in a
+phalanx formation more mobile than the Theban and with a longer spear,
+while the gentry were trained as heavy cavalry: how he made experiments
+with his new soldiers on the inland tribes, and so enlarged his
+effective dominions that he was able to marshal henceforward far more
+than his own Emathian clansmen: how for six years he perfected this
+national army till it was as professional a fighting machine as any
+condottiere's band of that day, while at the same time larger and of
+much better temper: how, when it was ready in the spring of the year
+353, he began a fifteen years' war of encroachment on the holdings of
+the Greek states and particularly of Athens, attacking some of her
+maritime colonies in Macedonia and Thrace: how, after a campaign in
+inland Thrace and on the Chersonese, he appeared in Greece, where he
+pushed at last through Thermopylae: how, again, he withdrew for several
+seasons into the Balkan Peninsula, raided it from the Adriatic to the
+Black Sea, and ended with an attack on the last and greatest of its free
+Greek coastal cities, Perinthus and Byzantium: how, finally, in 338,
+coming south in full force, he crushed in the single battle of Chaeronea
+the two considerable powers of Greece, Athens and Thebes, and secured at
+last from every Greek state except Sparta (which he could afford to
+neglect) recognition of his suzerainty--these stages in Philip's making
+of a European nation and a European empire must not be described more
+fully here. What concerns us is the end of it all; for the end was the
+arraying of that new nation and that new empire for a descent on Asia. A
+year after Chaeronea Philip was named by the Congress of Corinth
+Captain-General of all Greeks to wreak the secular vengeance of Hellas
+on Persia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How long he had consciously destined his fighting machine to an ultimate
+invasion of Asia we do not know. The Athenians had explicitly stated to
+the Great King in 341 that such was the Macedonian's ambition, and four
+years earlier public suggestion of it had been made by the famous
+orator, Isocrates, in an open letter written to Philip himself. Since
+the last named was a man of long sight and sustained purpose, it is not
+impossible that he had conceived such an ambition in youth and had been
+cherishing it all along. While Philip was in Thebes as a young man, old
+Agesilaus, who first of Greeks had conceived the idea of invading the
+inland East, was still seeking a way to realize his oft-frustrated
+project; and in the end he went off to Egypt to make a last effort after
+Philip was already on the throne. The idea had certainly been long in
+the air that any military power which might dominate Hellas would be
+bound primarily by self-interest and secondarily by racial duty to turn
+its arms against Asia. The Great King himself knew this as well as any
+one. After the Athenian warning in 341, his satraps in the north-west of
+Asia Minor were bidden assist Philip's enemies in every possible way;
+and it was thanks in no small measure to their help, that the Byzantines
+repulsed the Macedonians from their walls in 339.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip had already made friends of the princely house of Caria, and was
+now at pains to secure a footing in north-west Asia Minor. He threw,
+therefore, an advance column across the Dardanelles under his chief
+lieutenant, Parmenio, and proposed to follow it in the autumn of the
+year 336 with a Grand Army which he had been recruiting, training and
+equipping for a twelvemonth. The day of festival which should inaugurate
+his great venture arrived; but the venture was not to be his. As he
+issued from his tent to attend the games he fell by the hand of a
+private enemy; and his young son, Alexander, had at first enough to do
+to re-establish a throne which proved to have more foes than friends.
+</p>
+
+<h4>SECTION 5. ALEXANDER'S CONQUEST OF THE EAST</h4>
+
+<p>
+A year and a half later Alexander's friends and foes knew that a greater
+soldier and empire-maker than Philip ruled in his stead, and that the
+father's plan of Asiatic conquest would suffer nothing at the hands of
+the son. The neighbours of Macedonia as far as the Danube and all the
+states of the Greek peninsula had been cowed to submission again in one
+swift and decisive campaign. The States-General of Greece, re-convoked
+at Corinth, confirmed Philip's son in the Captain-Generalship of Hellas,
+and Parmenio, once more despatched to Asia, secured the farther shore of
+the Hellespont. With about forty thousand seasoned horse and foot, and
+with auxiliary services unusually efficient for the age, Alexander
+crossed to Persian soil in the spring of 334.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no other army in Asia Minor to offer him battle in form than a
+force about equal in numbers to his own, which had been collected
+locally by the western satraps. Except for its contingent of Greek
+mercenaries, this was much inferior to the Macedonian force in fighting
+value. Fended by Parmenio from the Hellespontine shore, it did the best
+it could by waiting on the farther bank of the Granicus, the nearest
+considerable stream which enters the Marmora, in order either to draw
+Alexander's attack, or to cut his communications, should he move on into
+the continent. It did not wait long. The heavy Macedonian cavalry dashed
+through the stream late on an afternoon, made short work of the Asiatic
+constituents, and having cleared a way for the phalanx helped it to cut
+up the Greek contingent almost to a man before night fell. Alexander was
+left with nothing but city defences and hill tribes to deal with till a
+fuller levy could be collected from other provinces of the Persian
+Empire and brought down to the west, a process which would take many
+months, and in fact did take a full year. But some of the Western cities
+offered no small impediment to his progress. If Aeolia, Lydia and Ionia
+made no resistance worth mentioning, the two chief cities of Caria,
+Miletus and Halicarnassus, which had been enjoying in virtual freedom a
+lion's share of Aegean trade for the past century, were not disposed to
+become appanages of a military empire. The pretension of Alexander to
+lead a crusade against the ancient oppressor of the Hellenic race
+weighed neither with them, nor, for that matter, with any of the Greeks
+in Asia or Europe, except a few enthusiasts. During the past seventy
+years, ever since celebrations of the deliverance of Hellas from the
+Persian had been replaced by aspirations towards counter invasion, the
+desire to wreak holy vengeance had gone for little or nothing, but
+desire to plunder Persia had gone for a great deal. Therefore, any
+definite venture into Asia aroused envy, not enthusiasm, among those who
+would be forestalled by its success. Neither with ships nor men had any
+leading Greek state come forward to help Alexander, and by the time he
+had taken Miletus he realized that he must play his game alone, with his
+own people for his own ends. Thenceforward, neglecting the Greeks, he
+postponed his march into the heart of the Persian Empire till he had
+secured every avenue leading thither from the sea, whether through Asia
+Minor or Syria or Egypt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After reducing Halicarnassus and Caria, Alexander did no more in Asia
+Minor than parade the western part of it, the better to secure the
+footing he had gained in the continent. Here and there he had a brush
+with hill-men, who had long been unused to effective control, while with
+one or two of their towns he had to make terms; but on the approach of
+winter, Anatolia was at his feet, and he seated himself at Gordion, in
+the Sakaria valley, where he could at once guard his communications with
+the Hellespont and prepare for advance into farther Asia by an easy
+road. Eastern Asia Minor, that is Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, he
+left alone, and its contingents would still be arrayed on the Persian
+side in both the great battles to come. Certain northern districts also,
+which had long been practically independent of Persia, e.g. Bithynia and
+Paphlagonia, had not been touched yet. It was not worth his while at
+that moment to spend time in fighting for lands which would fall in any
+case if the Empire fell, and could easily be held in check from western
+Asia Minor in the meantime. His goal was far inland, his danger he well
+knew, on the sea--danger of possible co-operation between Greek fleets
+and the greater coastal cities of the Aegean and the Levant. Therefore,
+with the first of the spring he moved down into Cilicia to make the
+ports of Syria and Egypt his, before striking at the heart of the
+Empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Great King, last and weakest of the Darius name, had realized the
+greatness of his peril and come down with the levy of all the Empire to
+try to crush the invader in the gate of the south lands. Letting his foe
+pass round the angle of the Levant coast, Darius, who had been waiting
+behind the screen of Amanus, slipped through the hills and cut off the
+Macedonian's retreat in the defile of Issus between mountain and sea.
+Against another general and less seasoned troops a compact and
+disciplined Oriental force would probably have ended the invasion there
+and then; but that of Darius was neither compact nor disciplined. The
+narrowness of the field compressed it into a mob; and Alexander and his
+men, facing about, saw the Persians delivered into their hand. The fight
+lasted little longer than at Granicus and the result was as decisive a
+butchery. Camp, baggage-train, the royal harem, letters from Greek
+states, and the persons of Greek envoys sent to devise the destruction
+of the Captain-General--all fell to Alexander.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Assured against meeting another levy of the Empire for at least a
+twelvemonth, he moved on into Syria. In this narrow land his chief
+business, as we have seen, was with the coast towns. He must have all
+the ports in his hand before going up into Asia. The lesser dared not
+gainsay the victorious phalanx; but the queen of them all, Tyre,
+mistress of the eastern trade, shut the gates of her island citadel and
+set the western intruder the hardest military task of his life. But the
+capture of the chief base of the hostile fleets which still ranged the
+Aegean was all essential to Alexander, and he bridged the sea to effect
+it. One other city, Gaza, commanding the road to Egypt, showed the same
+spirit with less resources, and the year was far spent before the
+Macedonians appeared on the Nile to receive the ready submission of a
+people which had never willingly served the Persian. Here again,
+Alexander's chief solicitude was for the coasts. Independent Cyrene,
+lying farthest west, was one remaining danger and the openness of the
+Nile mouths another. The first danger dissolved with the submission,
+which Cyrene sent to meet him as he moved into Marmarica to the attack;
+the second was conjured by the creation of the port of Alexandria,
+perhaps the most signal act of Alexander's life, seeing to what stature
+the city would grow, what part play in the development of Greek and Jew,
+and what vigour retain to this day. For the moment, however, the new
+foundation served primarily to rivet its founder's hold on the shores of
+the Greek and Persian waters. Within a few months the hostile fleets
+disappeared from the Levant and Alexander obtained at last that command
+of the sea without which invasion of inner Asia would have been more
+than perilous, and permanent retention of Egypt impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus secure of his base, he could strike inland. He went up slowly in
+the early part of 331 by the traditional North Road through Philistia
+and Palestine and round the head of the Syrian Hamad to Thapsacus on
+Euphrates, paying, on the way, a visit of precaution to Tyre, which had
+cost him so much toil and time a year before. None opposed his crossing
+of the Great River; none stayed him in Mesopotamia; none disputed his
+passage of the Tigris, though the ferrying of his force took five days.
+The Great King himself, however, was lying a few marches south of the
+mounds of Nineveh, in the plain of Gaugamela, to which roads converging
+from south, east and north had brought the levies of all the empire
+which remained to him. To hordes drawn from fighting tribes living as
+far distant as frontiers of India, banks of the Oxus, and foothills of
+the Caucasus, was added a phalanx of hireling Greeks more than three
+times as numerous as that which had been cut up on the Granicus. Thus
+awaited by ten soldiers to each one of his own on open ground chosen by
+his enemy, Alexander went still more slowly forward and halted four and
+twenty hours to breathe his army in sight of the Persian out posts.
+Refusing to risk an attack on that immense host in the dark, he slept
+soundly within his entrenchments till sunrise of the first day of
+October, and then in the full light led out his men to decide the fate
+of Persia. It was decided by sundown, and half a million broken men were
+flying south and east into the gathering night. But the Battle of
+Arbela, as it is commonly called--the greatest contest of armies before
+the rise of Rome--had not been lightly won. The active resistance of the
+Greek mercenaries, and the passive resistance of the enormous mass of
+the Asiatic hordes, which stayed attack by mere weight of flesh and
+closed again behind every penetrating column, made the issue doubtful,
+till Darius himself, terrified at the oncoming of the heavy Macedonian
+cavalry, turned his chariot and lost the day. Alexander's men had to
+thank the steadiness which Philip's system had given them, but also, in
+the last resort, the cowardice of the opposing chief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Persian King survived to be hunted a year later, and caught, a dying
+man, on the road to Central Asia; but long before that and without
+another pitched battle the Persian throne had passed to Alexander.
+Within six months he had marched to and entered in turn, without other
+let or hindrance than resistance of mountain tribesmen in the passes,
+the capitals of the Empire--Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana; and
+since these cities all held by him during his subsequent absence of six
+years in farther Asia, the victory of the West over the Ancient East may
+be regarded as achieved on the day of Arbela.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<h2><a name="vi">CHAPTER VI</a></h2>
+
+<h3>EPILOGUE</h3>
+
+<p>
+Less than ten years later, Alexander lay dead in Babylon. He had gone
+forward to the east to acquire more territories than we have surveyed in
+any chapter of this book or his fathers had so much as known to exist.
+The broad lands which are now Afghanistan, Russian Turkestan, the
+Punjab, Scinde, and Beluchistan had been subdued by him in person and
+were being held by his governors and garrisons. This Macedonian Greek
+who had become an emperor of the East greater than the greatest
+theretofore, had already determined that his Seat of Empire should be
+fixed in inner Asia; and he proposed that under his single sway East and
+West be distinct no longer, but one indivisible world, inhabited by
+united peoples. Then, suddenly, he was called to his account, leaving no
+legitimate heir of his body except a babe in its mother's womb. What
+would happen? What, in fact, did happen?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is often said that the empire which Alexander created died with him.
+This is true if we think of empire as the realm of a single emperor. As
+sole ruler of the vast area between the Danube and the Sutlej Alexander
+was to have no successor. But if we think of an empire as the realm of a
+race or nation, Greater Macedonia, though destined gradually to be
+diminished, would outlive its founder by nearly three hundred years; and
+moreover, in succession to it, another Western empire, made possible by
+his victory and carried on in some respects under his forms, was to
+persist in the East for several centuries more. As a political conquest,
+Alexander's had results as long lasting as can be credited to almost any
+conquest in history. As the victory of one civilization over another it
+was never to be brought quite to nothing, and it had certain permanent
+effects. These this chapter is designed to show: but first, since the
+development of the victorious civilization on alien soil depended
+primarily on the continued political supremacy of the men in whom it was
+congenital, it is necessary to see how long and to what extent political
+dominion was actually held in the East by men who were Greeks, either by
+birth or by training.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out of the turmoil and stress of the thirty years which followed
+Alexander's death, two Macedonians emerged to divide the Eastern Empire
+between them. The rest--transient embarrassed phantoms of the Royal
+House, regents of the Empire hardly less transient, upstart satraps, and
+even one-eyed Antigonus, who for a brief moment claimed jurisdiction
+over all the East--never mattered long to the world at large and matter
+not at all here and now. The end of the fourth century sees Seleucus of
+Babylonia lording it over the most part of West Asia which was best
+worth having, except the southern half of Syria and the coasts of Asia
+Minor and certain isles in sight of them, which, if not subject to
+Ptolemy of Egypt, were free of both kings or dominated by a third,
+resident in Europe and soon to disappear. In the event those two,
+Seleucus and Ptolemy, alone of all the Macedonian successors, would
+found dynasties destined to endure long enough in kingdoms great enough
+to affect the general history of civilization in the Ancient East.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seleucus has no surviving chronicler of the first or the second rank,
+and consequently remains one of the most shadowy of the greater men of
+action in antiquity. We can say little of him personally, except that he
+was quick and fearless in action, prepared to take chances, a born
+leader in war, and a man of long sight and persistent purpose. Alexander
+had esteemed and distinguished him highly, and, marrying him to Apama, a
+noble Iranian lady, convinced him of his own opinion that the point from
+which to rule an Asiatic empire was Babylonia. Seleucus let the first
+partition of the dead man's lands go by, and not till the first turmoil
+was over and his friend Ptolemy was securely seated in Egypt, did he ask
+for a province. The province was Babylonia. Ejected by the malevolence
+of Antigonus, he regained it by grace of Ptolemy in 312, established
+ascendency over all satraps to east of him during the next half-dozen
+years, letting only India go, and then came west in 305 to conquer and
+slay Antigonus at Ipsus in central Asia Minor. The third king,
+Lysimachus of Thrace, was disposed of in 281, and Seleucus, dying a few
+months later, left to his dynastic successors an Asiatic empire of
+seventy-two provinces, very nearly equal to Alexander's, with important
+exceptions in Asia Minor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Asia Minor neither Seleucus nor the Seleucids ever held anything
+effectively except the main lines of communication from East to West and
+the district in which these come down to the Aegean Sea. The south
+coast, as has been said, remained in Egyptian hands almost all through
+the Seleucid period. The southwest obeyed the island republic of Rhodes.
+Most of the Greek maritime cities of the northwest and north kept their
+freedom more or less inviolate; while inland a purely Greek monarchy,
+that of Pergamum, gradually extended its sway up to the central desert.
+In the north a formidable barrier to Seleucid expansion arose within
+five years of Seleucus' death, namely, a settlement of Gauls who had
+been invited across the straits by a king of Bithynia. After charging
+and raiding in all directions these intractable allies were penned by
+the repeated efforts of both the Seleucid and the Pergamene kings into
+the upper Sakaria basin (henceforth to be known as Galatia) and there
+they formed a screen behind which Bithynia and Paphlagonia maintained
+sturdy independence. The north-east also was the seat of independent
+monarchies. Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, ruled by princes of Iranian
+origin, were never integral parts of the Seleucid Empire, though
+consistently friendly to its rulers. Finally, in the hill-regions of the
+centre, as of the coasts, the Seleucid writ did not run.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Looked at as a whole, however, and not only from a Seleucid point of
+view, the Ancient East, during the century following Seleucus' death
+(forty-three years after Alexander's), was dominated politically by
+Hellenes over fully nine-tenths of its area. About those parts of it
+held by cities actually Greek, or by Pergamum, no more need be said. As
+for Seleucus and his successors, though the latter, from Antiochus Soter
+onward, had a strain of Iranian blood, they held and proved themselves
+essentially Hellenic. Their portraits from first to last show European
+features, often fine. Ptolemy Lagus and all the Lagidae remained
+Macedonian Greeks to a man and a woman and to the bitter end, with the
+greatest Hellenic city in the world for their seat. As for the remaining
+tenth part of the East, almost the whole of it was ruled by princes who
+claimed the title "philhellene," and justified it not only by political
+friendliness to the Seleucidae and the Western Greeks, but also by
+encouraging Greek settlers and Greek manners. So far as patronage and
+promotion by the highest powers could further it, Hellenism had a fair
+chance in West Asia from the conquest of Alexander down to the
+appearance of Rome in the East. What did it make of this chance? How far
+in the event did those Greek and Macedonian rulers, philhellenic Iranian
+princes and others, hellenize West Asia? If they did succeed in a
+measure, but not so completely that the East ceased to be distinct from
+the West, what measure was set to their several influences, and why?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="images/map6.gif">Plate 6: HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us see, first, what precisely Hellenism implied as it was brought to
+Asia by Alexander and practised by his successors. Politically it
+implied recognition by the individual that the society of which he was a
+member had an indefeasible and virtually exclusive claim on his good
+will and his good offices. The society so recognized was not a family or
+a tribe, but a city and its proper district, distinguished from all
+other cities and their districts. The geographical configuration and the
+history of Greece, a country made up in part of small plains ringed in
+by hills and sea, in part of islands, had brought about this limitation
+of political communities, and had made patriotism mean to the Greek
+devotion to his city-state. To a wider circle he was not capable of
+feeling anything like the same sense of obligation or, indeed, any
+compelling obligation at all. If he recognized the claim of a group of
+city-states, which remotely claimed common origin with his own, it was
+an academic feeling: if he was conscious of his community with all
+Hellenes as a nation it was only at moments of particular danger at the
+hands of a common non-Hellenic foe. In short, while not insensible to
+the principle of nationality he was rarely capable of applying it
+practically except in regard to a small society with whose members he
+could be acquainted personally and among whom he could make his own
+individuality felt. He had no feudal tradition, and no instinctive
+belief that the individualities composing a community must be
+subordinate to any one individual in virtue of the latter's patriarchal
+or representative relation to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us deal with this political implication of Hellenism before we pass
+on to its other qualities. In its purity political Hellenism was
+obviously not compatible with the monarchical Macedonian state, which
+was based on feudal recognition of the paternal or representative
+relation of a single individual to many peoples composing a nation. The
+Macedonians themselves, therefore, could not carry to Asia, together
+with their own national patriotism (somewhat intensified, perhaps, by
+intercourse during past generations with Greek city-states) any more
+than an outside knowledge of the civic patriotism of the Greeks. Since,
+however, they brought in their train a great number of actual Greeks and
+had to look to settlement of these in Asia for indispensable support of
+their own rule, commerce and civilization, they were bound to create
+conditions under which civic patriotism, of which they knew the value as
+well as the danger, might continue to exist in some measure. Their
+obvious policy was to found cities wherever they wished to settle
+Greeks, and to found them along main lines of communication, where they
+might promote trade and serve as guardians of the roads; while at the
+same time, owing to their continual intercourse with each other, their
+exposure to native sojourners and immigrants and their necessary
+dependence on the centre of government, they could hardly repeat in Asia
+the self-centred exclusiveness characteristic of cities in either
+European Greece or the strait and sharply divided valleys of the west
+Anatolian coast. In fact, by design or not, most Seleucid foundations
+were planted in comparatively open country. Seleucus alone is said to
+have been responsible for seventy-five cities, of which the majority
+clustered in that great meeting-place of through routes, North Syria,
+and along the main highway through northern Asia Minor to Ephesus. In
+this city, Seleucus himself spent most of his last years. We know of few
+Greek colonies, or none, founded by him or his dynasty beyond the
+earlier limits of the Ancient East, where, in Afghanistan, Turkestan and
+India, Alexander had planted nearly all his new cities. Possibly his
+successor held these to be sufficient; probably he saw neither prospect
+of advantage nor hope of success in creating Greek cities in a region so
+vast and so alien; certainly neither he nor his dynasty was ever in such
+a position to support or maintain them, if founded east of Media, as
+Alexander was and proposed to be, had longer life been his. But in
+western Asia from Seleucia on Tigris, an immense city of over half a
+million souls, to Laodicea on Lycus and the confines of the old Ionian
+littoral, Seleucus and his successors created urban life, casting it in
+a Hellenic mould whose form, destined to persist for many centuries to
+come, would exercise momentous influence on the early history of the
+Christian religion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By founding so many urban communities of Greek type the Macedonian kings
+of West Asia undeniably introduced Hellenism as an agent of political
+civilization into much of the Ancient East, which needed it badly and
+profited by it. But the influence of their Hellenism was potent and
+durable only in those newly founded, or newly organized, urban
+communities and their immediate neighbourhood. Where these clustered
+thickly, as along the Lower Orontes and on the Syrian coast-line, or
+where Greek farmers had settled in the interspaces, as in Cyrrhestica
+(i.e. roughly, central North Syria), Hellenism went far to make whole
+districts acquire a civic spirit, which, though implying much less sense
+of personal freedom and responsibility than in Attica or Laconia, would
+have been recognized by an Athenian or a Spartan as kin to his own
+patriotism. But where the cities were strung on single lines of
+communication at considerable intervals, as in central Asia Minor and in
+Mesopotamia, they exerted little political influence outside their own
+walls. For Hellenism was and remained essentially a property of
+communities small enough for each individual to exert his own personal
+influence on political and social practice. So soon as a community
+became, in numbers or distribution, such as to call for centralized, or
+even representative, administration, patriotism of the Hellenic type
+languished and died. It was quite incapable of permeating whole peoples
+or of making a nation, whether in the East or anywhere else. Yet in the
+East peoples have always mattered more than cities, by whomsoever
+founded and maintained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hellenism, however, had, by this time, not only a political implication
+but also moral and intellectual implications which were partly effects,
+partly causes, of its political energy. As has been well said by a
+modern historian of the Seleucid house, Hellenism meant, besides a
+politico-social creed, also a certain attitude of mind. The
+characteristic feature of this attitude was what has been called
+Humanism, this word being used in a special sense to signify
+intellectual interest confined to human affairs, but free within the
+range of these. All Greeks were not, of course, equally humanistic in
+this sense. Among them, as in all societies, there were found
+temperaments to which transcendental speculation appealed, and these
+increasing in number, as with the loss of their freedom the city-states
+ceased to stand for the realization of the highest possible good in this
+world, made Orphism and other mystic cults prevail ever more and more in
+Hellas. But when Alexander carried Hellenism to Asia it was still
+broadly true that the mass of civilized Hellenes regarded anything that
+could not be apprehended by the intellect through the senses as not only
+outside their range of interest but non-existent. Further, while nothing
+was held so sacred that it might not be probed or discussed with the
+full vigour of an inquirer's intelligence, no consideration except the
+logic of apprehended facts should determine his conclusion. An argument
+was to be followed wherever it might lead, and its consequences must be
+faced in full without withdrawal behind any non-intellectual screen.
+Perfect freedom of thought and perfect freedom of discussion over the
+whole range of human matters; perfect freedom of consequent action, so
+the community remained uninjured--this was the typical Hellene's ideal.
+An instinctive effort to realize it was his habitual attitude towards
+life. His motto anticipated the Roman poet's "I am human: nothing human
+do I hold no business of mine!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the time the Western conquest of Asia was complete, this attitude,
+which had grown more and more prevalent in the centres of Greek life
+throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, had come to exclude anything
+like religiosity from the typical Hellenic character. A religion the
+Greek had of course, but he held it lightly, neither possessed by it nor
+even looking to it for guidance in the affairs of his life. If he
+believed in a world beyond the grave, he thought little about it or not
+at all, framing his actions with a view solely to happiness in the
+flesh. A possible fate in the hereafter seemed to him to have no bearing
+on his conduct here. That disembodied he might spend eternity with the
+divine, or, absorbed into the divine essence, become himself
+divine--such ideas, though not unknown or without attraction to rarer
+spirits, were wholly impotent to combat the vivid interest in life and
+the lust of strenuous endeavour which were bred in the small worlds of
+the city-states.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Greeks, then, who passed to Asia in Alexander's wake had no
+religious message for the East, and still less had the Macedonian
+captains who succeeded him. Born and bred to semibarbaric superstitions,
+they had long discarded these, some for the freethinking attitude of the
+Greek, and all for the cult of the sword. The only thing which, in their
+Emperor's lifetime, stood to them for religion was a feudal devotion to
+himself and his house. For a while this feeling survived in the ranks of
+the army, as Eumenes, wily Greek that he was, proved by the manner and
+success of his appeals to dynastic loyalty in the first years of the
+struggle for the succession; and perhaps, we may trace it longer still
+in the leaders, as an element, blended with something of homesickness
+and something of national tradition, in that fatality which impelled
+each Macedonian lord of Asia, first Antigonus, then Seleucus, finally
+Antiochus the Great, to hanker after the possession of Macedonia and be
+prepared to risk the East to win back the West. Indeed, it is a
+contributory cause of the comparative failure of the Seleucids to keep
+their hold on their Asiatic Empire that their hearts were never wholly
+in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the rest, they and all the Macedonian captains alike were
+conspicuously irreligious men, whose gods were themselves. They were
+what the age had made them, and what all similar ages make men of
+action. Theirs was a time of wide conquests recently achieved by right
+of might alone, and left to whomsoever should be mightiest. It was a
+time when the individual had suddenly found that no accidental
+defects--lack of birth, or property, or allies--need prevent him from
+exploiting for himself a vast field of unmeasured possibilities, so he
+had a sound brain, a stout heart and a strong arm. As it would be again
+in the age of the Crusades, in that of the Grand Companies, and in that
+of the Napoleonic conquests, every soldier knew that it rested only with
+himself and with opportunity, whether or no he should die a prince. It
+was a time for reaping harvests which others had sown, for getting
+anything for nothing, for frank and unashamed lust of loot, for selling
+body and soul to the highest bidder, for being a law to oneself. In such
+ages the voice of the priest goes for as little as the voice of
+conscience, and the higher a man climbs, the less is his faith in a
+power above him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having won the East, however, these irreligious Macedonians found they
+had under their hand a medley of peoples, diverse in many
+characteristics, but almost all alike in one, and that was their
+religiosity. Deities gathered and swarmed in Asia. Men showed them
+fierce fanatic devotion or spent lives in contemplation of the idea of
+them, careless of everything which Macedonians held worth living for,
+and even of life itself. Alexander had been quick to perceive the
+religiosity of the new world into which he had come. If his power in the
+East was to rest on a popular basis he knew that basis must be
+religious. Beginning with Egypt he set an example (not lost on the man
+who would be his successor there) of not only conciliating priests but
+identifying himself with the chief god in the traditional manner of
+native kings since immemorial time; and there is no doubt that the cult
+of himself, which he appears to have enjoined increasingly on his
+followers, his subjects and his allies, as time went on, was consciously
+devised to meet and captivate the religiosity of the East. In Egypt he
+must be Ammon, in Syria he would be Baal, in Babylon Bel. He left the
+faith of his fathers behind him when he went up to the East, knowing as
+well as his French historian knew in the nineteenth century, that in
+Asia the "dreams of Olympus were less worth than the dreams of the Magi
+and the mysteries of India, pregnant with the divine." With these last,
+indeed, he showed himself deeply impressed, and his recorded attitude
+towards the Brahmans of the Punjab implies the earliest acknowledgment
+made publicly by a Greek, that in religion the West must learn from the
+East.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alexander, who has never been forgotten by the traditions and myths of
+the East, might possibly, with longer life, have satisfied Asiatic
+religiosity with an apotheosis of himself. His successors failed either
+to keep his divinity alive or to secure any general acceptance of their
+own godhead. That they tried to meet the demand of the East with a new
+universal cult of imperial utility and that some, like Antiochus IV, the
+tyrant of early Maccabaean history, tried very hard, is clear. That they
+failed and that Rome failed after them is writ large in the history of
+the expansion of half-a-dozen Eastern cults before the Christian era,
+and of Christianity itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only in the African province did Macedonian rule secure a religious
+basis. What an Alexander could hardly have achieved in Asia, a Ptolemy
+did easily in Egypt. There the <i>de facto</i> ruler, of whatever race, had
+been installed a god since time out of mind, and an omnipotent
+priesthood, dominating a docile people, stood about the throne. The
+Assyrian conquerors had stiffened their backs in Egypt to save
+affronting the gods of their fatherland; but the Ptolemies, like the
+Persians, made no such mistake, and had three centuries of secure rule
+for their reward. The knowledge that what the East demanded could be
+provided easily and safely even by Macedonians in the Nile valley alone
+was doubtless present to the sagacious mind of Ptolemy when, letting all
+wider lands pass to others, he selected Egypt in the first partition of
+the provinces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Greek, in a word, had only his philosophies to offer to the
+religiosity of the East. But a philosophy of religion is a complement
+to, a modifying influence on, religion, not a substitute sufficient to
+satisfy the instinctive and profound craving of mankind for God. While
+this craving always possessed the Asiatic mind, the Greek himself, never
+naturally insensible to it, became more and more conscious of his own
+void as he lived in Asia. What had long stood to him for religion,
+namely passionate devotion to the community, was finding less and less
+to feed on under the restricted political freedom which was now his lot
+everywhere. Superior though he felt his culture to be in most respects,
+it lacked one thing needful, which inferior cultures around him
+possessed in full. As time went on he became curious, then receptive, of
+the religious systems among whose adherents he found himself, being
+coerced insensibly by nature's abhorrence of a vacuum. Not that he
+swallowed any Eastern religion whole, or failed, while assimilating what
+he took, to transform it with his own essence. Nor again should it be
+thought that he gave nothing at all in return. He gave a philosophy
+which, acting almost as powerfully on the higher intelligences of the
+East as their religions acted on his intelligence, created the
+"Hellenistic" type, properly so called, that is the oriental who
+combined the religious instinct of Asia with the philosophic spirit of
+Greece--such an oriental as (to take two very great names), the Stoic
+apostle Zeno, a Phoenician of Cyprus, or the Christian apostle, Saul the
+Jew of Tarsus. By the creation of this type, East and West were brought
+at last very near together, divided only by the distinction of religious
+philosophy in Athens from philosophic religion in Syria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The history of the Near East during the last three centuries before the
+Christian era is the history of the gradual passing of Asiatic religions
+westward to occupy the Hellenic vacuum, and of Hellenic philosophical
+ideas eastward to supplement and purify the religious systems of West
+Asia. How far the latter eventually penetrated into the great Eastern
+continent, whether even to India or China, this is no place to discuss:
+how far the former would push westward is written in the modern history
+of Europe and the New World. The expansion of Mithraism and of
+half-a-dozen other Asiatic and Egyptian cults, which were drawn from the
+East to Greece and beyond before the first century of the Hellenistic
+Age closed, testifies to the early existence of that spiritual void in
+the West which a greater and purer religion, about to be born in Galilee
+and nurtured in Antioch, was at last to fill. The instrumentality of
+Alexander and his successors in bringing about or intensifying that
+contact and intercourse between Semite and Greek, which begot the
+philosophic morality of Christianity and rendered its westward expansion
+inevitable, stands to their credit as a historic fact of such tremendous
+import that it may be allowed to atone for more than all their sins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This, then, the Seleucids did--they so brought West and East together
+that each learned from the other. But more than that cannot be claimed
+for them. They did not abolish the individuality of either; they did not
+Hellenize even so much of West Asia as they succeeded in holding to the
+end. In this they failed not only for the reasons just considered--lack
+of vital religion in their Macedonians and their Greeks, and
+deterioration of the Hellenism of Hellenes when they ceased to be
+citizens of free city-states--but also through individual faults of
+their own, which appear again and again as the dynasty runs its course;
+and perhaps even more for some deeper reason, not understood by us yet,
+but lying behind the empirical law that East is East and West is West.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the Seleucid kings themselves they leave on us, ill-known as
+their characters and actions are, a clear impression of approximation to
+the traditional type of the Greek of the Roman age and since. As a
+dynasty they seem to have been quickly spoilt by power, to have been
+ambitious but easily contented with the show and surface of success, to
+have been incapable and contemptuous of thorough organization, and to
+have had little in the way of policy, and less perseverance in the
+pursuit of it. It is true that our piecemeal information comes largely
+from writers who somewhat despised them; but the known history of the
+Seleucid Empire, closed by an extraordinarily facile and ignominious
+collapse before Rome, supports the judgment that, taken one with
+another, its kings were shallow men and haphazard rulers who owed it
+more to chance than to prudence that their dynasty endured so long.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their strongest hold was on Syria, and in the end their only hold. We
+associate them in our minds particularly with the great city of Antioch,
+which the first Seleucus founded on the Lower Orontes to gather up trade
+from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor in the North Syrian country. But,
+as a matter of fact, that city owes its fame mainly to subsequent Roman
+masters. For it did not become the capital of Seleucid preference till
+the second century B.C.--till, by the year 180, the dynasty, which had
+lost both the Western and the Eastern provinces, had to content itself
+with Syria and Mesopotamia alone. Not only had the Parthians then come
+down from Turkestan to the south of the Caspian (their kings assumed
+Iranian names but were they not, like the present rulers of Persia,
+really Turks?), but Media too had asserted independence and Persia was
+fallen away to the rule of native princes in Fars. Seleucia on Tigris
+had become virtually a frontier city facing an Iranian and Parthian
+peril which the imperial incapacity of the Seleucids allowed to develop,
+and even Rome would never dispel. On the other flank of the empire a
+century of Seleucid efforts to plant headquarters in Western Asia Minor,
+whether at Ephesus or Sardes, and thence to prosecute ulterior designs
+on Macedonia and Greece, had been settled in favour of Pergamum by the
+arms and mandate of the coming arbiter of the East, the Republic of
+Rome. Bidden retire south of Taurus after the battle of Magnesia in 190,
+summarily ordered out of Egypt twenty years later, when Antiochus
+Epiphanes was hoping to compensate the loss of west and east with gain
+of the south, the Seleucids had no choice of a capital. It must
+thenceforth be Antioch or nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That, however, a Macedonian dynasty was forced to concentrate in north
+Syria whatever Hellenism it had (though after Antiochus Epiphanes its
+Hellenism steadily grew less) during the last two centuries before the
+Christian era was to have a momentous effect on the history of the
+world. For it was one of the two determining causes of an increase in
+the influence of Hellenism upon the Western Semites, which issued
+ultimately in the Christian religion. From Cilicia on the north to
+Phoenicia and Palestine in the south, such higher culture, such
+philosophical study as there were came more and more under the influence
+of Greek ideas, particularly those of the Stoic School, whose founder
+and chief teacher (it should never be forgotten) had been a Semite, born
+some three hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth. The Hellenized
+University of Tarsus, which educated Saul, and the Hellenistic party in
+Palestine, whose desire to make Jerusalem a southern Antioch brought on
+the Maccabaean struggle, both owed in a measure their being and their
+continued vitality to the existence and larger growth of Antioch on the
+Orontes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Phoenicia and Palestine owed as much of their Hellenism (perhaps
+more) to another Hellenized city and another Macedonian dynasty--to
+Alexandria and to the Ptolemies. Because the short Maccabaean period of
+Palestinian history, during which a Seleucid did happen to be holding
+all Syria, is very well and widely known, it is apt to be forgotten
+that, throughout almost all other periods of the Hellenistic Age,
+southern Syria, that is Palestine and Phoenicia as well as Cyprus and
+the Levant coast right round to Pamphylia, was under the political
+domination of Egypt. The first Ptolemy added to his province some of
+these Asiatic districts and cities, and in particular Palestine and
+Coele-Syria, very soon after he had assumed command of Egypt, and making
+no secret of his intention to retain them, built a fleet to secure his
+end. He knew very well that if Egypt is to hold in permanency any
+territory outside Africa, she must be mistress of the sea. After a brief
+set-back at the hands of Antigonus' son, Ptolemy made good his hold when
+the father was dead; and Cyprus also became definitely his in 294. His
+successor, in whose favour he abdicated nine years later, completed the
+conquest of the mainland coasts right round the Levant at the expense of
+Seleucus' heir. In the event, the Ptolemies kept almost all that the
+first two kings of the dynasty had thus won until they were supplanted
+by Rome, except for an interval of a little more than fifty years from
+199 to about 145; and even during the latter part of this period south
+Syria was under Egyptian influence once more, though nominally part of
+the tottering Seleucid realm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The object pursued by the Macedonian kings of Egypt in conquering and
+holding a thin coastal fringe of mainland outside Africa and certain
+island posts from Cyprus to the Cyclades was plainly commercial, to get
+control of the general Levant trade and of certain particular supplies
+(notably ship-timber) for their royal port of Alexandria. The first
+Ptolemy had well understood why his master had founded this city after
+ruining Tyre, and why he had taken so great pains both earlier and later
+to secure his Mediterranean coasts. Their object the Ptolemies obtained
+sufficiently, although they never eliminated the competition of the
+Rhodian republic and had to resign to it the command of the Aegean after
+the battle of Cos in 246. But Alexandria had already become a great
+Semitic as well as Grecian city, and continued to be so for centuries to
+come. The first Ptolemy is said to have transplanted to Egypt many
+thousands of Jews who quickly reconciled themselves to their exile, if
+indeed it had ever been involuntary; and how large its Jewish population
+was by the reign of the second Ptolemy and how open to Hellenic
+influence, may be illustrated sufficiently by the fact that at
+Alexandria, during that reign, the Hebrew scriptures were translated
+into Greek by the body of Semitic scholars which has been known since as
+the Septuagint. Although it was consistent Ptolemaic policy not to
+countenance Hellenic proselytism, the inevitable influence of Alexandria
+on south Syria was stronger than that consciously exerted by Antiochus
+Epiphanes or any other Seleucid; and if Phoenician cities had become
+homes of Hellenic science and philosophy by the middle of the third
+century, and if Yeshua or Jason, High Priest of Jehovah, when he applied
+to his suzerain a hundred years later for leave to make Jerusalem a
+Greek city, had at his back a strong party anxious to wear hats in the
+street and nothing at all in the gymnasium, Alexandria rather than
+Antioch should have the chief credit--or chief blame!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before, however, all this blending of Semitic religiosity with Hellenic
+philosophical ideas, and with something of the old Hellenic mansuetude,
+which had survived even under Macedonian masters to modify Asiatic
+minds, could issue in Christianity, half the East, with its dispersed
+heirs of Alexander, had passed under the common and stronger yoke of
+Rome. Ptolemaic Alexandria and Seleucid Antioch had prepared Semitic
+ground for seed of a new religion, but it was the wide and sure peace of
+the Roman Empire that brought it to birth and gave it room to grow. It
+was to grow, as all the world knows, westward not eastward, making
+patent by its first successes and by its first failures how much
+Hellenism had gone to the making of it. The Asian map of Christianity at
+the end, say, of the fourth century of the latter's existence, will show
+it very exactly bounded by the limits to which the Seleucid Empire had
+carried Greeks in any considerable body, and the further limits to which
+the Romans, who ruled effectively a good deal left aside by their
+Macedonian predecessors--much of central and eastern Asia Minor for
+example, and all Armenia--had advanced their Graeco-Roman subjects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beyond these bounds neither Hellenism nor Christianity was fated in that
+age to strike deep roots or bear lasting fruit. The Farther East--the
+East, that is to say, beyond Euphrates--remained unreceptive and
+intolerant of both influences. We have seen how almost all of it had
+fallen away from the Seleucids many generations before the birth of
+Christ, when a ring of principalities, Median, Parthian, Persian,
+Nabathsean, had emancipated the heart of the Orient from its short
+servitude to the West; and though Rome, and Byzantium after her, would
+push the frontier of effective European influence somewhat eastward
+again, their Hellenism could never capture again that heart which the
+Seleucids had failed to hold. This is not to say that nothing of
+Hellenism passed eastward of Mesopotamia and made an abiding mark.
+Parthian and Sassanian art, the earlier Buddhist art of north-western
+India and Chinese Turkestan, some features even of early Mohammedan art,
+and some, too, of early Mohammedan doctrine and imperial policy,
+disprove any sweeping assertion that nothing Greek took root beyond the
+bounds of the Roman Empire. But it was very little of Hellenism and not
+at all its essence. We must not be deceived by mere borrowings of exotic
+things or momentary appreciations of foreign luxuries. That the
+Parthians were witnessing a performance of the Bacchae of Euripides,
+when the head of hapless Crassus was brought to Ctesiphon, no more
+argues that they had the Western spirit than our taste for Chinese
+curios or Japanese plays proves us informed with the spirit of the East.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The East, in fine, remained the East. It was so little affected after
+all by the West that in due time its religiosity would be pregnant with
+yet another religion, antithetical to Hellenism, and it was so little
+weakened that it would win back again all it had lost and more, and keep
+Hither Asia in political and cultural independence of the West until our
+own day. If modern Europe has taken some parts of the gorgeous East in
+fee which were never held by Macedonian or Roman, let us remember in our
+pride of race that almost all that the Macedonians and the Romans did
+hold in Asia has been lost to the West ever since. Europe may and
+probably will prevail there again; but since it must be by virtue of a
+civilization in whose making a religion born of Asia has been the
+paramount indispensable factor, will the West even then be more creditor
+than debtor of the East?
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<h3><a name="books">NOTE ON BOOKS</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The authorities cited at the end of Prof. J. L. Myres' <i>Dawn of History</i>
+(itself an authority), in the Home University Library, are to a great
+extent suitable for those who wish to read more widely round the theme
+of the present volume, since those (e.g. the geographical works given in
+<i>Dawn of History</i>, p. 253, paragraph 2) which are not more or less
+essential preliminaries to a study of the Ancient East at any period,
+mostly deal with the historic as well as the prehistoric age. To spare
+readers reference to another volume, however, I will repeat here the
+most useful books in Prof. Myres' list, adding at the same time certain
+others, some of which have appeared since the issue of his volume.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the history of the whole region in the period covered by my volume,
+E. Meyer's <i>Geschichte Alterthums</i>, of a new edition of which a French
+translation is in progress and has already been partly issued, is the
+most authoritative. Sir G. Maspero's <i>Histoire ancienne des peuples de
+l'Orient classique</i> (English translation in 3 vols. under the titles
+<i>The Dawn of Civilization</i> (Egypt and Chaldaea); <i>The Struggle of the
+Nations</i> (Egypt, Syria, and Assyria); <i>The Passing of the Empires</i>) is
+still valuable, but rather out of date. There has appeared recently a
+more modern and handy book than either, Mr. H. R. Hall's <i>The Ancient
+History of the Near East</i> (1913), which gathers up, not only what was in
+the books by Mr. Hall and Mr. King cited by Prof. Myres, but also the
+contents of Meyer's and Maspero's books, and others, and the results of
+more recent research, in some of which the author has taken part. This
+book includes in its scope both Egypt and the Aegean area, besides
+Western Asia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the special history of Babylonia and Assyria and their Empires, R.
+W. Rogers' <i>History of Babylonia and Assyria</i>, 2 vols., has been kept up
+to date and is the most convenient summary for an English reader. H.
+Winckler's <i>History of Babylonia and Assyria</i> (translated from the
+German by J. A. Craig, 1907) is more brilliant and suggestive, but needs
+to be used with more caution. A. T. Olmstead's <i>Western Asia in the Days
+of Sargon of Assyria</i> (1908) is an instructive study of the Assyrian
+Empire at its height.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the Hittite Empire and civilization J. Garstang's <i>The Land of the
+Hittites</i> (1910) is the best recent book which aims at being
+comprehensive. But it must be borne in mind that this subject is in the
+melting-pot at present, that excavations now in progress have added
+greatly to the available evidence, and that very few of the Boghazkeui
+archives were published when Garstang's book was issued. D. G. Hogarth's
+articles on the Hittites, in Enc. Brit, and Enc. Brit. Year-book,
+summarize some more recent research; but there is no compendium of
+Hittite research which is really up to date.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Semitic Syrian history, Rogers and Winckler, as cited above, will
+probably be found sufficient; and also for the Urartu peoples. For
+Western Asia Minor and the Greeks, besides D.G. Hogarth's <i>Ionia and
+the East</i>, the new edition of Beloch's <i>Griechische Geschichte</i> gives
+all, and more than all, that the general reader will require. If German
+is a difficulty to him, he must turn to J.B. Bury's <i>History of Greece</i>
+and to the later part of Hall's <i>Ancient History of the Near East</i>,
+cited above. For Alexander's conquest he can go to J. Karst, <i>Geschichte
+des hellenistischen Zeitalters</i>, Vol. I (1901), B. Niese, <i>Geschichte
+der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten</i> (1899), or D.G. Hogarth,
+<i>Philip and Alexander of Macedon</i> (1897); but the great work of J.G.
+Droysen, <i>Das Hellenismus</i> (French translation), lies behind all these.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, the fourth English volume of A. Holm's <i>History of Greece</i>
+(1898) and E.R. Bevan's <i>House of Seleucus</i> (1902) will supply most
+that is known of the Hellenistic Age in Asia.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarh
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+***** This file should be named 7474-h.htm or 7474-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/7/7474/
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
+specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
+eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
+away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
+not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
+trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country outside the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
+  are located before using this ebook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
+Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
+mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
+volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
+locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
+Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
+date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
+official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+    Chief Executive and Director
+    gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/7474-h/images/map1.gif b/7474-h/images/map1.gif
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b2bfba0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h/images/map1.gif
diff --git a/7474-h/images/map2.gif b/7474-h/images/map2.gif
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9c5086d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h/images/map2.gif
diff --git a/7474-h/images/map3.gif b/7474-h/images/map3.gif
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a43ba70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h/images/map3.gif
diff --git a/7474-h/images/map4.gif b/7474-h/images/map4.gif
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f351532
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h/images/map4.gif
diff --git a/7474-h/images/map5.gif b/7474-h/images/map5.gif
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..91b98fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h/images/map5.gif
diff --git a/7474-h/images/map6.gif b/7474-h/images/map6.gif
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..611ec15
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7474-h/images/map6.gif
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3ddbba8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #7474 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7474)
diff --git a/old/7east10.txt b/old/7east10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b48f17f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7east10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4699 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarth
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Ancient East
+
+Author: D. G. Hogarth
+
+Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7474]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 6, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+No. 92
+
+
+_Editors_:
+
+HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.
+PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LITT.D., LL.D., F.B.A.
+PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
+PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT EAST
+
+
+BY
+
+
+D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A., F.S.A.
+
+KEEPER OF THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD;
+AUTHOR OF "IONIA AND THE EAST,"
+"THE NEARER EAST," ETC.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+I    THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.
+
+II   THE EAST IN 800 B.C.
+
+III  THE EAST IN 600 B.C.
+
+IV   THE EAST IN 400 B.C.
+
+V    THE VICTORY OF THE WEST
+
+VI   EPILOGUE
+
+NOTE ON BOOKS
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF MAPS
+
+
+1. THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS
+
+2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III
+
+3. HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.
+
+4. ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF ASHURBANIPAL
+
+5. PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS HYSTASPIS
+
+6. HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT EAST
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+The title of this book needs a word of explanation, since each of its
+terms can legitimately be used to denote more than one conception both
+of time and place. "The East" is understood widely and vaguely nowadays
+to include all the continent and islands of Asia, some part of
+Africa--the northern part where society and conditions of life are most
+like the Asiatic--and some regions also of South-Eastern and Eastern
+Europe. Therefore it may appear arbitrary to restrict it in the present
+book to Western Asia. But the qualifying term in my title must be
+invoked in justification. It is the East not of to-day but of antiquity
+with which I have to deal, and, therefore, I plead that it is not
+unreasonable to understand by "The East" what in antiquity European
+historians understood by that term. To Herodotus and his contemporary
+Greeks Egypt, Arabia and India were the South; Thrace and Scythia were
+the North; and Hither Asia was the East: for they conceived nothing
+beyond except the fabled stream of Ocean. It can be pleaded also that my
+restriction, while not in itself arbitrary, does, in fact, obviate an
+otherwise inevitable obligation to fix arbitrary bounds to the East. For
+the term, as used in modern times, implies a geographical area
+characterized by society of a certain general type, and according to his
+opinion of this type, each person, who thinks or writes of the East,
+expands or contracts its geographical area.
+
+It is more difficult to justify the restriction which will be imposed in
+the following chapters on the word Ancient. This term is used even more
+vaguely and variously than the other. If generally it connotes the
+converse of "Modern," in some connections and particularly in the study
+of history the Modern is not usually understood to begin where the
+Ancient ended but to stand only for the comparatively Recent. For
+example, in History, the ill-defined period called the Middle and Dark
+Ages makes a considerable hiatus before, in the process of
+retrospection, we get back to a civilization which (in Europe at least)
+we ordinarily regard as Ancient. Again, in History, we distinguish
+commonly two provinces within the undoubted area of the Ancient, the
+Prehistoric and the Historic, the first comprising all the time to which
+human memory, as communicated by surviving literature, ran not, or, at
+least, not consciously, consistently and credibly. At the same time it
+is not implied that we can have no knowledge at all of the Prehistoric
+province. It may even be better known to us than parts of the Historic,
+through sure deduction from archaeological evidence. But what we learn
+from archaeological records is annalistic not historic, since such
+records have not passed through the transforming crucible of a human
+intelligence which reasons on events as effects of causes. The boundary
+between Prehistoric and Historic, however, depends too much on the
+subjectivity of individual historians and is too apt to vary with the
+progress of research to be a fixed moment. Nor can it be the same for
+all civilizations. As regards Egypt, for example, we have a body of
+literary tradition which can reasonably be called Historic, relating to
+a time much earlier than is reached by respectable literary tradition of
+Elam and Babylonia, though their civilizations were probably older than
+the Egyptian.
+
+For the Ancient East as here understood, we possess two bodies of
+historic literary tradition and two only, the Greek and the Hebrew; and
+as it happens, both (though each is independent of the other) lose
+consistency and credibility when they deal with history before 1000 B.C.
+Moreover, Prof. Myres has covered the prehistoric period in the East in
+his brilliant _Dawn of History_. Therefore, on all accounts, in treating
+of the historic period, I am absolved from looking back more than a
+thousand years before our era.
+
+It is not so obvious where I may stop. The overthrow of Persia by
+Alexander, consummating a long stage in a secular contest, which it is
+my main business to describe, marks an epoch more sharply than any other
+single event in the history of the Ancient East. But there are grave
+objections to breaking off abruptly at that date. The reader can hardly
+close a book which ends then, with any other impression than that since
+the Greek has put the East under his feet, the history of the centuries,
+which have still to elapse before Rome shall take over Asia, will simply
+be Greek history writ large--the history of a Greater Greece which has
+expanded over the ancient East and caused it to lose its distinction
+from the ancient West. Yet this impression does not by any means
+coincide with historical truth. The Macedonian conquest of Hither Asia
+was a victory won by men of Greek civilization, but only to a very
+partial extent a victory of that civilization. The West did not
+assimilate the East except in very small measure then, and has not
+assimilated it in any very large measure to this day. For certain
+reasons, among which some geographical facts--the large proportion of
+steppe-desert and of the human type which such country breeds--are
+perhaps the most powerful, the East is obstinately unreceptive of
+western influences, and more than once it has taken its captors captive.
+Therefore, while, for the sake of convenience and to avoid entanglement
+in the very ill-known maze of what is called "Hellenistic" history, I
+shall not attempt to follow the consecutive course of events after 330
+B.C., I propose to add an epilogue which may prepare readers for what
+was destined to come out of Western Asia after the Christian era, and
+enable them to understand in particular the religious conquest of the
+West by the East. This has been a more momentous fact in the history of
+the world than any political conquest of the East by the West.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the further hope of enabling readers to retain a clear idea of the
+evolution of the history, I have adopted the plan of looking out over
+the area which is here called the East, at certain intervals, rather
+than the alternative and more usual plan of considering events
+consecutively in each several part of that area. Thus, without
+repetition and overlapping, one may expect to convey a sense of the
+history of the whole East as the sum of the histories of particular
+parts. The occasions on which the surveys will be taken are purely
+arbitrary chronological points two centuries apart. The years 1000, 800,
+600, 400 B.C. are not, any of them, distinguished by known events of the
+kind that is called epoch-making; nor have round numbers been chosen for
+any peculiar historic significance. They might just as well have been
+1001, 801 and so forth, or any other dates divided by equal intervals.
+Least of all is any mysterious virtue to be attached to the millenary
+date with which I begin. But it is a convenient starting-point, not only
+for the reason already stated, that Greek literary memory--the only
+literary memory of antiquity worth anything for early history--goes back
+to about that date; but also because the year 1000 B.C. falls within a
+period of disturbance during which certain racial elements and groups,
+destined to exert predominant influence on subsequent history, were
+settling down into their historic homes.
+
+A westward and southward movement of peoples, caused by some obscure
+pressure from the north-west and north-east, which had been disturbing
+eastern and central Asia Minor for more than a century and apparently
+had brought to an end the supremacy of the Cappadocian Hatti, was
+quieting down, leaving the western peninsula broken up into small
+principalities. Indirectly the same movement had brought about a like
+result in northern Syria. A still more important movement of Iranian
+peoples from the farther East had ended in the coalescence of two
+considerable social groups, each containing the germs of higher
+development, on the north-eastern and eastern fringes of the old
+Mesopotamian sphere of influence. These were the Medic and the Persian.
+A little earlier, a period of unrest in the Syrian and Arabian deserts,
+marked by intermittent intrusions of nomads into the western
+fringe-lands, had ended in the formation of new Semitic states in all
+parts of Syria from Shamal in the extreme north-west (perhaps even from
+Cilicia beyond Amanus) to Hamath, Damascus and Palestine. Finally there
+is this justification for not trying to push the history of the Asiatic
+East much behind 1000 B.C.--that nothing like a sure chronological basis
+of it exists before that date. Precision in the dating of events in West
+Asia begins near the end of the tenth century with the Assyrian Eponym
+lists, that is, lists of annual chief officials; while for Babylonia
+there is no certain chronology till nearly two hundred years later. In
+Hebrew history sure chronological ground is not reached till the
+Assyrian records themselves begin to touch upon it during the reign of
+Ahab over Israel. For all the other social groups and states of Western
+Asia we have to depend on more or less loose and inferential
+synchronisms with Assyrian, Babylonian or Hebrew chronology, except for
+some rare events whose dates may be inferred from the alien histories of
+Egypt and Greece.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The area, whose social state we shall survey in 1000 B.C. and re-survey
+at intervals, contains Western Asia bounded eastwards by an imaginary
+line drawn from the head of the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. This
+line, however, is not to be drawn rigidly straight, but rather should
+describe a shallow outward curve, so as to include in the Ancient East
+all Asia situated on this side of the salt deserts of central Persia.
+This area is marked off by seas on three sides and by desert on the
+fourth side. Internally it is distinguished into some six divisions
+either by unusually strong geographical boundaries or by large
+differences of geographical character. These divisions are as follows--
+
+(1) A western peninsular projection, bounded by seas on three sides and
+divided from the rest of the continent by high and very broad mountain
+masses, which has been named, not inappropriately, _Asia Minor_, since
+it displays, in many respects, an epitome of the general characteristics
+of the continent. (2) A tangled mountainous region filling almost all
+the rest of the northern part of the area and sharply distinct in
+character not only from the plateau land of Asia Minor to the west but
+also from the great plain lands of steppe character lying to the south,
+north and east. This has perhaps never had a single name, though the
+bulk of it has been included in "Urartu" (Ararat), "Armenia" or
+"Kurdistan" at various epochs; but for convenience we shall call it
+_Armenia_. (3) A narrow belt running south from both the former
+divisions and distinguished from them by much lower general elevation.
+Bounded on the west by the sea and on the south and east by broad tracts
+of desert, it has, since Greek times at least, been generally known as
+_Syria_. (4) A great southern peninsula largely desert, lying high and
+fringed by sands on the land side, which has been called, ever since
+antiquity, _Arabia_. (5) A broad tract stretching into the continent
+between Armenia and Arabia and containing the middle and lower basins of
+the twin rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, which, rising in Armenia, drain
+the greater part of the whole area. It is of diversified surface,
+ranging from sheer desert in the west and centre, to great fertility in
+its eastern parts; but, until it begins to rise northward towards the
+frontier of "Armenia" and eastward towards that of the sixth division,
+about to be described, it maintains a generally low elevation. No common
+name has ever included all its parts, both the interfluvial region and
+the districts beyond Tigris; but since the term _Mesopotamia_, though
+obviously incorrect, is generally understood nowadays to designate it,
+this name may be used for want of a better. (6) A high plateau, walled
+off from Mesopotamia and Armenia by high mountain chains, and extending
+back to the desert limits of the Ancient East. To this region, although
+it comprises only the western part of what should be understood by
+_Iran_, this name may be appropriated "without prejudice."
+
+[Plate 1: THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS]
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.
+
+
+In 1000 B.C. West Asia was a mosaic of small states and contained, so
+far as we know, no imperial power holding wide dominion over aliens.
+Seldom in its history could it so be described. Since it became
+predominantly Semitic, over a thousand years before our survey, it had
+fallen under simultaneous or successive dominations, exercised from at
+least three regions within itself and from one without.
+
+
+SECTION 1. BABYLONIAN EMPIRE
+
+The earliest of these centres of power to develop foreign empire was
+also that destined, after many vicissitudes, to hold it latest, because
+it was the best endowed by nature to repair the waste which empire
+entails. This was the region which would be known later as Babylonia
+from the name of the city which in historic times dominated it, but, as
+we now know, was neither an early seat of power nor the parent of its
+distinctive local civilization. This honour, if due to any one city,
+should be credited to Ur, whose also was the first and the only truly
+"Babylonian" empire. The primacy of Babylonia had not been the work of
+its aboriginal Sumerian population, the authors of what was highest in
+the local culture, but of Semitic intruders from a comparatively
+barbarous region; nor again, had it been the work of the earliest of
+these intruders (if we follow those who now deny that the dominion of
+Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-sin ever extended beyond the lower
+basins of the Twin Rivers), but of peoples who entered with a second
+series of Semitic waves. These surged out of Arabia, eternal motherland
+of vigorous migrants, in the middle centuries of the third millennium
+B.C. While this migration swamped South Syria with "Canaanites," it
+ultimately gave to Egypt the Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings," to Assyria its
+permanent Semitic population, and to Sumer and Akkad what later
+chroniclers called the First Babylonian Dynasty. Since, however, those
+Semitic interlopers had no civilization of their own comparable with
+either the contemporary Egyptian or the Sumerian (long ago adopted by
+earlier Semitic immigrants), they inevitably and quickly assimilated
+both these civilizations as they settled down.
+
+At the same time they did not lose, at least not in Mesopotamia, which
+was already half Semitized, certain Bedawi ideas and instincts, which
+would profoundly affect their later history. Of these the most important
+historically was a religious idea which, for want of a better term, may
+be called Super-Monotheism. Often found rooted in wandering peoples and
+apt long to survive their nomadic phase, it consists in a belief that,
+however many tribal and local gods there may be, one paramount deity
+exists who is not only singular and indivisible but dwells in one spot,
+alone on earth. His dwelling may be changed by a movement of his people
+_en masse_, but by nothing less; and he can have no real rival in
+supreme power. The fact that the paramount Father-God of the Semites
+came through that migration _en masse_ to take up his residence in
+Babylon and in no other city of the wide lands newly occupied, caused
+this city to retain for many centuries, despite social and political
+changes, a predominant position not unlike that to be held by Holy Rome
+from the Dark Ages to modern times.
+
+Secondly the Arabs brought with them their immemorial instinct of
+restlessness. This habit also is apt to persist in a settled society,
+finding satisfaction in annual recourse to tent or hut life and in
+annual predatory excursions. The custom of the razzia or summer raid,
+which is still obligatory in Arabia on all men of vigour and spirit, was
+held in equal honour by the ancient Semitic world. Undertaken as a
+matter of course, whether on provocation or not, it was the origin and
+constant spring of those annual marches to the frontiers, of which royal
+Assyrian monuments vaingloriously tell us, to the exclusion of almost
+all other information. Chederlaomer, Amraphel and the other three kings
+were fulfilling their annual obligation in the Jordan valley when Hebrew
+tradition believed that they met with Abraham; and if, as seems agreed,
+Amraphel was Hammurabi himself, that tradition proves the custom of the
+razzia well established under the First Babylonian Dynasty.
+
+Moreover, the fact that these annual campaigns of Babylonian and
+Assyrian kings were simply Bedawi razzias highly organized and on a
+great scale should be borne in mind when we speak of Semitic "empires,"
+lest we think too territorially. No permanent organization of
+territorial dominion in foreign parts was established by Semitic rulers
+till late in Assyrian history. The earlier Semitic overlords, that is,
+all who preceded Ashurnatsirpal of Assyria, went a-raiding to plunder,
+assault, destroy, or receive submissive payments, and their ends
+achieved, returned, without imposing permanent garrisons of their own
+followers, permanent viceroys, or even a permanent tributary burden, to
+hinder the stricken foe from returning to his own way till his turn
+should come to be raided again. The imperial blackmailer had possibly
+left a record of his presence and prowess on alien rocks, to be defaced
+at peril when his back was turned; but for the rest only a sinister
+memory. Early Babylonian and Early Assyrian "empire," therefore, meant,
+territorially, no more than a geographical area throughout which an
+emperor could, and did, raid without encountering effective opposition.
+
+Nevertheless, such constant raiding on a great scale was bound to
+produce some of the fruits of empire, and by its fruits, not its
+records, we know most surely how far Babylonian Empire had made itself
+felt. The best witnesses to its far-reaching influence are first, the
+Babylonian element in the Hittite art of distant Asia Minor, which shows
+from the very first (so far as we know it, i.e. from at least 1500 B.C.)
+that native artists were hardly able to realize any native ideas without
+help from Semitic models; and secondly, the use of Babylonian writing
+and language and even Babylonian books by the ruling classes in Asia
+Minor and Syria at a little later time. That governors of Syrian cities
+should have written their official communications to Pharaohs of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty in Babylonian cuneiform (as the archives found at
+Amarna in Upper Egypt twenty years ago show us they did) had already
+afforded such conclusive proof of early and long maintained Babylonian
+influence, that the more recent discovery that Hittite lords of
+Cappadocia used the same script and language for diplomatic purposes has
+hardly surprised us.
+
+It has been said already that Babylonia was a region so rich and
+otherwise fortunate that empire both came to it earlier and stayed later
+than in the other West Asian lands which ever enjoyed it at all. When we
+come to take our survey of Western Asia in 400 B.C. we shall see an
+emperor still ruling it from a throne set in the lower Tigris basin,
+though not actually in Babylon. But for certain reasons Babylonian
+empire never endured for any long period continuously. The aboriginal
+Akkadian and Sumerian inhabitants were settled, cultivated and home
+keeping folk, while the establishment of Babylonian empire had been the
+work of more vigorous intruders. These, however, had to fear not only
+the imperfect sympathy of their own aboriginal subjects, who again and
+again gathered their sullen forces in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf and attacked the dominant Semites in the rear, but also
+incursions of fresh strangers; for Babylonia is singularly open on all
+sides. Accordingly, revolts of the "Sea Land" folk, inrushing hordes
+from Arabia, descents of mountain warriors from the border hills of Elam
+on the south-eastern edge of the twin river basin, pressure from the
+peoples of more invigorating lands on the higher Euphrates and
+Tigris--one, or more than one such danger ever waited on imperial
+Babylon and brought her low again and again. A great descent of Hatti
+raiders from the north about 1800 B.C. seems to have ended the imperial
+dominion of the First Dynasty. On their retirement Babylonia, falling
+into weak native hands, was a prey to a succession of inroads from the
+Kassite mountains beyond Elam, from Elam itself, from the growing
+Semitic power of Asshur, Babylon's former vassal, from the Hittite
+Empire founded in Cappadocia about 1500 B.C., from the fresh wave of
+Arabian overflow which is distinguished as the Aramaean, and from yet
+another following it, which is usually called Chaldaean; and it was not
+till almost the close of the twelfth century that one of these intruding
+elements attained sufficient independence and security of tenure to
+begin to exalt Babylonia again into a mistress of foreign empire. At
+that date the first Nebuchadnezzar, a part of whose own annals has been
+recovered, seems to have established overlordship in some part of
+Mediterranean Asia--_Martu_, the West Land; but this empire perished
+again with its author. By 1000 B.C. Babylon was once more a small state
+divided against itself and threatened by rivals in the east and the
+north.
+
+
+SECTION 2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT
+
+During the long interval since the fall of the First Babylonian Dynasty,
+however, Western Asia had not been left masterless. Three other imperial
+powers had waxed and waned in her borders, of which one was destined to
+a second expansion later on. The earliest of these to appear on the
+scene established an imperial dominion of a kind which we shall not
+observe again till Asia falls to the Greeks; for it was established in
+Asia by a non-Asiatic power. In the earlier years of the fifteenth
+century a Pharaoh of the strong Eighteenth Dynasty, Thothmes III, having
+overrun almost all Syria up to Carchemish on the Euphrates, established
+in the southern part of that country an imperial organization which
+converted his conquests for a time into provincial dependencies of
+Egypt. Of the fact we have full evidence in the archives of Thothmes'
+dynastic successors, found by Flinders Petrie at Amarna; for they
+include many reports from officials and client princes in Palestine and
+Phoenicia.
+
+If, however, the word empire is to be applied (as in fact we have
+applied it in respect of early Babylonia) to a sphere of habitual
+raiding, where the exclusive right of one power to plunder is
+acknowledged implicitly or explicitly by the raided and by surrounding
+peoples, this "Empire" of Egypt must both be set back nearly a hundred
+years before Thothmes III and also be credited with wider limits than
+those of south Syria. Invasions of Semitic Syria right up to the
+Euphrates were first conducted by Pharaohs in the early part of the
+sixteenth century as a sequel to the collapse of the power of the
+Semitic "Hyksos" in Egypt. They were wars partly of revenge, partly of
+natural Egyptian expansion into a neighbouring fertile territory, which
+at last lay open, and was claimed by no other imperial power, while the
+weak Kassites ruled Babylon, and the independence of Assyria was in
+embryo. But the earlier Egyptian armies seem to have gone forth to Syria
+simply to ravage and levy blackmail. They avoided all fenced places, and
+returned to the Nile leaving no one to hold the ravaged territory. No
+Pharaoh before the successor of Queen Hatshepsut made Palestine and
+Phoenicia his own. It was Thothmes III who first reduced such
+strongholds as Megiddo, and occupied the Syrian towns up to Arvad on the
+shore and almost to Kadesh inland--he who by means of a few forts,
+garrisoned perhaps by Egyptian or Nubian troops and certainly in some
+instances by mercenaries drawn from Mediterranean islands and coasts, so
+kept the fear of himself in the minds of native chiefs that they paid
+regular tribute to his collectors and enforced the peace of Egypt on all
+and sundry Hebrews and Amorites who might try to raid from east or
+north.
+
+In upper Syria, however, he and his successors appear to have attempted
+little more than Thothmes I had done, that is to say, they made
+periodical armed progresses through the fertile parts, here and there
+taking a town, but for the most part taking only blackmail. Some strong
+places, such as Kadesh, it is probable they never entered at all. Their
+raids, however, were frequent and effective enough for all Syria to come
+to be regarded by surrounding kings and kinglets as an Egyptian sphere
+of influence within which it was best to acknowledge Pharaoh's rights
+and to placate him by timely presents. So thought and acted the kings of
+Mitanni across Euphrates, the kings of Hatti beyond Taurus, and the
+distant Iranians of the Kassite dynasty in Babylonia.
+
+Until the latter years of Thothmes' third successor, Amenhetep III, who
+ruled in the end of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the
+fourteenth, the Egyptian peace was observed and Pharaoh's claim to Syria
+was respected. Moreover, an interesting experiment appears to have been
+made to tighten Egypt's hold on her foreign province. Young Syrian
+princes were brought for education to the Nile, in the hope that when
+sent back to their homes they would be loyal viceroys of Pharaoh: but
+the experiment seems to have produced no better ultimate effect than
+similar experiments tried subsequently by imperial nations from the
+Romans to ourselves.
+
+[Plate 2: ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III]
+
+Beyond this conception of imperial organization the Egyptians never
+advanced. Neither effective military occupation nor effective
+administration of Syria by an Egyptian military or civil staff was so
+much as thought of. Traces of the cultural influence of Egypt on the
+Syrian civilization of the time (so far as excavation has revealed its
+remains) are few and far between; and we must conclude that the number
+of genuine Egyptians who resided in, or even passed through, the Asiatic
+province was very small. Unadventurous by nature, and disinclined to
+embark on foreign trade, the Nilots were content to leave Syria in
+vicarious hands, so they derived some profit from it. It needed,
+therefore, only the appearance of some vigorous and numerous tribe in
+the province itself, or of some covetous power on its borders, to end
+such an empire. Both had appeared before Amenhetep's death--the Amorites
+in mid Syria, and a newly consolidated Hatti power on the confines of
+the north. The inevitable crisis was met with no new measures by his
+son, the famous Akhenaten, and before the middle of the fourteenth
+century the foreign empire of Egypt had crumbled to nothing but a sphere
+of influence in southernmost Palestine, having lasted, for better or
+worse, something less than two hundred years. It was revived, indeed, by
+the kings of the Dynasty succeeding, but had even less chance of
+duration than of old. Rameses II, in dividing it to his own great
+disadvantage with the Hatti king by a Treaty whose provisions are known
+to us from surviving documents of both parties, confessed Egyptian
+impotence to make good any contested claim; and by the end of the
+thirteenth century the hand of Pharaoh was withdrawn from Asia, even
+from that ancient appanage of Egypt, the peninsula of Sinai. Some
+subsequent Egyptian kings would make raids into Syria, but none was
+able, or very desirous, to establish there a permanent Empire.
+
+
+SECTION 3. EMPIRE OF THE HATTI
+
+[Plate 3: HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.]
+
+The empire which pressed back the Egyptians is the last but one which we
+have to consider before 1000 B.C. It has long been known that the
+Hittites, variously called _Kheta_ by Egyptians and _Heth_ or _Hatti_ by
+Semites and by themselves, developed into a power in westernmost Asia at
+least as early as the fifteenth century; but it was not until their
+cuneiform archives were discovered in 1907 at Boghazkeui in northern
+Cappadocia that the imperial nature of their power, the centre from
+which it was exerted, and the succession of the rulers who wielded it
+became clear. It will be remembered that a great Hatti raid broke the
+imperial sway of the First Babylonian Dynasty about 1800 B.C. Whence
+those raiders came we have still to learn. But, since a Hatti people,
+well enough organized to invade, conquer and impose its garrisons, and
+(much more significant) its own peculiar civilization, on distant
+territories, was seated at Boghazkeui (it is best to use this modern
+name till better assured of an ancient one) in the fifteenth century, we
+may reasonably believe Eastern Asia Minor to have been the homeland of
+the Hatti three centuries before. As an imperial power they enter
+history with a king whom his own archives name Subbiluliuma (but
+Egyptian records, Sapararu), and they vanish something less than two
+centuries later. The northern half of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and
+probably almost all Asia Minor were conquered by the Hatti before 1350
+B.C. and rendered tributary; Egypt was forced out of Asia; the Semitic
+settlements on the twin rivers and the tribes in the desert were
+constrained to deference or defence. A century and a half later the
+Hatti had returned into a darkness even deeper than that from which they
+emerged. The last king of Boghazkeui, of whose archives any part has
+come to light, is one Arnaunta, reigning in the end of the thirteenth
+century. He may well have had successors whose documents may yet be
+found; but on the other hand, we know from Assyrian annals, dated only a
+little later, that a people, possibly kin to the Hatti and certainly
+civilized by them, but called by another name, Mushkaya or Mushki (we
+shall say more of them presently), overran most, if not all, the Hatti
+realm by the middle of the twelfth century. And since, moreover, the
+excavated ruins at both Boghazkeui, the capital of the Hatti, and
+Carchemish, their chief southern dependency, show unmistakable signs of
+destruction and of a subsequent general reconstruction, which on
+archaeological grounds must be dated not much later than Arnaunta's
+time, it seems probable that the history of Hatti empire closed with
+that king. What happened subsequently to surviving detachments of this
+once imperial people and to other communities so near akin by blood or
+civilization, that the Assyrians, when speaking generally of western
+foes or subjects, long continued to call them Hatti, we shall consider
+presently.
+
+
+SECTION 4. EARLY ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
+
+Remains Assyria, which before 1000 B.C. had twice conquered an empire of
+the same kind as that credited to the First Babylonian Dynasty and twice
+recoiled. The early Assyrian expansions are, historically, the most
+noteworthy of the early West Asian Empires because, unlike the rest,
+they were preludes to an ultimate territorial overlordship which would
+come nearer to anticipating Macedonian and Roman imperial systems than
+any others precedent. Assyria, rather than Babylon or Egypt, heads the
+list of aspirants to the Mastership of the World.
+
+There will be so much to say of the third and subsequent expansion of
+Assyria, that her earlier empires may be passed over briefly. The middle
+Tigris basin seems to have received a large influx of Semites of the
+Canaanitic wave at least as early as Babylonia, and thanks to various
+causes--to the absence of a prior local civilization as advanced as the
+Sumerian, to greater distance from such enterprising fomenters of
+disturbance as Elam and Arabia, and to a more invigorating
+climate--these Semites settled down more quickly and thoroughly into an
+agricultural society than the Babylonians and developed it in greater
+purity. Their earliest social centre was Asshur in the southern part of
+their territory. There, in proximity to Babylonia, they fell inevitably
+under the domination of the latter; but after the fall of the First
+Dynasty of Babylon and the subsequent decline of southern Semitic
+vigour, a tendency manifested itself among the northern Semites to
+develop their nationality about more central points. Calah, higher up
+the river, replaced Asshur in the thirteenth century B.C., only to be
+replaced in turn by Nineveh, a little further still upstream; and
+ultimately Assyria, though it had taken its name from the southern city,
+came to be consolidated round a north Mesopotamian capital into a power
+able to impose vassalage on Babylon and to send imperial raiders to the
+Mediterranean, and to the Great Lakes of Armenia. The first of her kings
+to attain this sort of imperial position was Shalmaneser I, who early in
+the thirteenth century B.C. appears to have crushed the last strength of
+the north Mesopotamian powers of Mitanni and Khani and laid the way open
+to the west lands. The Hatti power, however, tried hard to close the
+passages and it was not until its catastrophe and the retirement of
+those who brought it about--the Mushki and their allies--that about 1100
+Tiglath Pileser I could lead his Assyrian raiders into Syria, and even,
+perhaps, a short distance across Taurus. Why his empire died with him we
+do not know precisely. A new invasion of Arabian Semites, the Aramaeans,
+whom he attacked at Mt. Bishri (Tell Basher), may have been the cause.
+But, in any case, the fact is certain. The sons of the great king, who
+had reached Phoenician Aradus and there embarked vaingloriously on
+shipboard to claim mastery of the Western Sea, were reduced to little
+better than vassals of their father's former vassal, Babylon; and up to
+the close of the eleventh century Assyria had not revived.
+
+
+SECTION 5. NEW FORCES IN 1000 B.C.
+
+Thus in 1000 B.C., we look round the East, and, so far as our vision can
+penetrate the clouds, see no one dominant power. Territories which
+formerly were overridden by the greater states, Babylonia, Egypt,
+Cappadocia and Assyria, seem to be not only self-governing but free from
+interference, although the vanished empires and a recent great movement
+of peoples have left them with altered political boundaries and
+sometimes with new dynasties. None of the political units has a much
+larger area than another, and it would not have been easy at the moment
+to prophesy which, or if any one, would grow at the expense of the rest.
+
+The great movement of peoples, to which allusion has just been made, had
+been disturbing West Asia for two centuries. On the east, where the well
+organized and well armed societies of Babylonia and Assyria offered a
+serious obstacle to nomadic immigrants, the inflow had been pent back
+beyond frontier mountains. But in the west the tide seems to have flowed
+too strongly to be resisted by such force as the Hatti empire of
+Cappadocia could oppose, and to have swept through Asia Minor even to
+Syria and Mesopotamia. Records of Rameses III tell how a great host of
+federated peoples appeared on the Asian frontier of Egypt very early in
+the twelfth century. Among them marched men of the "Kheta" or Hatti, but
+not as leaders. These strong foes and allies of Seti I and Rameses II,
+not a century before, had now fallen from their imperial estate to
+follow in the wake of newcomers, who had lately humbled them in their
+Cappadocian home. The geographical order in which the scribes of Rameses
+enumerated their conquests shows clearly the direction from which the
+federals had come and the path they followed. In succession they had
+devastated Hatti (i.e. Cappadocia), Kedi (i.e. Cilicia), Carchemish and
+central Syria. Their victorious progress began, therefore, in northern
+Asia Minor, and followed the great roads through the Cilician passes to
+end at last on the very frontiers of Egypt. The list of these newcomers
+has long interested historians; for outlandish as their names were to
+Egyptians, they seem to our eyes not unfamiliar, and are possibly
+travesties of some which are writ large on pages of later history. Such
+are the Pulesti or Philistines, and a group hailing apparently from Asia
+Minor and the Isles, Tjakaray, Shakalsha, Danaau and Washasha,
+successors of Pisidian and other Anatolian allies of the Hittites in the
+time of Rameses II, and of the Lycian, Achaean and Sardinian pirates
+whom Egypt used sometimes to beat from her borders, sometimes to enlist
+in her service. Some of these peoples, from whatever quarters they had
+come, settled presently into new homes as the tide receded. The Pulesti,
+if they were indeed the historic Philistines, stranded and stayed on the
+confines of Egypt, retaining certain memories of an earlier state, which
+had been theirs in some Minoan land. Since the Tjakaray and the Washasha
+seem to have sprung from lands now reckoned in Europe, we may count this
+occasion the first in history on which the west broke in force into the
+east.
+
+Turn to the annals of Assyria and you will learn, from records of
+Tiglath Pileser I, that this northern wave was followed up in the same
+century by a second, which bore on its crest another bold horde from
+Asia Minor. Its name, Mushki, we now hear for the first time, but shall
+hear again in time to come. A remnant of this race would survive far
+into historic times as the Moschi of Greek geographers, an obscure
+people on the borders of Cappadocia and Armenia. But who precisely the
+first Mushki were, whence they had originally come, and whither they
+went when pushed back out of Mesopotamia, are questions still debated.
+Two significant facts are known about their subsequent history; first,
+that two centuries later than our date they, or some part of them, were
+settled in Cappadocia, apparently rather in the centre and north of that
+country than in the south: second, that at that same epoch and later
+they had kings of the name Mita, which is thought to be identical with
+the name Midas, known to early Greek historians as borne by kings of
+Phrygia.
+
+Because of this last fact, the Mushki have been put down as
+proto-Phrygians, risen to power after the fall of the Cappadocian Hatti.
+This contention will be considered hereafter, when we reach the date of
+the first known contact between Assyria and any people settled in
+western Asia Minor. But meanwhile, let it be borne in mind that their
+royal name Mita does not necessarily imply a connection between the
+Mushki and Phrygia; for since the ethnic "Mitanni" of north Mesopotamia
+means "Mita's men," that name must have long been domiciled much farther
+east.
+
+On the whole, whatever their later story, the truth about the Mushki,
+who came down into Syria early in the twelfth century and retired to
+Cappadocia some fifty years later after crossing swords with Assyria, is
+probably this--that they were originally a mountain people from northern
+Armenia or the Caucasus, distinct from the Hatti, and that, having
+descended from the north-east in a primitive nomadic state into the seat
+of an old culture possessed by an enfeebled race, they adopted the
+latter's civilization as they conquered it and settled down. But
+probably they did not fix themselves definitely in Cappadocia till the
+blow struck by Tiglath Pileser had checked their lust of movement and
+weakened their confidence of victory. In any case, the northern storms
+had subsided by 1000 B.C., leaving Asia Minor, Armenia and Syria
+parcelled among many princes.
+
+
+SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR
+
+Had one taken ship with Achaeans or Ionians for the western coast of
+Anatolia in the year 1000, one would have expected to disembark at or
+near some infant settlement of men, not natives by extraction, but newly
+come from the sea and speaking Greek or another Aegean tongue. These men
+had ventured so far to seize the rich lands at the mouths of the long
+Anatolian valleys, from which their roving forefathers had been almost
+entirely debarred by the provincial forces of some inland power,
+presumably the Hatti Empire of Cappadocia. In earlier days the Cretans,
+or their kin of Mycenaean Greece in the latest Aegean age, had been able
+to plant no more than a few inconsiderable colonies of traders on
+Anatolian shores. Now, however, their descendants were being steadily
+reinforced from the west by members of a younger Aryan race, who mixed
+with the natives of the coast, and gradually mastered or drove them
+inland. Inconsiderable as this European soakage into the fringe of the
+neighbouring continent must have seemed at that moment, we know that it
+was inaugurating a process which ultimately would affect profoundly all
+the history of Hither Asia. That Greek Ionian colonization first
+attracts notice round about 1000 B.C. marks the period as a cardinal
+point in history. We cannot say for certain, with our present knowledge,
+that any one of the famous Greek cities had already begun to grow on the
+Anatolian coasts. There is better evidence for the so early existence of
+Miletus, where the German excavators have found much pottery of the
+latest Aegean age, than of any other. But, at least, it is probable that
+Greeks were already settled on the sites of Cnidus, Teos, Smyrna,
+Colophon, Phocea, Cyme and many more; while the greater islands Rhodes,
+Samos, Chios and Mitylene had apparently received western settlers
+several generations ago, perhaps before even the first Achaean raids
+into Asia.
+
+The western visitor, if he pushed inland, would have avoided the
+south-western districts of the peninsula, where a mountainous country,
+known later as Caria, Lycia, and Pisidia, was held by primitive hill-men
+settled in detached tribal fashion like modern Albanians. They had never
+yet been subdued, and as soon as the rising Greek ports on their coasts
+should open a way for them to the outer world, they would become known
+as admirable mercenary soldiery, following a congenial trade which, if
+the Pedasu, who appear in records of Egyptian campaigns of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty, were really Pisidians, was not new to them. North of
+their hills, however, lay broader valleys leading up to the central
+plateau; and, if Herodotus is to be believed, an organized monarchical
+society, ruled by the "Heraclids" of Sardes, was already developed
+there. We know practically nothing about it; but since some three
+centuries later the Lydian people was rich and luxurious in the Hermus
+valley, which had once been a fief of the Hatti, we must conclude that
+it had been enjoying security as far back as 1000 B.C. Who those
+Heraclid princes were exactly is obscure. The dynastic name given to
+them by Herodotus probably implies that they traced their origin (i.e.
+owed especial allegiance) to a God of the Double War-Axe, whom the
+Greeks likened to Heracles, but we liken to Sandan, god of Tarsus and of
+the lands of the south-east. We shall say more of him and his
+worshippers presently.
+
+Leaving aside the northern fringe-lands as ill known and of small
+account (as we too shall leave them), our traveller would pass up from
+the Lydian vales to find the Cappadocian Hatti no longer the masters of
+the plateau as of old. No one of equal power seems to have taken their
+place; but there is reason to think that the Mushki, who had brought
+them low, now filled some of their room in Asia Minor. But these Mushki
+had so far adopted Hatti civilization either before or since their great
+raiding expedition which Tiglath Pileser I of Assyria repelled, that
+their domination can scarcely have made much difference to the social
+condition of Asia Minor. Their capital was probably where the Hatti
+capital had been--at Boghazkeui; but how far their lordship radiated
+from that centre is not known.
+
+In the south-east of Asia Minor we read of several principalities, both
+in the Hatti documents of earlier centuries and in Assyrian annals of
+later date; and since some of their names appear in both these sets of
+records, we may safely assign them to the same localities during the
+intermediate period. Such are Kas in later Lycaonia, Tabal or Tubal in
+south-eastern Cappadocia, Khilakku, which left its name to historical
+Cilicia, and Kue in the rich eastern Cilician plain and the
+north-eastern hills. In north Syria again we find both in early and in
+late times Kummukh, which left to its district the historic name,
+Commagene. All these principalities, as their earlier monuments prove,
+shared the same Hatti civilization as the Mushki and seem to have had
+the same chief deities, the axe-bearing Sandan, or Teshup, or Hadad,
+whose sway we have noted far west in Lydia, and also a Great Mother, the
+patron of peaceful increase, as he was of warlike conquest. But whether
+this uniformity of civilization implies any general overlord, such as
+the Mushki king, is very questionable. The past supremacy of the Hatti
+is enough to account for large community of social features in 1000 B.C.
+over all Asia Minor and north Syria.
+
+
+SECTION 7. SYRIA
+
+It is time for our traveller to move on southward into "Hatti-land," as
+the Assyrians would long continue to call the southern area of the old
+Hatti civilization. He would have found Syria in a state of greater or
+less disintegration from end to end. Since the withdrawal of the strong
+hands of the Hatti from the north and the Egyptians from the south, the
+disorganized half-vacant land had been attracting to itself successive
+hordes of half-nomadic Semites from the eastern and southern steppes. By
+1000 B.C. these had settled down as a number of Aramaean societies each
+under its princeling. All were great traders. One such society
+established itself in the north-west, in Shamal, where, influenced by
+the old Hatti culture, an art came into being which was only saved
+ultimately by Semitic Assyria from being purely Hittite. Its capital,
+which lay at modern Sinjerli, one of the few Syrian sites scientifically
+explored, we shall notice later on. South lay Patin and Bit Agusi; south
+of these again, Hamath and below it Damascus--all new Aramaean states,
+which were waiting for quiet times to develop according to the measure
+of their respective territories and their command of trade routes. Most
+blessed in both natural fertility and convenience of position was
+Damascus (Ubi or Hobah), which had been receiving an Aramaean influx for
+at least three hundred years. It was destined to outstrip the rest of
+those new Semitic states; but for the moment it was little stronger than
+they. As for the Phoenician cities on the Lebanon coast, which we know
+from the Amarna archives and other Egyptian records to have long been
+settled with Canaanitic Semites, they were to appear henceforward in a
+light quite other than that in which the reports of their Egyptian
+governors and visitors had hitherto shown them. Not only did they very
+rapidly become maritime traders instead of mere local territorial
+centres, but (if we may infer it from the lack of known monuments of
+their higher art or of their writing before 1000 B.C.) they were making
+or just about to make a sudden advance in social development. It should
+be remarked that our evidence, that other Syrian Semites had taken to
+writing in scripts of their own, begins not much later at various
+points--in Shamal, in Moab and in Samaria.
+
+This rather sudden expansion of the Phoenicians into a maritime power
+about 1000 B.C. calls for explanation. Herodotus thought that the
+Phoenicians were driven to take to the sea simply by the growing
+inadequacy of their narrow territory to support the natural increase of
+its inhabitants, and probably he was partly right, the crisis of their
+fate being hastened by Armaean pressure from inland. But the advance in
+their culture, which is marked by the development of their art and their
+writing, was too rapid and too great to have resulted only from new
+commerce with the sea; nor can it have been due to any influence of the
+Aramaean elements which were comparatively fresh from the Steppes. To
+account for the facts in Syria we seem to require, not long previous to
+this time, a fresh accession of population from some area of higher
+culture. When we observe, therefore, among the earlier Phoenician and
+south Syrian antiquities much that was imported, and more that derived
+its character, from Cyprus and even remoter centres of the Aegean
+culture of the latest Minoan Age, we cannot regard as fantastic the
+belief of the Cretan discoverer, Arthur Evans, that the historic
+Phoenician civilization, and especially the Phoenician script, owed
+their being in great measure to an immigration from those nearest
+oversea lands which had long possessed a fully developed art and a
+system of writing. After the fall of the Cnossian Dynasty we know that a
+great dispersal of Cretans began, which was continued and increased
+later by the descent of the Achaeans into Greece. It has been said
+already that the Pulesti or Philistines, who had followed the first
+northern horde to the frontiers of Egypt early in the twelfth century,
+are credibly supposed to have come from some area affected by Minoan
+civilization, while the Tjakaray and Washasha, who accompanied them,
+were probably actual Cretans. The Pulesti stayed, as we know, in
+Philistia: the Tjakaray settled at Dor on the South Phoenician coast,
+where Unamon, an envoy of Rameses XI, found them. These settlers are
+quite sufficient to account for the subsequent development of a higher
+culture in mid and south Syria, and there may well have been some
+further immigration from Cyprus and other Aegean lands which, as time
+went on, impelled the cities of Phoenicia, so well endowed by nature, to
+develop a new culture apace about 1000 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PALESTINE
+
+If the Phoenicians were feeling the thrust of Steppe peoples, their
+southern neighbours, the Philistines, who had lived and grown rich on
+the tolls and trade of the great north road from Egypt for at least a
+century and a half, were feeling it too. During some centuries past
+there had come raiding from the south-east deserts certain sturdy and
+well-knit tribes, which long ago had displaced or assimilated the
+Canaanites along the highlands west of Jordan, and were now tending to
+settle down into a national unity, cemented by a common worship. They
+had had long intermittent struggles, traditions of which fill the Hebrew
+Book of Judges--struggles not only with the Canaanites, but also with
+the Amorites of the upper Orontes valley, and later with the Aramaeans
+of the north and east, and with fresh incursions of Arabs from the
+south; and most lately of all they had had to give way for about half a
+century before an expansive movement of the Philistines, which carried
+the latter up to Galilee and secured to them the profits of all the
+Palestinian stretch of the great North Road. But about a generation
+before our date the northernmost of those bold "Habiri," under an
+elective _sheikh_ Saul, had pushed the Philistines out of Bethshan and
+other points of vantage in mid-Palestine, and had become once more free
+of the hills which they had held in the days of Pharaoh Menephthah.
+Though, at the death of Saul, the enemy regained most of what he had
+lost, he was not to hold it long. A greater chief, David, who had risen
+to power by Philistine help and now had the support of the southern
+tribes, was welding both southern and northern Hebrews into a single
+monarchical society and, having driven his old masters out of the north
+once more, threatened the southern stretch of the great North Road from
+a new capital, Jerusalem. Moreover, by harrying repeatedly the lands
+east of Jordan up to the desert edge, David had stopped further
+incursions from Arabia; and, though the Aramaean state of Damascus was
+growing into a formidable danger, he had checked for the present its
+tendency to spread southwards, and had strengthened himself by
+agreements with another Aramaean prince, him of Hamath, who lay on the
+north flank of Damascus, and with the chief of the nearest Phoenician
+city, Tyre. The latter was not yet the rich place which it would grow to
+be in the next century, but it was strong enough to control the coast
+road north of the Galilean lowlands. Israel not only was never safer,
+but would never again hold a position of such relative importance in
+Syria, as was hers in a day of many small and infant states about 1000
+B.C.: and in later times, under the shadow of Assyria and the menace of
+Egypt, the Jews would look back to the reigns of David and his successor
+with some reason as their golden age.
+
+The traveller would not have ventured into Arabia; nor shall we. It was
+then an unknown land lying wholly outside history. We have no record (if
+that mysterious embassy of the "Queen of Sheba," who came to hear the
+wisdom of Solomon, be ruled out) of any relations between a state of the
+civilized East and an Arabian prince before the middle of the ninth
+century. It may be that, as Glaser reckoned, Sabaean society in the
+south-west of the peninsula had already reached the preliminary stage of
+tribal settlement through which Israel passed under its Judges, and was
+now moving towards monarchy; and that of this our traveller might have
+learned something in Syria from the last arrived Aramaeans. But we, who
+can learn nothing, have no choice but to go north with him again,
+leaving to our right the Syrian desert roamed by Bedawis in much the
+same social state as the Anazeh to-day, owing allegiance to no one. We
+can cross Euphrates at Carchemish or at Til Barsip opposite the Sajur
+mouth, or where Thapsacus looked across to the outfall of the Khabur.
+
+
+SECTION 9. MESOPOTAMIA
+
+No annals of Assyria have survived for nearly a century before 1000
+B.C., and very few for the century after that date. Nor do Babylonian
+records make good our deficiency. Though we cannot be certain, we are
+probably safe in saying that during these two centuries Assyrian and
+Babylonian princes had few or no achievements to record of the kind
+which they held, almost alone, worthy to be immortalized on stone or
+clay--that is to say, raids, conquests, sacking of cities, blackmailing
+of princes. Since Tiglath Pileser's time no "Kings of the World" (by
+which title was signified an overlord of Mesopotamia merely) had been
+seated on either of the twin rivers. What exactly had happened in the
+broad tract between the rivers and to the south of Taurus since the
+departure of the Mushki hordes (if, indeed, they did all depart), we do
+not know. The Mitanni, who may have been congeners of the latter, seem
+still to have been holding the north-west; probably all the north-east
+was Assyrian territory. No doubt the Kurds and Armenians of Urartu were
+raiding the plains impartially from autumn to spring, as they always did
+when Assyria was weak. We shall learn a good deal more about Mesopotamia
+proper when the results of the German excavations at Tell Halaf, near
+Ras el-Ain, are complete and published. The most primitive monuments
+found there are perhaps relics of that power of Khani (Harran), which
+was stretched even to include Nineveh before the Semitic _patesis_ of
+Asshur grew to royal estate and moved northward to make imperial
+Assyria. But there are later strata of remains as well which should
+contain evidence of the course of events in mid-Mesopotamia during
+subsequent periods both of Assyrian domination and of local
+independence.
+
+Assyria, as has been said, was without doubt weak at this date, that is,
+she was confined to the proper territory of her own agricultural
+Semites. This state of things, whenever existent throughout her history,
+seems to have implied priestly predominance, in which Babylonian
+influence went for much. The Semitic tendency to super-Monotheism, which
+has already been noticed, constantly showed itself among the eastern
+Semites (when comparatively free from military tyranny) in a reversion
+of their spiritual allegiance to one supreme god enthroned at Babylon,
+the original seat of east Semitic theocracy. And even when this city had
+little military strength the priests of Marduk appear often to have
+succeeded in keeping a controlling hand on the affairs of stronger
+Assyria. We shall see later how much prestige great Ninevite war-lords
+could gain even among their own countrymen by Marduk's formal
+acknowledgment of their sovereignty, and how much they lost by
+disregarding him and doing injury to his local habitation. At their very
+strongest the Assyrian kings were never credited with the natural right
+to rule Semitic Asia which belonged to kings of Babylon. If they desired
+the favour of Marduk they must needs claim it at the sword's point, and
+when that point was lowered, his favour was always withdrawn. From first
+to last they had perforce to remain military tyrants, who relied on no
+acknowledged legitimacy but on the spears of conscript peasants, and at
+the last of mercenaries. No dynasty lasted long in Assyria, where
+popular generals, even while serving on distant campaigns, were often
+elevated to the throne--in anticipation of the imperial history of Rome.
+
+It appears then that our traveller would have found Babylonia, rather
+than Assyria, the leading East Semitic power in 1000 B.C.; but at the
+same time not a strong power, for she had no imperial dominion outside
+lower Mesopotamia. Since a dynasty, whose history is obscure--the
+so-called Pashe kings in whose time there was one strong man,
+Nabu-Kudur-usur (Nebuchadnezzar) I--came to an inglorious end just about
+1000 B.C., one may infer that Babylonia was passing at this epoch
+through one of those recurrent political crises which usually occurred
+when Sumerian cities of the southern "Sea-Land" conspired with some
+foreign invader against the Semitic capital. The contumacious survivors
+of the elder element in the population, however, even when successful,
+seem not to have tried to set up new capitals or to reestablish the
+pre-Semitic state of things. Babylon had so far distanced all the older
+cities now that no other consummation of revolt was desired or believed
+possible than the substitution of one dynasty for another on the throne
+beloved of Marduk. Sumerian forces, however, had not been the only ones
+which had contributed to overthrow the last king of the Pashe dynasty.
+Nomads of the _Suti_ tribes had long been raiding from the western
+deserts into Akkad; and the first king set up by the victorious peoples
+of the Sea-Land had to expel them and to repair their ravages before he
+could seat himself on a throne which was menaced by Elam on the east and
+Assyria on the north, and must fall so soon as either of these found a
+strong leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE EAST IN 800 B.C.
+
+
+Two centuries have passed over the East, and at first sight it looks as
+if no radical change has taken place in its political or social
+condition. No new power has entered it from without; only one new state
+of importance, the Phrygian, has arisen within. The peoples, which were
+of most account in 1000, are still of the most account in 800--the
+Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Mushki of Cappadocia, the tribesmen of
+Urartu, the Aramaeans of Damascus, the trading Phoenicians on the Syrian
+coast and the trading Greeks on the Anatolian. Egypt has remained behind
+her frontier except for one raid into Palestine about 925 B.C., from
+which Sheshenk, the Libyan, brought back treasures of Solomon's temple
+to enhance the splendour of Amen. Arabia has not begun to matter. There
+has been, of course, development, but on old lines. The comparative
+values of the states have altered: some have become more decisively the
+superiors of others than they were two hundred years ago, but they are
+those whose growth was foreseen. Wherein, then, lies the great
+difference? For great difference there is. It scarcely needs a second
+glance to detect the change, and any one who looks narrowly will see not
+only certain consequent changes, but in more than one quarter signs and
+warnings of a coming order of things not dreamt of in 1000 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 1. MIDDLE KINGDOM OF ASSYRIA
+
+The obvious novelty is the presence of a predominant power. The mosaic
+of small states is still there, but one holds lordship over most of
+them, and that one is Assyria. Moreover, the foreign dominion which the
+latter has now been enjoying for three-parts of a century is the first
+of its kind established by an Asiatic power. Twice, as we have seen, had
+Assyria conquered in earlier times an empire of the nomad Semitic type,
+that is, a licence to raid unchecked over a wide tract of lands; but, so
+far as we know, neither Shalmaneser I nor Tiglath Pileser I had so much
+as conceived the idea of holding the raided provinces by a permanent
+official organization. But in the ninth century, when Ashurnatsirpal and
+his successor Shalmaneser, second of the name, marched out year by year,
+they passed across wide territories held for them by governors and
+garrisons, before they reached others upon which they hoped to impose
+like fetters. We find Shalmaneser II, for example, in the third year of
+his reign, fortifying, renaming, garrisoning and endowing with a royal
+palace the town of Til Barsip on the Euphrates bank, the better to
+secure for himself free passage at will across the river. He has finally
+deprived Ahuni its local Aramaean chief, and holds the place as an
+Assyrian fortress. Thus far had the Assyrian advanced his territorial
+empire but not farther. Beyond Euphrates he would, indeed, push year by
+year, even to Phoenicia and Damascus and Cilicia, but merely to raid,
+levy blackmail and destroy, like the old emperors of Babylonia or his
+own imperial predecessors of Assyria.
+
+There was then much of the old destructive instinct in Shalmaneser's
+conception of empire; but a constructive principle also was at work
+modifying that conception. If the Great King was still something of a
+Bedawi Emir, bound to go a-raiding summer by summer, he had conceived,
+like Mohammed ibn Rashid, the Arabian prince of Jebel Shammar in our own
+days, the idea of extending his territorial dominion, so that he might
+safely and easily reach fresh fields for wider raids. If we may use
+modern formulas about an ancient and imperfectly realized imperial
+system, we should describe the dominion of Shalmaneser II as made up
+(over and above its Assyrian core) of a wide circle of foreign
+territorial possessions which included Babylonia on the south, all
+Mesopotamia on the west and north, and everything up to Zagros on the
+east; of a "sphere of exclusive influence" extending to Lake Van on the
+north, while on the west it reached beyond the Euphrates into mid-Syria;
+and, lastly, of a licence to raid as far as the frontiers of Egypt.
+Shalmaneser's later expeditions all passed the frontiers of that sphere
+of influence. Having already crossed the Amanus mountains seven times,
+he was in Tarsus in his twenty-sixth summer; Damascus was attacked again
+and again in the middle of his reign; and even Jehu of Samaria paid his
+blackmail in the year 842.
+
+Assyria in the ninth century must have seemed by far the strongest as
+well as the most oppressive power that the East had known. The reigning
+house was passing on its authority from father to son in an unbroken
+dynastic succession, which had not always been, and would seldom
+thereafter be, the rule. Its court was fixed securely in midmost
+Assyria, away from priest-ridden Asshur, which seems to have been always
+anti-imperial and pro-Babylonian; for Ashurnatsirpal had restored Calah
+to the capital rank which it had held under Shalmaneser I but lost under
+Tiglath Pileser, and there the kings of the Middle Empire kept their
+throne. The Assyrian armies were as yet neither composed of soldiers of
+fortune, nor, it appears, swelled by such heterogeneous provincial
+levies as would follow the Great Kings of Asia in later days; but they
+were still recruited from the sturdy peasantry of Assyria itself. The
+monarch was an absolute autocrat directing a supreme military despotism.
+Surely such a power could not but endure. Endure, indeed, it would for
+more than two centuries. But it was not so strong as it appeared. Before
+the century of Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II was at an end, certain
+inherent germs of corporate decay had developed apace in its system.
+
+Natural law appears to decree that a family stock, whose individual
+members have every opportunity and licence for sensual indulgence, shall
+deteriorate both physically and mentally at an ever-increasing rate.
+Therefore, _pari passu_, an Empire which is so absolutely autocratic
+that the monarch is its one mainspring of government, grows weaker as it
+descends from father to son. Its one chance of conserving some of its
+pristine strength is to develop a bureaucracy which, if inspired by the
+ideas and methods of earlier members of the dynasty, may continue to
+realize them in a crystallized system of administration. This chance the
+Middle Assyrian Kingdom never was at any pains to take. There is
+evidence for delegation of military power by its Great Kings to a
+headquarter staff, and for organization of military control in the
+provinces, but none for such delegation of the civil power as might have
+fostered a bureaucracy. Therefore that concentration of power in single
+hands, which at first had been an element of strength, came to breed
+increasing weakness as one member of the dynasty succeeded another.
+
+Again, the irresistible Assyrian armies, which had been led abroad
+summer by summer, were manned for some generations by sturdy peasants
+drawn from the fields of the Middle Tigris basin, chiefly those on the
+left bank. The annual razzia, however, is a Bedawi institution, proper
+to a semi-nomadic society which cultivates little and that lightly, and
+can leave such agricultural, and also such pastoral, work as must needs
+be done in summer to its old men, its young folk and its women, without
+serious loss. But a settled labouring population which has deep lands to
+till, a summer crop to raise and an irrigation system to maintain is in
+very different case. The Assyrian kings, by calling on their
+agricultural peasantry, spring after spring, to resume the life of
+militant nomads, not only exhausted the sources of their own wealth and
+stability, but bred deep discontent. As the next two centuries pass more
+and more will be heard of depletion and misery in the Assyrian lands.
+Already before 800 we have the spectacle of the agricultural district of
+Arbela rebelling against Shalmaneser's sons, and after being appeased
+with difficulty, rising again against Adadnirari III in a revolt which
+is still active when the century closes.
+
+Lastly, this militant monarchy, whose life was war, was bound to make
+implacable enemies both within and without. Among those within were
+evidently the priests, whose influence was paramount at Asshur.
+Remembering who it was that had given the first independent king to
+Assyria they resented that their city, the chosen seat of the earlier
+dynasties, which had been restored to primacy by the great Tiglath
+Pileser, should fall permanently to the second rank. So we find Asshur
+joining the men of Arbela in both the rebellions mentioned above, and it
+appears always to have been ready to welcome attempts by the Babylonian
+Semites to regain their old predominance over Southern Assyria.
+
+
+SECTION 2. URARTU
+
+As we should expect from geographical circumstances, Assyria's most
+perilous and persistent foreign enemies were the fierce hillmen of the
+north. In the east, storms were brewing behind the mountains, but they
+were not yet ready to burst. South and west lay either settled districts
+of old civilization not disposed to fight, or ranging grounds of nomads
+too widely scattered and too ill organized to threaten serious danger.
+But the north was in different case. The wild valleys, through which
+descend the left bank affluents of the Upper Tigris, have always
+sheltered fierce fighting clans, covetous of the winter pasturage and
+softer climate of the northern Mesopotamian downs, and it has been the
+anxious care of one Mesopotamian power after another, even to our own
+day, to devise measures for penning them back. Since the chief weakness
+of these tribes lies in a lack of unity which the subdivided nature of
+their country encourages, it must have caused no small concern to the
+Assyrians that, early in the ninth century, a Kingdom of Urartu or, as
+its own people called it, Khaldia, should begin to gain power over the
+communities about Lake Van and the heads of the valleys which run down
+to Assyrian territory. Both Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser led raid
+after raid into the northern mountains in the hope of weakening the
+tribes from whose adhesion that Vannic Kingdom might derive strength.
+Both kings marched more than once up to the neighbourhood of the Urmia
+Lake, and Shalmaneser struck at the heart of Urartu itself three or four
+times; but with inconclusive success. The Vannic state continued to
+flourish and its kings--whose names are more European in sound than
+Asiatic--Lutipris, Sarduris, Menuas, Argistis, Rusas--built themselves
+strong fortresses which stand to this day about Lake Van, and borrowed a
+script from their southern foes to engrave rocks with records of
+successful wars. One of these inscriptions occurs as far west as the
+left bank of Euphrates over against Malatia. By 800 B.C., in spite of
+efforts made by Shalmaneser's sons to continue their father's policy of
+pushing the war into the enemy's country, the Vannic king had succeeded
+in replacing Assyrian influence by the law of Khaldia in the uppermost
+basin of the Tigris and in higher Mesopotamia--the "Nairi" lands of
+Assyrian scribes; and his successors would raid farther and farther into
+the plains during the coming age.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE MEDES
+
+Menacing as this power of Urartu appeared at the end of the ninth
+century to an enfeebled Assyrian dynasty, there were two other racial
+groups, lately arrived on its horizon, which in the event would prove
+more really dangerous. One of these lay along the north-eastern frontier
+on the farther slopes of the Zagros mountains and on the plateau beyond.
+It was apparently a composite people which had been going through a slow
+process of formation and growth. One element in it seems to have been of
+the same blood as a strong pastoral population which was then ranging
+the steppes of southern Russia and west central Asia, and would come to
+be known vaguely to the earliest Greeks as Cimmerians, and scarcely less
+precisely to their descendants, as Scyths. Its name would be a household
+word in the East before long. A trans-Caucasian offshoot of this had
+settled in modern Azerbaijan, where for a long time past it had been
+receiving gradual reinforcements of eastern migrants, belonging to what
+is called the Iranian group of Aryans. Filtering through the passage
+between the Caspian range and the salt desert, which Teheran now guards,
+these Iranians spread out over north-west Persia and southwards into the
+well-watered country on the western edge of the plateau, overlooking the
+lowlands of the Tigris basin. Some part of them, under the name Parsua,
+seems to have settled down as far north as the western shores of Lake
+Urmia, on the edge of the Ararat kingdom; another part as far south as
+the borders of Elam. Between these extreme points the immigrants appear
+to have amalgamated with the settled Scyths, and in virtue of racial
+superiority to have become predominant partners in the combination. At
+some uncertain period--probably before 800 B.C.--there had arisen from
+the Iranian element an individual, Zoroaster, who converted his people
+from element-worship to a spiritual belief in personal divinity; and by
+this reform of cult both raised its social status and gave it political
+cohesion. The East began to know and fear the combination under the name
+_Manda_, and from Shalmaneser II onwards the Assyrian kings had to
+devote ever more attention to the Manda country, raiding it, sacking it,
+exacting tribute from it, but all the while betraying their growing
+consciousness that a grave peril lurked behind Zagros, the peril of the
+Medes. [Footnote: I venture to adhere throughout to the old
+identification of the _Manda_ power, which ultimately overthrew Assyria,
+with the _Medes_, in spite of high authorities who nowadays assume that
+the latter played no part in that overthrow, but have been introduced
+into this chapter of history by an erroneous identification made by
+Greeks. I cannot believe that both Greek and Hebrew authorities of very
+little later date both fell into such an error.]
+
+
+SECTION 4. THE CHALDAEANS
+
+The other danger, the more imminent of the two, threatened Assyria from
+the south. Once again a Semitic immigration, which we distinguish as
+Chaldaean from earlier Semitic waves, Canaanite and Aramaean, had
+breathed fresh vitality into the Babylonian people. It came, like
+earlier waves, out of Arabia, which, for certain reasons, has been in
+all ages a prime source of ethnic disturbance in West Asia. The great
+southern peninsula is for the most part a highland steppe endowed with a
+singularly pure air and an uncontaminated soil. It breeds, consequently,
+a healthy population whose natality, compared to its death-rate, is
+unusually high; but since the peculiar conditions of its surface and
+climate preclude the development of its internal food-supply beyond a
+point long ago reached, the surplus population which rapidly accumulates
+within it is forced from time to time to seek its sustenance elsewhere.
+The difficulties of the roads to the outer world being what they are
+(not to speak of the certainty of opposition at the other end), the
+intending emigrants rarely set out in small bodies, but move restlessly
+within their own borders until they are grown to a horde, which famine
+and hostility at home compel at last to leave Arabia. As hard to arrest
+as their own blown sands, the moving Arabs fall on the nearest fertile
+regions, there to plunder, fight, and eventually settle down. So in
+comparatively modern times have the Shammar tribesmen moved into Syria
+and Mesopotamia, and so in antiquity moved the Canaanites, the
+Aramaeans, and the Chaldaeans. We find the latter already well
+established by 900 B.C. not only in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf, but also between the Rivers. The Kings of Babylon, who
+opposed Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II, seem to have been of
+Chaldaean extraction; and although their successors, down to 800 B.C.,
+acknowledged the suzerainty of Assyria, they ever strove to repudiate
+it, looking for help to Elam or the western desert tribes. The times,
+however, were not quite ripe. The century closed with the reassertion of
+Assyrian power in Babylon itself by Adadnirari.
+
+
+SECTION 5. SYRIAN EXPANSION OF ASSYRIA
+
+Such were the dangers which, as we now know, lurked on the horizon of
+the Northern Semites in 800 B.C. But they had not yet become patent to
+the world, in whose eyes Assyria seemed still an irresistible power
+pushing ever farther and farther afield. The west offered the most
+attractive field for her expansion. There lay the fragments of the Hatti
+Empire, enjoying the fruits of Hatti civilization; there were the
+wealthy Aramaean states, and still richer Phoenician ports. There urban
+life was well developed, each city standing for itself, sufficient in
+its territory, and living more or less on the caravan trade which
+perforce passed under or near its walls between Egypt on the one hand
+and Mesopotamia and Asia Minor on the other. Never was a fairer field
+for hostile enterprise, or one more easily harried without fear of
+reprisal, and well knowing this, Assyria set herself from
+Ashurnatsirpal's time forward systematically to bully and fleece Syria.
+It was almost the yearly practice of Shalmaneser II to march down to the
+Middle Euphrates, ferry his army across, and levy blackmail on
+Carchemish and the other north Syrian cities as far as Cilicia on the
+one hand and Damascus on the other. That done, he would send forward
+envoys to demand ransom of the Phoenician towns, who grudgingly paid it
+or rashly withheld it according to the measure of his compulsion. Since
+last we looked at the Aramaean states, Damascus has definitely asserted
+the supremacy which her natural advantages must always secure to her
+whenever Syria is not under foreign domination. Her fighting dynasty of
+Benhadads which had been founded, it seems, more than a century before
+Shalmaneser's time, had now spread her influence right across Syria from
+east to west and into the territories of Hamath on the north and of the
+Hebrews on the south. Ashurnatsirpal had never ventured to do more than
+summon at long range the lord of this large and wealthy state to
+contribute to his coffers; but this tributary obligation, if ever
+admitted, was continually disregarded, and Shalmaneser II found he must
+take bolder measures or be content to see his raiding-parties restricted
+to the already harried north. He chose the bold course, and struck at
+Hamath, the northernmost Damascene dependency, in his seventh summer. A
+notable victory, won at Karkar on the Middle Orontes over an army which
+included contingents from most of the south Semitic states--one came,
+for example, from Israel, where Ahab was now king,--opened a way towards
+the Aramaean capital; but it was not till twelve years later that the
+Great King actually attacked Damascus. But he failed to crown his
+successes with its capture, and reinvigorated by the accession of a new
+dynasty, which Hazael, a leader in war, founded in 842, Damascus
+continued to bar the Assyrians from full enjoyment of the southern lands
+for another century.
+
+Nevertheless, though Shalmaneser and his dynastic successors down to
+Adadnirari III were unable to enter Palestine, the shadow of Assyrian
+Empire was beginning to creep over Israel. The internal dissensions of
+the latter, and its fear and jealousy of Damascus had already done much
+to make ultimate disaster certain. In the second generation after David
+the radical incompatibility between the northern and southern Hebrew
+tribes, which under his strong hand and that of his son had seemed one
+nation, reasserted its disintegrating influence. While it is not certain
+if the twelve tribes were ever all of one race, it is quite certain that
+the northern ones had come to be contaminated very largely with Aramaean
+blood and infected by mid-Syrian influences, which the relations
+established and maintained by David and Solomon with Hamath and
+Phoenicia no doubt had accentuated, especially in the territories of
+Asher and Dan. These tribes and some other northerners had never seen
+eye to eye with the southern tribes in a matter most vital to Semitic
+societies, religious ideal and practice. The anthropomorphic monotheism,
+which the southern tribes brought up from Arabia, had to contend in
+Galilee with theriomorphic polytheism, that is, the tendency to embody
+the qualities of divinity in animal forms. For such beliefs as these
+there is ample evidence in the Judaean tradition, even during the
+pre-Palestinian wanderings. Both reptile and bovine incarnations
+manifest themselves in the story of the Exodus, and despite the fervent
+missionary efforts of a series of Prophets, and the adhesion of many,
+even among the northern tribesmen, to the more spiritual creed, these
+cults gathered force in the congenial neighbourhood of Aramaeans and
+Phoenicians, till they led to political separation of the north from the
+south as soon as the long reign of Solomon was ended. Thereafter, until
+the catastrophe of the northern tribes, there would never more be a
+united Hebrew nation. The northern kingdom, harried by Damascus and
+forced to take unwilling part in her quarrels, looked about for foreign
+help. The dynasty of Omri, who, in order to secure control of the great
+North Road, had built himself a capital and a palace (lately discovered)
+on the hill of Samaria, relied chiefly on Tyre. The succeeding dynasty,
+that of Jehu, who had rebelled against Omri's son and his Phoenician
+queen, courted Assyria, and encouraged her to press ever harder on
+Damascus. It was a suicidal policy; for in the continued existence of a
+strong Aramaean state on her north lay Israel's one hope of long life.
+Jeroboam II and his Prophet Jonah ought to have seen that the day of
+reckoning would come quickly for Samaria when once Assyria had settled
+accounts with Damascus.
+
+To some extent, but unfortunately not in all detail, we can trace in the
+royal records the advance of Assyrian territorial dominion in the west.
+The first clear indication of its expansion is afforded by a notice of
+the permanent occupation of a position on the eastern bank of the
+Euphrates, as a base for the passage of the river. This position was Til
+Barsip, situated opposite the mouth of the lowest Syrian affluent, the
+Sajur, and formerly capital of an Aramaean principate. That its
+occupation by Shalmaneser II in the third year of his reign was intended
+to be lasting is proved by its receiving a new name and becoming a royal
+Assyrian residence. Two basaltic lions, which the Great King then set up
+on each side of its Mesopotamian gate and inscribed with commemorative
+texts, have recently been found near Tell Ahmar, the modern hamlet which
+has succeeded the royal city. This measure marked Assyria's definite
+annexation of the lands in Mesopotamia, which had been under Aramaean
+government for at least a century and a half. When this government had
+been established there we do not certainly know; but the collapse of
+Tiglath Pileser's power about 1100 B.C. so nearly follows the main
+Aramaean invasion from the south that it seems probable this invasion
+had been in great measure the cause of that collapse, and that an
+immediate consequence was the formation of Aramaean states east of
+Euphrates. The strongest of them and the last to succumb to Assyria was
+Bit-Adini, the district west of Harran, of which Til Barsip had been the
+leading town.
+
+The next stage of Assyrian expansion is marked by a similar occupation
+of a position on the Syrian side of the Euphrates, to cover the landing
+and be a gathering-place of tribute. Here stood Pitru, formerly a Hatti
+town and, perhaps, the Biblical Pethor, situated beside the Sajur on
+some site not yet identified, but probably near the outfall of the
+stream. It received an Assyrian name in Shalmaneser's sixth year, and
+was used afterwards as a base for all his operations in Syria. It served
+also to mask and overawe the larger and more wealthy city of Carchemish,
+a few miles north, which would remain for a long time to come free of
+permanent Assyrian occupation, though subjected to blackmail on the
+occasion of every western raid by the Great King.
+
+With this last westward advance of his permanent territorial holding,
+Shalmaneser appears to have rested content. He was sure of the Euphrates
+passage and had made his footing good on the Syrian bank. But we cannot
+be certain; for, though his known records mention the renaming of no
+other Syrian cities, many may have been renamed without happening to be
+mentioned in the records, and others may have been occupied by standing
+Assyrian garrisons without receiving new names. Be that as it may, we
+can trace, year by year, the steady pushing forward of Assyrian raiding
+columns into inner Syria. In 854 Shalmaneser's most distant base of
+operations was fixed at Khalman (Aleppo), whence he marched to the
+Orontes to fight, near the site of later Apamea, the battle of Karkar.
+Five years later, swooping down from a Cilician raid, he entered Hamath.
+Six more years passed before he made more ground to the south, though he
+invaded Syria again in force at least once during the interval. In 842,
+however, having taken a new road along the coast, he turned inland from
+Beirut, crossed Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and succeeded in reaching the
+oasis of Damascus and even in raiding some distance towards the Hauran;
+but he did not take (perhaps, like the Bedawi Emir he was, he did not
+try to take) the fenced city itself. He seems to have repeated his visit
+three years later, but never to have gone farther. Certainly he never
+secured to himself Phoenicia, Coele-Syria or Damascus, and still less
+Palestine, by any permanent organization. Indeed, as has been said, we
+have no warrant for asserting that in his day Assyria definitely
+incorporated in her territorial empire any part of Syria except that one
+outpost of observation established at Pitru on the Sajur. Nor can more
+be credited to Shalmaneser's immediate successors; but it must be
+understood that by the end of the century Adadnirari had extended
+Assyria's sphere of influence (as distinct from her territorial holding)
+somewhat farther south to include not only Phoenicia but also northern
+Philistia and Palestine with the arable districts east of Jordan.
+
+
+SECTION 6. CILICIA
+
+When an Assyrian emperor crossed Euphrates and took up quarters in Pitru
+to receive the submission of the western chiefs and collect his forces
+for raiding the lands of any who might be slow to comply, he was much
+nearer the frontiers of Asia Minor than those of Phoenicia or the
+Kingdom of Damascus. Yet on three occasions out of four, the lords of
+the Middle Assyrian Kingdom were content to harry once again the
+oft-plundered lands of mid-Syria, and on the fourth, if they turned
+northward at all, they advanced no farther than eastern Cilicia, that
+is, little beyond the horizon which they might actually see on a clear
+day from any high ground near Pitru. Yet on the other side of the
+snow-streaked wall which bounded the northward view lay desirable
+kingdoms, Khanigalbat with its capital, Milid, comprising the fertile
+district which later would be part of Cataonia; Tabal to west of it,
+extending over the rest of Cataonia and southern Cappadocia; and Kas,
+possessing the Tyanitis and the deep Lycaonian plain. Why, then, did
+those imperial robbers in the ninth century so long hold their hands
+from such tempting prey? No doubt, because they and their armies, which
+were not yet recruited from other populations than the Semites of
+Assyria proper, so far as we know, were by origin Arabs, men of the
+south, to whom the high-lying plateau country beyond Taurus was just as
+deterrent as it has been to all Semites since. Tides of Arab invasion,
+surging again and again to the foot of the Taurus, have broken sometimes
+through the passes and flowed in single streams far on into Asia Minor,
+but they have always ebbed again as quickly. The repugnance felt by the
+Assyrians for Asia Minor may be contrasted with the promptitude which
+their Iranian successors showed in invading the peninsula, and may be
+illustrated by all subsequent history. No permanent footing was ever
+established in Asia Minor by the Saracens, its definite conquest being
+left to the north-country Turks. The short-lived Arab power of Mehemet
+Ali, which rebelled against the Turks some eighty years ago, advanced on
+to the plateau only to recede at once and remain behind the Taurus. The
+present dividing line of peoples which speak respectively Arabic and
+Turkish marks the Semite's immemorial limit. So soon as the land-level
+of northern Syria attains a mean altitude of 2500 feet, the Arab tongue
+is chilled to silence.
+
+We shall never find Assyrian armies, therefore, going far or staying
+long beyond Taurus. But we shall find them going constantly, and as a
+matter of course, into Cilicia, notwithstanding the high mountain wall
+of Amanus which divides it from Syria. Cilicia--all that part of it at
+least which the Assyrians used to raid--lies low, faces south and is
+shielded by high mountains from northerly and easterly chills. It
+enjoys, indeed, a warmer and more equable climate than any part of
+Syria, except the coastal belt, and socially it has always been related
+more nearly to the south lands than to its own geographical whole, Asia
+Minor. A Semitic element was predominant in the population of the plain,
+and especially in its chief town, Tarsus, throughout antiquity. So
+closely was Cilicia linked with Syria that the Prince of Kue (its
+eastern part) joined the Princes of Hamath and of Damascus and their
+south Syrian allies in that combination for common defence against
+Assyrian aggression, which Shalmaneser broke at Karkar in 854: and it
+was in order to neutralize an important factor in the defensive power of
+Syria that the latter proceeded across Patin in 849 and fell on Kue. But
+some uprising at Hamath recalled him then, and it was not till the
+latter part of his reign that eastern Cilicia was systematically
+subdued.
+
+Shalmaneser devoted a surprising amount of attention to this small and
+rather obscure corner of Asia Minor. He records in his twenty-fifth year
+that already he had crossed Amanus seven times; and in the year
+succeeding we find him again entering Cilicia and marching to Tarsus to
+unseat its prince and put another more pliable in his room. Since,
+apparently, he never used Cilicia as a base for further operations in
+force beyond Taurus, being content with a formal acknowledgment of his
+majesty by the Prince of Tabal, one is forced to conclude that he
+invaded the land for its own sake. Nearly three centuries hence, out of
+the mist in which Cilicia is veiled more persistently than almost any
+other part of the ancient East, this small country will loom up suddenly
+as one of the four chief powers of Asia, ruled by a king who, hand in
+hand with Nebuchadnezzar II, negotiates a peace between the Lydians and
+the Medes, each at the height of their power. Then the mist will close
+over it once more, and we shall hear next to nothing of a long line of
+kings who, bearing a royal title which was graecized under the form
+Syennesis, reigned at Tarsus, having little in common with other
+Anatolian princes. But we may reasonably infer from the circumstances of
+the pacific intervention just mentioned that Cilician power had been
+growing for a long time previous; and also from the frequency with which
+Shalmaneser raided the land, that already in the ninth century it was
+rich and civilized. We know it to have been a great centre of Sandan
+worship, and may guess that its kings were kin of the Mushki race and,
+if not the chief survivors of the original stock which invaded Assyria
+in Tiglath Pileser's time, ranked at least among the chief inheritors of
+the old Hatti civilization. Some even date its civilization earlier
+still, believing the Keftiu, who brought rich gifts to the Pharaohs of
+the eighteenth and succeeding dynasties, to have been Cilicians.
+
+Unfortunately, no scientific excavation of early sites in Cilicia has
+yet been undertaken; but for many years past buyers of antiquities have
+been receiving, from Tarsus and its port, engraved stones and seals of
+singularly fine workmanship, which belong to Hittite art but seem of
+later date than most of its products. They display in their decoration
+certain peculiar designs, which have been remarked also in Cyprus, and
+present some peculiarities of form, which occur also in the earliest
+Ionian art. Till other evidence comes to hand these little objects must
+be our witnesses to the existence of a highly developed sub-Hittite
+culture in Cilicia which, as early as the ninth century, had already
+been refined by the influence of the Greek settlements on the Anatolian
+coasts and perhaps, even earlier, by the Cretan art of the Aegean area.
+Cilician civilization offers a link between east and west which is worth
+more consideration and study than have been given to it by historians.
+
+
+SECTION 7. ASIA MINOR
+
+Into Asia Minor beyond Taurus we have no reason to suppose that an
+Assyrian monarch of the ninth century ever marched in person, though
+several raiding columns visited Khanigalbat and Tabal, and tributary
+acknowledgment of Assyrian dominance was made intermittently by the
+princes of both those countries in the latter half of Shalmaneser's
+reign. The farther and larger part of the western peninsula lay outside
+the Great King's reach, and we know as little of it in the year 800 as,
+perhaps, the Assyrians themselves knew. We do know, however, that it
+contained a strong principality centrally situated in the southern part
+of the basin of the Sangarius, which the Asiatic Greeks had begun to
+know as Phrygian. This inland power loomed very large in their world--so
+large, indeed, that it masked Assyria at this time, and passed in their
+eyes for the richest on earth. On the sole ground of its importance in
+early Greek legend, we are quite safe in dating not only its rise but
+its attainment of a dominant position to a period well before 800 B.C.
+But, in fact, there are other good grounds for believing that before the
+ninth century closed this principality dominated a much wider area than
+the later Phrygia, and that its western borders had been pushed outwards
+very nearly to the Ionian coast. In the Iliad, for example, the
+Phrygians are spoken of as immediate neighbours of the Trojans; and a
+considerable body of primitive Hellenic legend is based on the early
+presence of Phrygians not only in the Troad itself, but on the central
+west coast about the Bay of Smyrna and in the Caystrian plain, from
+which points of vantage they held direct relations with the immigrant
+Greeks themselves. It seems, therefore, certain that at some time before
+800 B.C. nearly all the western half of the peninsula owed allegiance
+more or less complete to the power on the Sangarius, and that even the
+Heraclid kings of Lydia were not independent of it.
+
+If Phrygia was powerful enough in the ninth century to hold the west
+Anatolian lands in fee, did it also dominate enough of the eastern
+peninsula to be ranked the imperial heir of the Cappadocian Hatti? The
+answer to this question (if any at all can be returned on very slight
+evidence) will depend on the view taken about the possible identity of
+the Phrygian power with that obscure but real power of the Mushki, of
+which we have already heard. The identity in question is so generally
+accepted nowadays that it has become a commonplace of historians to
+speak of the "Mushki-Phrygians." Very possibly they are right. But, by
+way of caution, it must be remarked that the identification depends
+ultimately on another, namely, that of Mita, King of the Mushki, against
+whom Ashurbanipal would fight more than a century later, with Midas,
+last King of Phrygia, who is mentioned by Herodotus and celebrated in
+Greek myth. To assume this identity is very attractive. Mita of Mushki
+and Midas of Phrygia coincide well enough in date; both ruled in Asia
+Minor; both were apparently leading powers there; both fought with the
+Gimirrai or Cimmerians. But there are also certain difficulties of which
+too little account has perhaps been taken. While Mita seems to have been
+a common name in Asia as far inland as Mesopotamia at a much earlier
+period than this, the name Midas, on the other hand, came much later
+into Phrygia from the west, if there is anything in the Greek tradition
+that the Phryges or Briges had immigrated from south-east Europe. And
+supported as this tradition is not only by the occurrence of similar
+names and similar folk-tales in Macedonia and in Phrygia, but also by
+the western appearance of the later Phrygian art and script, we can
+hardly refuse it credit. Accordingly, if we find the origin of the
+Phrygians in the Macedonian Briges, we must allow that Midas, as a
+Phrygian name, came from Europe very much later than the first
+appearance of kings called Mita in Asia, and we are compelled to doubt
+whether the latter name is necessarily the same as Midas. When allusions
+to the Mushki in Assyrian records give any indication of their local
+habitat, it lies in the east, not the west, of the central Anatolian
+plain--nearly, in fact, where the Moschi lived in later historical
+times. The following points, therefore, must be left open at present:
+(1) whether the Mushki ever settled in Phrygia at all; (2) whether, if
+they did, the Phrygian kings who bore the names Gordius and Midas can
+ever have been Mushkite or have commanded Mushkite allegiance; (3)
+whether the kings called Mita in records of Sargon and Ashurbanipal were
+not lords rather of the eastern Mushki than of Phrygia. It cannot be
+assumed, on present evidence at any rate (though it is not improbable),
+that Phrygian kings ruled the Mushki of Cappadocia, and in virtue of
+that rule had an empire almost commensurate with the lost sway of the
+Hatti.
+
+Nevertheless theirs was a strong power, the strongest in Anatolia, and
+the fame of its wealth and its walled towns dazzled and awed the Greek
+communities, which were thickly planted by now on the western and
+south-western coasts. Some of these had passed through the trials of
+infancy and were grown to civic estate, having established wide trade
+relations both by land and sea. In the coming century Cyme of Aeolis
+would give a wife to a Phrygian king. Ephesus seems to have become
+already an important social as well as religious centre. The objects of
+art found in 1905 on the floor of the earliest temple of Artemis in the
+plain (there was an earlier one in the hills) must be dated--some of
+them--not later than 700, and their design and workmanship bear witness
+to flourishing arts and crafts long established in the locality.
+Miletus, too, was certainly an adult centre of Hellenism and about to
+become a mother of new cities, if she had not already become so. But, so
+early as this year 800, we know little about the Asiatic Greek cities
+beyond the fact of their existence; and it will be wiser to let them
+grow for another two centuries and to speak of them more at length when
+they have become a potent factor in West Asian society. When we ring up
+the curtain again after two hundred years, it will be found that the
+light shed on the eastern scene has brightened; for not only will
+contemporary records have increased in volume and clarity, but we shall
+be able to use the lamp of literary history fed by traditions, which had
+not had to survive the lapse of more than a few generations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE EAST IN 600 B.C.
+
+
+When we look at the East again in 600 B.C. after two centuries of war
+and tumultuous movements we perceive that almost all its lands have
+found fresh masters. The political changes are tremendous. Cataclysm has
+followed hard on cataclysm. The Phrygian dynasty has gone down in
+massacre and rapine, and from another seat of power its former client
+rules Asia Minor in its stead. The strongholds of the lesser Semitic
+peoples have almost all succumbed, and Syria is a well-picked bone
+snatched by one foreign dog from another. The Assyrian colossus which
+bestrid the west Asiatic world has failed and collapsed, and the Medes
+and the Chaldaeans--these two clouds no bigger than a man's hand which
+had lain on Assyria's horizon--fill her seat and her room. As we look
+back on it now, the political revolution is complete; but had we lived
+in the year 600 at Asshur or Damascus or Tyre or Tarsus, it might have
+impressed us less. A new master in the East did not and does not always
+mean either a new earth or a new heaven.
+
+Let us see to how much the change really amounted. The Assyrian Empire
+was no more. This is a momentous fact, not to be esteemed lightly. The
+final catastrophe has happened only six years before our date; but the
+power of Assyria had been going downhill for nearly half a century, and
+it is clear, from the freedom with which other powers were able to move
+about the area of her empire some time before the end, that the East had
+been free of her interference for years. Indeed, so near and vital a
+centre of Assyrian nationality as Calah, the old capital of the Middle
+Empire, had been taken and sacked, ere he who was to be the last "Great
+King" of the northern Semites ascended his throne.
+
+
+SECTION 1. THE NEW ASSYRIAN KINGDOM
+
+For the last hundred and fifty years Assyrian history--a record of black
+oppression abroad and blacker intrigue at home--has recalled the rapid
+gathering and slower passing away of some great storm. A lull marks the
+first half of the ninth century. Then almost without warning the full
+fury of the cloud bursts and rages for nearly a hundred years. Then the
+gloom brightens till all is over. The dynasty of Ashurnatsirpal and
+Shalmaneser II slowly declined to its inevitable end. The capital itself
+rose in revolt in the year 747, and having done with the lawful heirs,
+chose a successful soldier, who may have been, for aught we know, of
+royal blood, but certainly was not in the direct line. Tiglath
+Pileser--for he took a name from earlier monarchs, possibly in
+vindication of legitimacy--saw (or some wise counsellor told him) that
+the militant empire which he had usurped must rely no longer on annual
+levies of peasants from the Assyrian villages, which were fast becoming
+exhausted; nor could it continue to live on uncertain blackmail
+collected at uncertain intervals now beyond Euphrates, now in Armenia,
+now again from eastern and southern neighbours. Such Bedawi ideas and
+methods were outworn. The new Great King tried new methods to express
+new ideas. A soldier by profession, indebted to the sword for his
+throne, he would have a standing and paid force always at his hand, not
+one which had to be called from the plough spring by spring. The lands,
+which used to render blackmail to forces sent expressly all the way from
+the Tigris, must henceforward be incorporated in the territorial empire
+and pay their contributions to resident governors and garrisons.
+Moreover, why should these same lands not bear a part for the empire in
+both defence and attack by supplying levies of their own to the imperial
+armies? Finally the capital, Calah, with its traditions of the dead
+dynasty, the old regime and the recent rebellion, must be replaced by a
+new capital, even as once on a time Asshur, with its Babylonian and
+priestly spirit, had been replaced. Accordingly sites, a little higher
+up the Tigris and more centrally situated in relation to both the
+homeland and the main roads from west and east, must be promoted to be
+capitals. But in the event it was not till after the reign of Sargon
+closed that Nineveh was made the definitive seat of the last Assyrian
+kings.
+
+Organized and strengthened during Tiglath Pileser's reign of eighteen
+years, this new imperial machine, with its standing professional army,
+its myriad levies drawn from all fighting races within its territory,
+its large and secure revenues and its bureaucracy keeping the provinces
+in constant relation to the centre, became the most tremendous power of
+offence which the world had seen. So soon as Assyria was made conscious
+of her new vigour by the ease with which the Urartu raiders, who had
+long been encroaching on Mesopotamia, and even on Syria, were driven
+back across the Nairi lands and penned into their central fastnesses of
+Van; by the ease, too, with which Babylonia was humbled and occupied
+again, and the Phoenician ports and the city of Damascus, impregnable
+theretofore, were taken and held to tribute--she began to dream of world
+empire, the first society in history to conceive this unattainable
+ideal. Certain influences and events, however, would defer awhile any
+attempt to realize the dream. Changes of dynasty took place, thanks
+partly to reactionary forces at home and more to the praetorian basis on
+which the kingdom now reposed, and only one of his house succeeded
+Tiglath Pileser. But the set-back was of brief duration. In the year 722
+another victorious general thrust himself on to the throne and, under
+the famous name of Sargon, set forth to extend the bounds of the empire
+towards Media on the east, and over Cilicia into Tabal on the west,
+until he came into collision with King Mita of the Mushki and held him
+to tribute.
+
+
+SECTION 2. THE EMPIRE OF SARGON
+
+Though at least one large province had still to be added to the Assyrian
+Empire, Sargon's reign may be considered the period of its greatest
+strength. He handed on to Sennacherib no conquests which could not have
+been made good, and the widest extent of territory which the central
+power was adequate to hold. We may pause, then, just before Sargon's
+death in 705, to see what the area of that territory actually was.
+
+Its boundaries cannot be stated, of course, with any approach to the
+precision of a modern political geographer. Occupied territories faded
+imperceptibly into spheres of influence and these again into lands
+habitually, or even only occasionally, raided. In some quarters,
+especially from north-east round to north-west, our present
+understanding of the terms of ancient geography, used by Semitic
+scribes, is very imperfect, and, when an Assyrian king has told us
+carefully what lands, towns, mountains and rivers his army visited, it
+does not follow that we can identify them with any exactness. Nor should
+the royal records be taken quite at their face value. Some discount has
+to be allowed (but how much it is next to impossible to say) on reports,
+which often ascribe all the actions of a campaign not shared in by the
+King in person (as in certain instances can be proved) to his sole
+prowess, and grandiloquently enumerate twoscore princedoms and kingdoms
+which were traversed and subdued in the course of one summer campaign in
+very difficult country. The illusion of immense achievement, which it
+was intended thus to create, has often imposed itself on modern critics,
+and Tiglath Pileser and Sargon are credited with having marched to the
+neighbourhood of the Caspian, conquering or holding to ransom great
+provinces, when their forces were probably doing no more than climbing
+from valley to valley about the headwaters of the Tigris affluents, and
+raiding chiefs of no greater territorial affluence than the Kurdish beys
+of Hakkiari.
+
+East of Assyria proper, the territorial empire of Sargon does not seem
+to have extended quite up to the Zagros watershed; but his sphere of
+influence included not only the heads of the Zab valleys, but also a
+region on the other side of the mountains, reaching as far as Hamadan
+and south-west Azerbaijan, although certainly not the eastern or
+northern districts of the latter province, or Kaswan, or any part of the
+Caspian littoral. On the north, the frontier of Assyrian territorial
+empire could be passed in a very few days' march from Nineveh. The
+shores of neither the Urmia nor the Van Lake were ever regularly
+occupied by Assyria, and, though Sargon certainly brought into his
+sphere of influence the kingdom of Urartu, which surrounded the latter
+lake and controlled the tribes as far as the western shore of the
+former, it is not proved that his armies ever went round the east and
+north of the Urmia Lake, and it is fairly clear that they left the
+northwestern region of mountains between Bitlis and the middle Euphrates
+to its own tribesmen.
+
+Westwards and southwards, however, Sargon's arm swept a wider circuit.
+He held as his own all Mesopotamia up to Diarbekr, and beyond Syria not
+only eastern and central Cilicia, but also some districts north of
+Taurus, namely, the low plain of Milid or Malatia, and the southern part
+of Tabal; but probably his hand reached no farther over the plateau than
+to a line prolonged from the head of the Tokhma Su to the neighbourhood
+of Tyana, and returning thence to the Cilician Gates. Beyond that line
+began a sphere of influence which we cannot hope to define, but may
+guess to have extended over Cappadocia, Lycaonia and the southern part
+of Phrygia. Southward, all Syria was Sargon's, most of it by direct
+occupation, and the rest in virtue of acknowledged overlordship and
+payment of tribute. Even the seven princes of Cyprus made such
+submission. One or two strong Syrian towns, Tyre and Jerusalem, for
+example, withheld payment if no Assyrian army was at hand; but their
+show of independence was maintained only on sufferance. The Philistine
+cities, after Sargon's victory over their forces and Egyptian allies at
+Raphia, in 720, no longer defended their walls, and the Great King's
+sphere of influence stretched eastward right across the Hamad and
+southward over north Arabia. Finally, Babylonia was all his own even to
+the Persian Gulf, the rich merchants supporting him firmly in the
+interests of their caravan trade, however the priests and the peasantry
+might murmur. But Elam, whose king and people had carried serious
+trouble into Assyria itself early in the reign, is hardly to be reckoned
+to Sargon even as a sphere of influence. The marshes of its south-west,
+the tropical plains of the centre and the mountains on the east, made it
+a difficult land for the northern Semites to conquer and hold. Sargon
+had been wise enough to let it be. Neither so prudent nor so fortunate
+would be his son and successors.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT
+
+Such was the empire inherited by Sargon's son, Sennacherib. Not content,
+he would go farther afield to make a conquest which has never remained
+long in the hands of an Asiatic power. It was not only lust of loot,
+however, which now urged Assyria towards Egypt. The Great Kings had long
+found their influence counteracted in southern Syria by that of the
+Pharaohs. Princes of both Hebrew states, of the Phoenician and the
+Philistine cities and even of Damascus, had all relied at one time or
+another on Egypt, and behind their combinations for defence and their
+individual revolts Assyria had felt the power on the Nile. The latter
+generally did no more in the event to save its friends than it had done
+for Israel when Shalmaneser IV beleaguered, and Sargon took and
+garrisoned, Samaria; but even ignorant hopes and empty promises of help
+cause constant unrest. Therefore Sennacherib, after drastic chastisement
+of the southern states in 701 (both Tyre and Jerusalem, however, kept
+him outside their walls), and a long tussle with Chaldaean Babylon, was
+impelled to set out in the last year, or last but one, of his reign for
+Egypt. In southern Palestine he was as successful as before, but,
+thereafter, some signal disaster befell him. Probably an epidemic
+pestilence overtook his army when not far across the frontier, and he
+returned to Assyria only to be murdered.
+
+He bequeathed the venture to the son who, after defeating his parricide
+brothers, secured his throne and reigned eleven years under a name which
+it has been agreed to write Esarhaddon. So soon as movements in Urartu
+and south-western Asia Minor had been suppressed, and, more important,
+Babylon, which his father had dishonoured, was appeased, Esarhaddon took
+up the incomplete conquest. Egypt, then in the hands of an alien dynasty
+from the Upper Nile and divided against itself, gave him little trouble
+at first. In his second expedition (670) he reached Memphis itself,
+carried it by assault, and drove the Cushite Tirhakah past Thebes to the
+Cataracts. The Assyrian proclaimed Egypt his territory and spread the
+net of Ninevite bureaucracy over it as far south as the Thebaid; but
+neither he nor his successors cared to assume the style and titles of
+the Pharaohs, as Persians and Greeks, wiser in their generations, would
+do later on. Presently trouble at home, excited by a son rebelling after
+the immemorial practice of the east, recalled Esarhaddon to Assyria;
+Tirhakah moved up again from the south; the Great King returned to meet
+him and died on the march.
+
+[Plate 4: ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF
+ASHURBANIPAL]
+
+But Memphis was reoccupied by Esarhaddon's successor, and since the
+latter took and ruined Thebes also, and, after Tirhakah's death, drove
+the Cushites right out of Egypt, the doubtful credit of spreading the
+territorial empire of Assyria to the widest limits it ever reached falls
+to Ashurbanipal. Even Tyre succumbed at last, and he stretched his
+sphere of influence over Asia Minor to Lydia. First of Assyrian kings he
+could claim Elam with its capital Susa as his own (after 647), and in
+the east he professed overlordship over all Media. Mesopotamian arts and
+letters now reached the highest point at which they had stood since
+Hammurabi's days, and the fame of the wealth and luxury of "Sardanapal"
+went out even into the Greek lands. About 660 B.C. Assyria seemed in a
+fair way to be mistress of the desirable earth.
+
+
+SECTION 4. DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA
+
+Strong as it seemed in the 7th century, the Assyrian Empire was,
+however, rotten at the core. In ridding itself of some weaknesses it had
+created others. The later Great Kings of Nineveh, raised to power and
+maintained by the spears of paid praetorians, found less support even
+than the old dynasty of Calah had found, in popular religious sentiment,
+which (as usual in the East) was the ultimate basis of Assyrian
+nationality; nor, under the circumstances, could they derive much
+strength from tribal feeling, which sometimes survives the religious
+basis. Throughout the history of the New Kingdom we can detect the
+influence of a strong opposition centred at Asshur. There the last
+monarch of the Middle Kingdom had fixed his dwelling under the wing of
+the priests; there the new dynasty had dethroned him as the consummation
+of an anti-sacerdotal rising of nobles and of peasant soldiery. Sargon
+seems to have owed his elevation two generations later to revenge taken
+for this victory by the city folk; but Sargon's son, Sennacherib, in his
+turn, found priestly domination intolerable, and, in an effort to crush
+it for ever, wrecked Babylon and terrorized the central home of Semitic
+cult, the great sacerdotal establishment of Bel-Marduk. After his
+father's murder, Esarhaddon veered back to the priests, and did so much
+to court religious support, that the military party incited Ashurbanipal
+to rebellion and compelled his father to associate the son in the royal
+power before leaving Assyria for the last time to die (or be killed) on
+the way to Egypt. Thus the whole record of dynastic succession in the
+New Kingdom has been typically Oriental, anticipating, at every change
+of monarch, the history of Islamic Empires. There is no trace of
+unanimous national sentiment for the Great King. One occupant of the
+throne after another gains power by grace of a party and holds it by
+mercenary swords.
+
+Another imperial weakness was even more fatal. So far as can be learned
+from Assyria's own records and those of others, she lived on her
+territorial empire without recognizing the least obligation to render
+anything to her provinces for what they gave--not even to render what
+Rome gave at her worst, namely, peace. She regarded them as existing
+simply to endow her with money and men. When she desired to garrison or
+to reduce to impotence any conquered district, the population of some
+other conquered district would be deported thither, while the new
+subjects took the vacant place. What happened when Sargon captured
+Samaria happened often elsewhere (Ashurbanipal, for example, made Thebes
+and Elam exchange inhabitants), for this was the only method of
+assimilating alien populations ever conceived by Assyria. When she
+attempted to use natives to govern natives the result was such disaster
+as followed Ashurbanipal's appointment of Psammetichus, son of Necho, to
+govern Memphis and the Western Delta.
+
+Rotten within, hated and coveted by vigorous and warlike races on the
+east, the north and the south, Assyria was moving steadily towards her
+catastrophe amid all the glory of "Sardanapal." The pace quickened when
+he was gone. A danger, which had lain long below the eastern horizon,
+was now come up into the Assyrian field of vision. Since Sargon's
+triumphant raids, the Great King's writ had run gradually less and less
+far into Media; and by his retaliatory invasions of Elam, which
+Sennacherib had provoked, Ashurbanipal not only exhausted his military
+resources, but weakened a power which had served to check more dangerous
+foes.
+
+We have seen that the "Mede" was probably a blend of Scythian and
+Iranian, the latter element supplying the ruling and priestly classes.
+The Scythian element, it seems, had been receiving considerable
+reinforcement. Some obscure cause, disturbing the northern steppes,
+forced its warlike shepherds to move southward in the mass. A large
+body, under the name Gimirrai or Cimmerians, descended on Asia Minor in
+the seventh century and swept it to the western edge of the plateau and
+beyond; others pressed into central and eastern Armenia, and, by
+weakening the Vannic king, enabled Ashurbanipal to announce the
+humiliation of Urartu; others again ranged behind Zagros and began to
+break through to the Assyrian valleys. Even while Ashurbanipal was still
+on the throne some of these last had ventured very far into his realm;
+for in the year of his death a band of Scythians appeared in Syria and
+raided southwards even to the frontier of Egypt. It was this raid which
+virtually ended the Assyrian control of Syria and enabled Josiah of
+Jerusalem and others to reassert independence.
+
+The death of Ashurbanipal coincided also with the end of direct Assyrian
+rule over Babylon. After the death of a rebellious brother and viceroy
+in 648, the Great King himself assumed the Babylonian crown and ruled
+the sacred city under a Babylonian name. But there had long been
+Chaldaean principalities in existence, very imperfectly incorporated in
+the Assyrian Empire, and these, inspiring revolts from time to time, had
+already succeeded in placing more than one dynast on the throne of
+Babylon. As soon as "Sardanapal" was no more and the Scythians began to
+overrun Assyria, one of these principalities (it is not known which)
+came to the front and secured the southern crown for its prince
+Nabu-aplu-utsur, or, as the Greeks wrote the name, Nabopolassar. This
+Chaldaean hastened to strengthen himself by marrying his son,
+Nebuchadnezzar, to a Median princess, and threw off the last pretence of
+submission to Assyrian suzerainty. He had made himself master of
+southern Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley trade-route by the year
+609.
+
+At the opening of the last decade of the century, therefore, we have
+this state of things. Scythians and Medes are holding most of eastern
+and central Assyria; Chaldaeans hold south Mesopotamia; while Syria,
+isolated from the old centre of empire, is anyone's to take and keep. A
+claimant appears immediately in the person of the Egyptian Necho, sprung
+from the loins of that Psammetichus who had won the Nile country back
+from Assyria. Pharaoh entered Syria probably in 609, broke easily
+through the barrier which Josiah of Jerusalem, greatly daring in this
+day of Assyrian weakness, threw across his path at Megiddo, went on to
+the north and proceeded to deal as he willed with the west of the
+Assyrian empire for four or five years. The destiny of Nineveh was all
+but fulfilled. With almost everything lost outside her walls, she held
+out against the Scythian assaults till 606, and then fell to the Mede
+Uvakhshatra, known to the Greeks as Kyaxares. The fallen capital of West
+Asia was devastated by the conquerors to such effect that it never
+recovered, and its life passed away for ever across the Tigris, to the
+site on which Mosul stands at the present day.
+
+
+SECTION 5. THE BABYLONIANS AND THE MEDES
+
+Six years later,--in 600 B.C.--this was the position of that part of the
+East which had been the Assyrian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldaean
+king of Babylon, who had succeeded his father about 605, held the
+greater share of it to obedience and tribute, but not, apparently, by
+means of any such centralized bureaucratic organization as the Assyrians
+had established. Just before his father's death he had beaten the
+Egyptians in a pitched battle under the walls of Carchemish, and
+subsequently had pursued them south through Syria, and perhaps across
+the frontier, before being recalled to take up his succession. He had
+now, therefore, no rival or active competitor in Syria, and this part of
+the lost empire of Assyria seems to have enjoyed a rare interval of
+peace under native client princes who ruled more or less on Assyrian
+lines. The only fenced places which made any show of defiance were Tyre
+and Jerusalem, which both relied on Egypt. The first would outlast an
+intermittent siege of thirteen years; but the other, with far less
+resources, was soon to pay full price for having leaned too long on the
+"staff of a broken reed."
+
+About the east and north a different story would certainly have to be
+told, if we could tell it in full. But though Greek traditions come to
+our aid, they have much less to say about these remote regions than the
+inscribed annals of that empire, which had just come to its end, have
+had hitherto: and unfortunately the Median inheritors of Assyria have
+left no epigraphic records of their own--at least none have been found.
+If, as seems probable, the main element of Kyaxares' war strength was
+Scythian, we can hardly expect to find records either of his conquest or
+the subsequent career of the Medes, even though Ecbatana should be laid
+bare below the site of modern Hamadan; for the predatory Scyth, like the
+mediaeval Mongol, halted too short a time to desire to carve stones, and
+probably lacked skill to inscribe them. To complete our discomfiture,
+the only other possible source of light, the Babylonian annals, sheds
+none henceforward on the north country and very little on any country.
+Nebuchadnezzar--so far as his records have been found and read--did not
+adopt the Assyrian custom of enumerating first and foremost his
+expeditions and his battles; and were it not for the Hebrew Scriptures,
+we should hardly know that his armies ever left Babylonia, the
+rebuilding and redecoration of whose cities and shrines appear to have
+constituted his chief concern. True, that in such silence about warlike
+operations, he follows the precedent of previous Babylonian kings; but
+probably that precedent arose from the fact that for a long time past
+Babylon had been more or less continuously a client state.
+
+We must, therefore, proceed by inference. There are two or three
+recorded events earlier and later than our date, which are of service.
+First, we learn from Babylonian annals that Kyaxares, besides
+overrunning all Assyria and the northern part of Babylonia after the
+fall of Nineveh, took and pillaged Harran and its temple in north-west
+Mesopotamia. Now, from other records of Nabonidus, fourth in succession
+to Nebuchadnezzar, we shall learn further that this temple did not come
+into Babylonian hands till the middle of the following century. The
+reasonable inference is that it had remained since 606 B.C. in the power
+of the Medes, and that northern Mesopotamia, as well as Assyria, formed
+part of a loose-knit Median "Empire" for a full half century before 552
+B.C.
+
+Secondly, Herodotus bears witness to a certain event which occurred
+about the year 585, in a region near enough to his own country for the
+fact to be sufficiently well known to him. He states that, after an
+expedition into Cappadocia and a war with Lydia, the Medes obtained,
+under a treaty with the latter which the king of Babylon and the prince
+of Cilicia promoted, the Halys river as a "scientific frontier" on the
+north-west. This statement leaves us in no doubt that previously the
+power of Ecbatana had been spread through Armenia into the old Hatti
+country of Cappadocia, as well as over all the north of Mesopotamia, in
+the widest sense of this vague term.
+
+Something more, perhaps, may be inferred legitimately from this same
+passage of Herodotus. The mediation of the two kings, so unexpectedly
+coupled, must surely mean that each stood to one of the two belligerents
+as friend and ally. If so (since a Babylonian king can hardly have held
+such a relation to distant Lydia, while the other prince might well have
+been its friend), Cilicia was probably outside the Median "sphere of
+influence," while Babylon fell within it; and Nebuchadnezzar--for he it
+must have been, when the date is considered, though Herodotus calls him
+by a name, Labynetus, otherwise unknown--was not a wholly independent
+ruler, though ruler doubtless of the first and greatest of the client
+states of Media. Perhaps that is why he has told us so little of
+expeditions and battles, and confined his records so narrowly to
+domestic events. If his armies marched only to do the bidding of an
+alien kinsman-in-law, he can have felt but a tepid pride in their
+achievements.
+
+In 600 B.C., then, we must picture a Median "Empire," probably of the
+raiding type, centred in the west of modern Persia and stretching
+westward over all Armenia (where the Vannic kingdom had ceased to be),
+and southward to an ill-defined point in Mesopotamia. Beyond this point
+south and west extended a Median sphere of influence which included
+Babylonia and all that obeyed Nebuchadnezzar even to the border of Elam
+on the one hand and the border of Egypt on the other. Since the heart of
+this "Empire" lay in the north, its main activities took place there
+too, and probably the discretion of the Babylonian king was seldom
+interfered with by his Median suzerain. In expanding their power
+westward to Asia Minor, the Medes followed routes north of Taurus, not
+the old Assyrian war-road through Cilicia. Of so much we can be fairly
+sure. Much else that we are told of Media by Herodotus--his marvellous
+account of Ecbatana and scarcely less wonderful account of the reigning
+house--must be passed by till some confirmation of it comes to light;
+and that, perhaps, will never be.
+
+
+SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR
+
+A good part of the East, however, remains which owed allegiance neither
+to Media nor to Babylon. It is, indeed, a considerably larger area than
+was independent of the Farther East at the date of our last survey. Asia
+Minor was in all likelihood independent from end to end, from the Aegean
+to the Euphrates--for in 600 B.C. Kyaxares had probably not yet come
+through Urartu--and from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Issus. About much
+of this area we have far more trustworthy information now than when we
+looked at it last, because it had happened to fall under the eyes of the
+Greeks of the western coastal cities, and to form relations with them of
+trade and war. But about the residue, which lay too far eastward to
+concern the Greeks much, we have less information than we had in 800
+B.C., owing to the failure of the Assyrian imperial annals.
+
+The dominant fact in Asia Minor in 600 B.C. is the existence of a new
+imperial power, that of Lydia. Domiciled in the central west of the
+peninsula, its writ ran eastwards over the plateau about as far as the
+former limits of the Phrygian power, on whose ruins it had arisen. As
+has been stated already, there is reason to believe that its "sphere of
+influence," at any rate, included Cilicia, and the battle to be fought
+on the Halys, fifteen years after our present survey, will argue that
+some control of Cappadocia also had been attempted. Before we speak of
+the Lydian kingdom, however, and of its rise to its present position, it
+will be best to dispose of that outlying state on the southeast,
+probably an ally or even client of Lydia, which, we are told, was at
+this time one of the "four powers of Asia." These powers included
+Babylon also, and accordingly, if our surmise that the Mede was then the
+overlord of Nebuchadnezzar be correct, this statement of Eusebius, for
+what it is worth, does not imply that Cilicia had attained an imperial
+position. Doubtless of the four "powers," she ranked lowest.
+
+
+SECTION 7. CILICIA
+
+It will be remembered how much attention a great raiding Emperor of the
+Middle Assyrian period, Shalmaneser II, had devoted to this little
+country. The conquering kings of later dynasties had devoted hardly
+less. From Sargon to Ashurbanipal they or their armies had been there
+often, and their governors continuously. Sennacherib is said to have
+rebuilt Tarsus "in the likeness of Babylon," and Ashurbanipal, who had
+to concern himself with the affairs of Asia Minor more than any of his
+predecessors, was so intimately connected with Tarsus that a popular
+tradition of later days placed there the scene of his death and the
+erection of his great tomb. And, in fact, he may have died there for all
+that we know to the contrary; for no Assyrian record tells us that he
+did not. Unlike the rest of Asia Minor, Cilicia was saved by the
+Assyrians from the ravages of the Cimmerians. Their leader, Dugdamme,
+whom the Greeks called Lygdamis, is said to have met his death on the
+frontier hills of Taurus, which, no doubt, he failed to pass. Thus, when
+Ashurbanipal's death and the shrinking of Ninevite power permitted
+distant vassals to resume independence, the unimpaired wealth of Cilicia
+soon gained for her considerable importance. The kings of Tarsus now
+extended their power into adjoining lands, such as Kue on the east and
+Tabal on the north, and probably over even the holding of the Kummukh;
+for Herodotus, writing a century and a half after our date, makes the
+Euphrates a boundary of Cilicia. He evidently understood that the
+northernmost part of Syria, called by later geographers (but never by
+him) Commagene, was then and had long been Cilician territory. His
+geographical ideas, in fact, went back to the greater Cilicia of
+pre-Persian time, which had been one of the "four great powers of Asia."
+
+The most interesting feature of Cilician history, as it is revealed very
+rarely and very dimly in the annals of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+consists in its relation to the earliest eastward venturing of the
+Greeks. The first Assyrian king with whom these western men seem to have
+collided was Sargon, who late in the eighth century, finding their ships
+in what he considered his own waters, i.e. on the coasts of Cyprus and
+Cilicia, boasts that he "caught them like fish." Since this action of
+his, he adds, "gave rest to Kue and Tyre," we may reasonably infer that
+the "Ionian pirates" did not then appear on the shores of Phoenicia and
+Cilicia for the first time; but, on the contrary, that they were already
+a notorious danger in the easternmost Levant. In the year 720 we find a
+nameless Greek of Cyprus (or Ionia) actually ruling Ashdod. Sargon's
+successor, Sennacherib, had serious trouble with the Ionians only a few
+years later, as has been learned from the comparison of a royal record
+of his, only recently recovered and read, with some statements made
+probably in the first place by the Babylonian historian, Berossus, but
+preserved to us in a chronicle of much later date, not hitherto much
+heeded. Piecing these scraps of information together, the Assyrian
+scholar, King, has inferred that, in the important campaign which a
+revolt of Tarsus, aided by the peoples of the Taurus on the west and
+north, compelled the generals of Sennacherib to wage in Cilicia in the
+year 698, Ionians took a prominent part by land, and probably also by
+sea. Sennacherib is said (by a late Greek historian) to have erected an
+"Athenian" temple in Tarsus after the victory, which was hardly won; and
+if this means, as it may well do, an "Ionic" temple, it states a by no
+means incredible fact, seeing that there had been much local contact
+between the Cilicians and the men of the west. Striking similarities of
+form and artistic execution between the early glyptic and toreutic work
+of Ionia and Cilicia respectively have been mentioned in the last
+chapter; and it need only be added here, in conclusion, that if Cilicia
+had relations with Ionia as early as the opening of the seventh
+century--relations sufficient to lead to alliance in war and to
+modification of native arts--it is natural enough that she should be
+found allied a few years later with Lydia rather than with Media.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PHRYGIA
+
+When we last surveyed Asia Minor as a whole it was in large part under
+the dominance of a central power in Phrygia. This power is now no more,
+and its place has been taken by another, which rests on a point nearer
+to the western coast. It is worth notice, in passing, how Anatolian
+dominion has moved stage by stage from east to west--from the Halys
+basin in northern Cappadocia, where its holders had been, broadly
+speaking, in the same cultural group as the Mesopotamian East, to the
+middle basin of the Sangarius, where western influences greatly modified
+the native culture (if we may judge by remains of art and script). Now
+at last it has come to the Hermus valley, up which blows the breath of
+the Aegean Sea. Whatever the East might recover in the future, the
+Anatolian peninsula was leaning more and more on the West, and the
+dominion of it was coming to depend on contact with the vital influence
+of Hellenism, rather than on connection with the heart of west Asia.
+
+A king Mita of the Mushki first appears in the annals of the New
+Assyrian Kingdom as opposing Sargon, when the latter, early in his
+reign, tried to push his sphere of influence, if not his territorial
+empire, beyond the Taurus to include the principalities of Kue and
+Tabal; and the same Mita appears to have been allied with Carchemish in
+the revolt which ended with its siege and final capture in 717 B.C. As
+has been said in the last chapter, it is usual to identify this king
+with one of those "Phrygians" known to the Greeks as Midas--preferably
+with the son of the first Gordius, whose wealth and power have been
+immortalized in mythology. If this identification is correct, we have to
+picture Phrygia at the close of the eighth century as dominating almost
+all Asia Minor, whether by direct or by indirect rule; as prepared to
+measure her forces (though without ultimate success) against the
+strongest power in Asia; and as claiming interests even outside the
+peninsula. Pisiris, king of Carchemish, appealed to Mita as his ally,
+either because the Mushki of Asia Minor sat in the seat of his own
+forbears, the Hatti of Cappadocia, or because he was himself of Mushki
+kin. There can be no doubt that the king thus invoked was king of
+Cappadocia. Whether he was king also of Phrygia, i.e. really the same as
+Midas son of Gordius, is, as has been said already, less certain. Mita's
+relations with Kue, Tabal and Carchemish do not, in themselves, argue
+that his seat of power was anywhere else than in the east of Asia Minor,
+where Moschi did actually survive till much later times: but, on the
+other hand, the occurrence of inscriptions in the distinctive script of
+Phrygia at Eyuk, east of the Halys, and at Tyana, south-east of the
+central Anatolian desert, argue that at some time the filaments of
+Phrygian power did stretch into Cappadocia and towards the land of the
+later Moschi.
+
+It must also be admitted that the splendour of the surviving rock
+monuments near the Phrygian capital is consistent with its having been
+the centre of a very considerable empire, and hardly consistent with its
+having been anything less. The greatest of these, the tomb of a king
+Midas (son not of Gordius but of Atys), has for facade a cliff about a
+hundred feet high, cut back to a smooth face on which an elaborate
+geometric pattern has been left in relief. At the foot is a false door,
+while above the immense stone curtain the rock has been carved into a
+triangular pediment worthy of a Greek temple and engraved with a long
+inscription in a variety of the earliest Greek alphabet. There are many
+other rock-tombs of smaller size but similar plan and decoration in the
+district round the central site, and others which show reliefs of human
+figures and of lions, the latter of immense proportions on two famous
+facades. When these were carved, the Assyrian art of the New Kingdom was
+evidently known in Phrygia (probably in the early seventh century), and
+it is difficult to believe that those who made such great things under
+Assyrian influence can have passed wholly unmentioned by contemporary
+Assyrian records. Therefore, after all, we shall, perhaps, have to admit
+that they were those same Mushki who followed leaders of the name Mita
+to do battle with the Great Kings of Nineveh from Sargon to
+Ashurbanipal.
+
+There is no doubt how the Phrygian kingdom came by its end. Assyrian
+records attest that the Gimirrai or Cimmerians, an Indo-European
+Scythian folk, which has left its name to Crim Tartary, and the present
+Crimea, swept southward and westward about the middle of the seventh
+century, and Greek records tell how they took and sacked the capital of
+Phrygia and put to death or forced to suicide the last King Midas.
+
+
+SECTION 9. LYDIA
+
+It must have been in the hour of that disaster, or but little before,
+that a Mermnad prince of Sardes, called Guggu by Assyrians and Gyges by
+Greeks, threw off any allegiance he may have owed to Phrygia and began
+to exalt his house and land of Lydia. He was the founder of a new
+dynasty, having been by origin, apparently, a noble of the court who
+came to be elevated to the throne by events differently related but
+involving in all the accounts some intrigue with his predecessor's
+queen. One historian, who says that he prevailed by the aid of Carians,
+probably states a fact; for it was this same Gyges who a few years later
+seems to have introduced Carian mercenaries to the notice of
+Psammetichus of Egypt. Having met and repulsed the Cimmerian horde
+without the aid of Ashurbanipal of Assyria, to whom he had applied in
+vain, Gyges allied himself with the Egyptian rebel who had just founded
+the Saite dynasty, and proceeded to enlarge his boundaries by attacking
+the prosperous Greeks on his western hand. But he was successful only
+against Colophon and Magnesia on the Maeander, inland places, and failed
+before Smyrna and Miletus, which could be provisioned by their fleets
+and probably had at their call a larger proportion of those warlike
+"Ionian pirates" who had long been harrying the Levant. In the course of
+a long reign, which Herodotus (an inexact chronologist) puts at
+thirty-eight years, Gyges had time to establish his power and to secure
+for his Lydians the control of the overland trade; and though a fresh
+Cimmerian horde, driven on, says Herodotus, by Scythians (perhaps these
+were not unconnected with the Medes then moving westward, as we know),
+came down from the north, defeated and killed him, sacked the
+unfortified part of his capital and swept on to plunder what it could of
+the land as far as the sea without pausing to take fenced places, his
+son Ardys, who had held out in the citadel of Sardes, and made his
+submission to Ashurbanipal, was soon able to resume the offensive
+against the Greeks. After an Assyrian attack on the Cimmerian flank or
+rear had brought about the death of the chief barbarian leader in the
+Cilician hills, and the dispersal of the storm, the Lydian marched down
+the Maeander again. He captured Priene, but like his predecessor and his
+successor, he failed to snatch the most coveted prize of the Greek
+coast, the wealthy city Miletus at the Maeander mouth.
+
+Up to the date of our present survey, however, and for half a century
+yet to come, these conquests of the Lydian kings in Ionia and Caria
+amounted to little more than forays for plunder and the levy of
+blackmail, like the earlier Mesopotamian razzias. They might result in
+the taking and sacking of a town here and there, but not in the holding
+of it. The Carian Greek Herodotus, born not much more than a century
+later, tells us expressly that up to the time of Croesus, that is, to
+his own father's time, all the Greeks kept their freedom: and even if he
+means by this statement, as possibly he does, that previously no Greeks
+had been subjected to regular slavery, it still supports our point: for,
+if we may judge by Assyrian practice, the enslaving of vanquished
+peoples began only when their land was incorporated in a territorial
+empire. We hear nothing of Lydian governors in the Greek coastal cities
+and find no trace of a "Lydian period" in the strata of such Ionian and
+Carian sites as have been excavated. So it would appear that the Lydians
+and the Greeks lived up to and after 600 B.C. in unquiet contact, each
+people holding its own on the whole and learning about the other in the
+only international school known to primitive men, the school of war.
+
+Herodotus represents that the Greek cities of Asia, according to the
+popular belief of his time, were deeply indebted to Lydia for their
+civilization. The larger part of this debt (if real) was incurred
+probably after 600 B.C.; but some constituent items of the account must
+have been of older date--the coining of money, for example. There is,
+however, much to be set on the other side of the ledger, more than
+Herodotus knew, and more than we can yet estimate. Too few monuments of
+the arts of the earlier Lydians and too few objects of their daily use
+have been found in their ill-explored land for us to say whether they
+owed most to the West or to the East. From the American excavation of
+Sardes, however, we have already learned for certain that their script
+was of a Western type, nearer akin to the Ionian than even the Phrygian
+was; and since their language contained a great number of Indo-European
+words, the Lydians should not, on the whole, be reckoned an Eastern
+people. Though the names given by Herodotus to their earliest kings are
+Mesopotamian and may be reminiscent of some political connection with
+the Far East at a remote epoch--perhaps that of the foreign relations of
+Ur, which seem to have extended to Cappadocia--all the later royal and
+other Lydian names recorded are distinctly Anatolian. At any rate all
+connection with Mesopotamia must have long been forgotten before
+Ashurbanipal's scribes could mention the prayer of "Guggu King of Luddi"
+as coming from a people and a land of which their master and his
+forbears had not so much as heard. As the excavation of Sardes and of
+other sites in Lydia proceeds, we shall perhaps find that the higher
+civilization of the country was a comparatively late growth, dating
+mainly from the rise of the Mermnads, and that its products will show an
+influence of the Hellenic cities which began not much earlier than 600
+B.C., and was most potent in the century succeeding that date.
+
+We know nothing of the extent of Lydian power towards the east, unless
+the suggestions already based on the passage of Herodotus concerning the
+meeting of Alyattes of Lydia with Kyaxares the Mede on the Halys, some
+years later than the date of our present survey, are well founded. If
+they are, then Lydia's sphere of influence may be assumed to have
+included Cilicia on the south-east, and its interests must have been
+involved in Cappadocia on the north-east. It is not unlikely that the
+Mermnad dynasty inherited most of what the Phrygian kings had held
+before the Cimmerian attack; and perhaps it was due to an oppressive
+Lydian occupation of the plateau as far east as the Halys and the foot
+of Anti-Taurus, that the Mushki came to be represented in later times
+only by Moschi in western Armenia, and the men of Tabal by the equally
+remote and insignificant Tibareni.
+
+
+SECTION 10. THE GREEK CITIES
+
+Of the Greek cities on the Anatolian coast something has been said
+already. The great period of the elder ones as free and independent
+communities falls between the opening of the eighth century and the
+close of the sixth. Thus they were in their full bloom about the year
+600. By the foundation of secondary colonies (Miletus alone is said to
+have founded sixty!) and the establishment of trading posts, they had
+pushed Hellenic culture eastwards round the shores of the peninsula, to
+Pontus on the north and to Cilicia on the south. In the eyes of
+Herodotus this was the happy age when "all Hellenes were free" as
+compared with his own experience of Persian overlordship. Miletus, he
+tells us, was then the greatest of the cities, mistress of the sea; and
+certainly some of the most famous among her citizens, Anaximander,
+Anaximenes, Hecataeus and Thales, belong approximately to this epoch, as
+do equally famous names from other Asiatic Greek communities, such as
+Alcaeus and Sappho of Lesbos, Mimnermus of Smyrna or Colophon, Anacreon
+of Teos, and many more. The fact is significant, because studies and
+literary activities like theirs could hardly have been pursued except in
+highly civilized, free and leisured societies where life and wealth were
+secure.
+
+If, however, the brilliant culture of the Asiatic Greeks about the
+opening of the sixth century admits no shadow of doubt, singularly few
+material things, which their arts produced, have been recovered for us
+to see to-day. Miletus has been excavated by Germans to a very
+considerable extent, without yielding anything really worthy of its
+great period, or, indeed, much that can be referred to that period at
+all, except sherds of a fine painted ware. It looks as if the city at
+the mouth of the greatest and largest valley, which penetrates Asia
+Minor from the west coast, was too important in subsequent ages and
+suffered chastisements too drastic and reconstructions too thorough for
+remains of its earlier greatness to survive except in holes and corners.
+Ephesus has given us more archaic treasures, from the deposits bedded
+down under the later reconstructions of its great shrine of Artemis; but
+here again the site of the city itself, though long explored by
+Austrians, has not added to the store. The ruins of the great Roman
+buildings which overlie its earlier strata have proved, perhaps, too
+serious an impediment to the excavators and too seductive a prize.
+Branchidae, with its temple of Apollo and Sacred Way, has preserved for
+us a little archaic statuary, as have also Samos and Chios. We have
+archaic gold work and painted vases from Rhodes, painted sarcophagi from
+Clazomenae, and painted pottery made there and at other places in Asia
+Minor, although found mostly abroad. But all this amounts to a very poor
+representation of the Asiatic Greek civilization of 600 B.C. Fortunately
+the soil still holds far more than has been got out of it. With those
+two exceptions, Miletus and Ephesus, the sites of the elder Hellenic
+cities on or near the Anatolian coast still await excavators who will go
+to the bottom of all things and dig systematically over a large area;
+while some sites await any excavation whatsoever, except such as is
+practised by plundering peasants.
+
+In their free youth the Asiatic Greeks carried into fullest practice the
+Hellenic conception of the city-state, self-governing, self-contained,
+exclusive. Their several societies had in consequence the intensely
+vivid and interested communal existence which develops civilization as a
+hot-house develops plants; but they were not democratic, and they had
+little sense of nationality--defects for which they were to pay dearly
+in the near future. In spite of their associations for the celebration
+of common festivals, such as the League of the twelve Ionian cities, and
+that of the Dorian Hexapolis in the south-west, which led to discussion
+of common political interests, a separatist instinct, reinforced by the
+strong geographical boundaries which divided most of the civic
+territories, continually reasserted itself. The same instinct was ruling
+the history of European Greece as well. But while the disaster, which in
+the end it would entail, was long avoided there through the insular
+situation of the main Greek area as a whole and the absence of any
+strong alien power on its continental frontier, disaster impended over
+Asiatic Greece from the moment that an imperial state should become
+domiciled on the western fringe of the inland plateau. Such a state had
+now appeared and established itself; and if the Greeks of Asia had had
+eyes to read, the writing was on their walls in 600 B.C.
+
+Meanwhile Asiatic traders thronged into eastern Hellas, and the Hellenes
+and their influence penetrated far up into Asia. The hands which carved
+some of the ivories found in the earliest Artemisium at Ephesus worked
+on artistic traditions derived ultimately from the Tigris. So, too,
+worked the smiths who made the Rhodian jewellery, and so, the artists
+who painted the Milesian ware and the Clazomenae sarcophagi. On the
+other side of the ledger (though three parts of its page is still hidden
+from us) we must put to Greek credit the script of Lydia, the rock
+pediments of Phrygia, and the forms and decorative schemes of many
+vessels and small articles in clay and bronze found in the Gordian
+tumuli and at other points on the western plateau from Mysia to
+Pamphylia. The men of "Javan," who had held the Syrian sea for a century
+past, were known to Ezekiel as great workers in metal; and in Cyprus
+they had long met and mingled their culture with that of men from the
+East.
+
+It was implied in the opening of this chapter that in 600 B.C. social
+changes in the East would be found disproportionate to political
+changes; and on the whole they seem so to have been. The Assyrian Empire
+was too lately fallen for any great modification of life to have taken
+place in its area, and, in fact, the larger part of that area was being
+administered still by a Chaldaean monarchy on the established lines of
+Semitic imperialism. Whether the centre of such a government lay at
+Nineveh or at Babylon can have affected the subject populations very
+little. No new religious force had come into the ancient East, unless
+the Mede is to be reckoned one in virtue of his Zoroastrianism. Probably
+he did not affect religion much in his early phase of raiding and
+conquest. The great experience, which was to convert the Jews from
+insignificant and barbarous highlanders into a cultured, commercial and
+cosmopolitan people of tremendous possibilities had indeed begun, but
+only for a part of the race, and so far without obvious result. The
+first incursion of Iranians in force, and that slow soakage of
+Indo-European tribes from Russia, which was to develop the Armenian
+people of history, are the most momentous signs of coming change to be
+noted between 800 and 600 B.C. with one exception, the full import of
+which will be plain at our next survey. This was the eastward movement
+of the Greeks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE EAST IN 400 B.C.
+
+
+As the fifth century draws to its close the East lies revealed at last
+in the light of history written by Greeks. Among the peoples whose
+literary works are known to us, these were the first who showed
+curiosity about the world in which they lived and sufficient
+consciousness of the curiosity of others to record the results of
+inquiry. Before our present date the Greeks had inquired a good deal
+about the East, and not of Orientals alone. Their own public men,
+military and civil, their men of science, their men of letters, their
+merchants in unknown number, even soldiers of theirs in thousands, had
+gone up into Inner Asia and returned. Leading Athenians, Solon, Hippias
+and Themistocles, had been received at Eastern courts or had accompanied
+Eastern sovereigns to war, and one more famous even than these,
+Alcibiades, had lately lived with a Persian satrap. Greek physicians,
+Democedes of Croton, Apollonides of Cos, Ctesias of Cnidus, had
+ministered to kings and queens of Persia in their palaces. Herodotus of
+Halicarnassus had seen Babylon, perhaps, and certainly good part of
+Syria; Ctesias had dwelt at Susa and collected notes for a history of
+the Persian Empire; Xenophon of Attica had tramped from the
+Mediterranean to the Tigris and from the Tigris to the Black Sea, and
+with him had marched more than ten thousand Greeks. Not only have works
+by these three men of letters survived, wholly or in part, to our time,
+but also many notes on the East as it was before 400 B.C. have been
+preserved in excerpts, paraphrases and epitomes by later authors. And we
+still have some archaeological documents to fall back upon. If the
+cuneiform records of the Persian Empire are less abundant than those of
+the later Assyrian Kingdom, they nevertheless include such priceless
+historical inscriptions as that graven by Darius, son of Hystaspes, on
+the rock of Behistun. There are also hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic
+texts of Persian Egypt; inscriptions of Semitic Syria and a few of
+archaic Greece; and much other miscellaneous archaeological material
+from various parts of the East, which, even if uninscribed, can inform
+us of local society and life.
+
+
+SECTION 1. EASTWARD MOVEMENT OF THE GREEKS
+
+The Greek had been pushing eastward for a long time. More than three
+hundred years ago, as has been shown in the last chapter, he had become
+a terror in the farthest Levant. Before another century had passed he
+found his way into Egypt also. Originally hired as mercenaries to
+support a native revolt against Assyria, the Greeks remained in the Nile
+valley not only to fight but to trade. The first introduction of them to
+the Saite Pharaoh, Psammetichus, was promoted by Gyges the Lydian to
+further his own ends, but the first development of their social
+influence in Egypt was due to the enterprise of Miletus in establishing
+a factory on the lowest course of the Canopic Nile. This post and two
+standing camps of Greek mercenaries, one at Tahpanhes watching the
+approach from Asia, the other at Memphis overawing the capital and
+keeping the road to Upper Egypt, served to introduce Ionian civilization
+to the Delta in the seventh century. Indeed, to this day our knowledge
+of the earliest fine painted pottery of Ionia and Caria depends largely
+on the fragments of their vases imported into Egypt which have been
+found at Tahpanhes, Memphis and another Greek colony, Naukratis, founded
+a little later (as will be told presently) to supersede the original
+Milesian factory. Though those foreign vases themselves, with their
+decoration of nude figure subjects which revolted vulgar Egyptian
+sentiment, did not go much beyond the Greek settlements (like the Greek
+courtesans of Naukratis, who perhaps appealed only to the more
+cosmopolitan Saites), their art certainly influenced all the finer art
+of the Saitic age, initiating a renascence whose characteristics of
+excessive refinement and meticulous delicacy survived to be reinforced
+in the Ptolemaic period by a new infusion of Hellenic culture.
+
+So useful or so dangerous--at any rate so numerous--did the Greeks
+become in Lower Egypt by the opening of the sixth century that a
+reservation was assigned to them beside the Egyptian town of Piemro, and
+to this alone, according to Herodotus, newcomers from the sea were
+allowed to make their way. This foreign suburb of Piemro was named
+Naukratis, and nine cities of the Asiatic Greeks founded a common
+sanctuary there. Other maritime communities of the same race (probably
+the more powerful, since Miletus is named among them) had their
+particular sanctuaries also and their proper places. The Greeks had come
+to Egypt to stay. We have learned from the remains of Naukratis that
+throughout the Persian domination, which superseded the Saitic before
+the close of the sixth century, a constant importation of products of
+Ionia, Attica, Sparta, Cyprus and other Hellenic centres was maintained.
+The place was in full life when Herodotus visited Egypt, and it
+continued to prosper until the Greek race, becoming rulers of all the
+land, enthroned Hellenism at Alexandria on the sea itself.
+
+
+SECTION 2. PHOENICIAN CARRIERS
+
+Nor was it only through Greek sea-rovers and settlers in Cilicia, and
+through Greek mercenaries, merchants and courtesans in the Nile-Delta,
+that the East and the West had been making mutual acquaintance. Other
+agencies of communication had been active in bringing Mesopotamian
+models to the artists of the Ionian and Dorian cities in Asia Minor, and
+Ionian models to Mesopotamia and Syria. The results are plain to see, on
+the one hand in the fabric and design of early ivories, jewellery and
+other objects found in the archaic Artemisium at Ephesus, and in the
+decoration of painted pottery produced at Miletus; on the other hand, in
+the carved ivories of the ninth century found at Calah on the Tigris.
+But the processes which produced these results are not so clear. If the
+agents or carriers of those mutual influences were certainly the
+Phoenicians and the Lydians, we cannot yet apportion with confidence to
+each of these peoples the responsibility for the results, or be sure
+that they were the only agents, or independent of other middlemen more
+directly in contact with one party or the other.
+
+The Phoenicians have pushed far afield since we looked at them last. By
+founding Carthage more than half-way towards the Pillars of Hercules the
+city of Tyre completed her occupation of sufficient African harbours,
+beyond the reach of Egypt, and out of the Greek sphere, to appropriate
+to herself by the end of the ninth century the trade of the western
+Mediterranean basin. By means of secondary settlements in west Sicily,
+Sardinia and Spain, she proceeded to convert this sea for a while into
+something like a Phoenician lake. No serious rival had forestalled her
+there or was to arise to dispute her monopoly till she herself, long
+after our date, would provoke Rome. The Greek colonies in Sicily and
+Italy, which looked westward, failed to make head against her at the
+first, and soon dropped out of the running; nor did the one or two
+isolated centres of Hellenism on other shores do better. On the other
+hand, in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, although it was her own
+home-sea, Tyre never succeeded in establishing commercial supremacy, and
+indeed, so far as we know, she never seriously tried to establish it. It
+was the sphere of the Aegean mariners and had been so as far back as
+Phoenician memory ran. The Late Minoan Cretans and men of Argolis, the
+Achaean rovers, the Ionian pirates, the Milesian armed merchantmen had
+successively turned away from it all but isolated and peaceful ships of
+Sidon and Tyre, and even so near a coast as Cyprus remained foreign to
+the Phoenicians for centuries after Tyre had grown to full estate. In
+the Homeric stories ships of the Sidonians, though not unknown, make
+rare appearances, and other early legends of the Greeks, which make
+mention of Phoenician visits to Hellenic coasts, imply that they were
+unusual phenomena, which aroused much local curiosity and were long
+remembered. The strangeness of the Phoenician mariners, the unfamiliar
+charm of their cargoes--such were the impressions left on Greek story by
+the early visits of Phoenician ships.
+
+That they did pay such visits, however, from time to time is certain.
+The little Egyptian trinkets, which occur frequently in Hellenic strata
+of the eighth to the sixth centuries, are sufficient witness of the
+fact. They are most numerous in Rhodes, in Caria and Ionia, and in the
+Peloponnese. But the main stream of Tyrian commerce hugged the south
+rather than the north coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Phoenician
+sailors were essentially southerners--men who, if they would brave now
+and again the cold winds of the Aegean and Adriatic, refused to do so
+oftener than was necessary--men to whom African shores and a climate
+softened by the breath of the Ocean were more congenial.
+
+If, however, the Phoenicians were undoubtedly agents who introduced the
+Egyptian culture to the early Hellenes of both Asia and Europe, did they
+also introduce the Mesopotamian? Not to anything like the same extent,
+if we may judge by the products of excavations. Indeed, wherever
+Mesopotamian influence has left unmistakable traces upon Greek soil, as
+in Cyprus and Ionia or at Corinth and Sparta, it is often either certain
+or probable that the carrying agency was not Phoenician. We find the
+nearest affinities to archaic Cypriote art (where this was indebted to
+Asiatic art at all) in Cilician and in Hittite Syrian art. Early Ionian
+and Carian strata contain very little that is of Egyptian character, but
+much whose inspiration can be traced ultimately to Mesopotamia; and
+research in inner Asia Minor, imperfect though its results are yet, has
+brought to light on the plateau so much parallelism to Ionian
+Orientalizing art, and so many examples of prior stages in its
+development, that we must assume Mesopotamian influence to have reached
+westernmost Asia chiefly by overland ways. As for the European sites,
+since their Orientalism appears to have been drawn from Ionia, it also
+had come through Asia overland.
+
+Therefore on the whole, though Herodotus asserts that the Phoenician
+mariners carried Assyrian cargoes, there is remarkably little evidence
+that those cargoes reached the West, and equally little that Phoenicians
+had any considerable direct trade with Mesopotamia. They may have been
+responsible for the small Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects which have
+been found by the excavators of Carchemish and Sakjegeuzi in strata of
+the ninth and eighth centuries; but the carrying of similar objects
+eastward across the Euphrates was more probably in Hittite hands than
+theirs. The strongest Nilotic influence which affected Mesopotamian art
+is to be noticed during the latter half of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+when there was no need for alien intermediaries to keep Nineveh in
+communication with its own province of Egypt.
+
+Apparently, therefore, it was not through the Phoenicians that the
+Greeks had learned most of what they knew about the East in 400 B.C.
+Other agents had played a greater part and almost all the
+intercommunication had been effected by way, not of the Levant Sea, but
+of the land bridge through Asia Minor. In the earlier part of our story,
+during the latter rule of Assyria in the farther East and the subsequent
+rule of the Medes and the Babylonians in her room, intercourse had been
+carried on almost entirely by intermediaries, among whom (if something
+must be allowed to the Cilicians) the Lydians were undoubtedly the most
+active. In the later part of the story it will be seen that the
+intermediaries have vanished; the barriers are down; the East has itself
+come to the West and intercourse is immediate and direct. How this
+happened--what agency brought Greeks and Orientals into an intimate
+contact which was to have the most momentous consequences to
+both--remains to be told.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE COMING OF THE PERSIANS
+
+We have seen already how a power, which had grown behind the frontier
+mountains of the Tigris basin, forced its way at last through the
+defiles and issued in the riverine plains with fatal results to the
+north Semitic kings. By the opening of the sixth century Assyria had
+passed into Median hands, and these were reaching out through Armenia to
+central Asia Minor. Even the south Semites of Babylonia had had to
+acknowledge the superior power of the newcomers and, probably, to accept
+a kind of vassalage. Thus, since all lower Mesopotamia with most part of
+Syria obeyed the Babylonian, a power, partly Iranian, was already
+overshadowing two-thirds of the East before Cyrus and his Persians
+issued upon the scene. It is important to bear this fact in mind when
+one comes to note the ease with which a hitherto obscure king of Anshan
+in Elam would prove able to possess himself of the whole Semitic Empire,
+and the rapidity with which his arms would appear in the farthest west
+of Asia Minor on the confines of the Greeks themselves. Nebuchadnezzar
+allied with and obedient to the Median king, helping him on the Halys in
+585 B.C. to arrange with Lydia a division of the peninsula of Asia Minor
+on the terms _uti possidetis_--that is the significant situation which
+will prepare us to find Cyrus not quite half a century later lord of
+Babylon, Jerusalem and Sardes.
+
+What events, passing in the far East among the divers groups of the
+Iranians themselves and their Scythian allies, led to this king of a
+district in Elam, whose own claim to have belonged by blood to any of
+those groups is doubtful, consolidating all the Iranians whether of the
+south or north under his single rule into a mighty power of offence, we
+do not know. Stories current among the Greeks and reported by Herodotus
+and Ctesias represented Cyrus as in any case a Persian, but as either
+grandson of a Median king (though not his natural heir) or merely one of
+his court officials. What the Greeks had to account for (and so have we)
+is the subsequent disappearance of the north Iranian kings of the Medes
+and the fusion of their subjects with the Persian Iranians under a
+southern dynasty. And what the Greeks did not know, but we do, from
+cuneiform inscriptions either contemporary with, or very little
+subsequent to, Cyrus' time, only complicates the problem; since these
+bear witness that Cyrus was known at first (as has been indicated
+already) for a king of Elam, and not till later for a king of Persia.
+Ctesias, who lived at Susa itself while at was the Persian capital,
+agrees with Herodotus that Cyrus wrested the lordship of the Medes from
+the native dynasty by force; but Herodotus adds that many Medes were
+consenting parties.
+
+These problems cannot be discussed here. The probability is, summarily,
+this. Some part of the southern or Persian group of Iranians which,
+unlike the northern, was not contaminated with Scyths, had advanced into
+Elam while the Medes were overrunning and weakening the Semitic Empire;
+and in Anshan it consolidated itself into a territorial power with Susa
+for capital. Presently some disaffection arose among the northern
+Iranians owing, perhaps, to favour shown by the Median kings to their
+warlike Scythian subjects, and the malcontents called in the king of
+Anshan. The issue was fought out in central West Persia, which had been
+dominated by the Medes since the time of Kyaxares' father, Phraortes,
+and when it was decided by the secession of good part of the army of
+King Astyages, Cyrus of Anshan took possession of the Median Empire with
+the goodwill of much of the Median population. This empire included
+then, beside the original Median land, not only territories conquered
+from Assyria but also all that part of Persia which lay east of Elam.
+Some time, doubtless, elapsed before the sovereignty of Cyrus was
+acknowledged by all Persia; but, once his lordship over this land was an
+accomplished fact, he naturally became known as king primarily of the
+Persians, and only secondarily of the Medes, while his seat remained at
+Susa in his own original Elamite realm. The Scythian element in and
+about his Median province remained unreconciled, and one day he would
+meet his death in a campaign against it; but the Iranian element
+remained faithful to him and his son, and only after the death of the
+latter gave expression by a general revolt to its discontent with the
+bargain it had made.
+
+
+SECTION 4. FALL OF LYDIA
+
+Cyrus must have met with little or no opposition in the western Median
+provinces, for we find him, within a year or two of his recognition by
+both Persians and Medes, not only on his extreme frontier, the Halys
+river, but able to raid across it and affront the power of Lydia. To
+this action he was provoked by Lydia itself. The fall of the Median
+dynasty, with which the royal house of Lydia had been in close alliance
+since the Halys pact, was a disaster which Croesus, now king of Sardes
+in the room of Alyattes, was rash enough to attempt to repair. He had
+continued with success his father's policy of extending Lydian dominion
+to the Aegean at the expense of the Ionian Greeks; and, master of
+Ephesus, Colophon and Smyrna, as well as predominant partner in the
+Milesian sphere, he secured to Lydia the control and fruition of
+Anatolian trade, perhaps the most various and profitable in the world at
+that time. A byword for wealth and luxury, the Lydians and their king
+had nowadays become soft, slow-moving folk, as unfit to cope with the
+mountaineers of the wild border highlands of Persia as, if Herodotus'
+story is well founded, they were ignorant of their quality. Croesus took
+his time, sending envoys to consult oracles near and far. Herodotus
+tells us that he applied to Delphi not less than thrice and even to the
+oracle of Ammon in the Eastern Sahara. At least a year must have been
+spent in these inquiries alone, not to speak of an embassy to Sparta and
+perhaps others to Egypt and Babylon. These preliminaries at length
+completed, the Lydian gathered the levies of western Asia Minor and set
+out for the East. He found the Halys in flood--it must have been in late
+spring--and having made much ado of crossing it, spent the summer in
+ravaging with his cavalry the old homeland of the Hatti. Thus he gave
+Cyrus time to send envoys to the Ionian cities to beg them attack Lydia
+in the rear, and time to come down himself in force to his far western
+province. Croesus was brought to battle in the first days of the autumn.
+The engagement was indecisive, but the Lydians, having no mind to stay
+out the winter on the bleak Cappadocian highlands and little suspicion
+that the enemy would think of further warfare before spring, went back
+at their leisure to the Hermus valley, only to hear at Sardes itself
+that the Persian was hot in pursuit. A final battle was fought under the
+very walls of the Lydian capital and lost by Croesus; the lower town was
+taken and sacked; and the king, who had shut himself with his guards
+into the citadel and summoned his allies to his rescue come five months,
+was a prisoner of Cyrus within two weeks. It was the end of Lydia and of
+all buffers between the Orient and Greece. East and West were in direct
+contact and the omens boded ill to the West. Cyrus refused terms to the
+Greeks, except the powerful Milesians, and departing for the East again,
+left Lydia to be pacified and all the cities of the western coasts,
+Ionian, Carian, Lycian and what not, excepting only Miletus, to be
+reduced by his viceroys.
+
+
+SECTION 5. PERSIAN EMPIRE
+
+Cyrus himself had still to deal with a part of the East which, not
+having been occupied by the Medes, though in a measure allied and
+subservient to them, saw no reason now to acknowledge the new dynasty.
+This is the part which had been included in the New Babylonian Empire.
+The Persian armies invaded Babylonia. Nabonidus was defeated finally at
+Opis in June 538; Sippara fell, and Cyrus' general appearing before
+Babylon itself received it without a struggle at the hands of the
+disaffected priests of Bel-Marduk. The famous Herodotean tale of Cyrus'
+secret penetration down the dried bed of Euphrates seems to be a
+mistaken memory of a later recapture of the city after a revolt from
+Darius, of which more hereafter. Thus once more it was given to Cyrus to
+close a long chapter of Eastern history--the history of imperial
+Babylon. Neither did he make it his capital, nor would any other lord of
+the East so favour it. If Alexander perhaps intended to revive its
+imperial position, his successor, Seleucus, so soon as he was assured of
+his inheritance, abandoned the Euphratean city for the banks of the
+Tigris and Orontes, leaving it to crumble to the heap which it is
+to-day.
+
+The Syrian fiefs of the Babylonian kings passed _de jure_ to the
+conqueror; but probably Cyrus himself never had leisure or opportunity
+to secure them _de facto_. The last decade of his life seems to have
+been spent in Persia and the north-east, largely in attempts to reduce
+the Scythian element, which threatened the peace of Media; and at the
+last, having brought the enemy to bay beyond the Araxes, he met there
+defeat and death. But Cambyses not only completed his father's work in
+Syria, but fulfilled what is said to have been his further project by
+capturing Egypt and establishing there a foreign domination which was to
+last, with some intervals, nearly two hundred years. By the end of the
+sixth century one territorial empire was spread over the whole East for
+the first time in history; and it was with a colossus, bestriding the
+lands from the Araxes to the Upper Nile and from the Oxus to the Aegean
+Sea, that the Greeks stood face to face in the gate of the West.
+
+Before, however, we become absorbed in contemplation of a struggle which
+will take us into a wider history, let us pause a moment to consider the
+nature of the new power come out of the East, and the condition of such
+of its subject peoples as have mattered most in the later story of
+mankind. It should be remarked that the new universal power is not only
+non-Semitic for the first time in well-certified history, but controlled
+by a very pure Aryan stock, much nearer kin to the peoples of the West
+than any Oriental folk with which they have had intimate relations
+hitherto. The Persians appeared from the Back of Beyond, uncontaminated
+by Alarodian savagery and unhampered by the theocratic prepossessions
+and nomadic traditions of Semites. They were highlanders of unimpaired
+vigour, frugal habit, settled agricultural life, long-established social
+cohesion and spiritual religious conceptions. Possibly, too, before they
+issued from the vast Iranian plateau, they were not wholly unversed in
+the administration of wide territories. In any case, their quick
+intelligence enabled them to profit by models of imperial organization
+which persisted in the lands they now acquired; for relics of the
+Assyrian system had survived under the New Babylonian rule, and perhaps
+also under the Median. Thereafter the experience gained by Cambyses in
+Egypt must have gone for something in the imperial education of his
+successor Darius, to whom historians ascribe the final organization of
+Persian territorial rule. From the latter's reign onward we find a
+regular provincial system linked to the centre as well as might be by a
+postal service passing over state roads. The royal power is delegated to
+several officials, not always of the ruling race, but independent of
+each other and directly responsible to Susa: these live upon their
+provinces but must see to it first and foremost that the centre receives
+a fixed quota of money and a fixed quota of fighting men when required.
+The Great King maintains royal residences in various cities of the
+empire, and not infrequently visits them; but in general his viceroys
+are left singularly free to keep the peace of their own governorates and
+even to deal with foreign neighbours at their proper discretion.
+
+If we compare the Persian theory of Empire with the Assyrian, we note
+still a capital fault. The Great King of Susa recognized no more
+obligation than his predecessors of Nineveh to consider the interests of
+those he ruled and to make return to them for what he took. But while,
+on the one hand, no better imperial theory was conceivable in the sixth
+century B.C., and certainly none was held or acted upon in the East down
+to the nineteenth century A.D., on the other, the Persian imperial
+practice mitigated its bad effects far more than the Assyrian had done.
+Free from the Semitic tradition of annual raiding, the Persians reduced
+the obligation of military service to a bearable burden and avoided
+continual provocation of frontier neighbours. Free likewise from Semitic
+supermonotheistic ideas, they did not seek to impose their creed. Seeing
+that the Persian Empire was extensive, decentralized and provided with
+imperfect means of communication, it could subsist only by practising
+provincial tolerance. Its provincial tolerance seems to have been
+systematic. We know a good deal of the Greeks and the Jews under its
+sway, and in the history of both we miss such signs of religious and
+social oppression as marked Assyrian rule. In western Asia Minor the
+satraps showed themselves on the whole singularly conciliatory towards
+local religious feeling and even personally comformable to it; and in
+Judaea the hope of the Hebrews that the Persian would prove a deliverer
+and a restorer of their estate was not falsified. Hardly an echo of
+outrage on the subjects of Persia in time of peace has reached our ears.
+If the sovereign of the Asiatic Greek cities ran counter to Hellenic
+feeling by insisting on "tyrant" rule, he did no more than continue a
+system under which most of those cities had grown rich. It is clear that
+they had little else to complain of than absence of a democratic freedom
+which, as a matter of fact, some of them had not enjoyed in the day of
+their independence. The satraps seem to have been supplied with few, or
+even no, Persian troops, and with few Persian aides on their
+administrative staff. The Persian element in the provinces must, in
+fact, have been extraordinarily small--so small that an Empire, which
+for more than two centuries comprehended nearly all western Asia, has
+left hardly a single provincial monument of itself, graven on rock or
+carved on stone.
+
+
+SECTION 6. JEWS
+
+If we look particularly at the Jews--those subjects of Persia who
+necessarily share most of our interest with the Greeks--we find that
+Persian imperial rule was no sooner established securely over the former
+Babylonian fief in Palestine than it began to undo the destructive work
+of its predecessors. Vainly expecting help from the restored Egyptian
+power, Jerusalem had held out against Nebuchadnezzar till 587. On its
+capture the dispersion of the southern Jews, which had already begun
+with local emigrations to Egypt, was largely increased by the
+deportation of a numerous body to Babylonia. As early, however, as 538,
+the year of Cyrus' entry into Babylon (doubtless as one result of that
+event), began a return of exiles to Judaea and perhaps also to Samaria.
+By 520 the Jewish population in South Palestine was sufficiently strong
+again to make itself troublesome to Darius, and in 516 the Temple was in
+process of restoration. Before the middle of the next century Jerusalem
+was once more a fortified city and its population had been further
+reinforced by many returned exiles who had imbibed the economic
+civilization, and also the religiosity of Babylonia. Thenceforward the
+development of the Jews into a commercial people proceeds without
+apparent interruption from Persian governors, who (as, for example,
+Nehemiah) could themselves be of the subject race. Even if large
+accretions of other Semites, notably Aramaeans, be allowed
+for--accretions easily accepted by a people which had become rather a
+church than a nation--it remains a striking testimony to Persian
+toleration that after only some six or seven generations the once
+insignificant Jews should have grown numerous enough to contribute an
+important element to the populations of several foreign cities. It is
+worth remark also that even when, presumably, free to return to the home
+of their race, many Jews preferred to remain in distant parts of the
+Persian realm. Names mentioned on contract tablets of Nippur show that
+Jews found it profitable to still sit by the waters of Babylon till late
+in the fifth century; while in another distant province of the Persian
+Empire (as the papyri of Syene have disclosed) a flourishing
+particularist settlement of the same race persisted right down to and
+after 500 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 7. ASIA UNDER PERSIA
+
+On the whole evidence the Persians might justifiably claim that their
+imperial organization in its best days, destitute though it was of
+either the centralized strength or the theoretic justification of modern
+civilized rule, achieved a very considerable advance, and that it is not
+unworthy to be compared even to the Roman in respect of the freedom and
+peace which in effect it secured to its subjects.
+
+[Plate 5: PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS
+HYSTASPIS]
+
+Not much more need--or can--be said about the other conquered peoples
+before we revert to the Greeks. Though Cyrus did not live to receive in
+person the submission of all the west Asian peoples, his son Cambyses
+had received it before his short reign of eight years came to an end.
+Included in the empire now were not only all the mainland territories
+once dominated by the Medes and the Babylonians, but also much wider
+lands east, west and south, and even Mediterranean islands which lay
+near the Asiatic shores. Among these last was Cyprus, now more closely
+linked to Phoenicia than of old, and combining with the latter to
+provide navies for the Great King's needs. On the East, the Iranian
+plateau, watched from two royal residences, Pasargadae in the south and
+Ecbatana in the north, swelled this realm to greater dimensions than any
+previous eastern empire had boasted. On the south, Cambyses added Cyrene
+and, less surely, Nabia to Egypt proper, which Assyria had possessed for
+a short time, as we have seen. On the west, Cyrus and his generals had
+already secured all Asia which lay outside the Median limit, including
+Cilicia, where (as also in other realms, e.g. Phoenicia, Cyprus, Caria)
+the native dynasty accepted a client position.
+
+This, however, is not to be taken to mean that all the East settled down
+at once into contented subservience. Cambyses, by putting his brother to
+death, had cut off the direct line of succession. A pretender appeared
+in the far East; Cambyses died on the march to meet him, and at once all
+the oriental provinces, except the homeland of Persia, were up in
+revolt. But a young cognate of the royal house, Darius, son of
+Hystaspes, a strong man, slew the pretender, and once secure on the
+throne, brought Media, Armenia, Elam and at last Babylonia, back to
+obedience. The old imperial city on the Euphrates would make one more
+bid for freedom six years later and then relapse into the estate of a
+provincial town. Darius spent some twenty years in organizing his empire
+on the satrap system, well known to us from Greek sources, and in
+strengthening his frontiers. To promote the latter end he passed over
+into Europe, even crossing the Danube in 511 to check Scythian raids;
+and he secured the command of the two straits and the safety of his
+northwest Asiatic possessions by annexing the south-east of the Balkan
+peninsula with the flourishing Greek cities on its coasts.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PERSIA AND THE GREEKS
+
+The sixth century closed and the fifth century ran three years of its
+course in apparently unbroken peace between East and West. But trouble
+was near at hand. Persia had imposed herself on cities which possessed a
+civilization superior, not only potentially but actually, to her own; on
+cities where individual and communal passion for freedom constituted the
+one religion incompatible with her tolerant sway; on cities conscious of
+national identity with a powerful group outside the Persian Empire, and
+certain sooner or later to engage that group in warfare on their behalf.
+
+Large causes, therefore, lay behind the friction and intrigue which,
+after a generation of subjection, caused the Ionian cities, led, as of
+old, by Miletus, to ring up the first act of a dramatic struggle
+destined to make history for a very long time to come. We cannot examine
+here in detail the particular events which induced the Ionian Revolt.
+Sufficient to say they all had their spring in the great city of
+Miletus, whose merchant princes and merchant people were determined to
+regain the power and primacy which they had enjoyed till lately. A
+preliminary failure to aggrandize themselves with the goodwill of Persia
+actually brought on their revolt, but it only precipitated a struggle
+inevitable ultimately on one side of the Aegean or the other.
+
+After setting the whole Anatolian coast from the Bosporus to Pamphylia
+and even Cyprus in a blaze for two years, the Ionian Revolt failed,
+owing as much to the particularist jealousies of the Greek cities
+themselves as to vigorous measures taken against them by Darius on land
+and his obedient Phoenicians at sea. A naval defeat sealed the fate of
+Miletus, whose citizens found, to the horror of all Greece, that, on
+occasion, the Persian would treat rebels like a loyal successor of
+Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar. But even though it failed, the Revolt
+brought on a second act in the drama. For, on the one hand, it had
+involved in Persian politics certain cities of the Greek motherlands,
+notably Athens, whose contingent, greatly daring, affronted the Great
+King by helping to burn the lower town of Sardes; and on the other, it
+had prompted a despot on the European shore of the Dardanelles, one
+Miltiades, an Athenian destined to immortal fame, to incense Darius yet
+more by seizing his islands of Lemnos and Imbros.
+
+Evidently neither could Asiatic Greeks be trusted, even though their
+claws were cut by disarmament and their motives for rebellion had been
+lessened by the removal of their despots, nor could the Balkan province
+be held securely, while the western Greeks remained defiant and Athens,
+in particular, aiming at the control of Aegean trade, supported the
+Ionian colonies. Therefore Darius determined to strike at this city
+whose exiled despot, Hippias, promised a treacherous co-operation; and
+he summoned other Greek states to make formal submission and keep the
+peace. A first armada sent to coast round the northern shore in 492
+added Macedonia to the Persian Empire; but it was crippled and stayed by
+storms. A second, sent two years later direct across the Aegean, reduced
+the Cyclad isles, revenged itself on Eretria, one of the minor culprits
+in the Sardian affair, and finally brought up by the Attic shore at
+Marathon. The world-famous defeat which its landing parties suffered
+there should be related by a historian rather of Greece than of the
+East; and so too should the issue of a third and last invasion which,
+ten years later, after old Darius' death, Xerxes led in person to defeat
+at Salamis, and left to meet final rout under his generalissimo at
+Plataea. For our purpose it will be enough to note the effects which
+this momentous series of events had on the East itself.
+
+
+SECTION 9. RESULTS OF THE PERSIAN ATTACKS ON GREECE
+
+Obviously the European failure of Persia affected the defeated less than
+the victorious party. Except upon the westernmost fringe of the Persian
+Empire we have no warrant for saying that it had any serious political
+result at all. A revolt of Egypt which broke out in the last year of
+Darius, and was easily suppressed by his successor, seems not to have
+been connected with the Persian disaster at Marathon; and even when two
+more signal defeats had been suffered in Greece, and a fourth off the
+shore of Asia itself--the battle of Mycale--upon which followed closely
+the loss of Sestus, the European key of the Hellespont, and more
+remotely the loss not only of all Persian holdings in the Balkans and
+the islands, but also of the Ionian Greek cities and most of the
+Aeolian, and at last (after the final naval defeat off the Eurymedon) of
+the whole littoral of Anatolia from Pamphylia right round to the
+Propontis--not even after all these defeats and losses did the Persian
+power suffer diminution in inner Asia or loss of prestige in inland Asia
+Minor. Some years, indeed, had still to elapse before the ever-restless
+Egyptian province used the opportunity of Xerxes' death to league itself
+with the new power and make a fresh attempt to shake off the Persian
+yoke; but once more it tried in vain.
+
+When Persia abandoned direct sovereignty over the Anatolian littoral she
+suffered little commercial loss and became more secure. It is clear that
+her satraps continued to manage the western trade and equally clear that
+the wealth of her empire increased in greater ratio than that of the
+Greek cities. There is little evidence for Hellenic commercial expansion
+consequent on the Persian wars, but much for continued and even
+increasing Hellenic poverty. In the event Persia found herself in a
+position almost to regain by gold what she had lost by battle, and to
+exercise a financial influence on Greece greater and longer lasting than
+she ever established by arms. Moreover, her empire was less likely to be
+attacked when it was limited by the western edge of the Anatolian
+plateau, and no longer tried to hold any European territory. There is a
+geographical diversity between the Anatolian littoral and the plateau.
+In all ages the latter alone has been an integral part of inner Asia,
+and the society and politics of the one have remained distinct from
+those of the other. The strong frontier of Asia at its western
+peninsular extremity lies not on, but behind the coast.
+
+At the same time, although their immediate results to the Persian Empire
+were not very hurtful, those abortive expeditions to Europe had sown the
+seeds of ultimate catastrophe. As a direct consequence of them the
+Greeks acquired consciousness of their own fighting value on both land
+and sea as compared with the peoples of inner Asia and the Phoenicians.
+Their former fear of numerical superiorities was allayed, and much of
+the mystery, which had hitherto magnified and shielded Oriental power,
+was dissipated. No less obviously those expeditions served to suggest to
+the Greeks for the first time that there existed both a common enemy of
+all their race and an external field for their own common encroachment
+and plundering. So far as an idea of nationality was destined ever to be
+operative on Greek minds it would draw its inspiration thenceforward
+from a sense of common superiority and common hostility to the Oriental.
+Persia, in a word, had laid the foundations and promoted the development
+of a Greek nationality in a common ambition directed against herself. It
+was her fate also, by forcing Athens into the front of the Greek states,
+to give the nascent nation the most inspiriting and enterprising of
+leaders--the one most fertile in imperial ideas and most apt to proceed
+to their realization: and in her retreat before that nation she drew her
+pursuer into a world which, had she herself never advanced into Europe,
+would probably not have seen him for centuries to come.
+
+Moreover, by a subsequent change of attitude towards her victorious
+foe--though that change was not wholly to her discredit--Persia bred in
+the Greeks a still better conceit of themselves and a better
+understanding of her weakness. The Persians, with the intelligence and
+versatility for which their race has always been remarkable, passed very
+rapidly from overweening contempt to excessive admiration of the Greeks.
+They set to work almost at once to attract Hellenic statesmen and men of
+science to their own society, and to make use of Hellenic soldiers and
+sailors. We soon find western satraps cultivating cordial relations with
+the Ionian cities, hospitably entertaining Greeks of distinction and
+conciliating Greek political and religious prepossessions. They must
+have attained considerable success, while thus unwittingly preparing
+disaster. When, a little more than a century later, western Europe would
+come eastward in force, to make an end of Persian dominion, some of the
+greater Ionian and Carian cities would offer a prolonged resistance to
+it which is not to be accounted for only by the influence of Persian
+gold or of a Persian element in their administration. Miletus and
+Halicarnassus shut their gates and defended their walls desperately
+against Alexander because they conceived their own best interests to be
+involved in the continuance of the Persian Empire. Nor were the Persians
+less successful with Greeks actually taken into their service. The Greek
+mercenaries remained to a man loyal to the Great King when the Greek
+attack came, and gave Alexander his hardest fighting in the three great
+battles which decided the fate of the East. None the less, such an
+attitude towards Greeks was suicidal. It exalted the spirit of Europe
+while it depraved the courage and sapped the self-reliance of Asia.
+
+
+SECTION 10. THE FIRST COUNTER-ATTACKS
+
+This, however, is to anticipate the sequel. Let us finally fix our eyes
+on the Eastern world in 400 B.C. and review it as it must then have
+appeared to eyes from which the future was all concealed. The coasts of
+Asia Minor, generally speaking, were in Greek hands, the cities being
+autonomous trading communities, as Greeks understood autonomy; but most
+of them until four years previously had acknowledged the suzerainty or
+rather federal leadership of Athens and now were acknowledging less
+willingly a Spartan supremacy established at first with Persian
+co-operation. Many of these cities, which had long maintained very close
+relations with the Persian governors of the nearer _hinterland_, not
+only shaped their policy to please the latter, but even acknowledged
+Persian suzerainty; and since, as it happens, at this particular moment
+Sparta had fallen out with Persia, and a Spartan army, under
+Dercyllidas, was occupying the Aeolian district of the north, the
+"medizing" cities of Ionia and Caria were in some doubt of their future.
+On the whole they inclined still to the satraps. Persian influence and
+even control had, in fact, greatly increased on the western coast since
+the supersession of Athens by a power unaccustomed to imperial politics
+and notoriously inapt in naval matters; and the fleets of Phoenicia and
+Cyprus, whose Greek princes had fallen under Phoenician domination, had
+regained supremacy at sea.
+
+Yet, only a year before, "Ten Thousand" heavy-armed Greeks (and near
+half as many again of all arms), mostly Spartan, had marched right
+through western Asia. They went as mercenary allies of a larger native
+force led by Cyrus, Persian prince-governor of west central Anatolia,
+who coveted the diadem of his newly enthroned brother. Having traversed
+the old Lydian and Phrygian kingdoms they moved down into Cilicia and up
+again over north Syria to the Euphrates, bound (though they only learned
+it at last by the waters of the Great River itself) for Babylon. But
+they never reached that city. Cyrus met death and his oriental soldiers
+accepted defeat at Cunaxa, some four days' march short of the goal. But
+the undefeated Greeks, refusing to surrender, and, few though they were,
+so greatly dreaded by the Persians that they were not directly molested,
+had to get back to their own land as best they might. How, robbed of
+their original leaders they yet reached the Black Sea and safety by way
+of the Tigris valley and the wild passes of Kurdish Armenia all readers
+of Xenophon, the Athenian who succeeded to the command, know well. Now
+in 400 B.C. they were reappearing in the cities of west Asia and Europe
+to tell how open was the inner continent to bold plunderers and how
+little ten Orientals availed in attack or defence against one Greek.
+Such stories then and there incited Sparta to a forward policy, and one
+day would encourage a stronger Western power than hers to march to the
+conquest of the East.
+
+We are fortunate in having Xenophon's detailed narrative of the
+adventures of these Greeks, if only because it throws light by the way
+on inner Asia almost at the very moment of our survey. We see Sardes
+under Persia what it had been under Lydia, the capital city of Anatolia;
+we see the great valley plains of Lydia and Phrygia, north and south,
+well peopled, well supplied, and well in hand, while the rough foothills
+and rougher heights of Taurus are held by contumacious mountaineers who
+are kept out of the plains only by such periodic chastisement as Cyrus
+allowed his army to inflict in Pisidia and Lycaonia. Cilicia is being
+administered and defended by its own prince, who bears the same name or
+title as his predecessor in the days of Sennacherib, but is feudally
+accountable to the Great King. His land is so far his private property
+that Cyrus, though would-be lord of all the empire, encourages the
+pillage of the rich provincial capital. The fleet of Cyrus lands men and
+stores unmolested in north Syria, while the inner country up to the
+Euphrates and down its valley as far as Babylonia is at peace. The Great
+King is able to assemble above half a million men from the east and
+south to meet his foe, besides the levy of Media, a province which now
+seems to include most of the ancient Assyria. These hundreds of
+thousands constitute a host untrained, undisciplined, unstable, unused
+to service, little like the ordered battalions of an essentially
+military power such as the Assyrian had been.
+
+From the story of the Retreat certain further inferences may be drawn.
+First, Babylonia was a part of the empire not very well affected to the
+Great King; or else the Greeks would have been neither allowed by the
+local militia to enter it so easily nor encouraged by the Persians to
+leave it. Second, the ancient Assyria was a peaceful province not
+coerced by a standing Persian force or garrisons of any strength. Third,
+southern Kurdistan was not held by or for the Great King and it paid
+tribute only to occasional pressure. Fourth, the rest of Kurdistan and
+Armenia as far north as the upper arm of the Euphrates was held,
+precariously, by the Persians; and lastly, north of the Euphrates valley
+up to the Black Sea all was practical independence. We do not know
+anything precise about the far eastern provinces or the south Syrian in
+this year, 400. Artaxerxes, the Great King, came from Susa to meet his
+rebellious brother, but to Babylon he returned to put to death the
+betrayed leaders of the Greeks. At this moment Ctesias, the Cnidian
+Greek, was his court physician and no friend either to Cyrus or to
+Spartans; he was even then in correspondence with the Athenian Conon who
+would presently be made a Persian admiral and smash the Spartan fleet.
+Of his history of Persia some few fragments and some epitomized extracts
+relating to this time have survived. These have a value, which the mass
+of his book seems not to have had; for they relate what a contemporary,
+singularly well placed to learn court news, heard and saw. One gathers
+that king and court had fallen away from the ideas and practice of the
+first Cyrus. Artaxerxes was unwarlike, lax in religion (though he had
+been duly consecrated at Pasargadae) and addicted to non-Zoroastrian
+practices. Many Persians great and small were disaffected towards him
+and numbers rallied to his brother; but he had some Western adventurers
+in his army. Royal ladies wielded almost more power at the court than
+the Great King, and quarrelled bitterly with one another.
+
+Plutarch, who drew material for his life of Artaxerxes not only from
+Ctesias, but also from authorities now lost to us, leaves us with much
+the same impression of the lords of the East at the close of the fifth
+century B.C. Corrupt and treacherous central rule, largely directed by
+harem intrigue; an unenthusiastic body of subjects, abandoned to the
+schemes of satraps; inefficient and casually collected armies in which
+foreign mercenaries were almost the only genuine soldiers--such was
+Persia now. It was something very unlike the vigorous rule of Cyrus and
+the imperial system of the first Darius--something very like the Ottoman
+Empire in the eighteenth century A.D.--something which would collapse
+before the first Western leader of men who could command money of his
+own making and a professional army of his own people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE VICTORY OF THE WEST
+
+
+The climax was reached in about seventy years more. When these had
+passed into history, so had also the Persian Empire, and the East, as
+the Greeks had conceived it thus far and we have understood it, was
+subject to the European race which a century and a half before it had
+tried to subdue in Europe itself. To this race (and to the historian
+also) "the East," as a geographical term, standing equally for a spatial
+area and for a social idea, has ceased to mean what it once meant: and
+the change would be lasting. It is true that the East did not cease to
+be distinguished as such; for it would gradually shake itself free
+again, not only from control by the West, but from the influence of the
+latter's social ideas. Nevertheless, since the Western men, when they
+went back to their own land, had brought the East into the world known
+to them--into a circle of lands accepted as the dwelling of civilized
+man--the date of Alexander's overthrow of the Persian Empire makes an
+epoch which divides universal history as hardly any other divides it.
+
+Dramatic as the final catastrophe would be, it will not surprise us when
+it comes, nor did it, as a matter of fact, surprise the generation which
+witnessed it. The romantic conception of Alexander, as a little David
+who dared a huge Goliath, ignores the facts of previous history, and
+would have occurred to no contemporary who had read the signs of the
+times. The Eastern colossus had been dwindling so fast for nearly a
+century that a Macedonian king, who had already subdued the Balkan
+peninsula, loomed at least as large in the world's eye, when he crossed
+the Hellespont, as the titular Emperor of contumacious satraps and
+ever-rebelling provinces of western Asia. To accept this view we have
+only to look back over seventy years since that march of Ten Thousand
+Greeks, with which our last survey closed.
+
+
+SECTION 1. PERSIA AND ITS PROVINCES
+
+Before the expedition of Cyrus there may have been, and evidently were,
+enough seeds of corruption in the state of Persia; but they had not
+become known by their fruits. No satrap for a century past had tried to
+detach himself and his province from the Empire; hardly a subject people
+had attempted to re-assert its independence. There were, indeed, two
+exceptions, both of them peoples which had never identified themselves
+at any time with the fortunes of their alien masters. One of these was,
+of course, the Asiatic Greek, the other was the Egyptian people; but the
+contumacy of the first threatened a danger not yet realized by Asia; the
+rebellious spirit of the last concerned, as yet, itself alone.
+
+It was Egypt, however, which really gave the first warning of Persian
+dissolution. The weakest spot in the Assyrian Empire proved weakest in
+the Persian. The natural barriers of desert, swamp and sea, set between
+Egypt and the neighbouring continent, are so strong that no Asiatic
+Power, which has been tempted to conquer the rich Nile valley, has ever
+been able to keep it long. Under its own leaders or some rebellious
+officer of its new masters it has reasserted independence sooner or
+later, and all history is witness that no one, whether in Asia or in
+Europe, holds Egypt as a foreign province unless he holds also the sea.
+During the century which had elapsed since Cambyses' conquest the
+Egyptians had rebelled more than once (most persistently about 460),
+calling in the sea-lords to their help on each occasion. Finally, just
+before the death of Darius Nothus, and some five years before Cyrus left
+Sardes, they rose again under an Egyptian, and thereafter, for about
+sixty years, not the kings of Susa, but three native dynasties in
+succession, were to rule Egypt. The harm done to the Persian Empire by
+this defection was not measured by the mere loss of the revenues of a
+province. The new kings of Egypt, who owed much to Greek support, repaid
+this by helping every enemy of the Great King and every rebel against
+his authority. It was they who gave asylum to the admiral and fleet of
+Cyrus after Cunaxa, and sent corn to Agesilaus when he invaded Asia
+Minor; they supplied money and ships to the Spartan fleet in 394, and
+helped Evagoras of Cyprus in a long resistance to his suzerain. When
+Tyre and the cities of the Cilician coast revolted in 380, Egypt was
+privy to their designs, and she made common cause with the satraps and
+governors of Western Asia, Syria and Phoenicia when, in combination,
+they planned rebellion in 373 to the grave peril of the Empire. Twelve
+years later we find an Egyptian king marching in person to raise
+Phoenicia.
+
+The Persian made more than one effort to recover his province. After
+conspicuous failure with his own generals Artaxerxes adopted tardily the
+course which Clearchus, captain of the Ten Thousand, is said to have
+advised after the battle of Cunaxa, and tried his fortune once more with
+Greek _condottieri_, only to find Greek generals and Greek mercenaries
+arrayed against them. It had come to this, that the Persian king and his
+revolted province equally depended on mercenary swords, neither daring
+to meet Greek except with Greek. Well had the lesson of the march of the
+Ten Thousand been read, marked and digested in the East!
+
+
+SECTION 2. PERSIA AND THE WEST
+
+It had been marked in the West as well, and its fruits were patent
+within five years. The dominant Greek state of the hour, avowing an
+ambition which no Greek had betrayed before, sent its king, Agesilaus,
+across to Asia Minor to follow up the establishment of Spartan hegemony
+on the coasts by an invasion of inland Persia. He never penetrated
+farther than about half-way up the Maeander Valley, and did Persia no
+harm worth speaking of; for he was not the leader, nor had he the
+resources in men and in money, to carry through so distant and doubtful
+an adventure. But Agesilaus' campaigning in Asia Minor between 397 and
+394 has this historical significance: it demonstrates that Greeks had
+come to regard a march on Susa as feasible and desirable.
+
+It was not, however, in fact feasible even then. Apart from the lack of
+a military force in any one state of Greece large enough, sufficiently
+trained, and led by a leader of the necessary magnetism and genius for
+organization, to undertake, unaided by allies on the way, a successful
+march to a point many months distant from its base--apart from this
+deficiency, the Empire to be conquered had not yet been really shaken.
+The Ten Thousand Greeks would in all likelihood never have got under
+Clearchus to Cunaxa or anywhere within hundreds of miles of it, but for
+the fact that Cyrus was with them and the adherents of his rising star
+were supplying their wants and had cleared a road for them through Asia
+Minor and Syria. In their Retreat they were desperate men, of whom the
+Great King was glad to be quit. The successful accomplishment of that
+retreat must not blind us to the almost certain failure which would have
+befallen the advance had it been attempted under like conditions.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE SATRAPS
+
+What, ultimately, was to reduce the Persian Empire to such weakness that
+a Western power would be able to strike at its heart with little more
+than forty thousand men, was the disease of disloyalty which spread
+among the great officers during the first half of the fourth century.
+Before Cyrus' expedition we have not heard of either satraps or client
+provinces raising the standard of revolt (except in Egypt), since the
+Empire had been well established; and if there was evident collusion
+with that expedition on the part of provincial officers in Asia Minor
+and Syria, the fact has little political significance, seeing that Cyrus
+was a scion of the royal House, and the favourite of the Queen-Mother.
+But the fourth century is hardly well begun before we find satraps and
+princes aiding the king's enemies and fighting for their own hand
+against him or a rival officer. Agesilaus was helped in Asia Minor both
+by the prince of Paphlagonia and by a Persian noble. Twenty years later
+Ariobarzanes of Pontus rises in revolt; and hard on his defection
+follows a great rebellion planned by the satraps of Caria, Ionia, Lydia,
+Phrygia and Cappadocia--nearly all Asia Minor in fact--in concert with
+coastal cities of Syria and Phoenicia. Another ten years pass and new
+governors of Mysia and Lydia rise against their king with the help of
+the Egyptians and Mausolus, client prince of Halicarnassus. Treachery or
+lack of resources and stability brought these rebels one after another
+to disaster; but an Empire whose great officers so often dare such
+adventures is drawing apace to its catastrophe.
+
+The causes of this growing disaffection among the satraps are not far to
+seek. At the close of the last chapter we remarked the deterioration of
+the harem-ridden court in the early days of Artaxerxes; and as time
+passed, the spectacle of a Great King governing by treachery, buying his
+enemies, and impotent to recover Egypt even with their mercenary help
+had its effect. Belief gained ground that the ship of Empire was
+sinking, and even in Susa the fear grew that a wind from the West was to
+finish her. The Great King's court officers watched Greek politics
+during the first seventy years of the fourth century with ever closer
+attention. Not content with enrolling as many Greeks as possible in the
+royal service, they used the royal gold to such effect to buy or support
+Greek politicians whose influence could be directed to hindering a union
+of Greek states and checking the rising power of any unit, that a Greek
+orator said in a famous passage that the archers stamped on the Great
+King's coins were already a greater danger to Greece than his real
+archers had ever been.
+
+By such lavish corruption, by buying the soldiers and the politicians of
+the enemy, a better face was put for a while on the fortunes of the
+dynasty and the Empire. Before the death of the aged Artaxerxes Mnemon
+in 358, the revolt of the Western satraps had collapsed. His successor,
+Ochus, who, to reach the throne, murdered his kin like any
+eighteenth-century sultan of Stambul, overcame Egyptian obstinacy about
+346, after two abortive attempts, by means of hireling Greek troops, and
+by similar vicarious help he recovered Sidon and the Isle of Cyprus. But
+it was little more than the dying flicker of a flame fanned for the
+moment by that same Western wind which was already blowing up to the
+gale that would extinguish it. The heart of the Empire was not less
+rotten because its shell was patched, and in the event, when the storm
+broke a few years later, nothing in West Asia was able to make any stand
+except two or three maritime cities, which fought, not for Persia, but
+for their own commercial monopolies.
+
+
+SECTION 4. MACEDONIA
+
+The storm had been gathering on the Western horizon for some time past.
+Twenty years earlier there had come to the throne of Macedonia a man of
+singular constructive ability and most definite ambition. His
+heritage--or rather his prize, for he was not next of kin to his
+predecessor--was the central southern part of the Balkan peninsula, a
+region of broad fat plains fringed and crossed by rough hills. It was
+inhabited by sturdy gentry and peasantry and by agile highlanders, all
+composed of the same racial elements as the Greeks, with perhaps a
+preponderant infusion of northern blood which had come south long ago
+with emigrants from the Danubian lands. The social development of the
+Macedonians--to give various peoples one generic name--had, for certain
+reasons, not been nearly so rapid as that of their southern cousins.
+They had never come in contact with the higher Aegean civilization, nor
+had they mixed their blood with that of cultivated predecessors; their
+land was continental, poor in harbours, remote from the luxurious
+centres of life, and of comparatively rigorous climate; its
+configuration had offered them no inducement to form city-states and
+enter on intense political life. But, in compensation, they entered the
+fourth century unexhausted, without tribal or political impediments to
+unity, and with a broad territory of greater natural resources than any
+southern Greek state. Macedonia could supply itself with the best cereal
+foods and to spare, and had unexploited veins of gold ore. But the most
+important thing to remark is this--that, compared with Greece, Macedonia
+was a region of Central Europe. In the latter's progress to imperial
+power we shall watch for the first time in recorded history a
+continental European folk bearing down peninsular populations of the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Philip of Macedon, who had been trained in the arts of both war and
+peace in a Greek city, saw the weakness of the divided Hellenes, and the
+possible strength of his own people, and he set to work from the first
+with abounding energy, dogged persistence and immense talent for
+organization to make a single armed nation, which should be more than a
+match for the many communities of Hellas. How he accomplished his
+purpose in about twenty years: how he began by opening mines of precious
+metal on his south-eastern coast, and with the proceeds hired
+mercenaries: how he had Macedonian peasants drilled to fight in a
+phalanx formation more mobile than the Theban and with a longer spear,
+while the gentry were trained as heavy cavalry: how he made experiments
+with his new soldiers on the inland tribes, and so enlarged his
+effective dominions that he was able to marshal henceforward far more
+than his own Emathian clansmen: how for six years he perfected this
+national army till it was as professional a fighting machine as any
+condottiere's band of that day, while at the same time larger and of
+much better temper: how, when it was ready in the spring of the year
+353, he began a fifteen years' war of encroachment on the holdings of
+the Greek states and particularly of Athens, attacking some of her
+maritime colonies in Macedonia and Thrace: how, after a campaign in
+inland Thrace and on the Chersonese, he appeared in Greece, where he
+pushed at last through Thermopylae: how, again, he withdrew for several
+seasons into the Balkan Peninsula, raided it from the Adriatic to the
+Black Sea, and ended with an attack on the last and greatest of its free
+Greek coastal cities, Perinthus and Byzantium: how, finally, in 338,
+coming south in full force, he crushed in the single battle of Chaeronea
+the two considerable powers of Greece, Athens and Thebes, and secured at
+last from every Greek state except Sparta (which he could afford to
+neglect) recognition of his suzerainty--these stages in Philip's making
+of a European nation and a European empire must not be described more
+fully here. What concerns us is the end of it all; for the end was the
+arraying of that new nation and that new empire for a descent on Asia. A
+year after Chaeronea Philip was named by the Congress of Corinth
+Captain-General of all Greeks to wreak the secular vengeance of Hellas
+on Persia.
+
+How long he had consciously destined his fighting machine to an ultimate
+invasion of Asia we do not know. The Athenians had explicitly stated to
+the Great King in 341 that such was the Macedonian's ambition, and four
+years earlier public suggestion of it had been made by the famous
+orator, Isocrates, in an open letter written to Philip himself. Since
+the last named was a man of long sight and sustained purpose, it is not
+impossible that he had conceived such an ambition in youth and had been
+cherishing it all along. While Philip was in Thebes as a young man, old
+Agesilaus, who first of Greeks had conceived the idea of invading the
+inland East, was still seeking a way to realize his oft-frustrated
+project; and in the end he went off to Egypt to make a last effort after
+Philip was already on the throne. The idea had certainly been long in
+the air that any military power which might dominate Hellas would be
+bound primarily by self-interest and secondarily by racial duty to turn
+its arms against Asia. The Great King himself knew this as well as any
+one. After the Athenian warning in 341, his satraps in the north-west of
+Asia Minor were bidden assist Philip's enemies in every possible way;
+and it was thanks in no small measure to their help, that the Byzantines
+repulsed the Macedonians from their walls in 339.
+
+Philip had already made friends of the princely house of Caria, and was
+now at pains to secure a footing in north-west Asia Minor. He threw,
+therefore, an advance column across the Dardanelles under his chief
+lieutenant, Parmenio, and proposed to follow it in the autumn of the
+year 336 with a Grand Army which he had been recruiting, training and
+equipping for a twelvemonth. The day of festival which should inaugurate
+his great venture arrived; but the venture was not to be his. As he
+issued from his tent to attend the games he fell by the hand of a
+private enemy; and his young son, Alexander, had at first enough to do
+to re-establish a throne which proved to have more foes than friends.
+
+
+SECTION 5. ALEXANDER'S CONQUEST OF THE EAST
+
+A year and a half later Alexander's friends and foes knew that a greater
+soldier and empire-maker than Philip ruled in his stead, and that the
+father's plan of Asiatic conquest would suffer nothing at the hands of
+the son. The neighbours of Macedonia as far as the Danube and all the
+states of the Greek peninsula had been cowed to submission again in one
+swift and decisive campaign. The States-General of Greece, re-convoked
+at Corinth, confirmed Philip's son in the Captain-Generalship of Hellas,
+and Parmenio, once more despatched to Asia, secured the farther shore of
+the Hellespont. With about forty thousand seasoned horse and foot, and
+with auxiliary services unusually efficient for the age, Alexander
+crossed to Persian soil in the spring of 334.
+
+There was no other army in Asia Minor to offer him battle in form than a
+force about equal in numbers to his own, which had been collected
+locally by the western satraps. Except for its contingent of Greek
+mercenaries, this was much inferior to the Macedonian force in fighting
+value. Fended by Parmenio from the Hellespontine shore, it did the best
+it could by waiting on the farther bank of the Granicus, the nearest
+considerable stream which enters the Marmora, in order either to draw
+Alexander's attack, or to cut his communications, should he move on into
+the continent. It did not wait long. The heavy Macedonian cavalry dashed
+through the stream late on an afternoon, made short work of the Asiatic
+constituents, and having cleared a way for the phalanx helped it to cut
+up the Greek contingent almost to a man before night fell. Alexander was
+left with nothing but city defences and hill tribes to deal with till a
+fuller levy could be collected from other provinces of the Persian
+Empire and brought down to the west, a process which would take many
+months, and in fact did take a full year. But some of the Western cities
+offered no small impediment to his progress. If Aeolia, Lydia and Ionia
+made no resistance worth mentioning, the two chief cities of Caria,
+Miletus and Halicarnassus, which had been enjoying in virtual freedom a
+lion's share of Aegean trade for the past century, were not disposed to
+become appanages of a military empire. The pretension of Alexander to
+lead a crusade against the ancient oppressor of the Hellenic race
+weighed neither with them, nor, for that matter, with any of the Greeks
+in Asia or Europe, except a few enthusiasts. During the past seventy
+years, ever since celebrations of the deliverance of Hellas from the
+Persian had been replaced by aspirations towards counter invasion, the
+desire to wreak holy vengeance had gone for little or nothing, but
+desire to plunder Persia had gone for a great deal. Therefore, any
+definite venture into Asia aroused envy, not enthusiasm, among those who
+would be forestalled by its success. Neither with ships nor men had any
+leading Greek state come forward to help Alexander, and by the time he
+had taken Miletus he realized that he must play his game alone, with his
+own people for his own ends. Thenceforward, neglecting the Greeks, he
+postponed his march into the heart of the Persian Empire till he had
+secured every avenue leading thither from the sea, whether through Asia
+Minor or Syria or Egypt.
+
+After reducing Halicarnassus and Caria, Alexander did no more in Asia
+Minor than parade the western part of it, the better to secure the
+footing he had gained in the continent. Here and there he had a brush
+with hill-men, who had long been unused to effective control, while with
+one or two of their towns he had to make terms; but on the approach of
+winter, Anatolia was at his feet, and he seated himself at Gordion, in
+the Sakaria valley, where he could at once guard his communications with
+the Hellespont and prepare for advance into farther Asia by an easy
+road. Eastern Asia Minor, that is Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, he
+left alone, and its contingents would still be arrayed on the Persian
+side in both the great battles to come. Certain northern districts also,
+which had long been practically independent of Persia, e.g. Bithynia and
+Paphlagonia, had not been touched yet. It was not worth his while at
+that moment to spend time in fighting for lands which would fall in any
+case if the Empire fell, and could easily be held in check from western
+Asia Minor in the meantime. His goal was far inland, his danger he well
+knew, on the sea--danger of possible co-operation between Greek fleets
+and the greater coastal cities of the Aegean and the Levant. Therefore,
+with the first of the spring he moved down into Cilicia to make the
+ports of Syria and Egypt his, before striking at the heart of the
+Empire.
+
+The Great King, last and weakest of the Darius name, had realized the
+greatness of his peril and come down with the levy of all the Empire to
+try to crush the invader in the gate of the south lands. Letting his foe
+pass round the angle of the Levant coast, Darius, who had been waiting
+behind the screen of Amanus, slipped through the hills and cut off the
+Macedonian's retreat in the defile of Issus between mountain and sea.
+Against another general and less seasoned troops a compact and
+disciplined Oriental force would probably have ended the invasion there
+and then; but that of Darius was neither compact nor disciplined. The
+narrowness of the field compressed it into a mob; and Alexander and his
+men, facing about, saw the Persians delivered into their hand. The fight
+lasted little longer than at Granicus and the result was as decisive a
+butchery. Camp, baggage-train, the royal harem, letters from Greek
+states, and the persons of Greek envoys sent to devise the destruction
+of the Captain-General--all fell to Alexander.
+
+Assured against meeting another levy of the Empire for at least a
+twelvemonth, he moved on into Syria. In this narrow land his chief
+business, as we have seen, was with the coast towns. He must have all
+the ports in his hand before going up into Asia. The lesser dared not
+gainsay the victorious phalanx; but the queen of them all, Tyre,
+mistress of the eastern trade, shut the gates of her island citadel and
+set the western intruder the hardest military task of his life. But the
+capture of the chief base of the hostile fleets which still ranged the
+Aegean was all essential to Alexander, and he bridged the sea to effect
+it. One other city, Gaza, commanding the road to Egypt, showed the same
+spirit with less resources, and the year was far spent before the
+Macedonians appeared on the Nile to receive the ready submission of a
+people which had never willingly served the Persian. Here again,
+Alexander's chief solicitude was for the coasts. Independent Cyrene,
+lying farthest west, was one remaining danger and the openness of the
+Nile mouths another. The first danger dissolved with the submission,
+which Cyrene sent to meet him as he moved into Marmarica to the attack;
+the second was conjured by the creation of the port of Alexandria,
+perhaps the most signal act of Alexander's life, seeing to what stature
+the city would grow, what part play in the development of Greek and Jew,
+and what vigour retain to this day. For the moment, however, the new
+foundation served primarily to rivet its founder's hold on the shores of
+the Greek and Persian waters. Within a few months the hostile fleets
+disappeared from the Levant and Alexander obtained at last that command
+of the sea without which invasion of inner Asia would have been more
+than perilous, and permanent retention of Egypt impossible.
+
+Thus secure of his base, he could strike inland. He went up slowly in
+the early part of 331 by the traditional North Road through Philistia
+and Palestine and round the head of the Syrian Hamad to Thapsacus on
+Euphrates, paying, on the way, a visit of precaution to Tyre, which had
+cost him so much toil and time a year before. None opposed his crossing
+of the Great River; none stayed him in Mesopotamia; none disputed his
+passage of the Tigris, though the ferrying of his force took five days.
+The Great King himself, however, was lying a few marches south of the
+mounds of Nineveh, in the plain of Gaugamela, to which roads converging
+from south, east and north had brought the levies of all the empire
+which remained to him. To hordes drawn from fighting tribes living as
+far distant as frontiers of India, banks of the Oxus, and foothills of
+the Caucasus, was added a phalanx of hireling Greeks more than three
+times as numerous as that which had been cut up on the Granicus. Thus
+awaited by ten soldiers to each one of his own on open ground chosen by
+his enemy, Alexander went still more slowly forward and halted four and
+twenty hours to breathe his army in sight of the Persian out posts.
+Refusing to risk an attack on that immense host in the dark, he slept
+soundly within his entrenchments till sunrise of the first day of
+October, and then in the full light led out his men to decide the fate
+of Persia. It was decided by sundown, and half a million broken men were
+flying south and east into the gathering night. But the Battle of
+Arbela, as it is commonly called--the greatest contest of armies before
+the rise of Rome--had not been lightly won. The active resistance of the
+Greek mercenaries, and the passive resistance of the enormous mass of
+the Asiatic hordes, which stayed attack by mere weight of flesh and
+closed again behind every penetrating column, made the issue doubtful,
+till Darius himself, terrified at the oncoming of the heavy Macedonian
+cavalry, turned his chariot and lost the day. Alexander's men had to
+thank the steadiness which Philip's system had given them, but also, in
+the last resort, the cowardice of the opposing chief.
+
+The Persian King survived to be hunted a year later, and caught, a dying
+man, on the road to Central Asia; but long before that and without
+another pitched battle the Persian throne had passed to Alexander.
+Within six months he had marched to and entered in turn, without other
+let or hindrance than resistance of mountain tribesmen in the passes,
+the capitals of the Empire--Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana; and
+since these cities all held by him during his subsequent absence of six
+years in farther Asia, the victory of the West over the Ancient East may
+be regarded as achieved on the day of Arbela.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+Less than ten years later, Alexander lay dead in Babylon. He had gone
+forward to the east to acquire more territories than we have surveyed in
+any chapter of this book or his fathers had so much as known to exist.
+The broad lands which are now Afghanistan, Russian Turkestan, the
+Punjab, Scinde, and Beluchistan had been subdued by him in person and
+were being held by his governors and garrisons. This Macedonian Greek
+who had become an emperor of the East greater than the greatest
+theretofore, had already determined that his Seat of Empire should be
+fixed in inner Asia; and he proposed that under his single sway East and
+West be distinct no longer, but one indivisible world, inhabited by
+united peoples. Then, suddenly, he was called to his account, leaving no
+legitimate heir of his body except a babe in its mother's womb. What
+would happen? What, in fact, did happen?
+
+It is often said that the empire which Alexander created died with him.
+This is true if we think of empire as the realm of a single emperor. As
+sole ruler of the vast area between the Danube and the Sutlej Alexander
+was to have no successor. But if we think of an empire as the realm of a
+race or nation, Greater Macedonia, though destined gradually to be
+diminished, would outlive its founder by nearly three hundred years; and
+moreover, in succession to it, another Western empire, made possible by
+his victory and carried on in some respects under his forms, was to
+persist in the East for several centuries more. As a political conquest,
+Alexander's had results as long lasting as can be credited to almost any
+conquest in history. As the victory of one civilization over another it
+was never to be brought quite to nothing, and it had certain permanent
+effects. These this chapter is designed to show: but first, since the
+development of the victorious civilization on alien soil depended
+primarily on the continued political supremacy of the men in whom it was
+congenital, it is necessary to see how long and to what extent political
+dominion was actually held in the East by men who were Greeks, either by
+birth or by training.
+
+Out of the turmoil and stress of the thirty years which followed
+Alexander's death, two Macedonians emerged to divide the Eastern Empire
+between them. The rest--transient embarrassed phantoms of the Royal
+House, regents of the Empire hardly less transient, upstart satraps, and
+even one-eyed Antigonus, who for a brief moment claimed jurisdiction
+over all the East--never mattered long to the world at large and matter
+not at all here and now. The end of the fourth century sees Seleucus of
+Babylonia lording it over the most part of West Asia which was best
+worth having, except the southern half of Syria and the coasts of Asia
+Minor and certain isles in sight of them, which, if not subject to
+Ptolemy of Egypt, were free of both kings or dominated by a third,
+resident in Europe and soon to disappear. In the event those two,
+Seleucus and Ptolemy, alone of all the Macedonian successors, would
+found dynasties destined to endure long enough in kingdoms great enough
+to affect the general history of civilization in the Ancient East.
+
+Seleucus has no surviving chronicler of the first or the second rank,
+and consequently remains one of the most shadowy of the greater men of
+action in antiquity. We can say little of him personally, except that he
+was quick and fearless in action, prepared to take chances, a born
+leader in war, and a man of long sight and persistent purpose. Alexander
+had esteemed and distinguished him highly, and, marrying him to Apama, a
+noble Iranian lady, convinced him of his own opinion that the point from
+which to rule an Asiatic empire was Babylonia. Seleucus let the first
+partition of the dead man's lands go by, and not till the first turmoil
+was over and his friend Ptolemy was securely seated in Egypt, did he ask
+for a province. The province was Babylonia. Ejected by the malevolence
+of Antigonus, he regained it by grace of Ptolemy in 312, established
+ascendency over all satraps to east of him during the next half-dozen
+years, letting only India go, and then came west in 305 to conquer and
+slay Antigonus at Ipsus in central Asia Minor. The third king,
+Lysimachus of Thrace, was disposed of in 281, and Seleucus, dying a few
+months later, left to his dynastic successors an Asiatic empire of
+seventy-two provinces, very nearly equal to Alexander's, with important
+exceptions in Asia Minor.
+
+In Asia Minor neither Seleucus nor the Seleucids ever held anything
+effectively except the main lines of communication from East to West and
+the district in which these come down to the Aegean Sea. The south
+coast, as has been said, remained in Egyptian hands almost all through
+the Seleucid period. The southwest obeyed the island republic of Rhodes.
+Most of the Greek maritime cities of the northwest and north kept their
+freedom more or less inviolate; while inland a purely Greek monarchy,
+that of Pergamum, gradually extended its sway up to the central desert.
+In the north a formidable barrier to Seleucid expansion arose within
+five years of Seleucus' death, namely, a settlement of Gauls who had
+been invited across the straits by a king of Bithynia. After charging
+and raiding in all directions these intractable allies were penned by
+the repeated efforts of both the Seleucid and the Pergamene kings into
+the upper Sakaria basin (henceforth to be known as Galatia) and there
+they formed a screen behind which Bithynia and Paphlagonia maintained
+sturdy independence. The north-east also was the seat of independent
+monarchies. Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, ruled by princes of Iranian
+origin, were never integral parts of the Seleucid Empire, though
+consistently friendly to its rulers. Finally, in the hill-regions of the
+centre, as of the coasts, the Seleucid writ did not run.
+
+Looked at as a whole, however, and not only from a Seleucid point of
+view, the Ancient East, during the century following Seleucus' death
+(forty-three years after Alexander's), was dominated politically by
+Hellenes over fully nine-tenths of its area. About those parts of it
+held by cities actually Greek, or by Pergamum, no more need be said. As
+for Seleucus and his successors, though the latter, from Antiochus Soter
+onward, had a strain of Iranian blood, they held and proved themselves
+essentially Hellenic. Their portraits from first to last show European
+features, often fine. Ptolemy Lagus and all the Lagidae remained
+Macedonian Greeks to a man and a woman and to the bitter end, with the
+greatest Hellenic city in the world for their seat. As for the remaining
+tenth part of the East, almost the whole of it was ruled by princes who
+claimed the title "philhellene," and justified it not only by political
+friendliness to the Seleucidae and the Western Greeks, but also by
+encouraging Greek settlers and Greek manners. So far as patronage and
+promotion by the highest powers could further it, Hellenism had a fair
+chance in West Asia from the conquest of Alexander down to the
+appearance of Rome in the East. What did it make of this chance? How far
+in the event did those Greek and Macedonian rulers, philhellenic Iranian
+princes and others, hellenize West Asia? If they did succeed in a
+measure, but not so completely that the East ceased to be distinct from
+the West, what measure was set to their several influences, and why?
+
+[Plate 6: HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.]
+
+Let us see, first, what precisely Hellenism implied as it was brought to
+Asia by Alexander and practised by his successors. Politically it
+implied recognition by the individual that the society of which he was a
+member had an indefeasible and virtually exclusive claim on his good
+will and his good offices. The society so recognized was not a family or
+a tribe, but a city and its proper district, distinguished from all
+other cities and their districts. The geographical configuration and the
+history of Greece, a country made up in part of small plains ringed in
+by hills and sea, in part of islands, had brought about this limitation
+of political communities, and had made patriotism mean to the Greek
+devotion to his city-state. To a wider circle he was not capable of
+feeling anything like the same sense of obligation or, indeed, any
+compelling obligation at all. If he recognized the claim of a group of
+city-states, which remotely claimed common origin with his own, it was
+an academic feeling: if he was conscious of his community with all
+Hellenes as a nation it was only at moments of particular danger at the
+hands of a common non-Hellenic foe. In short, while not insensible to
+the principle of nationality he was rarely capable of applying it
+practically except in regard to a small society with whose members he
+could be acquainted personally and among whom he could make his own
+individuality felt. He had no feudal tradition, and no instinctive
+belief that the individualities composing a community must be
+subordinate to any one individual in virtue of the latter's patriarchal
+or representative relation to them.
+
+Let us deal with this political implication of Hellenism before we pass
+on to its other qualities. In its purity political Hellenism was
+obviously not compatible with the monarchical Macedonian state, which
+was based on feudal recognition of the paternal or representative
+relation of a single individual to many peoples composing a nation. The
+Macedonians themselves, therefore, could not carry to Asia, together
+with their own national patriotism (somewhat intensified, perhaps, by
+intercourse during past generations with Greek city-states) any more
+than an outside knowledge of the civic patriotism of the Greeks. Since,
+however, they brought in their train a great number of actual Greeks and
+had to look to settlement of these in Asia for indispensable support of
+their own rule, commerce and civilization, they were bound to create
+conditions under which civic patriotism, of which they knew the value as
+well as the danger, might continue to exist in some measure. Their
+obvious policy was to found cities wherever they wished to settle
+Greeks, and to found them along main lines of communication, where they
+might promote trade and serve as guardians of the roads; while at the
+same time, owing to their continual intercourse with each other, their
+exposure to native sojourners and immigrants and their necessary
+dependence on the centre of government, they could hardly repeat in Asia
+the self-centred exclusiveness characteristic of cities in either
+European Greece or the strait and sharply divided valleys of the west
+Anatolian coast. In fact, by design or not, most Seleucid foundations
+were planted in comparatively open country. Seleucus alone is said to
+have been responsible for seventy-five cities, of which the majority
+clustered in that great meeting-place of through routes, North Syria,
+and along the main highway through northern Asia Minor to Ephesus. In
+this city, Seleucus himself spent most of his last years. We know of few
+Greek colonies, or none, founded by him or his dynasty beyond the
+earlier limits of the Ancient East, where, in Afghanistan, Turkestan and
+India, Alexander had planted nearly all his new cities. Possibly his
+successor held these to be sufficient; probably he saw neither prospect
+of advantage nor hope of success in creating Greek cities in a region so
+vast and so alien; certainly neither he nor his dynasty was ever in such
+a position to support or maintain them, if founded east of Media, as
+Alexander was and proposed to be, had longer life been his. But in
+western Asia from Seleucia on Tigris, an immense city of over half a
+million souls, to Laodicea on Lycus and the confines of the old Ionian
+littoral, Seleucus and his successors created urban life, casting it in
+a Hellenic mould whose form, destined to persist for many centuries to
+come, would exercise momentous influence on the early history of the
+Christian religion.
+
+By founding so many urban communities of Greek type the Macedonian kings
+of West Asia undeniably introduced Hellenism as an agent of political
+civilization into much of the Ancient East, which needed it badly and
+profited by it. But the influence of their Hellenism was potent and
+durable only in those newly founded, or newly organized, urban
+communities and their immediate neighbourhood. Where these clustered
+thickly, as along the Lower Orontes and on the Syrian coast-line, or
+where Greek farmers had settled in the interspaces, as in Cyrrhestica
+(i.e. roughly, central North Syria), Hellenism went far to make whole
+districts acquire a civic spirit, which, though implying much less sense
+of personal freedom and responsibility than in Attica or Laconia, would
+have been recognized by an Athenian or a Spartan as kin to his own
+patriotism. But where the cities were strung on single lines of
+communication at considerable intervals, as in central Asia Minor and in
+Mesopotamia, they exerted little political influence outside their own
+walls. For Hellenism was and remained essentially a property of
+communities small enough for each individual to exert his own personal
+influence on political and social practice. So soon as a community
+became, in numbers or distribution, such as to call for centralized, or
+even representative, administration, patriotism of the Hellenic type
+languished and died. It was quite incapable of permeating whole peoples
+or of making a nation, whether in the East or anywhere else. Yet in the
+East peoples have always mattered more than cities, by whomsoever
+founded and maintained.
+
+Hellenism, however, had, by this time, not only a political implication
+but also moral and intellectual implications which were partly effects,
+partly causes, of its political energy. As has been well said by a
+modern historian of the Seleucid house, Hellenism meant, besides a
+politico-social creed, also a certain attitude of mind. The
+characteristic feature of this attitude was what has been called
+Humanism, this word being used in a special sense to signify
+intellectual interest confined to human affairs, but free within the
+range of these. All Greeks were not, of course, equally humanistic in
+this sense. Among them, as in all societies, there were found
+temperaments to which transcendental speculation appealed, and these
+increasing in number, as with the loss of their freedom the city-states
+ceased to stand for the realization of the highest possible good in this
+world, made Orphism and other mystic cults prevail ever more and more in
+Hellas. But when Alexander carried Hellenism to Asia it was still
+broadly true that the mass of civilized Hellenes regarded anything that
+could not be apprehended by the intellect through the senses as not only
+outside their range of interest but non-existent. Further, while nothing
+was held so sacred that it might not be probed or discussed with the
+full vigour of an inquirer's intelligence, no consideration except the
+logic of apprehended facts should determine his conclusion. An argument
+was to be followed wherever it might lead, and its consequences must be
+faced in full without withdrawal behind any non-intellectual screen.
+Perfect freedom of thought and perfect freedom of discussion over the
+whole range of human matters; perfect freedom of consequent action, so
+the community remained uninjured--this was the typical Hellene's ideal.
+An instinctive effort to realize it was his habitual attitude towards
+life. His motto anticipated the Roman poet's "I am human: nothing human
+do I hold no business of mine!"
+
+By the time the Western conquest of Asia was complete, this attitude,
+which had grown more and more prevalent in the centres of Greek life
+throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, had come to exclude anything
+like religiosity from the typical Hellenic character. A religion the
+Greek had of course, but he held it lightly, neither possessed by it nor
+even looking to it for guidance in the affairs of his life. If he
+believed in a world beyond the grave, he thought little about it or not
+at all, framing his actions with a view solely to happiness in the
+flesh. A possible fate in the hereafter seemed to him to have no bearing
+on his conduct here. That disembodied he might spend eternity with the
+divine, or, absorbed into the divine essence, become himself
+divine--such ideas, though not unknown or without attraction to rarer
+spirits, were wholly impotent to combat the vivid interest in life and
+the lust of strenuous endeavour which were bred in the small worlds of
+the city-states.
+
+The Greeks, then, who passed to Asia in Alexander's wake had no
+religious message for the East, and still less had the Macedonian
+captains who succeeded him. Born and bred to semibarbaric superstitions,
+they had long discarded these, some for the freethinking attitude of the
+Greek, and all for the cult of the sword. The only thing which, in their
+Emperor's lifetime, stood to them for religion was a feudal devotion to
+himself and his house. For a while this feeling survived in the ranks of
+the army, as Eumenes, wily Greek that he was, proved by the manner and
+success of his appeals to dynastic loyalty in the first years of the
+struggle for the succession; and perhaps, we may trace it longer still
+in the leaders, as an element, blended with something of homesickness
+and something of national tradition, in that fatality which impelled
+each Macedonian lord of Asia, first Antigonus, then Seleucus, finally
+Antiochus the Great, to hanker after the possession of Macedonia and be
+prepared to risk the East to win back the West. Indeed, it is a
+contributory cause of the comparative failure of the Seleucids to keep
+their hold on their Asiatic Empire that their hearts were never wholly
+in it.
+
+For the rest, they and all the Macedonian captains alike were
+conspicuously irreligious men, whose gods were themselves. They were
+what the age had made them, and what all similar ages make men of
+action. Theirs was a time of wide conquests recently achieved by right
+of might alone, and left to whomsoever should be mightiest. It was a
+time when the individual had suddenly found that no accidental
+defects--lack of birth, or property, or allies--need prevent him from
+exploiting for himself a vast field of unmeasured possibilities, so he
+had a sound brain, a stout heart and a strong arm. As it would be again
+in the age of the Crusades, in that of the Grand Companies, and in that
+of the Napoleonic conquests, every soldier knew that it rested only with
+himself and with opportunity, whether or no he should die a prince. It
+was a time for reaping harvests which others had sown, for getting
+anything for nothing, for frank and unashamed lust of loot, for selling
+body and soul to the highest bidder, for being a law to oneself. In such
+ages the voice of the priest goes for as little as the voice of
+conscience, and the higher a man climbs, the less is his faith in a
+power above him.
+
+Having won the East, however, these irreligious Macedonians found they
+had under their hand a medley of peoples, diverse in many
+characteristics, but almost all alike in one, and that was their
+religiosity. Deities gathered and swarmed in Asia. Men showed them
+fierce fanatic devotion or spent lives in contemplation of the idea of
+them, careless of everything which Macedonians held worth living for,
+and even of life itself. Alexander had been quick to perceive the
+religiosity of the new world into which he had come. If his power in the
+East was to rest on a popular basis he knew that basis must be
+religious. Beginning with Egypt he set an example (not lost on the man
+who would be his successor there) of not only conciliating priests but
+identifying himself with the chief god in the traditional manner of
+native kings since immemorial time; and there is no doubt that the cult
+of himself, which he appears to have enjoined increasingly on his
+followers, his subjects and his allies, as time went on, was consciously
+devised to meet and captivate the religiosity of the East. In Egypt he
+must be Ammon, in Syria he would be Baal, in Babylon Bel. He left the
+faith of his fathers behind him when he went up to the East, knowing as
+well as his French historian knew in the nineteenth century, that in
+Asia the "dreams of Olympus were less worth than the dreams of the Magi
+and the mysteries of India, pregnant with the divine." With these last,
+indeed, he showed himself deeply impressed, and his recorded attitude
+towards the Brahmans of the Punjab implies the earliest acknowledgment
+made publicly by a Greek, that in religion the West must learn from the
+East.
+
+Alexander, who has never been forgotten by the traditions and myths of
+the East, might possibly, with longer life, have satisfied Asiatic
+religiosity with an apotheosis of himself. His successors failed either
+to keep his divinity alive or to secure any general acceptance of their
+own godhead. That they tried to meet the demand of the East with a new
+universal cult of imperial utility and that some, like Antiochus IV, the
+tyrant of early Maccabaean history, tried very hard, is clear. That they
+failed and that Rome failed after them is writ large in the history of
+the expansion of half-a-dozen Eastern cults before the Christian era,
+and of Christianity itself.
+
+Only in the African province did Macedonian rule secure a religious
+basis. What an Alexander could hardly have achieved in Asia, a Ptolemy
+did easily in Egypt. There the _de facto_ ruler, of whatever race, had
+been installed a god since time out of mind, and an omnipotent
+priesthood, dominating a docile people, stood about the throne. The
+Assyrian conquerors had stiffened their backs in Egypt to save
+affronting the gods of their fatherland; but the Ptolemies, like the
+Persians, made no such mistake, and had three centuries of secure rule
+for their reward. The knowledge that what the East demanded could be
+provided easily and safely even by Macedonians in the Nile valley alone
+was doubtless present to the sagacious mind of Ptolemy when, letting all
+wider lands pass to others, he selected Egypt in the first partition of
+the provinces.
+
+The Greek, in a word, had only his philosophies to offer to the
+religiosity of the East. But a philosophy of religion is a complement
+to, a modifying influence on, religion, not a substitute sufficient to
+satisfy the instinctive and profound craving of mankind for God. While
+this craving always possessed the Asiatic mind, the Greek himself, never
+naturally insensible to it, became more and more conscious of his own
+void as he lived in Asia. What had long stood to him for religion,
+namely passionate devotion to the community, was finding less and less
+to feed on under the restricted political freedom which was now his lot
+everywhere. Superior though he felt his culture to be in most respects,
+it lacked one thing needful, which inferior cultures around him
+possessed in full. As time went on he became curious, then receptive, of
+the religious systems among whose adherents he found himself, being
+coerced insensibly by nature's abhorrence of a vacuum. Not that he
+swallowed any Eastern religion whole, or failed, while assimilating what
+he took, to transform it with his own essence. Nor again should it be
+thought that he gave nothing at all in return. He gave a philosophy
+which, acting almost as powerfully on the higher intelligences of the
+East as their religions acted on his intelligence, created the
+"Hellenistic" type, properly so called, that is the oriental who
+combined the religious instinct of Asia with the philosophic spirit of
+Greece--such an oriental as (to take two very great names), the Stoic
+apostle Zeno, a Phoenician of Cyprus, or the Christian apostle, Saul the
+Jew of Tarsus. By the creation of this type, East and West were brought
+at last very near together, divided only by the distinction of religious
+philosophy in Athens from philosophic religion in Syria.
+
+The history of the Near East during the last three centuries before the
+Christian era is the history of the gradual passing of Asiatic religions
+westward to occupy the Hellenic vacuum, and of Hellenic philosophical
+ideas eastward to supplement and purify the religious systems of West
+Asia. How far the latter eventually penetrated into the great Eastern
+continent, whether even to India or China, this is no place to discuss:
+how far the former would push westward is written in the modern history
+of Europe and the New World. The expansion of Mithraism and of
+half-a-dozen other Asiatic and Egyptian cults, which were drawn from the
+East to Greece and beyond before the first century of the Hellenistic
+Age closed, testifies to the early existence of that spiritual void in
+the West which a greater and purer religion, about to be born in Galilee
+and nurtured in Antioch, was at last to fill. The instrumentality of
+Alexander and his successors in bringing about or intensifying that
+contact and intercourse between Semite and Greek, which begot the
+philosophic morality of Christianity and rendered its westward expansion
+inevitable, stands to their credit as a historic fact of such tremendous
+import that it may be allowed to atone for more than all their sins.
+
+This, then, the Seleucids did--they so brought West and East together
+that each learned from the other. But more than that cannot be claimed
+for them. They did not abolish the individuality of either; they did not
+Hellenize even so much of West Asia as they succeeded in holding to the
+end. In this they failed not only for the reasons just considered--lack
+of vital religion in their Macedonians and their Greeks, and
+deterioration of the Hellenism of Hellenes when they ceased to be
+citizens of free city-states--but also through individual faults of
+their own, which appear again and again as the dynasty runs its course;
+and perhaps even more for some deeper reason, not understood by us yet,
+but lying behind the empirical law that East is East and West is West.
+
+As for the Seleucid kings themselves they leave on us, ill-known as
+their characters and actions are, a clear impression of approximation to
+the traditional type of the Greek of the Roman age and since. As a
+dynasty they seem to have been quickly spoilt by power, to have been
+ambitious but easily contented with the show and surface of success, to
+have been incapable and contemptuous of thorough organization, and to
+have had little in the way of policy, and less perseverance in the
+pursuit of it. It is true that our piecemeal information comes largely
+from writers who somewhat despised them; but the known history of the
+Seleucid Empire, closed by an extraordinarily facile and ignominious
+collapse before Rome, supports the judgment that, taken one with
+another, its kings were shallow men and haphazard rulers who owed it
+more to chance than to prudence that their dynasty endured so long.
+
+Their strongest hold was on Syria, and in the end their only hold. We
+associate them in our minds particularly with the great city of Antioch,
+which the first Seleucus founded on the Lower Orontes to gather up trade
+from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor in the North Syrian country. But,
+as a matter of fact, that city owes its fame mainly to subsequent Roman
+masters. For it did not become the capital of Seleucid preference till
+the second century B.C.--till, by the year 180, the dynasty, which had
+lost both the Western and the Eastern provinces, had to content itself
+with Syria and Mesopotamia alone. Not only had the Parthians then come
+down from Turkestan to the south of the Caspian (their kings assumed
+Iranian names but were they not, like the present rulers of Persia,
+really Turks?), but Media too had asserted independence and Persia was
+fallen away to the rule of native princes in Fars. Seleucia on Tigris
+had become virtually a frontier city facing an Iranian and Parthian
+peril which the imperial incapacity of the Seleucids allowed to develop,
+and even Rome would never dispel. On the other flank of the empire a
+century of Seleucid efforts to plant headquarters in Western Asia Minor,
+whether at Ephesus or Sardes, and thence to prosecute ulterior designs
+on Macedonia and Greece, had been settled in favour of Pergamum by the
+arms and mandate of the coming arbiter of the East, the Republic of
+Rome. Bidden retire south of Taurus after the battle of Magnesia in 190,
+summarily ordered out of Egypt twenty years later, when Antiochus
+Epiphanes was hoping to compensate the loss of west and east with gain
+of the south, the Seleucids had no choice of a capital. It must
+thenceforth be Antioch or nothing.
+
+That, however, a Macedonian dynasty was forced to concentrate in north
+Syria whatever Hellenism it had (though after Antiochus Epiphanes its
+Hellenism steadily grew less) during the last two centuries before the
+Christian era was to have a momentous effect on the history of the
+world. For it was one of the two determining causes of an increase in
+the influence of Hellenism upon the Western Semites, which issued
+ultimately in the Christian religion. From Cilicia on the north to
+Phoenicia and Palestine in the south, such higher culture, such
+philosophical study as there were came more and more under the influence
+of Greek ideas, particularly those of the Stoic School, whose founder
+and chief teacher (it should never be forgotten) had been a Semite, born
+some three hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth. The Hellenized
+University of Tarsus, which educated Saul, and the Hellenistic party in
+Palestine, whose desire to make Jerusalem a southern Antioch brought on
+the Maccabaean struggle, both owed in a measure their being and their
+continued vitality to the existence and larger growth of Antioch on the
+Orontes.
+
+But Phoenicia and Palestine owed as much of their Hellenism (perhaps
+more) to another Hellenized city and another Macedonian dynasty--to
+Alexandria and to the Ptolemies. Because the short Maccabaean period of
+Palestinian history, during which a Seleucid did happen to be holding
+all Syria, is very well and widely known, it is apt to be forgotten
+that, throughout almost all other periods of the Hellenistic Age,
+southern Syria, that is Palestine and Phoenicia as well as Cyprus and
+the Levant coast right round to Pamphylia, was under the political
+domination of Egypt. The first Ptolemy added to his province some of
+these Asiatic districts and cities, and in particular Palestine and
+Coele-Syria, very soon after he had assumed command of Egypt, and making
+no secret of his intention to retain them, built a fleet to secure his
+end. He knew very well that if Egypt is to hold in permanency any
+territory outside Africa, she must be mistress of the sea. After a brief
+set-back at the hands of Antigonus' son, Ptolemy made good his hold when
+the father was dead; and Cyprus also became definitely his in 294. His
+successor, in whose favour he abdicated nine years later, completed the
+conquest of the mainland coasts right round the Levant at the expense of
+Seleucus' heir. In the event, the Ptolemies kept almost all that the
+first two kings of the dynasty had thus won until they were supplanted
+by Rome, except for an interval of a little more than fifty years from
+199 to about 145; and even during the latter part of this period south
+Syria was under Egyptian influence once more, though nominally part of
+the tottering Seleucid realm.
+
+The object pursued by the Macedonian kings of Egypt in conquering and
+holding a thin coastal fringe of mainland outside Africa and certain
+island posts from Cyprus to the Cyclades was plainly commercial, to get
+control of the general Levant trade and of certain particular supplies
+(notably ship-timber) for their royal port of Alexandria. The first
+Ptolemy had well understood why his master had founded this city after
+ruining Tyre, and why he had taken so great pains both earlier and later
+to secure his Mediterranean coasts. Their object the Ptolemies obtained
+sufficiently, although they never eliminated the competition of the
+Rhodian republic and had to resign to it the command of the Aegean after
+the battle of Cos in 246. But Alexandria had already become a great
+Semitic as well as Grecian city, and continued to be so for centuries to
+come. The first Ptolemy is said to have transplanted to Egypt many
+thousands of Jews who quickly reconciled themselves to their exile, if
+indeed it had ever been involuntary; and how large its Jewish population
+was by the reign of the second Ptolemy and how open to Hellenic
+influence, may be illustrated sufficiently by the fact that at
+Alexandria, during that reign, the Hebrew scriptures were translated
+into Greek by the body of Semitic scholars which has been known since as
+the Septuagint. Although it was consistent Ptolemaic policy not to
+countenance Hellenic proselytism, the inevitable influence of Alexandria
+on south Syria was stronger than that consciously exerted by Antiochus
+Epiphanes or any other Seleucid; and if Phoenician cities had become
+homes of Hellenic science and philosophy by the middle of the third
+century, and if Yeshua or Jason, High Priest of Jehovah, when he applied
+to his suzerain a hundred years later for leave to make Jerusalem a
+Greek city, had at his back a strong party anxious to wear hats in the
+street and nothing at all in the gymnasium, Alexandria rather than
+Antioch should have the chief credit--or chief blame!
+
+Before, however, all this blending of Semitic religiosity with Hellenic
+philosophical ideas, and with something of the old Hellenic mansuetude,
+which had survived even under Macedonian masters to modify Asiatic
+minds, could issue in Christianity, half the East, with its dispersed
+heirs of Alexander, had passed under the common and stronger yoke of
+Rome. Ptolemaic Alexandria and Seleucid Antioch had prepared Semitic
+ground for seed of a new religion, but it was the wide and sure peace of
+the Roman Empire that brought it to birth and gave it room to grow. It
+was to grow, as all the world knows, westward not eastward, making
+patent by its first successes and by its first failures how much
+Hellenism had gone to the making of it. The Asian map of Christianity at
+the end, say, of the fourth century of the latter's existence, will show
+it very exactly bounded by the limits to which the Seleucid Empire had
+carried Greeks in any considerable body, and the further limits to which
+the Romans, who ruled effectively a good deal left aside by their
+Macedonian predecessors--much of central and eastern Asia Minor for
+example, and all Armenia--had advanced their Graeco-Roman subjects.
+
+Beyond these bounds neither Hellenism nor Christianity was fated in that
+age to strike deep roots or bear lasting fruit. The Farther East--the
+East, that is to say, beyond Euphrates--remained unreceptive and
+intolerant of both influences. We have seen how almost all of it had
+fallen away from the Seleucids many generations before the birth of
+Christ, when a ring of principalities, Median, Parthian, Persian,
+Nabathsean, had emancipated the heart of the Orient from its short
+servitude to the West; and though Rome, and Byzantium after her, would
+push the frontier of effective European influence somewhat eastward
+again, their Hellenism could never capture again that heart which the
+Seleucids had failed to hold. This is not to say that nothing of
+Hellenism passed eastward of Mesopotamia and made an abiding mark.
+Parthian and Sassanian art, the earlier Buddhist art of north-western
+India and Chinese Turkestan, some features even of early Mohammedan art,
+and some, too, of early Mohammedan doctrine and imperial policy,
+disprove any sweeping assertion that nothing Greek took root beyond the
+bounds of the Roman Empire. But it was very little of Hellenism and not
+at all its essence. We must not be deceived by mere borrowings of exotic
+things or momentary appreciations of foreign luxuries. That the
+Parthians were witnessing a performance of the Bacchae of Euripides,
+when the head of hapless Crassus was brought to Ctesiphon, no more
+argues that they had the Western spirit than our taste for Chinese
+curios or Japanese plays proves us informed with the spirit of the East.
+
+The East, in fine, remained the East. It was so little affected after
+all by the West that in due time its religiosity would be pregnant with
+yet another religion, antithetical to Hellenism, and it was so little
+weakened that it would win back again all it had lost and more, and keep
+Hither Asia in political and cultural independence of the West until our
+own day. If modern Europe has taken some parts of the gorgeous East in
+fee which were never held by Macedonian or Roman, let us remember in our
+pride of race that almost all that the Macedonians and the Romans did
+hold in Asia has been lost to the West ever since. Europe may and
+probably will prevail there again; but since it must be by virtue of a
+civilization in whose making a religion born of Asia has been the
+paramount indispensable factor, will the West even then be more creditor
+than debtor of the East?
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ON BOOKS
+
+The authorities cited at the end of Prof. J. L. Myres' _Dawn of History_
+(itself an authority), in the Home University Library, are to a great
+extent suitable for those who wish to read more widely round the theme
+of the present volume, since those (e.g. the geographical works given in
+_Dawn of History_, p. 253, paragraph 2) which are not more or less
+essential preliminaries to a study of the Ancient East at any period,
+mostly deal with the historic as well as the prehistoric age. To spare
+readers reference to another volume, however, I will repeat here the
+most useful books in Prof. Myres' list, adding at the same time certain
+others, some of which have appeared since the issue of his volume.
+
+For the history of the whole region in the period covered by my volume,
+E. Meyer's _Geschichte Alterthums_, of a new edition of which a French
+translation is in progress and has already been partly issued, is the
+most authoritative. Sir G. Maspero's _Histoire ancienne des peuples de
+l'Orient classique_ (English translation in 3 vols. under the titles
+_The Dawn of Civilization_ (Egypt and Chaldaea); _The Struggle of the
+Nations_ (Egypt, Syria, and Assyria); _The Passing of the Empires_) is
+still valuable, but rather out of date. There has appeared recently a
+more modern and handy book than either, Mr. H. R. Hall's _The Ancient
+History of the Near East_ (1913), which gathers up, not only what was in
+the books by Mr. Hall and Mr. King cited by Prof. Myres, but also the
+contents of Meyer's and Maspero's books, and others, and the results of
+more recent research, in some of which the author has taken part. This
+book includes in its scope both Egypt and the Aegean area, besides
+Western Asia.
+
+For the special history of Babylonia and Assyria and their Empires, R.
+W. Rogers' _History of Babylonia and Assyria_, 2 vols., has been kept up
+to date and is the most convenient summary for an English reader. H.
+Winckler's _History of Babylonia and Assyria_ (translated from the
+German by J. A. Craig, 1907) is more brilliant and suggestive, but needs
+to be used with more caution. A. T. Olmstead's _Western Asia in the Days
+of Sargon of Assyria_ (1908) is an instructive study of the Assyrian
+Empire at its height.
+
+For the Hittite Empire and civilization J. Garstang's _The Land of the
+Hittites_ (1910) is the best recent book which aims at being
+comprehensive. But it must be borne in mind that this subject is in the
+melting-pot at present, that excavations now in progress have added
+greatly to the available evidence, and that very few of the Boghazkeui
+archives were published when Garstang's book was issued. D. G. Hogarth's
+articles on the Hittites, in Enc. Brit, and Enc. Brit. Year-book,
+summarize some more recent research; but there is no compendium of
+Hittite research which is really up to date.
+
+For Semitic Syrian history, Rogers and Winckler, as cited above, will
+probably be found sufficient; and also for the Urartu peoples. For
+Western Asia Minor and the Greeks, besides D.G. Hogarth's _Ionia and
+the East_, the new edition of Beloch's _Griechische Geschichte_ gives
+all, and more than all, that the general reader will require. If German
+is a difficulty to him, he must turn to J.B. Bury's _History of Greece_
+and to the later part of Hall's _Ancient History of the Near East_,
+cited above. For Alexander's conquest he can go to J. Karst, _Geschichte
+des hellenistischen Zeitalters_, Vol. I (1901), B. Niese, _Geschichte
+der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten_ (1899), or D.G. Hogarth,
+_Philip and Alexander of Macedon_ (1897); but the great work of J.G.
+Droysen, _Das Hellenismus_ (French translation), lies behind all these.
+
+Finally, the fourth English volume of A. Holm's _History of Greece_
+(1898) and E.R. Bevan's _House of Seleucus_ (1902) will supply most
+that is known of the Hellenistic Age in Asia.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarth
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+This file should be named 7east10.txt or 7east10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7east11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7east10a.txt
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/7east10.zip b/old/7east10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..acfd3c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7east10.zip
diff --git a/old/8east10.txt b/old/8east10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bbf4df5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8east10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4699 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarth
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Ancient East
+
+Author: D. G. Hogarth
+
+Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7474]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 6, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+No. 92
+
+
+_Editors_:
+
+HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.
+PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LITT.D., LL.D., F.B.A.
+PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
+PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT EAST
+
+
+BY
+
+
+D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A., F.S.A.
+
+KEEPER OF THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD;
+AUTHOR OF "IONIA AND THE EAST,"
+"THE NEARER EAST," ETC.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+I    THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.
+
+II   THE EAST IN 800 B.C.
+
+III  THE EAST IN 600 B.C.
+
+IV   THE EAST IN 400 B.C.
+
+V    THE VICTORY OF THE WEST
+
+VI   EPILOGUE
+
+NOTE ON BOOKS
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF MAPS
+
+
+1. THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS
+
+2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III
+
+3. HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.
+
+4. ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF ASHURBANIPAL
+
+5. PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS HYSTASPIS
+
+6. HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT EAST
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+The title of this book needs a word of explanation, since each of its
+terms can legitimately be used to denote more than one conception both
+of time and place. "The East" is understood widely and vaguely nowadays
+to include all the continent and islands of Asia, some part of
+Africa--the northern part where society and conditions of life are most
+like the Asiatic--and some regions also of South-Eastern and Eastern
+Europe. Therefore it may appear arbitrary to restrict it in the present
+book to Western Asia. But the qualifying term in my title must be
+invoked in justification. It is the East not of to-day but of antiquity
+with which I have to deal, and, therefore, I plead that it is not
+unreasonable to understand by "The East" what in antiquity European
+historians understood by that term. To Herodotus and his contemporary
+Greeks Egypt, Arabia and India were the South; Thrace and Scythia were
+the North; and Hither Asia was the East: for they conceived nothing
+beyond except the fabled stream of Ocean. It can be pleaded also that my
+restriction, while not in itself arbitrary, does, in fact, obviate an
+otherwise inevitable obligation to fix arbitrary bounds to the East. For
+the term, as used in modern times, implies a geographical area
+characterized by society of a certain general type, and according to his
+opinion of this type, each person, who thinks or writes of the East,
+expands or contracts its geographical area.
+
+It is more difficult to justify the restriction which will be imposed in
+the following chapters on the word Ancient. This term is used even more
+vaguely and variously than the other. If generally it connotes the
+converse of "Modern," in some connections and particularly in the study
+of history the Modern is not usually understood to begin where the
+Ancient ended but to stand only for the comparatively Recent. For
+example, in History, the ill-defined period called the Middle and Dark
+Ages makes a considerable hiatus before, in the process of
+retrospection, we get back to a civilization which (in Europe at least)
+we ordinarily regard as Ancient. Again, in History, we distinguish
+commonly two provinces within the undoubted area of the Ancient, the
+Prehistoric and the Historic, the first comprising all the time to which
+human memory, as communicated by surviving literature, ran not, or, at
+least, not consciously, consistently and credibly. At the same time it
+is not implied that we can have no knowledge at all of the Prehistoric
+province. It may even be better known to us than parts of the Historic,
+through sure deduction from archaeological evidence. But what we learn
+from archaeological records is annalistic not historic, since such
+records have not passed through the transforming crucible of a human
+intelligence which reasons on events as effects of causes. The boundary
+between Prehistoric and Historic, however, depends too much on the
+subjectivity of individual historians and is too apt to vary with the
+progress of research to be a fixed moment. Nor can it be the same for
+all civilizations. As regards Egypt, for example, we have a body of
+literary tradition which can reasonably be called Historic, relating to
+a time much earlier than is reached by respectable literary tradition of
+Elam and Babylonia, though their civilizations were probably older than
+the Egyptian.
+
+For the Ancient East as here understood, we possess two bodies of
+historic literary tradition and two only, the Greek and the Hebrew; and
+as it happens, both (though each is independent of the other) lose
+consistency and credibility when they deal with history before 1000 B.C.
+Moreover, Prof. Myres has covered the prehistoric period in the East in
+his brilliant _Dawn of History_. Therefore, on all accounts, in treating
+of the historic period, I am absolved from looking back more than a
+thousand years before our era.
+
+It is not so obvious where I may stop. The overthrow of Persia by
+Alexander, consummating a long stage in a secular contest, which it is
+my main business to describe, marks an epoch more sharply than any other
+single event in the history of the Ancient East. But there are grave
+objections to breaking off abruptly at that date. The reader can hardly
+close a book which ends then, with any other impression than that since
+the Greek has put the East under his feet, the history of the centuries,
+which have still to elapse before Rome shall take over Asia, will simply
+be Greek history writ large--the history of a Greater Greece which has
+expanded over the ancient East and caused it to lose its distinction
+from the ancient West. Yet this impression does not by any means
+coincide with historical truth. The Macedonian conquest of Hither Asia
+was a victory won by men of Greek civilization, but only to a very
+partial extent a victory of that civilization. The West did not
+assimilate the East except in very small measure then, and has not
+assimilated it in any very large measure to this day. For certain
+reasons, among which some geographical facts--the large proportion of
+steppe-desert and of the human type which such country breeds--are
+perhaps the most powerful, the East is obstinately unreceptive of
+western influences, and more than once it has taken its captors captive.
+Therefore, while, for the sake of convenience and to avoid entanglement
+in the very ill-known maze of what is called "Hellenistic" history, I
+shall not attempt to follow the consecutive course of events after 330
+B.C., I propose to add an epilogue which may prepare readers for what
+was destined to come out of Western Asia after the Christian era, and
+enable them to understand in particular the religious conquest of the
+West by the East. This has been a more momentous fact in the history of
+the world than any political conquest of the East by the West.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the further hope of enabling readers to retain a clear idea of the
+evolution of the history, I have adopted the plan of looking out over
+the area which is here called the East, at certain intervals, rather
+than the alternative and more usual plan of considering events
+consecutively in each several part of that area. Thus, without
+repetition and overlapping, one may expect to convey a sense of the
+history of the whole East as the sum of the histories of particular
+parts. The occasions on which the surveys will be taken are purely
+arbitrary chronological points two centuries apart. The years 1000, 800,
+600, 400 B.C. are not, any of them, distinguished by known events of the
+kind that is called epoch-making; nor have round numbers been chosen for
+any peculiar historic significance. They might just as well have been
+1001, 801 and so forth, or any other dates divided by equal intervals.
+Least of all is any mysterious virtue to be attached to the millenary
+date with which I begin. But it is a convenient starting-point, not only
+for the reason already stated, that Greek literary memory--the only
+literary memory of antiquity worth anything for early history--goes back
+to about that date; but also because the year 1000 B.C. falls within a
+period of disturbance during which certain racial elements and groups,
+destined to exert predominant influence on subsequent history, were
+settling down into their historic homes.
+
+A westward and southward movement of peoples, caused by some obscure
+pressure from the north-west and north-east, which had been disturbing
+eastern and central Asia Minor for more than a century and apparently
+had brought to an end the supremacy of the Cappadocian Hatti, was
+quieting down, leaving the western peninsula broken up into small
+principalities. Indirectly the same movement had brought about a like
+result in northern Syria. A still more important movement of Iranian
+peoples from the farther East had ended in the coalescence of two
+considerable social groups, each containing the germs of higher
+development, on the north-eastern and eastern fringes of the old
+Mesopotamian sphere of influence. These were the Medic and the Persian.
+A little earlier, a period of unrest in the Syrian and Arabian deserts,
+marked by intermittent intrusions of nomads into the western
+fringe-lands, had ended in the formation of new Semitic states in all
+parts of Syria from Shamal in the extreme north-west (perhaps even from
+Cilicia beyond Amanus) to Hamath, Damascus and Palestine. Finally there
+is this justification for not trying to push the history of the Asiatic
+East much behind 1000 B.C.--that nothing like a sure chronological basis
+of it exists before that date. Precision in the dating of events in West
+Asia begins near the end of the tenth century with the Assyrian Eponym
+lists, that is, lists of annual chief officials; while for Babylonia
+there is no certain chronology till nearly two hundred years later. In
+Hebrew history sure chronological ground is not reached till the
+Assyrian records themselves begin to touch upon it during the reign of
+Ahab over Israel. For all the other social groups and states of Western
+Asia we have to depend on more or less loose and inferential
+synchronisms with Assyrian, Babylonian or Hebrew chronology, except for
+some rare events whose dates may be inferred from the alien histories of
+Egypt and Greece.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The area, whose social state we shall survey in 1000 B.C. and re-survey
+at intervals, contains Western Asia bounded eastwards by an imaginary
+line drawn from the head of the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. This
+line, however, is not to be drawn rigidly straight, but rather should
+describe a shallow outward curve, so as to include in the Ancient East
+all Asia situated on this side of the salt deserts of central Persia.
+This area is marked off by seas on three sides and by desert on the
+fourth side. Internally it is distinguished into some six divisions
+either by unusually strong geographical boundaries or by large
+differences of geographical character. These divisions are as follows--
+
+(1) A western peninsular projection, bounded by seas on three sides and
+divided from the rest of the continent by high and very broad mountain
+masses, which has been named, not inappropriately, _Asia Minor_, since
+it displays, in many respects, an epitome of the general characteristics
+of the continent. (2) A tangled mountainous region filling almost all
+the rest of the northern part of the area and sharply distinct in
+character not only from the plateau land of Asia Minor to the west but
+also from the great plain lands of steppe character lying to the south,
+north and east. This has perhaps never had a single name, though the
+bulk of it has been included in "Urartu" (Ararat), "Armenia" or
+"Kurdistan" at various epochs; but for convenience we shall call it
+_Armenia_. (3) A narrow belt running south from both the former
+divisions and distinguished from them by much lower general elevation.
+Bounded on the west by the sea and on the south and east by broad tracts
+of desert, it has, since Greek times at least, been generally known as
+_Syria_. (4) A great southern peninsula largely desert, lying high and
+fringed by sands on the land side, which has been called, ever since
+antiquity, _Arabia_. (5) A broad tract stretching into the continent
+between Armenia and Arabia and containing the middle and lower basins of
+the twin rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, which, rising in Armenia, drain
+the greater part of the whole area. It is of diversified surface,
+ranging from sheer desert in the west and centre, to great fertility in
+its eastern parts; but, until it begins to rise northward towards the
+frontier of "Armenia" and eastward towards that of the sixth division,
+about to be described, it maintains a generally low elevation. No common
+name has ever included all its parts, both the interfluvial region and
+the districts beyond Tigris; but since the term _Mesopotamia_, though
+obviously incorrect, is generally understood nowadays to designate it,
+this name may be used for want of a better. (6) A high plateau, walled
+off from Mesopotamia and Armenia by high mountain chains, and extending
+back to the desert limits of the Ancient East. To this region, although
+it comprises only the western part of what should be understood by
+_Iran_, this name may be appropriated "without prejudice."
+
+[Plate 1: THE REGION OF THE ANCIENT EAST AND ITS MAIN DIVISIONS]
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE EAST IN 1000 B.C.
+
+
+In 1000 B.C. West Asia was a mosaic of small states and contained, so
+far as we know, no imperial power holding wide dominion over aliens.
+Seldom in its history could it so be described. Since it became
+predominantly Semitic, over a thousand years before our survey, it had
+fallen under simultaneous or successive dominations, exercised from at
+least three regions within itself and from one without.
+
+
+SECTION 1. BABYLONIAN EMPIRE
+
+The earliest of these centres of power to develop foreign empire was
+also that destined, after many vicissitudes, to hold it latest, because
+it was the best endowed by nature to repair the waste which empire
+entails. This was the region which would be known later as Babylonia
+from the name of the city which in historic times dominated it, but, as
+we now know, was neither an early seat of power nor the parent of its
+distinctive local civilization. This honour, if due to any one city,
+should be credited to Ur, whose also was the first and the only truly
+"Babylonian" empire. The primacy of Babylonia had not been the work of
+its aboriginal Sumerian population, the authors of what was highest in
+the local culture, but of Semitic intruders from a comparatively
+barbarous region; nor again, had it been the work of the earliest of
+these intruders (if we follow those who now deny that the dominion of
+Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-sin ever extended beyond the lower
+basins of the Twin Rivers), but of peoples who entered with a second
+series of Semitic waves. These surged out of Arabia, eternal motherland
+of vigorous migrants, in the middle centuries of the third millennium
+B.C. While this migration swamped South Syria with "Canaanites," it
+ultimately gave to Egypt the Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings," to Assyria its
+permanent Semitic population, and to Sumer and Akkad what later
+chroniclers called the First Babylonian Dynasty. Since, however, those
+Semitic interlopers had no civilization of their own comparable with
+either the contemporary Egyptian or the Sumerian (long ago adopted by
+earlier Semitic immigrants), they inevitably and quickly assimilated
+both these civilizations as they settled down.
+
+At the same time they did not lose, at least not in Mesopotamia, which
+was already half Semitized, certain Bedawi ideas and instincts, which
+would profoundly affect their later history. Of these the most important
+historically was a religious idea which, for want of a better term, may
+be called Super-Monotheism. Often found rooted in wandering peoples and
+apt long to survive their nomadic phase, it consists in a belief that,
+however many tribal and local gods there may be, one paramount deity
+exists who is not only singular and indivisible but dwells in one spot,
+alone on earth. His dwelling may be changed by a movement of his people
+_en masse_, but by nothing less; and he can have no real rival in
+supreme power. The fact that the paramount Father-God of the Semites
+came through that migration _en masse_ to take up his residence in
+Babylon and in no other city of the wide lands newly occupied, caused
+this city to retain for many centuries, despite social and political
+changes, a predominant position not unlike that to be held by Holy Rome
+from the Dark Ages to modern times.
+
+Secondly the Arabs brought with them their immemorial instinct of
+restlessness. This habit also is apt to persist in a settled society,
+finding satisfaction in annual recourse to tent or hut life and in
+annual predatory excursions. The custom of the razzia or summer raid,
+which is still obligatory in Arabia on all men of vigour and spirit, was
+held in equal honour by the ancient Semitic world. Undertaken as a
+matter of course, whether on provocation or not, it was the origin and
+constant spring of those annual marches to the frontiers, of which royal
+Assyrian monuments vaingloriously tell us, to the exclusion of almost
+all other information. Chederlaomer, Amraphel and the other three kings
+were fulfilling their annual obligation in the Jordan valley when Hebrew
+tradition believed that they met with Abraham; and if, as seems agreed,
+Amraphel was Hammurabi himself, that tradition proves the custom of the
+razzia well established under the First Babylonian Dynasty.
+
+Moreover, the fact that these annual campaigns of Babylonian and
+Assyrian kings were simply Bedawi razzias highly organized and on a
+great scale should be borne in mind when we speak of Semitic "empires,"
+lest we think too territorially. No permanent organization of
+territorial dominion in foreign parts was established by Semitic rulers
+till late in Assyrian history. The earlier Semitic overlords, that is,
+all who preceded Ashurnatsirpal of Assyria, went a-raiding to plunder,
+assault, destroy, or receive submissive payments, and their ends
+achieved, returned, without imposing permanent garrisons of their own
+followers, permanent viceroys, or even a permanent tributary burden, to
+hinder the stricken foe from returning to his own way till his turn
+should come to be raided again. The imperial blackmailer had possibly
+left a record of his presence and prowess on alien rocks, to be defaced
+at peril when his back was turned; but for the rest only a sinister
+memory. Early Babylonian and Early Assyrian "empire," therefore, meant,
+territorially, no more than a geographical area throughout which an
+emperor could, and did, raid without encountering effective opposition.
+
+Nevertheless, such constant raiding on a great scale was bound to
+produce some of the fruits of empire, and by its fruits, not its
+records, we know most surely how far Babylonian Empire had made itself
+felt. The best witnesses to its far-reaching influence are first, the
+Babylonian element in the Hittite art of distant Asia Minor, which shows
+from the very first (so far as we know it, i.e. from at least 1500 B.C.)
+that native artists were hardly able to realize any native ideas without
+help from Semitic models; and secondly, the use of Babylonian writing
+and language and even Babylonian books by the ruling classes in Asia
+Minor and Syria at a little later time. That governors of Syrian cities
+should have written their official communications to Pharaohs of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty in Babylonian cuneiform (as the archives found at
+Amarna in Upper Egypt twenty years ago show us they did) had already
+afforded such conclusive proof of early and long maintained Babylonian
+influence, that the more recent discovery that Hittite lords of
+Cappadocia used the same script and language for diplomatic purposes has
+hardly surprised us.
+
+It has been said already that Babylonia was a region so rich and
+otherwise fortunate that empire both came to it earlier and stayed later
+than in the other West Asian lands which ever enjoyed it at all. When we
+come to take our survey of Western Asia in 400 B.C. we shall see an
+emperor still ruling it from a throne set in the lower Tigris basin,
+though not actually in Babylon. But for certain reasons Babylonian
+empire never endured for any long period continuously. The aboriginal
+Akkadian and Sumerian inhabitants were settled, cultivated and home
+keeping folk, while the establishment of Babylonian empire had been the
+work of more vigorous intruders. These, however, had to fear not only
+the imperfect sympathy of their own aboriginal subjects, who again and
+again gathered their sullen forces in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf and attacked the dominant Semites in the rear, but also
+incursions of fresh strangers; for Babylonia is singularly open on all
+sides. Accordingly, revolts of the "Sea Land" folk, inrushing hordes
+from Arabia, descents of mountain warriors from the border hills of Elam
+on the south-eastern edge of the twin river basin, pressure from the
+peoples of more invigorating lands on the higher Euphrates and
+Tigris--one, or more than one such danger ever waited on imperial
+Babylon and brought her low again and again. A great descent of Hatti
+raiders from the north about 1800 B.C. seems to have ended the imperial
+dominion of the First Dynasty. On their retirement Babylonia, falling
+into weak native hands, was a prey to a succession of inroads from the
+Kassite mountains beyond Elam, from Elam itself, from the growing
+Semitic power of Asshur, Babylon's former vassal, from the Hittite
+Empire founded in Cappadocia about 1500 B.C., from the fresh wave of
+Arabian overflow which is distinguished as the Aramaean, and from yet
+another following it, which is usually called Chaldaean; and it was not
+till almost the close of the twelfth century that one of these intruding
+elements attained sufficient independence and security of tenure to
+begin to exalt Babylonia again into a mistress of foreign empire. At
+that date the first Nebuchadnezzar, a part of whose own annals has been
+recovered, seems to have established overlordship in some part of
+Mediterranean Asia--_Martu_, the West Land; but this empire perished
+again with its author. By 1000 B.C. Babylon was once more a small state
+divided against itself and threatened by rivals in the east and the
+north.
+
+
+SECTION 2. ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT
+
+During the long interval since the fall of the First Babylonian Dynasty,
+however, Western Asia had not been left masterless. Three other imperial
+powers had waxed and waned in her borders, of which one was destined to
+a second expansion later on. The earliest of these to appear on the
+scene established an imperial dominion of a kind which we shall not
+observe again till Asia falls to the Greeks; for it was established in
+Asia by a non-Asiatic power. In the earlier years of the fifteenth
+century a Pharaoh of the strong Eighteenth Dynasty, Thothmes III, having
+overrun almost all Syria up to Carchemish on the Euphrates, established
+in the southern part of that country an imperial organization which
+converted his conquests for a time into provincial dependencies of
+Egypt. Of the fact we have full evidence in the archives of Thothmes'
+dynastic successors, found by Flinders Petrie at Amarna; for they
+include many reports from officials and client princes in Palestine and
+Phoenicia.
+
+If, however, the word empire is to be applied (as in fact we have
+applied it in respect of early Babylonia) to a sphere of habitual
+raiding, where the exclusive right of one power to plunder is
+acknowledged implicitly or explicitly by the raided and by surrounding
+peoples, this "Empire" of Egypt must both be set back nearly a hundred
+years before Thothmes III and also be credited with wider limits than
+those of south Syria. Invasions of Semitic Syria right up to the
+Euphrates were first conducted by Pharaohs in the early part of the
+sixteenth century as a sequel to the collapse of the power of the
+Semitic "Hyksos" in Egypt. They were wars partly of revenge, partly of
+natural Egyptian expansion into a neighbouring fertile territory, which
+at last lay open, and was claimed by no other imperial power, while the
+weak Kassites ruled Babylon, and the independence of Assyria was in
+embryo. But the earlier Egyptian armies seem to have gone forth to Syria
+simply to ravage and levy blackmail. They avoided all fenced places, and
+returned to the Nile leaving no one to hold the ravaged territory. No
+Pharaoh before the successor of Queen Hatshepsut made Palestine and
+Phoenicia his own. It was Thothmes III who first reduced such
+strongholds as Megiddo, and occupied the Syrian towns up to Arvad on the
+shore and almost to Kadesh inland--he who by means of a few forts,
+garrisoned perhaps by Egyptian or Nubian troops and certainly in some
+instances by mercenaries drawn from Mediterranean islands and coasts, so
+kept the fear of himself in the minds of native chiefs that they paid
+regular tribute to his collectors and enforced the peace of Egypt on all
+and sundry Hebrews and Amorites who might try to raid from east or
+north.
+
+In upper Syria, however, he and his successors appear to have attempted
+little more than Thothmes I had done, that is to say, they made
+periodical armed progresses through the fertile parts, here and there
+taking a town, but for the most part taking only blackmail. Some strong
+places, such as Kadesh, it is probable they never entered at all. Their
+raids, however, were frequent and effective enough for all Syria to come
+to be regarded by surrounding kings and kinglets as an Egyptian sphere
+of influence within which it was best to acknowledge Pharaoh's rights
+and to placate him by timely presents. So thought and acted the kings of
+Mitanni across Euphrates, the kings of Hatti beyond Taurus, and the
+distant Iranians of the Kassite dynasty in Babylonia.
+
+Until the latter years of Thothmes' third successor, Amenhetep III, who
+ruled in the end of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the
+fourteenth, the Egyptian peace was observed and Pharaoh's claim to Syria
+was respected. Moreover, an interesting experiment appears to have been
+made to tighten Egypt's hold on her foreign province. Young Syrian
+princes were brought for education to the Nile, in the hope that when
+sent back to their homes they would be loyal viceroys of Pharaoh: but
+the experiment seems to have produced no better ultimate effect than
+similar experiments tried subsequently by imperial nations from the
+Romans to ourselves.
+
+[Plate 2: ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III]
+
+Beyond this conception of imperial organization the Egyptians never
+advanced. Neither effective military occupation nor effective
+administration of Syria by an Egyptian military or civil staff was so
+much as thought of. Traces of the cultural influence of Egypt on the
+Syrian civilization of the time (so far as excavation has revealed its
+remains) are few and far between; and we must conclude that the number
+of genuine Egyptians who resided in, or even passed through, the Asiatic
+province was very small. Unadventurous by nature, and disinclined to
+embark on foreign trade, the Nilots were content to leave Syria in
+vicarious hands, so they derived some profit from it. It needed,
+therefore, only the appearance of some vigorous and numerous tribe in
+the province itself, or of some covetous power on its borders, to end
+such an empire. Both had appeared before Amenhetep's death--the Amorites
+in mid Syria, and a newly consolidated Hatti power on the confines of
+the north. The inevitable crisis was met with no new measures by his
+son, the famous Akhenaten, and before the middle of the fourteenth
+century the foreign empire of Egypt had crumbled to nothing but a sphere
+of influence in southernmost Palestine, having lasted, for better or
+worse, something less than two hundred years. It was revived, indeed, by
+the kings of the Dynasty succeeding, but had even less chance of
+duration than of old. Rameses II, in dividing it to his own great
+disadvantage with the Hatti king by a Treaty whose provisions are known
+to us from surviving documents of both parties, confessed Egyptian
+impotence to make good any contested claim; and by the end of the
+thirteenth century the hand of Pharaoh was withdrawn from Asia, even
+from that ancient appanage of Egypt, the peninsula of Sinai. Some
+subsequent Egyptian kings would make raids into Syria, but none was
+able, or very desirous, to establish there a permanent Empire.
+
+
+SECTION 3. EMPIRE OF THE HATTI
+
+[Plate 3: HATTI EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY 13TH CENTURY B.C.]
+
+The empire which pressed back the Egyptians is the last but one which we
+have to consider before 1000 B.C. It has long been known that the
+Hittites, variously called _Kheta_ by Egyptians and _Heth_ or _Hatti_ by
+Semites and by themselves, developed into a power in westernmost Asia at
+least as early as the fifteenth century; but it was not until their
+cuneiform archives were discovered in 1907 at Boghazkeui in northern
+Cappadocia that the imperial nature of their power, the centre from
+which it was exerted, and the succession of the rulers who wielded it
+became clear. It will be remembered that a great Hatti raid broke the
+imperial sway of the First Babylonian Dynasty about 1800 B.C. Whence
+those raiders came we have still to learn. But, since a Hatti people,
+well enough organized to invade, conquer and impose its garrisons, and
+(much more significant) its own peculiar civilization, on distant
+territories, was seated at Boghazkeui (it is best to use this modern
+name till better assured of an ancient one) in the fifteenth century, we
+may reasonably believe Eastern Asia Minor to have been the homeland of
+the Hatti three centuries before. As an imperial power they enter
+history with a king whom his own archives name Subbiluliuma (but
+Egyptian records, Sapararu), and they vanish something less than two
+centuries later. The northern half of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and
+probably almost all Asia Minor were conquered by the Hatti before 1350
+B.C. and rendered tributary; Egypt was forced out of Asia; the Semitic
+settlements on the twin rivers and the tribes in the desert were
+constrained to deference or defence. A century and a half later the
+Hatti had returned into a darkness even deeper than that from which they
+emerged. The last king of Boghazkeui, of whose archives any part has
+come to light, is one Arnaunta, reigning in the end of the thirteenth
+century. He may well have had successors whose documents may yet be
+found; but on the other hand, we know from Assyrian annals, dated only a
+little later, that a people, possibly kin to the Hatti and certainly
+civilized by them, but called by another name, Mushkaya or Mushki (we
+shall say more of them presently), overran most, if not all, the Hatti
+realm by the middle of the twelfth century. And since, moreover, the
+excavated ruins at both Boghazkeui, the capital of the Hatti, and
+Carchemish, their chief southern dependency, show unmistakable signs of
+destruction and of a subsequent general reconstruction, which on
+archaeological grounds must be dated not much later than Arnaunta's
+time, it seems probable that the history of Hatti empire closed with
+that king. What happened subsequently to surviving detachments of this
+once imperial people and to other communities so near akin by blood or
+civilization, that the Assyrians, when speaking generally of western
+foes or subjects, long continued to call them Hatti, we shall consider
+presently.
+
+
+SECTION 4. EARLY ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
+
+Remains Assyria, which before 1000 B.C. had twice conquered an empire of
+the same kind as that credited to the First Babylonian Dynasty and twice
+recoiled. The early Assyrian expansions are, historically, the most
+noteworthy of the early West Asian Empires because, unlike the rest,
+they were preludes to an ultimate territorial overlordship which would
+come nearer to anticipating Macedonian and Roman imperial systems than
+any others precedent. Assyria, rather than Babylon or Egypt, heads the
+list of aspirants to the Mastership of the World.
+
+There will be so much to say of the third and subsequent expansion of
+Assyria, that her earlier empires may be passed over briefly. The middle
+Tigris basin seems to have received a large influx of Semites of the
+Canaanitic wave at least as early as Babylonia, and thanks to various
+causes--to the absence of a prior local civilization as advanced as the
+Sumerian, to greater distance from such enterprising fomenters of
+disturbance as Elam and Arabia, and to a more invigorating
+climate--these Semites settled down more quickly and thoroughly into an
+agricultural society than the Babylonians and developed it in greater
+purity. Their earliest social centre was Asshur in the southern part of
+their territory. There, in proximity to Babylonia, they fell inevitably
+under the domination of the latter; but after the fall of the First
+Dynasty of Babylon and the subsequent decline of southern Semitic
+vigour, a tendency manifested itself among the northern Semites to
+develop their nationality about more central points. Calah, higher up
+the river, replaced Asshur in the thirteenth century B.C., only to be
+replaced in turn by Nineveh, a little further still upstream; and
+ultimately Assyria, though it had taken its name from the southern city,
+came to be consolidated round a north Mesopotamian capital into a power
+able to impose vassalage on Babylon and to send imperial raiders to the
+Mediterranean, and to the Great Lakes of Armenia. The first of her kings
+to attain this sort of imperial position was Shalmaneser I, who early in
+the thirteenth century B.C. appears to have crushed the last strength of
+the north Mesopotamian powers of Mitanni and Khani and laid the way open
+to the west lands. The Hatti power, however, tried hard to close the
+passages and it was not until its catastrophe and the retirement of
+those who brought it about--the Mushki and their allies--that about 1100
+Tiglath Pileser I could lead his Assyrian raiders into Syria, and even,
+perhaps, a short distance across Taurus. Why his empire died with him we
+do not know precisely. A new invasion of Arabian Semites, the Aramaeans,
+whom he attacked at Mt. Bishri (Tell Basher), may have been the cause.
+But, in any case, the fact is certain. The sons of the great king, who
+had reached Phoenician Aradus and there embarked vaingloriously on
+shipboard to claim mastery of the Western Sea, were reduced to little
+better than vassals of their father's former vassal, Babylon; and up to
+the close of the eleventh century Assyria had not revived.
+
+
+SECTION 5. NEW FORCES IN 1000 B.C.
+
+Thus in 1000 B.C., we look round the East, and, so far as our vision can
+penetrate the clouds, see no one dominant power. Territories which
+formerly were overridden by the greater states, Babylonia, Egypt,
+Cappadocia and Assyria, seem to be not only self-governing but free from
+interference, although the vanished empires and a recent great movement
+of peoples have left them with altered political boundaries and
+sometimes with new dynasties. None of the political units has a much
+larger area than another, and it would not have been easy at the moment
+to prophesy which, or if any one, would grow at the expense of the rest.
+
+The great movement of peoples, to which allusion has just been made, had
+been disturbing West Asia for two centuries. On the east, where the well
+organized and well armed societies of Babylonia and Assyria offered a
+serious obstacle to nomadic immigrants, the inflow had been pent back
+beyond frontier mountains. But in the west the tide seems to have flowed
+too strongly to be resisted by such force as the Hatti empire of
+Cappadocia could oppose, and to have swept through Asia Minor even to
+Syria and Mesopotamia. Records of Rameses III tell how a great host of
+federated peoples appeared on the Asian frontier of Egypt very early in
+the twelfth century. Among them marched men of the "Kheta" or Hatti, but
+not as leaders. These strong foes and allies of Seti I and Rameses II,
+not a century before, had now fallen from their imperial estate to
+follow in the wake of newcomers, who had lately humbled them in their
+Cappadocian home. The geographical order in which the scribes of Rameses
+enumerated their conquests shows clearly the direction from which the
+federals had come and the path they followed. In succession they had
+devastated Hatti (i.e. Cappadocia), Kedi (i.e. Cilicia), Carchemish and
+central Syria. Their victorious progress began, therefore, in northern
+Asia Minor, and followed the great roads through the Cilician passes to
+end at last on the very frontiers of Egypt. The list of these newcomers
+has long interested historians; for outlandish as their names were to
+Egyptians, they seem to our eyes not unfamiliar, and are possibly
+travesties of some which are writ large on pages of later history. Such
+are the Pulesti or Philistines, and a group hailing apparently from Asia
+Minor and the Isles, Tjakaray, Shakalsha, Danaau and Washasha,
+successors of Pisidian and other Anatolian allies of the Hittites in the
+time of Rameses II, and of the Lycian, Achaean and Sardinian pirates
+whom Egypt used sometimes to beat from her borders, sometimes to enlist
+in her service. Some of these peoples, from whatever quarters they had
+come, settled presently into new homes as the tide receded. The Pulesti,
+if they were indeed the historic Philistines, stranded and stayed on the
+confines of Egypt, retaining certain memories of an earlier state, which
+had been theirs in some Minoan land. Since the Tjakaray and the Washasha
+seem to have sprung from lands now reckoned in Europe, we may count this
+occasion the first in history on which the west broke in force into the
+east.
+
+Turn to the annals of Assyria and you will learn, from records of
+Tiglath Pileser I, that this northern wave was followed up in the same
+century by a second, which bore on its crest another bold horde from
+Asia Minor. Its name, Mushki, we now hear for the first time, but shall
+hear again in time to come. A remnant of this race would survive far
+into historic times as the Moschi of Greek geographers, an obscure
+people on the borders of Cappadocia and Armenia. But who precisely the
+first Mushki were, whence they had originally come, and whither they
+went when pushed back out of Mesopotamia, are questions still debated.
+Two significant facts are known about their subsequent history; first,
+that two centuries later than our date they, or some part of them, were
+settled in Cappadocia, apparently rather in the centre and north of that
+country than in the south: second, that at that same epoch and later
+they had kings of the name Mita, which is thought to be identical with
+the name Midas, known to early Greek historians as borne by kings of
+Phrygia.
+
+Because of this last fact, the Mushki have been put down as
+proto-Phrygians, risen to power after the fall of the Cappadocian Hatti.
+This contention will be considered hereafter, when we reach the date of
+the first known contact between Assyria and any people settled in
+western Asia Minor. But meanwhile, let it be borne in mind that their
+royal name Mita does not necessarily imply a connection between the
+Mushki and Phrygia; for since the ethnic "Mitanni" of north Mesopotamia
+means "Mita's men," that name must have long been domiciled much farther
+east.
+
+On the whole, whatever their later story, the truth about the Mushki,
+who came down into Syria early in the twelfth century and retired to
+Cappadocia some fifty years later after crossing swords with Assyria, is
+probably this--that they were originally a mountain people from northern
+Armenia or the Caucasus, distinct from the Hatti, and that, having
+descended from the north-east in a primitive nomadic state into the seat
+of an old culture possessed by an enfeebled race, they adopted the
+latter's civilization as they conquered it and settled down. But
+probably they did not fix themselves definitely in Cappadocia till the
+blow struck by Tiglath Pileser had checked their lust of movement and
+weakened their confidence of victory. In any case, the northern storms
+had subsided by 1000 B.C., leaving Asia Minor, Armenia and Syria
+parcelled among many princes.
+
+
+SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR
+
+Had one taken ship with Achaeans or Ionians for the western coast of
+Anatolia in the year 1000, one would have expected to disembark at or
+near some infant settlement of men, not natives by extraction, but newly
+come from the sea and speaking Greek or another Aegean tongue. These men
+had ventured so far to seize the rich lands at the mouths of the long
+Anatolian valleys, from which their roving forefathers had been almost
+entirely debarred by the provincial forces of some inland power,
+presumably the Hatti Empire of Cappadocia. In earlier days the Cretans,
+or their kin of Mycenaean Greece in the latest Aegean age, had been able
+to plant no more than a few inconsiderable colonies of traders on
+Anatolian shores. Now, however, their descendants were being steadily
+reinforced from the west by members of a younger Aryan race, who mixed
+with the natives of the coast, and gradually mastered or drove them
+inland. Inconsiderable as this European soakage into the fringe of the
+neighbouring continent must have seemed at that moment, we know that it
+was inaugurating a process which ultimately would affect profoundly all
+the history of Hither Asia. That Greek Ionian colonization first
+attracts notice round about 1000 B.C. marks the period as a cardinal
+point in history. We cannot say for certain, with our present knowledge,
+that any one of the famous Greek cities had already begun to grow on the
+Anatolian coasts. There is better evidence for the so early existence of
+Miletus, where the German excavators have found much pottery of the
+latest Aegean age, than of any other. But, at least, it is probable that
+Greeks were already settled on the sites of Cnidus, Teos, Smyrna,
+Colophon, Phocea, Cyme and many more; while the greater islands Rhodes,
+Samos, Chios and Mitylene had apparently received western settlers
+several generations ago, perhaps before even the first Achaean raids
+into Asia.
+
+The western visitor, if he pushed inland, would have avoided the
+south-western districts of the peninsula, where a mountainous country,
+known later as Caria, Lycia, and Pisidia, was held by primitive hill-men
+settled in detached tribal fashion like modern Albanians. They had never
+yet been subdued, and as soon as the rising Greek ports on their coasts
+should open a way for them to the outer world, they would become known
+as admirable mercenary soldiery, following a congenial trade which, if
+the Pedasu, who appear in records of Egyptian campaigns of the
+Eighteenth Dynasty, were really Pisidians, was not new to them. North of
+their hills, however, lay broader valleys leading up to the central
+plateau; and, if Herodotus is to be believed, an organized monarchical
+society, ruled by the "Heraclids" of Sardes, was already developed
+there. We know practically nothing about it; but since some three
+centuries later the Lydian people was rich and luxurious in the Hermus
+valley, which had once been a fief of the Hatti, we must conclude that
+it had been enjoying security as far back as 1000 B.C. Who those
+Heraclid princes were exactly is obscure. The dynastic name given to
+them by Herodotus probably implies that they traced their origin (i.e.
+owed especial allegiance) to a God of the Double War-Axe, whom the
+Greeks likened to Heracles, but we liken to Sandan, god of Tarsus and of
+the lands of the south-east. We shall say more of him and his
+worshippers presently.
+
+Leaving aside the northern fringe-lands as ill known and of small
+account (as we too shall leave them), our traveller would pass up from
+the Lydian vales to find the Cappadocian Hatti no longer the masters of
+the plateau as of old. No one of equal power seems to have taken their
+place; but there is reason to think that the Mushki, who had brought
+them low, now filled some of their room in Asia Minor. But these Mushki
+had so far adopted Hatti civilization either before or since their great
+raiding expedition which Tiglath Pileser I of Assyria repelled, that
+their domination can scarcely have made much difference to the social
+condition of Asia Minor. Their capital was probably where the Hatti
+capital had been--at Boghazkeui; but how far their lordship radiated
+from that centre is not known.
+
+In the south-east of Asia Minor we read of several principalities, both
+in the Hatti documents of earlier centuries and in Assyrian annals of
+later date; and since some of their names appear in both these sets of
+records, we may safely assign them to the same localities during the
+intermediate period. Such are Kas in later Lycaonia, Tabal or Tubal in
+south-eastern Cappadocia, Khilakku, which left its name to historical
+Cilicia, and Kue in the rich eastern Cilician plain and the
+north-eastern hills. In north Syria again we find both in early and in
+late times Kummukh, which left to its district the historic name,
+Commagene. All these principalities, as their earlier monuments prove,
+shared the same Hatti civilization as the Mushki and seem to have had
+the same chief deities, the axe-bearing Sandan, or Teshup, or Hadad,
+whose sway we have noted far west in Lydia, and also a Great Mother, the
+patron of peaceful increase, as he was of warlike conquest. But whether
+this uniformity of civilization implies any general overlord, such as
+the Mushki king, is very questionable. The past supremacy of the Hatti
+is enough to account for large community of social features in 1000 B.C.
+over all Asia Minor and north Syria.
+
+
+SECTION 7. SYRIA
+
+It is time for our traveller to move on southward into "Hatti-land," as
+the Assyrians would long continue to call the southern area of the old
+Hatti civilization. He would have found Syria in a state of greater or
+less disintegration from end to end. Since the withdrawal of the strong
+hands of the Hatti from the north and the Egyptians from the south, the
+disorganized half-vacant land had been attracting to itself successive
+hordes of half-nomadic Semites from the eastern and southern steppes. By
+1000 B.C. these had settled down as a number of Aramaean societies each
+under its princeling. All were great traders. One such society
+established itself in the north-west, in Shamal, where, influenced by
+the old Hatti culture, an art came into being which was only saved
+ultimately by Semitic Assyria from being purely Hittite. Its capital,
+which lay at modern Sinjerli, one of the few Syrian sites scientifically
+explored, we shall notice later on. South lay Patin and Bit Agusi; south
+of these again, Hamath and below it Damascus--all new Aramaean states,
+which were waiting for quiet times to develop according to the measure
+of their respective territories and their command of trade routes. Most
+blessed in both natural fertility and convenience of position was
+Damascus (Ubi or Hobah), which had been receiving an Aramaean influx for
+at least three hundred years. It was destined to outstrip the rest of
+those new Semitic states; but for the moment it was little stronger than
+they. As for the Phoenician cities on the Lebanon coast, which we know
+from the Amarna archives and other Egyptian records to have long been
+settled with Canaanitic Semites, they were to appear henceforward in a
+light quite other than that in which the reports of their Egyptian
+governors and visitors had hitherto shown them. Not only did they very
+rapidly become maritime traders instead of mere local territorial
+centres, but (if we may infer it from the lack of known monuments of
+their higher art or of their writing before 1000 B.C.) they were making
+or just about to make a sudden advance in social development. It should
+be remarked that our evidence, that other Syrian Semites had taken to
+writing in scripts of their own, begins not much later at various
+points--in Shamal, in Moab and in Samaria.
+
+This rather sudden expansion of the Phoenicians into a maritime power
+about 1000 B.C. calls for explanation. Herodotus thought that the
+Phoenicians were driven to take to the sea simply by the growing
+inadequacy of their narrow territory to support the natural increase of
+its inhabitants, and probably he was partly right, the crisis of their
+fate being hastened by Armaean pressure from inland. But the advance in
+their culture, which is marked by the development of their art and their
+writing, was too rapid and too great to have resulted only from new
+commerce with the sea; nor can it have been due to any influence of the
+Aramaean elements which were comparatively fresh from the Steppes. To
+account for the facts in Syria we seem to require, not long previous to
+this time, a fresh accession of population from some area of higher
+culture. When we observe, therefore, among the earlier Phoenician and
+south Syrian antiquities much that was imported, and more that derived
+its character, from Cyprus and even remoter centres of the Aegean
+culture of the latest Minoan Age, we cannot regard as fantastic the
+belief of the Cretan discoverer, Arthur Evans, that the historic
+Phoenician civilization, and especially the Phoenician script, owed
+their being in great measure to an immigration from those nearest
+oversea lands which had long possessed a fully developed art and a
+system of writing. After the fall of the Cnossian Dynasty we know that a
+great dispersal of Cretans began, which was continued and increased
+later by the descent of the Achaeans into Greece. It has been said
+already that the Pulesti or Philistines, who had followed the first
+northern horde to the frontiers of Egypt early in the twelfth century,
+are credibly supposed to have come from some area affected by Minoan
+civilization, while the Tjakaray and Washasha, who accompanied them,
+were probably actual Cretans. The Pulesti stayed, as we know, in
+Philistia: the Tjakaray settled at Dor on the South Phoenician coast,
+where Unamon, an envoy of Rameses XI, found them. These settlers are
+quite sufficient to account for the subsequent development of a higher
+culture in mid and south Syria, and there may well have been some
+further immigration from Cyprus and other Aegean lands which, as time
+went on, impelled the cities of Phoenicia, so well endowed by nature, to
+develop a new culture apace about 1000 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PALESTINE
+
+If the Phoenicians were feeling the thrust of Steppe peoples, their
+southern neighbours, the Philistines, who had lived and grown rich on
+the tolls and trade of the great north road from Egypt for at least a
+century and a half, were feeling it too. During some centuries past
+there had come raiding from the south-east deserts certain sturdy and
+well-knit tribes, which long ago had displaced or assimilated the
+Canaanites along the highlands west of Jordan, and were now tending to
+settle down into a national unity, cemented by a common worship. They
+had had long intermittent struggles, traditions of which fill the Hebrew
+Book of Judges--struggles not only with the Canaanites, but also with
+the Amorites of the upper Orontes valley, and later with the Aramaeans
+of the north and east, and with fresh incursions of Arabs from the
+south; and most lately of all they had had to give way for about half a
+century before an expansive movement of the Philistines, which carried
+the latter up to Galilee and secured to them the profits of all the
+Palestinian stretch of the great North Road. But about a generation
+before our date the northernmost of those bold "Habiri," under an
+elective _sheikh_ Saul, had pushed the Philistines out of Bethshan and
+other points of vantage in mid-Palestine, and had become once more free
+of the hills which they had held in the days of Pharaoh Menephthah.
+Though, at the death of Saul, the enemy regained most of what he had
+lost, he was not to hold it long. A greater chief, David, who had risen
+to power by Philistine help and now had the support of the southern
+tribes, was welding both southern and northern Hebrews into a single
+monarchical society and, having driven his old masters out of the north
+once more, threatened the southern stretch of the great North Road from
+a new capital, Jerusalem. Moreover, by harrying repeatedly the lands
+east of Jordan up to the desert edge, David had stopped further
+incursions from Arabia; and, though the Aramaean state of Damascus was
+growing into a formidable danger, he had checked for the present its
+tendency to spread southwards, and had strengthened himself by
+agreements with another Aramaean prince, him of Hamath, who lay on the
+north flank of Damascus, and with the chief of the nearest Phoenician
+city, Tyre. The latter was not yet the rich place which it would grow to
+be in the next century, but it was strong enough to control the coast
+road north of the Galilean lowlands. Israel not only was never safer,
+but would never again hold a position of such relative importance in
+Syria, as was hers in a day of many small and infant states about 1000
+B.C.: and in later times, under the shadow of Assyria and the menace of
+Egypt, the Jews would look back to the reigns of David and his successor
+with some reason as their golden age.
+
+The traveller would not have ventured into Arabia; nor shall we. It was
+then an unknown land lying wholly outside history. We have no record (if
+that mysterious embassy of the "Queen of Sheba," who came to hear the
+wisdom of Solomon, be ruled out) of any relations between a state of the
+civilized East and an Arabian prince before the middle of the ninth
+century. It may be that, as Glaser reckoned, Sabaean society in the
+south-west of the peninsula had already reached the preliminary stage of
+tribal settlement through which Israel passed under its Judges, and was
+now moving towards monarchy; and that of this our traveller might have
+learned something in Syria from the last arrived Aramaeans. But we, who
+can learn nothing, have no choice but to go north with him again,
+leaving to our right the Syrian desert roamed by Bedawis in much the
+same social state as the Anazeh to-day, owing allegiance to no one. We
+can cross Euphrates at Carchemish or at Til Barsip opposite the Sajur
+mouth, or where Thapsacus looked across to the outfall of the Khabur.
+
+
+SECTION 9. MESOPOTAMIA
+
+No annals of Assyria have survived for nearly a century before 1000
+B.C., and very few for the century after that date. Nor do Babylonian
+records make good our deficiency. Though we cannot be certain, we are
+probably safe in saying that during these two centuries Assyrian and
+Babylonian princes had few or no achievements to record of the kind
+which they held, almost alone, worthy to be immortalized on stone or
+clay--that is to say, raids, conquests, sacking of cities, blackmailing
+of princes. Since Tiglath Pileser's time no "Kings of the World" (by
+which title was signified an overlord of Mesopotamia merely) had been
+seated on either of the twin rivers. What exactly had happened in the
+broad tract between the rivers and to the south of Taurus since the
+departure of the Mushki hordes (if, indeed, they did all depart), we do
+not know. The Mitanni, who may have been congeners of the latter, seem
+still to have been holding the north-west; probably all the north-east
+was Assyrian territory. No doubt the Kurds and Armenians of Urartu were
+raiding the plains impartially from autumn to spring, as they always did
+when Assyria was weak. We shall learn a good deal more about Mesopotamia
+proper when the results of the German excavations at Tell Halaf, near
+Ras el-Ain, are complete and published. The most primitive monuments
+found there are perhaps relics of that power of Khani (Harran), which
+was stretched even to include Nineveh before the Semitic _patesis_ of
+Asshur grew to royal estate and moved northward to make imperial
+Assyria. But there are later strata of remains as well which should
+contain evidence of the course of events in mid-Mesopotamia during
+subsequent periods both of Assyrian domination and of local
+independence.
+
+Assyria, as has been said, was without doubt weak at this date, that is,
+she was confined to the proper territory of her own agricultural
+Semites. This state of things, whenever existent throughout her history,
+seems to have implied priestly predominance, in which Babylonian
+influence went for much. The Semitic tendency to super-Monotheism, which
+has already been noticed, constantly showed itself among the eastern
+Semites (when comparatively free from military tyranny) in a reversion
+of their spiritual allegiance to one supreme god enthroned at Babylon,
+the original seat of east Semitic theocracy. And even when this city had
+little military strength the priests of Marduk appear often to have
+succeeded in keeping a controlling hand on the affairs of stronger
+Assyria. We shall see later how much prestige great Ninevite war-lords
+could gain even among their own countrymen by Marduk's formal
+acknowledgment of their sovereignty, and how much they lost by
+disregarding him and doing injury to his local habitation. At their very
+strongest the Assyrian kings were never credited with the natural right
+to rule Semitic Asia which belonged to kings of Babylon. If they desired
+the favour of Marduk they must needs claim it at the sword's point, and
+when that point was lowered, his favour was always withdrawn. From first
+to last they had perforce to remain military tyrants, who relied on no
+acknowledged legitimacy but on the spears of conscript peasants, and at
+the last of mercenaries. No dynasty lasted long in Assyria, where
+popular generals, even while serving on distant campaigns, were often
+elevated to the throne--in anticipation of the imperial history of Rome.
+
+It appears then that our traveller would have found Babylonia, rather
+than Assyria, the leading East Semitic power in 1000 B.C.; but at the
+same time not a strong power, for she had no imperial dominion outside
+lower Mesopotamia. Since a dynasty, whose history is obscure--the
+so-called Pashé kings in whose time there was one strong man,
+Nabu-Kudur-usur (Nebuchadnezzar) I--came to an inglorious end just about
+1000 B.C., one may infer that Babylonia was passing at this epoch
+through one of those recurrent political crises which usually occurred
+when Sumerian cities of the southern "Sea-Land" conspired with some
+foreign invader against the Semitic capital. The contumacious survivors
+of the elder element in the population, however, even when successful,
+seem not to have tried to set up new capitals or to reestablish the
+pre-Semitic state of things. Babylon had so far distanced all the older
+cities now that no other consummation of revolt was desired or believed
+possible than the substitution of one dynasty for another on the throne
+beloved of Marduk. Sumerian forces, however, had not been the only ones
+which had contributed to overthrow the last king of the Pashé dynasty.
+Nomads of the _Suti_ tribes had long been raiding from the western
+deserts into Akkad; and the first king set up by the victorious peoples
+of the Sea-Land had to expel them and to repair their ravages before he
+could seat himself on a throne which was menaced by Elam on the east and
+Assyria on the north, and must fall so soon as either of these found a
+strong leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE EAST IN 800 B.C.
+
+
+Two centuries have passed over the East, and at first sight it looks as
+if no radical change has taken place in its political or social
+condition. No new power has entered it from without; only one new state
+of importance, the Phrygian, has arisen within. The peoples, which were
+of most account in 1000, are still of the most account in 800--the
+Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Mushki of Cappadocia, the tribesmen of
+Urartu, the Aramaeans of Damascus, the trading Phoenicians on the Syrian
+coast and the trading Greeks on the Anatolian. Egypt has remained behind
+her frontier except for one raid into Palestine about 925 B.C., from
+which Sheshenk, the Libyan, brought back treasures of Solomon's temple
+to enhance the splendour of Amen. Arabia has not begun to matter. There
+has been, of course, development, but on old lines. The comparative
+values of the states have altered: some have become more decisively the
+superiors of others than they were two hundred years ago, but they are
+those whose growth was foreseen. Wherein, then, lies the great
+difference? For great difference there is. It scarcely needs a second
+glance to detect the change, and any one who looks narrowly will see not
+only certain consequent changes, but in more than one quarter signs and
+warnings of a coming order of things not dreamt of in 1000 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 1. MIDDLE KINGDOM OF ASSYRIA
+
+The obvious novelty is the presence of a predominant power. The mosaic
+of small states is still there, but one holds lordship over most of
+them, and that one is Assyria. Moreover, the foreign dominion which the
+latter has now been enjoying for three-parts of a century is the first
+of its kind established by an Asiatic power. Twice, as we have seen, had
+Assyria conquered in earlier times an empire of the nomad Semitic type,
+that is, a licence to raid unchecked over a wide tract of lands; but, so
+far as we know, neither Shalmaneser I nor Tiglath Pileser I had so much
+as conceived the idea of holding the raided provinces by a permanent
+official organization. But in the ninth century, when Ashurnatsirpal and
+his successor Shalmaneser, second of the name, marched out year by year,
+they passed across wide territories held for them by governors and
+garrisons, before they reached others upon which they hoped to impose
+like fetters. We find Shalmaneser II, for example, in the third year of
+his reign, fortifying, renaming, garrisoning and endowing with a royal
+palace the town of Til Barsip on the Euphrates bank, the better to
+secure for himself free passage at will across the river. He has finally
+deprived Ahuni its local Aramaean chief, and holds the place as an
+Assyrian fortress. Thus far had the Assyrian advanced his territorial
+empire but not farther. Beyond Euphrates he would, indeed, push year by
+year, even to Phoenicia and Damascus and Cilicia, but merely to raid,
+levy blackmail and destroy, like the old emperors of Babylonia or his
+own imperial predecessors of Assyria.
+
+There was then much of the old destructive instinct in Shalmaneser's
+conception of empire; but a constructive principle also was at work
+modifying that conception. If the Great King was still something of a
+Bedawi Emir, bound to go a-raiding summer by summer, he had conceived,
+like Mohammed ibn Rashid, the Arabian prince of Jebel Shammar in our own
+days, the idea of extending his territorial dominion, so that he might
+safely and easily reach fresh fields for wider raids. If we may use
+modern formulas about an ancient and imperfectly realized imperial
+system, we should describe the dominion of Shalmaneser II as made up
+(over and above its Assyrian core) of a wide circle of foreign
+territorial possessions which included Babylonia on the south, all
+Mesopotamia on the west and north, and everything up to Zagros on the
+east; of a "sphere of exclusive influence" extending to Lake Van on the
+north, while on the west it reached beyond the Euphrates into mid-Syria;
+and, lastly, of a licence to raid as far as the frontiers of Egypt.
+Shalmaneser's later expeditions all passed the frontiers of that sphere
+of influence. Having already crossed the Amanus mountains seven times,
+he was in Tarsus in his twenty-sixth summer; Damascus was attacked again
+and again in the middle of his reign; and even Jehu of Samaria paid his
+blackmail in the year 842.
+
+Assyria in the ninth century must have seemed by far the strongest as
+well as the most oppressive power that the East had known. The reigning
+house was passing on its authority from father to son in an unbroken
+dynastic succession, which had not always been, and would seldom
+thereafter be, the rule. Its court was fixed securely in midmost
+Assyria, away from priest-ridden Asshur, which seems to have been always
+anti-imperial and pro-Babylonian; for Ashurnatsirpal had restored Calah
+to the capital rank which it had held under Shalmaneser I but lost under
+Tiglath Pileser, and there the kings of the Middle Empire kept their
+throne. The Assyrian armies were as yet neither composed of soldiers of
+fortune, nor, it appears, swelled by such heterogeneous provincial
+levies as would follow the Great Kings of Asia in later days; but they
+were still recruited from the sturdy peasantry of Assyria itself. The
+monarch was an absolute autocrat directing a supreme military despotism.
+Surely such a power could not but endure. Endure, indeed, it would for
+more than two centuries. But it was not so strong as it appeared. Before
+the century of Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II was at an end, certain
+inherent germs of corporate decay had developed apace in its system.
+
+Natural law appears to decree that a family stock, whose individual
+members have every opportunity and licence for sensual indulgence, shall
+deteriorate both physically and mentally at an ever-increasing rate.
+Therefore, _pari passu_, an Empire which is so absolutely autocratic
+that the monarch is its one mainspring of government, grows weaker as it
+descends from father to son. Its one chance of conserving some of its
+pristine strength is to develop a bureaucracy which, if inspired by the
+ideas and methods of earlier members of the dynasty, may continue to
+realize them in a crystallized system of administration. This chance the
+Middle Assyrian Kingdom never was at any pains to take. There is
+evidence for delegation of military power by its Great Kings to a
+headquarter staff, and for organization of military control in the
+provinces, but none for such delegation of the civil power as might have
+fostered a bureaucracy. Therefore that concentration of power in single
+hands, which at first had been an element of strength, came to breed
+increasing weakness as one member of the dynasty succeeded another.
+
+Again, the irresistible Assyrian armies, which had been led abroad
+summer by summer, were manned for some generations by sturdy peasants
+drawn from the fields of the Middle Tigris basin, chiefly those on the
+left bank. The annual razzia, however, is a Bedawi institution, proper
+to a semi-nomadic society which cultivates little and that lightly, and
+can leave such agricultural, and also such pastoral, work as must needs
+be done in summer to its old men, its young folk and its women, without
+serious loss. But a settled labouring population which has deep lands to
+till, a summer crop to raise and an irrigation system to maintain is in
+very different case. The Assyrian kings, by calling on their
+agricultural peasantry, spring after spring, to resume the life of
+militant nomads, not only exhausted the sources of their own wealth and
+stability, but bred deep discontent. As the next two centuries pass more
+and more will be heard of depletion and misery in the Assyrian lands.
+Already before 800 we have the spectacle of the agricultural district of
+Arbela rebelling against Shalmaneser's sons, and after being appeased
+with difficulty, rising again against Adadnirari III in a revolt which
+is still active when the century closes.
+
+Lastly, this militant monarchy, whose life was war, was bound to make
+implacable enemies both within and without. Among those within were
+evidently the priests, whose influence was paramount at Asshur.
+Remembering who it was that had given the first independent king to
+Assyria they resented that their city, the chosen seat of the earlier
+dynasties, which had been restored to primacy by the great Tiglath
+Pileser, should fall permanently to the second rank. So we find Asshur
+joining the men of Arbela in both the rebellions mentioned above, and it
+appears always to have been ready to welcome attempts by the Babylonian
+Semites to regain their old predominance over Southern Assyria.
+
+
+SECTION 2. URARTU
+
+As we should expect from geographical circumstances, Assyria's most
+perilous and persistent foreign enemies were the fierce hillmen of the
+north. In the east, storms were brewing behind the mountains, but they
+were not yet ready to burst. South and west lay either settled districts
+of old civilization not disposed to fight, or ranging grounds of nomads
+too widely scattered and too ill organized to threaten serious danger.
+But the north was in different case. The wild valleys, through which
+descend the left bank affluents of the Upper Tigris, have always
+sheltered fierce fighting clans, covetous of the winter pasturage and
+softer climate of the northern Mesopotamian downs, and it has been the
+anxious care of one Mesopotamian power after another, even to our own
+day, to devise measures for penning them back. Since the chief weakness
+of these tribes lies in a lack of unity which the subdivided nature of
+their country encourages, it must have caused no small concern to the
+Assyrians that, early in the ninth century, a Kingdom of Urartu or, as
+its own people called it, Khaldia, should begin to gain power over the
+communities about Lake Van and the heads of the valleys which run down
+to Assyrian territory. Both Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser led raid
+after raid into the northern mountains in the hope of weakening the
+tribes from whose adhesion that Vannic Kingdom might derive strength.
+Both kings marched more than once up to the neighbourhood of the Urmia
+Lake, and Shalmaneser struck at the heart of Urartu itself three or four
+times; but with inconclusive success. The Vannic state continued to
+flourish and its kings--whose names are more European in sound than
+Asiatic--Lutipris, Sarduris, Menuas, Argistis, Rusas--built themselves
+strong fortresses which stand to this day about Lake Van, and borrowed a
+script from their southern foes to engrave rocks with records of
+successful wars. One of these inscriptions occurs as far west as the
+left bank of Euphrates over against Malatia. By 800 B.C., in spite of
+efforts made by Shalmaneser's sons to continue their father's policy of
+pushing the war into the enemy's country, the Vannic king had succeeded
+in replacing Assyrian influence by the law of Khaldia in the uppermost
+basin of the Tigris and in higher Mesopotamia--the "Nairi" lands of
+Assyrian scribes; and his successors would raid farther and farther into
+the plains during the coming age.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE MEDES
+
+Menacing as this power of Urartu appeared at the end of the ninth
+century to an enfeebled Assyrian dynasty, there were two other racial
+groups, lately arrived on its horizon, which in the event would prove
+more really dangerous. One of these lay along the north-eastern frontier
+on the farther slopes of the Zagros mountains and on the plateau beyond.
+It was apparently a composite people which had been going through a slow
+process of formation and growth. One element in it seems to have been of
+the same blood as a strong pastoral population which was then ranging
+the steppes of southern Russia and west central Asia, and would come to
+be known vaguely to the earliest Greeks as Cimmerians, and scarcely less
+precisely to their descendants, as Scyths. Its name would be a household
+word in the East before long. A trans-Caucasian offshoot of this had
+settled in modern Azerbaijan, where for a long time past it had been
+receiving gradual reinforcements of eastern migrants, belonging to what
+is called the Iranian group of Aryans. Filtering through the passage
+between the Caspian range and the salt desert, which Teheran now guards,
+these Iranians spread out over north-west Persia and southwards into the
+well-watered country on the western edge of the plateau, overlooking the
+lowlands of the Tigris basin. Some part of them, under the name Parsua,
+seems to have settled down as far north as the western shores of Lake
+Urmia, on the edge of the Ararat kingdom; another part as far south as
+the borders of Elam. Between these extreme points the immigrants appear
+to have amalgamated with the settled Scyths, and in virtue of racial
+superiority to have become predominant partners in the combination. At
+some uncertain period--probably before 800 B.C.--there had arisen from
+the Iranian element an individual, Zoroaster, who converted his people
+from element-worship to a spiritual belief in personal divinity; and by
+this reform of cult both raised its social status and gave it political
+cohesion. The East began to know and fear the combination under the name
+_Manda_, and from Shalmaneser II onwards the Assyrian kings had to
+devote ever more attention to the Manda country, raiding it, sacking it,
+exacting tribute from it, but all the while betraying their growing
+consciousness that a grave peril lurked behind Zagros, the peril of the
+Medes. [Footnote: I venture to adhere throughout to the old
+identification of the _Manda_ power, which ultimately overthrew Assyria,
+with the _Medes_, in spite of high authorities who nowadays assume that
+the latter played no part in that overthrow, but have been introduced
+into this chapter of history by an erroneous identification made by
+Greeks. I cannot believe that both Greek and Hebrew authorities of very
+little later date both fell into such an error.]
+
+
+SECTION 4. THE CHALDAEANS
+
+The other danger, the more imminent of the two, threatened Assyria from
+the south. Once again a Semitic immigration, which we distinguish as
+Chaldaean from earlier Semitic waves, Canaanite and Aramaean, had
+breathed fresh vitality into the Babylonian people. It came, like
+earlier waves, out of Arabia, which, for certain reasons, has been in
+all ages a prime source of ethnic disturbance in West Asia. The great
+southern peninsula is for the most part a highland steppe endowed with a
+singularly pure air and an uncontaminated soil. It breeds, consequently,
+a healthy population whose natality, compared to its death-rate, is
+unusually high; but since the peculiar conditions of its surface and
+climate preclude the development of its internal food-supply beyond a
+point long ago reached, the surplus population which rapidly accumulates
+within it is forced from time to time to seek its sustenance elsewhere.
+The difficulties of the roads to the outer world being what they are
+(not to speak of the certainty of opposition at the other end), the
+intending emigrants rarely set out in small bodies, but move restlessly
+within their own borders until they are grown to a horde, which famine
+and hostility at home compel at last to leave Arabia. As hard to arrest
+as their own blown sands, the moving Arabs fall on the nearest fertile
+regions, there to plunder, fight, and eventually settle down. So in
+comparatively modern times have the Shammar tribesmen moved into Syria
+and Mesopotamia, and so in antiquity moved the Canaanites, the
+Aramaeans, and the Chaldaeans. We find the latter already well
+established by 900 B.C. not only in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
+Persian Gulf, but also between the Rivers. The Kings of Babylon, who
+opposed Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II, seem to have been of
+Chaldaean extraction; and although their successors, down to 800 B.C.,
+acknowledged the suzerainty of Assyria, they ever strove to repudiate
+it, looking for help to Elam or the western desert tribes. The times,
+however, were not quite ripe. The century closed with the reassertion of
+Assyrian power in Babylon itself by Adadnirari.
+
+
+SECTION 5. SYRIAN EXPANSION OF ASSYRIA
+
+Such were the dangers which, as we now know, lurked on the horizon of
+the Northern Semites in 800 B.C. But they had not yet become patent to
+the world, in whose eyes Assyria seemed still an irresistible power
+pushing ever farther and farther afield. The west offered the most
+attractive field for her expansion. There lay the fragments of the Hatti
+Empire, enjoying the fruits of Hatti civilization; there were the
+wealthy Aramaean states, and still richer Phoenician ports. There urban
+life was well developed, each city standing for itself, sufficient in
+its territory, and living more or less on the caravan trade which
+perforce passed under or near its walls between Egypt on the one hand
+and Mesopotamia and Asia Minor on the other. Never was a fairer field
+for hostile enterprise, or one more easily harried without fear of
+reprisal, and well knowing this, Assyria set herself from
+Ashurnatsirpal's time forward systematically to bully and fleece Syria.
+It was almost the yearly practice of Shalmaneser II to march down to the
+Middle Euphrates, ferry his army across, and levy blackmail on
+Carchemish and the other north Syrian cities as far as Cilicia on the
+one hand and Damascus on the other. That done, he would send forward
+envoys to demand ransom of the Phoenician towns, who grudgingly paid it
+or rashly withheld it according to the measure of his compulsion. Since
+last we looked at the Aramaean states, Damascus has definitely asserted
+the supremacy which her natural advantages must always secure to her
+whenever Syria is not under foreign domination. Her fighting dynasty of
+Benhadads which had been founded, it seems, more than a century before
+Shalmaneser's time, had now spread her influence right across Syria from
+east to west and into the territories of Hamath on the north and of the
+Hebrews on the south. Ashurnatsirpal had never ventured to do more than
+summon at long range the lord of this large and wealthy state to
+contribute to his coffers; but this tributary obligation, if ever
+admitted, was continually disregarded, and Shalmaneser II found he must
+take bolder measures or be content to see his raiding-parties restricted
+to the already harried north. He chose the bold course, and struck at
+Hamath, the northernmost Damascene dependency, in his seventh summer. A
+notable victory, won at Karkar on the Middle Orontes over an army which
+included contingents from most of the south Semitic states--one came,
+for example, from Israel, where Ahab was now king,--opened a way towards
+the Aramaean capital; but it was not till twelve years later that the
+Great King actually attacked Damascus. But he failed to crown his
+successes with its capture, and reinvigorated by the accession of a new
+dynasty, which Hazael, a leader in war, founded in 842, Damascus
+continued to bar the Assyrians from full enjoyment of the southern lands
+for another century.
+
+Nevertheless, though Shalmaneser and his dynastic successors down to
+Adadnirari III were unable to enter Palestine, the shadow of Assyrian
+Empire was beginning to creep over Israel. The internal dissensions of
+the latter, and its fear and jealousy of Damascus had already done much
+to make ultimate disaster certain. In the second generation after David
+the radical incompatibility between the northern and southern Hebrew
+tribes, which under his strong hand and that of his son had seemed one
+nation, reasserted its disintegrating influence. While it is not certain
+if the twelve tribes were ever all of one race, it is quite certain that
+the northern ones had come to be contaminated very largely with Aramaean
+blood and infected by mid-Syrian influences, which the relations
+established and maintained by David and Solomon with Hamath and
+Phoenicia no doubt had accentuated, especially in the territories of
+Asher and Dan. These tribes and some other northerners had never seen
+eye to eye with the southern tribes in a matter most vital to Semitic
+societies, religious ideal and practice. The anthropomorphic monotheism,
+which the southern tribes brought up from Arabia, had to contend in
+Galilee with theriomorphic polytheism, that is, the tendency to embody
+the qualities of divinity in animal forms. For such beliefs as these
+there is ample evidence in the Judaean tradition, even during the
+pre-Palestinian wanderings. Both reptile and bovine incarnations
+manifest themselves in the story of the Exodus, and despite the fervent
+missionary efforts of a series of Prophets, and the adhesion of many,
+even among the northern tribesmen, to the more spiritual creed, these
+cults gathered force in the congenial neighbourhood of Aramaeans and
+Phoenicians, till they led to political separation of the north from the
+south as soon as the long reign of Solomon was ended. Thereafter, until
+the catastrophe of the northern tribes, there would never more be a
+united Hebrew nation. The northern kingdom, harried by Damascus and
+forced to take unwilling part in her quarrels, looked about for foreign
+help. The dynasty of Omri, who, in order to secure control of the great
+North Road, had built himself a capital and a palace (lately discovered)
+on the hill of Samaria, relied chiefly on Tyre. The succeeding dynasty,
+that of Jehu, who had rebelled against Omri's son and his Phoenician
+queen, courted Assyria, and encouraged her to press ever harder on
+Damascus. It was a suicidal policy; for in the continued existence of a
+strong Aramaean state on her north lay Israel's one hope of long life.
+Jeroboam II and his Prophet Jonah ought to have seen that the day of
+reckoning would come quickly for Samaria when once Assyria had settled
+accounts with Damascus.
+
+To some extent, but unfortunately not in all detail, we can trace in the
+royal records the advance of Assyrian territorial dominion in the west.
+The first clear indication of its expansion is afforded by a notice of
+the permanent occupation of a position on the eastern bank of the
+Euphrates, as a base for the passage of the river. This position was Til
+Barsip, situated opposite the mouth of the lowest Syrian affluent, the
+Sajur, and formerly capital of an Aramaean principate. That its
+occupation by Shalmaneser II in the third year of his reign was intended
+to be lasting is proved by its receiving a new name and becoming a royal
+Assyrian residence. Two basaltic lions, which the Great King then set up
+on each side of its Mesopotamian gate and inscribed with commemorative
+texts, have recently been found near Tell Ahmar, the modern hamlet which
+has succeeded the royal city. This measure marked Assyria's definite
+annexation of the lands in Mesopotamia, which had been under Aramaean
+government for at least a century and a half. When this government had
+been established there we do not certainly know; but the collapse of
+Tiglath Pileser's power about 1100 B.C. so nearly follows the main
+Aramaean invasion from the south that it seems probable this invasion
+had been in great measure the cause of that collapse, and that an
+immediate consequence was the formation of Aramaean states east of
+Euphrates. The strongest of them and the last to succumb to Assyria was
+Bit-Adini, the district west of Harran, of which Til Barsip had been the
+leading town.
+
+The next stage of Assyrian expansion is marked by a similar occupation
+of a position on the Syrian side of the Euphrates, to cover the landing
+and be a gathering-place of tribute. Here stood Pitru, formerly a Hatti
+town and, perhaps, the Biblical Pethor, situated beside the Sajur on
+some site not yet identified, but probably near the outfall of the
+stream. It received an Assyrian name in Shalmaneser's sixth year, and
+was used afterwards as a base for all his operations in Syria. It served
+also to mask and overawe the larger and more wealthy city of Carchemish,
+a few miles north, which would remain for a long time to come free of
+permanent Assyrian occupation, though subjected to blackmail on the
+occasion of every western raid by the Great King.
+
+With this last westward advance of his permanent territorial holding,
+Shalmaneser appears to have rested content. He was sure of the Euphrates
+passage and had made his footing good on the Syrian bank. But we cannot
+be certain; for, though his known records mention the renaming of no
+other Syrian cities, many may have been renamed without happening to be
+mentioned in the records, and others may have been occupied by standing
+Assyrian garrisons without receiving new names. Be that as it may, we
+can trace, year by year, the steady pushing forward of Assyrian raiding
+columns into inner Syria. In 854 Shalmaneser's most distant base of
+operations was fixed at Khalman (Aleppo), whence he marched to the
+Orontes to fight, near the site of later Apamea, the battle of Karkar.
+Five years later, swooping down from a Cilician raid, he entered Hamath.
+Six more years passed before he made more ground to the south, though he
+invaded Syria again in force at least once during the interval. In 842,
+however, having taken a new road along the coast, he turned inland from
+Beirut, crossed Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and succeeded in reaching the
+oasis of Damascus and even in raiding some distance towards the Hauran;
+but he did not take (perhaps, like the Bedawi Emir he was, he did not
+try to take) the fenced city itself. He seems to have repeated his visit
+three years later, but never to have gone farther. Certainly he never
+secured to himself Phoenicia, Coele-Syria or Damascus, and still less
+Palestine, by any permanent organization. Indeed, as has been said, we
+have no warrant for asserting that in his day Assyria definitely
+incorporated in her territorial empire any part of Syria except that one
+outpost of observation established at Pitru on the Sajur. Nor can more
+be credited to Shalmaneser's immediate successors; but it must be
+understood that by the end of the century Adadnirari had extended
+Assyria's sphere of influence (as distinct from her territorial holding)
+somewhat farther south to include not only Phoenicia but also northern
+Philistia and Palestine with the arable districts east of Jordan.
+
+
+SECTION 6. CILICIA
+
+When an Assyrian emperor crossed Euphrates and took up quarters in Pitru
+to receive the submission of the western chiefs and collect his forces
+for raiding the lands of any who might be slow to comply, he was much
+nearer the frontiers of Asia Minor than those of Phoenicia or the
+Kingdom of Damascus. Yet on three occasions out of four, the lords of
+the Middle Assyrian Kingdom were content to harry once again the
+oft-plundered lands of mid-Syria, and on the fourth, if they turned
+northward at all, they advanced no farther than eastern Cilicia, that
+is, little beyond the horizon which they might actually see on a clear
+day from any high ground near Pitru. Yet on the other side of the
+snow-streaked wall which bounded the northward view lay desirable
+kingdoms, Khanigalbat with its capital, Milid, comprising the fertile
+district which later would be part of Cataonia; Tabal to west of it,
+extending over the rest of Cataonia and southern Cappadocia; and Kas,
+possessing the Tyanitis and the deep Lycaonian plain. Why, then, did
+those imperial robbers in the ninth century so long hold their hands
+from such tempting prey? No doubt, because they and their armies, which
+were not yet recruited from other populations than the Semites of
+Assyria proper, so far as we know, were by origin Arabs, men of the
+south, to whom the high-lying plateau country beyond Taurus was just as
+deterrent as it has been to all Semites since. Tides of Arab invasion,
+surging again and again to the foot of the Taurus, have broken sometimes
+through the passes and flowed in single streams far on into Asia Minor,
+but they have always ebbed again as quickly. The repugnance felt by the
+Assyrians for Asia Minor may be contrasted with the promptitude which
+their Iranian successors showed in invading the peninsula, and may be
+illustrated by all subsequent history. No permanent footing was ever
+established in Asia Minor by the Saracens, its definite conquest being
+left to the north-country Turks. The short-lived Arab power of Mehemet
+Ali, which rebelled against the Turks some eighty years ago, advanced on
+to the plateau only to recede at once and remain behind the Taurus. The
+present dividing line of peoples which speak respectively Arabic and
+Turkish marks the Semite's immemorial limit. So soon as the land-level
+of northern Syria attains a mean altitude of 2500 feet, the Arab tongue
+is chilled to silence.
+
+We shall never find Assyrian armies, therefore, going far or staying
+long beyond Taurus. But we shall find them going constantly, and as a
+matter of course, into Cilicia, notwithstanding the high mountain wall
+of Amanus which divides it from Syria. Cilicia--all that part of it at
+least which the Assyrians used to raid--lies low, faces south and is
+shielded by high mountains from northerly and easterly chills. It
+enjoys, indeed, a warmer and more equable climate than any part of
+Syria, except the coastal belt, and socially it has always been related
+more nearly to the south lands than to its own geographical whole, Asia
+Minor. A Semitic element was predominant in the population of the plain,
+and especially in its chief town, Tarsus, throughout antiquity. So
+closely was Cilicia linked with Syria that the Prince of Kue (its
+eastern part) joined the Princes of Hamath and of Damascus and their
+south Syrian allies in that combination for common defence against
+Assyrian aggression, which Shalmaneser broke at Karkar in 854: and it
+was in order to neutralize an important factor in the defensive power of
+Syria that the latter proceeded across Patin in 849 and fell on Kue. But
+some uprising at Hamath recalled him then, and it was not till the
+latter part of his reign that eastern Cilicia was systematically
+subdued.
+
+Shalmaneser devoted a surprising amount of attention to this small and
+rather obscure corner of Asia Minor. He records in his twenty-fifth year
+that already he had crossed Amanus seven times; and in the year
+succeeding we find him again entering Cilicia and marching to Tarsus to
+unseat its prince and put another more pliable in his room. Since,
+apparently, he never used Cilicia as a base for further operations in
+force beyond Taurus, being content with a formal acknowledgment of his
+majesty by the Prince of Tabal, one is forced to conclude that he
+invaded the land for its own sake. Nearly three centuries hence, out of
+the mist in which Cilicia is veiled more persistently than almost any
+other part of the ancient East, this small country will loom up suddenly
+as one of the four chief powers of Asia, ruled by a king who, hand in
+hand with Nebuchadnezzar II, negotiates a peace between the Lydians and
+the Medes, each at the height of their power. Then the mist will close
+over it once more, and we shall hear next to nothing of a long line of
+kings who, bearing a royal title which was graecized under the form
+Syennesis, reigned at Tarsus, having little in common with other
+Anatolian princes. But we may reasonably infer from the circumstances of
+the pacific intervention just mentioned that Cilician power had been
+growing for a long time previous; and also from the frequency with which
+Shalmaneser raided the land, that already in the ninth century it was
+rich and civilized. We know it to have been a great centre of Sandan
+worship, and may guess that its kings were kin of the Mushki race and,
+if not the chief survivors of the original stock which invaded Assyria
+in Tiglath Pileser's time, ranked at least among the chief inheritors of
+the old Hatti civilization. Some even date its civilization earlier
+still, believing the Keftiu, who brought rich gifts to the Pharaohs of
+the eighteenth and succeeding dynasties, to have been Cilicians.
+
+Unfortunately, no scientific excavation of early sites in Cilicia has
+yet been undertaken; but for many years past buyers of antiquities have
+been receiving, from Tarsus and its port, engraved stones and seals of
+singularly fine workmanship, which belong to Hittite art but seem of
+later date than most of its products. They display in their decoration
+certain peculiar designs, which have been remarked also in Cyprus, and
+present some peculiarities of form, which occur also in the earliest
+Ionian art. Till other evidence comes to hand these little objects must
+be our witnesses to the existence of a highly developed sub-Hittite
+culture in Cilicia which, as early as the ninth century, had already
+been refined by the influence of the Greek settlements on the Anatolian
+coasts and perhaps, even earlier, by the Cretan art of the Aegean area.
+Cilician civilization offers a link between east and west which is worth
+more consideration and study than have been given to it by historians.
+
+
+SECTION 7. ASIA MINOR
+
+Into Asia Minor beyond Taurus we have no reason to suppose that an
+Assyrian monarch of the ninth century ever marched in person, though
+several raiding columns visited Khanigalbat and Tabal, and tributary
+acknowledgment of Assyrian dominance was made intermittently by the
+princes of both those countries in the latter half of Shalmaneser's
+reign. The farther and larger part of the western peninsula lay outside
+the Great King's reach, and we know as little of it in the year 800 as,
+perhaps, the Assyrians themselves knew. We do know, however, that it
+contained a strong principality centrally situated in the southern part
+of the basin of the Sangarius, which the Asiatic Greeks had begun to
+know as Phrygian. This inland power loomed very large in their world--so
+large, indeed, that it masked Assyria at this time, and passed in their
+eyes for the richest on earth. On the sole ground of its importance in
+early Greek legend, we are quite safe in dating not only its rise but
+its attainment of a dominant position to a period well before 800 B.C.
+But, in fact, there are other good grounds for believing that before the
+ninth century closed this principality dominated a much wider area than
+the later Phrygia, and that its western borders had been pushed outwards
+very nearly to the Ionian coast. In the Iliad, for example, the
+Phrygians are spoken of as immediate neighbours of the Trojans; and a
+considerable body of primitive Hellenic legend is based on the early
+presence of Phrygians not only in the Troad itself, but on the central
+west coast about the Bay of Smyrna and in the Caystrian plain, from
+which points of vantage they held direct relations with the immigrant
+Greeks themselves. It seems, therefore, certain that at some time before
+800 B.C. nearly all the western half of the peninsula owed allegiance
+more or less complete to the power on the Sangarius, and that even the
+Heraclid kings of Lydia were not independent of it.
+
+If Phrygia was powerful enough in the ninth century to hold the west
+Anatolian lands in fee, did it also dominate enough of the eastern
+peninsula to be ranked the imperial heir of the Cappadocian Hatti? The
+answer to this question (if any at all can be returned on very slight
+evidence) will depend on the view taken about the possible identity of
+the Phrygian power with that obscure but real power of the Mushki, of
+which we have already heard. The identity in question is so generally
+accepted nowadays that it has become a commonplace of historians to
+speak of the "Mushki-Phrygians." Very possibly they are right. But, by
+way of caution, it must be remarked that the identification depends
+ultimately on another, namely, that of Mita, King of the Mushki, against
+whom Ashurbanipal would fight more than a century later, with Midas,
+last King of Phrygia, who is mentioned by Herodotus and celebrated in
+Greek myth. To assume this identity is very attractive. Mita of Mushki
+and Midas of Phrygia coincide well enough in date; both ruled in Asia
+Minor; both were apparently leading powers there; both fought with the
+Gimirrai or Cimmerians. But there are also certain difficulties of which
+too little account has perhaps been taken. While Mita seems to have been
+a common name in Asia as far inland as Mesopotamia at a much earlier
+period than this, the name Midas, on the other hand, came much later
+into Phrygia from the west, if there is anything in the Greek tradition
+that the Phryges or Briges had immigrated from south-east Europe. And
+supported as this tradition is not only by the occurrence of similar
+names and similar folk-tales in Macedonia and in Phrygia, but also by
+the western appearance of the later Phrygian art and script, we can
+hardly refuse it credit. Accordingly, if we find the origin of the
+Phrygians in the Macedonian Briges, we must allow that Midas, as a
+Phrygian name, came from Europe very much later than the first
+appearance of kings called Mita in Asia, and we are compelled to doubt
+whether the latter name is necessarily the same as Midas. When allusions
+to the Mushki in Assyrian records give any indication of their local
+habitat, it lies in the east, not the west, of the central Anatolian
+plain--nearly, in fact, where the Moschi lived in later historical
+times. The following points, therefore, must be left open at present:
+(1) whether the Mushki ever settled in Phrygia at all; (2) whether, if
+they did, the Phrygian kings who bore the names Gordius and Midas can
+ever have been Mushkite or have commanded Mushkite allegiance; (3)
+whether the kings called Mita in records of Sargon and Ashurbanipal were
+not lords rather of the eastern Mushki than of Phrygia. It cannot be
+assumed, on present evidence at any rate (though it is not improbable),
+that Phrygian kings ruled the Mushki of Cappadocia, and in virtue of
+that rule had an empire almost commensurate with the lost sway of the
+Hatti.
+
+Nevertheless theirs was a strong power, the strongest in Anatolia, and
+the fame of its wealth and its walled towns dazzled and awed the Greek
+communities, which were thickly planted by now on the western and
+south-western coasts. Some of these had passed through the trials of
+infancy and were grown to civic estate, having established wide trade
+relations both by land and sea. In the coming century Cyme of Aeolis
+would give a wife to a Phrygian king. Ephesus seems to have become
+already an important social as well as religious centre. The objects of
+art found in 1905 on the floor of the earliest temple of Artemis in the
+plain (there was an earlier one in the hills) must be dated--some of
+them--not later than 700, and their design and workmanship bear witness
+to flourishing arts and crafts long established in the locality.
+Miletus, too, was certainly an adult centre of Hellenism and about to
+become a mother of new cities, if she had not already become so. But, so
+early as this year 800, we know little about the Asiatic Greek cities
+beyond the fact of their existence; and it will be wiser to let them
+grow for another two centuries and to speak of them more at length when
+they have become a potent factor in West Asian society. When we ring up
+the curtain again after two hundred years, it will be found that the
+light shed on the eastern scene has brightened; for not only will
+contemporary records have increased in volume and clarity, but we shall
+be able to use the lamp of literary history fed by traditions, which had
+not had to survive the lapse of more than a few generations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE EAST IN 600 B.C.
+
+
+When we look at the East again in 600 B.C. after two centuries of war
+and tumultuous movements we perceive that almost all its lands have
+found fresh masters. The political changes are tremendous. Cataclysm has
+followed hard on cataclysm. The Phrygian dynasty has gone down in
+massacre and rapine, and from another seat of power its former client
+rules Asia Minor in its stead. The strongholds of the lesser Semitic
+peoples have almost all succumbed, and Syria is a well-picked bone
+snatched by one foreign dog from another. The Assyrian colossus which
+bestrid the west Asiatic world has failed and collapsed, and the Medes
+and the Chaldaeans--these two clouds no bigger than a man's hand which
+had lain on Assyria's horizon--fill her seat and her room. As we look
+back on it now, the political revolution is complete; but had we lived
+in the year 600 at Asshur or Damascus or Tyre or Tarsus, it might have
+impressed us less. A new master in the East did not and does not always
+mean either a new earth or a new heaven.
+
+Let us see to how much the change really amounted. The Assyrian Empire
+was no more. This is a momentous fact, not to be esteemed lightly. The
+final catastrophe has happened only six years before our date; but the
+power of Assyria had been going downhill for nearly half a century, and
+it is clear, from the freedom with which other powers were able to move
+about the area of her empire some time before the end, that the East had
+been free of her interference for years. Indeed, so near and vital a
+centre of Assyrian nationality as Calah, the old capital of the Middle
+Empire, had been taken and sacked, ere he who was to be the last "Great
+King" of the northern Semites ascended his throne.
+
+
+SECTION 1. THE NEW ASSYRIAN KINGDOM
+
+For the last hundred and fifty years Assyrian history--a record of black
+oppression abroad and blacker intrigue at home--has recalled the rapid
+gathering and slower passing away of some great storm. A lull marks the
+first half of the ninth century. Then almost without warning the full
+fury of the cloud bursts and rages for nearly a hundred years. Then the
+gloom brightens till all is over. The dynasty of Ashurnatsirpal and
+Shalmaneser II slowly declined to its inevitable end. The capital itself
+rose in revolt in the year 747, and having done with the lawful heirs,
+chose a successful soldier, who may have been, for aught we know, of
+royal blood, but certainly was not in the direct line. Tiglath
+Pileser--for he took a name from earlier monarchs, possibly in
+vindication of legitimacy--saw (or some wise counsellor told him) that
+the militant empire which he had usurped must rely no longer on annual
+levies of peasants from the Assyrian villages, which were fast becoming
+exhausted; nor could it continue to live on uncertain blackmail
+collected at uncertain intervals now beyond Euphrates, now in Armenia,
+now again from eastern and southern neighbours. Such Bedawi ideas and
+methods were outworn. The new Great King tried new methods to express
+new ideas. A soldier by profession, indebted to the sword for his
+throne, he would have a standing and paid force always at his hand, not
+one which had to be called from the plough spring by spring. The lands,
+which used to render blackmail to forces sent expressly all the way from
+the Tigris, must henceforward be incorporated in the territorial empire
+and pay their contributions to resident governors and garrisons.
+Moreover, why should these same lands not bear a part for the empire in
+both defence and attack by supplying levies of their own to the imperial
+armies? Finally the capital, Calah, with its traditions of the dead
+dynasty, the old regime and the recent rebellion, must be replaced by a
+new capital, even as once on a time Asshur, with its Babylonian and
+priestly spirit, had been replaced. Accordingly sites, a little higher
+up the Tigris and more centrally situated in relation to both the
+homeland and the main roads from west and east, must be promoted to be
+capitals. But in the event it was not till after the reign of Sargon
+closed that Nineveh was made the definitive seat of the last Assyrian
+kings.
+
+Organized and strengthened during Tiglath Pileser's reign of eighteen
+years, this new imperial machine, with its standing professional army,
+its myriad levies drawn from all fighting races within its territory,
+its large and secure revenues and its bureaucracy keeping the provinces
+in constant relation to the centre, became the most tremendous power of
+offence which the world had seen. So soon as Assyria was made conscious
+of her new vigour by the ease with which the Urartu raiders, who had
+long been encroaching on Mesopotamia, and even on Syria, were driven
+back across the Nairi lands and penned into their central fastnesses of
+Van; by the ease, too, with which Babylonia was humbled and occupied
+again, and the Phoenician ports and the city of Damascus, impregnable
+theretofore, were taken and held to tribute--she began to dream of world
+empire, the first society in history to conceive this unattainable
+ideal. Certain influences and events, however, would defer awhile any
+attempt to realize the dream. Changes of dynasty took place, thanks
+partly to reactionary forces at home and more to the praetorian basis on
+which the kingdom now reposed, and only one of his house succeeded
+Tiglath Pileser. But the set-back was of brief duration. In the year 722
+another victorious general thrust himself on to the throne and, under
+the famous name of Sargon, set forth to extend the bounds of the empire
+towards Media on the east, and over Cilicia into Tabal on the west,
+until he came into collision with King Mita of the Mushki and held him
+to tribute.
+
+
+SECTION 2. THE EMPIRE OF SARGON
+
+Though at least one large province had still to be added to the Assyrian
+Empire, Sargon's reign may be considered the period of its greatest
+strength. He handed on to Sennacherib no conquests which could not have
+been made good, and the widest extent of territory which the central
+power was adequate to hold. We may pause, then, just before Sargon's
+death in 705, to see what the area of that territory actually was.
+
+Its boundaries cannot be stated, of course, with any approach to the
+precision of a modern political geographer. Occupied territories faded
+imperceptibly into spheres of influence and these again into lands
+habitually, or even only occasionally, raided. In some quarters,
+especially from north-east round to north-west, our present
+understanding of the terms of ancient geography, used by Semitic
+scribes, is very imperfect, and, when an Assyrian king has told us
+carefully what lands, towns, mountains and rivers his army visited, it
+does not follow that we can identify them with any exactness. Nor should
+the royal records be taken quite at their face value. Some discount has
+to be allowed (but how much it is next to impossible to say) on reports,
+which often ascribe all the actions of a campaign not shared in by the
+King in person (as in certain instances can be proved) to his sole
+prowess, and grandiloquently enumerate twoscore princedoms and kingdoms
+which were traversed and subdued in the course of one summer campaign in
+very difficult country. The illusion of immense achievement, which it
+was intended thus to create, has often imposed itself on modern critics,
+and Tiglath Pileser and Sargon are credited with having marched to the
+neighbourhood of the Caspian, conquering or holding to ransom great
+provinces, when their forces were probably doing no more than climbing
+from valley to valley about the headwaters of the Tigris affluents, and
+raiding chiefs of no greater territorial affluence than the Kurdish beys
+of Hakkiari.
+
+East of Assyria proper, the territorial empire of Sargon does not seem
+to have extended quite up to the Zagros watershed; but his sphere of
+influence included not only the heads of the Zab valleys, but also a
+region on the other side of the mountains, reaching as far as Hamadan
+and south-west Azerbaijan, although certainly not the eastern or
+northern districts of the latter province, or Kaswan, or any part of the
+Caspian littoral. On the north, the frontier of Assyrian territorial
+empire could be passed in a very few days' march from Nineveh. The
+shores of neither the Urmia nor the Van Lake were ever regularly
+occupied by Assyria, and, though Sargon certainly brought into his
+sphere of influence the kingdom of Urartu, which surrounded the latter
+lake and controlled the tribes as far as the western shore of the
+former, it is not proved that his armies ever went round the east and
+north of the Urmia Lake, and it is fairly clear that they left the
+northwestern region of mountains between Bitlis and the middle Euphrates
+to its own tribesmen.
+
+Westwards and southwards, however, Sargon's arm swept a wider circuit.
+He held as his own all Mesopotamia up to Diarbekr, and beyond Syria not
+only eastern and central Cilicia, but also some districts north of
+Taurus, namely, the low plain of Milid or Malatia, and the southern part
+of Tabal; but probably his hand reached no farther over the plateau than
+to a line prolonged from the head of the Tokhma Su to the neighbourhood
+of Tyana, and returning thence to the Cilician Gates. Beyond that line
+began a sphere of influence which we cannot hope to define, but may
+guess to have extended over Cappadocia, Lycaonia and the southern part
+of Phrygia. Southward, all Syria was Sargon's, most of it by direct
+occupation, and the rest in virtue of acknowledged overlordship and
+payment of tribute. Even the seven princes of Cyprus made such
+submission. One or two strong Syrian towns, Tyre and Jerusalem, for
+example, withheld payment if no Assyrian army was at hand; but their
+show of independence was maintained only on sufferance. The Philistine
+cities, after Sargon's victory over their forces and Egyptian allies at
+Raphia, in 720, no longer defended their walls, and the Great King's
+sphere of influence stretched eastward right across the Hamad and
+southward over north Arabia. Finally, Babylonia was all his own even to
+the Persian Gulf, the rich merchants supporting him firmly in the
+interests of their caravan trade, however the priests and the peasantry
+might murmur. But Elam, whose king and people had carried serious
+trouble into Assyria itself early in the reign, is hardly to be reckoned
+to Sargon even as a sphere of influence. The marshes of its south-west,
+the tropical plains of the centre and the mountains on the east, made it
+a difficult land for the northern Semites to conquer and hold. Sargon
+had been wise enough to let it be. Neither so prudent nor so fortunate
+would be his son and successors.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT
+
+Such was the empire inherited by Sargon's son, Sennacherib. Not content,
+he would go farther afield to make a conquest which has never remained
+long in the hands of an Asiatic power. It was not only lust of loot,
+however, which now urged Assyria towards Egypt. The Great Kings had long
+found their influence counteracted in southern Syria by that of the
+Pharaohs. Princes of both Hebrew states, of the Phoenician and the
+Philistine cities and even of Damascus, had all relied at one time or
+another on Egypt, and behind their combinations for defence and their
+individual revolts Assyria had felt the power on the Nile. The latter
+generally did no more in the event to save its friends than it had done
+for Israel when Shalmaneser IV beleaguered, and Sargon took and
+garrisoned, Samaria; but even ignorant hopes and empty promises of help
+cause constant unrest. Therefore Sennacherib, after drastic chastisement
+of the southern states in 701 (both Tyre and Jerusalem, however, kept
+him outside their walls), and a long tussle with Chaldaean Babylon, was
+impelled to set out in the last year, or last but one, of his reign for
+Egypt. In southern Palestine he was as successful as before, but,
+thereafter, some signal disaster befell him. Probably an epidemic
+pestilence overtook his army when not far across the frontier, and he
+returned to Assyria only to be murdered.
+
+He bequeathed the venture to the son who, after defeating his parricide
+brothers, secured his throne and reigned eleven years under a name which
+it has been agreed to write Esarhaddon. So soon as movements in Urartu
+and south-western Asia Minor had been suppressed, and, more important,
+Babylon, which his father had dishonoured, was appeased, Esarhaddon took
+up the incomplete conquest. Egypt, then in the hands of an alien dynasty
+from the Upper Nile and divided against itself, gave him little trouble
+at first. In his second expedition (670) he reached Memphis itself,
+carried it by assault, and drove the Cushite Tirhakah past Thebes to the
+Cataracts. The Assyrian proclaimed Egypt his territory and spread the
+net of Ninevite bureaucracy over it as far south as the Thebaid; but
+neither he nor his successors cared to assume the style and titles of
+the Pharaohs, as Persians and Greeks, wiser in their generations, would
+do later on. Presently trouble at home, excited by a son rebelling after
+the immemorial practice of the east, recalled Esarhaddon to Assyria;
+Tirhakah moved up again from the south; the Great King returned to meet
+him and died on the march.
+
+[Plate 4: ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. EARLY YEARS OF
+ASHURBANIPAL]
+
+But Memphis was reoccupied by Esarhaddon's successor, and since the
+latter took and ruined Thebes also, and, after Tirhakah's death, drove
+the Cushites right out of Egypt, the doubtful credit of spreading the
+territorial empire of Assyria to the widest limits it ever reached falls
+to Ashurbanipal. Even Tyre succumbed at last, and he stretched his
+sphere of influence over Asia Minor to Lydia. First of Assyrian kings he
+could claim Elam with its capital Susa as his own (after 647), and in
+the east he professed overlordship over all Media. Mesopotamian arts and
+letters now reached the highest point at which they had stood since
+Hammurabi's days, and the fame of the wealth and luxury of "Sardanapal"
+went out even into the Greek lands. About 660 B.C. Assyria seemed in a
+fair way to be mistress of the desirable earth.
+
+
+SECTION 4. DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA
+
+Strong as it seemed in the 7th century, the Assyrian Empire was,
+however, rotten at the core. In ridding itself of some weaknesses it had
+created others. The later Great Kings of Nineveh, raised to power and
+maintained by the spears of paid praetorians, found less support even
+than the old dynasty of Calah had found, in popular religious sentiment,
+which (as usual in the East) was the ultimate basis of Assyrian
+nationality; nor, under the circumstances, could they derive much
+strength from tribal feeling, which sometimes survives the religious
+basis. Throughout the history of the New Kingdom we can detect the
+influence of a strong opposition centred at Asshur. There the last
+monarch of the Middle Kingdom had fixed his dwelling under the wing of
+the priests; there the new dynasty had dethroned him as the consummation
+of an anti-sacerdotal rising of nobles and of peasant soldiery. Sargon
+seems to have owed his elevation two generations later to revenge taken
+for this victory by the city folk; but Sargon's son, Sennacherib, in his
+turn, found priestly domination intolerable, and, in an effort to crush
+it for ever, wrecked Babylon and terrorized the central home of Semitic
+cult, the great sacerdotal establishment of Bel-Marduk. After his
+father's murder, Esarhaddon veered back to the priests, and did so much
+to court religious support, that the military party incited Ashurbanipal
+to rebellion and compelled his father to associate the son in the royal
+power before leaving Assyria for the last time to die (or be killed) on
+the way to Egypt. Thus the whole record of dynastic succession in the
+New Kingdom has been typically Oriental, anticipating, at every change
+of monarch, the history of Islamic Empires. There is no trace of
+unanimous national sentiment for the Great King. One occupant of the
+throne after another gains power by grace of a party and holds it by
+mercenary swords.
+
+Another imperial weakness was even more fatal. So far as can be learned
+from Assyria's own records and those of others, she lived on her
+territorial empire without recognizing the least obligation to render
+anything to her provinces for what they gave--not even to render what
+Rome gave at her worst, namely, peace. She regarded them as existing
+simply to endow her with money and men. When she desired to garrison or
+to reduce to impotence any conquered district, the population of some
+other conquered district would be deported thither, while the new
+subjects took the vacant place. What happened when Sargon captured
+Samaria happened often elsewhere (Ashurbanipal, for example, made Thebes
+and Elam exchange inhabitants), for this was the only method of
+assimilating alien populations ever conceived by Assyria. When she
+attempted to use natives to govern natives the result was such disaster
+as followed Ashurbanipal's appointment of Psammetichus, son of Necho, to
+govern Memphis and the Western Delta.
+
+Rotten within, hated and coveted by vigorous and warlike races on the
+east, the north and the south, Assyria was moving steadily towards her
+catastrophe amid all the glory of "Sardanapal." The pace quickened when
+he was gone. A danger, which had lain long below the eastern horizon,
+was now come up into the Assyrian field of vision. Since Sargon's
+triumphant raids, the Great King's writ had run gradually less and less
+far into Media; and by his retaliatory invasions of Elam, which
+Sennacherib had provoked, Ashurbanipal not only exhausted his military
+resources, but weakened a power which had served to check more dangerous
+foes.
+
+We have seen that the "Mede" was probably a blend of Scythian and
+Iranian, the latter element supplying the ruling and priestly classes.
+The Scythian element, it seems, had been receiving considerable
+reinforcement. Some obscure cause, disturbing the northern steppes,
+forced its warlike shepherds to move southward in the mass. A large
+body, under the name Gimirrai or Cimmerians, descended on Asia Minor in
+the seventh century and swept it to the western edge of the plateau and
+beyond; others pressed into central and eastern Armenia, and, by
+weakening the Vannic king, enabled Ashurbanipal to announce the
+humiliation of Urartu; others again ranged behind Zagros and began to
+break through to the Assyrian valleys. Even while Ashurbanipal was still
+on the throne some of these last had ventured very far into his realm;
+for in the year of his death a band of Scythians appeared in Syria and
+raided southwards even to the frontier of Egypt. It was this raid which
+virtually ended the Assyrian control of Syria and enabled Josiah of
+Jerusalem and others to reassert independence.
+
+The death of Ashurbanipal coincided also with the end of direct Assyrian
+rule over Babylon. After the death of a rebellious brother and viceroy
+in 648, the Great King himself assumed the Babylonian crown and ruled
+the sacred city under a Babylonian name. But there had long been
+Chaldaean principalities in existence, very imperfectly incorporated in
+the Assyrian Empire, and these, inspiring revolts from time to time, had
+already succeeded in placing more than one dynast on the throne of
+Babylon. As soon as "Sardanapal" was no more and the Scythians began to
+overrun Assyria, one of these principalities (it is not known which)
+came to the front and secured the southern crown for its prince
+Nabu-aplu-utsur, or, as the Greeks wrote the name, Nabopolassar. This
+Chaldaean hastened to strengthen himself by marrying his son,
+Nebuchadnezzar, to a Median princess, and threw off the last pretence of
+submission to Assyrian suzerainty. He had made himself master of
+southern Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley trade-route by the year
+609.
+
+At the opening of the last decade of the century, therefore, we have
+this state of things. Scythians and Medes are holding most of eastern
+and central Assyria; Chaldaeans hold south Mesopotamia; while Syria,
+isolated from the old centre of empire, is anyone's to take and keep. A
+claimant appears immediately in the person of the Egyptian Necho, sprung
+from the loins of that Psammetichus who had won the Nile country back
+from Assyria. Pharaoh entered Syria probably in 609, broke easily
+through the barrier which Josiah of Jerusalem, greatly daring in this
+day of Assyrian weakness, threw across his path at Megiddo, went on to
+the north and proceeded to deal as he willed with the west of the
+Assyrian empire for four or five years. The destiny of Nineveh was all
+but fulfilled. With almost everything lost outside her walls, she held
+out against the Scythian assaults till 606, and then fell to the Mede
+Uvakhshatra, known to the Greeks as Kyaxares. The fallen capital of West
+Asia was devastated by the conquerors to such effect that it never
+recovered, and its life passed away for ever across the Tigris, to the
+site on which Mosul stands at the present day.
+
+
+SECTION 5. THE BABYLONIANS AND THE MEDES
+
+Six years later,--in 600 B.C.--this was the position of that part of the
+East which had been the Assyrian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldaean
+king of Babylon, who had succeeded his father about 605, held the
+greater share of it to obedience and tribute, but not, apparently, by
+means of any such centralized bureaucratic organization as the Assyrians
+had established. Just before his father's death he had beaten the
+Egyptians in a pitched battle under the walls of Carchemish, and
+subsequently had pursued them south through Syria, and perhaps across
+the frontier, before being recalled to take up his succession. He had
+now, therefore, no rival or active competitor in Syria, and this part of
+the lost empire of Assyria seems to have enjoyed a rare interval of
+peace under native client princes who ruled more or less on Assyrian
+lines. The only fenced places which made any show of defiance were Tyre
+and Jerusalem, which both relied on Egypt. The first would outlast an
+intermittent siege of thirteen years; but the other, with far less
+resources, was soon to pay full price for having leaned too long on the
+"staff of a broken reed."
+
+About the east and north a different story would certainly have to be
+told, if we could tell it in full. But though Greek traditions come to
+our aid, they have much less to say about these remote regions than the
+inscribed annals of that empire, which had just come to its end, have
+had hitherto: and unfortunately the Median inheritors of Assyria have
+left no epigraphic records of their own--at least none have been found.
+If, as seems probable, the main element of Kyaxares' war strength was
+Scythian, we can hardly expect to find records either of his conquest or
+the subsequent career of the Medes, even though Ecbatana should be laid
+bare below the site of modern Hamadan; for the predatory Scyth, like the
+mediaeval Mongol, halted too short a time to desire to carve stones, and
+probably lacked skill to inscribe them. To complete our discomfiture,
+the only other possible source of light, the Babylonian annals, sheds
+none henceforward on the north country and very little on any country.
+Nebuchadnezzar--so far as his records have been found and read--did not
+adopt the Assyrian custom of enumerating first and foremost his
+expeditions and his battles; and were it not for the Hebrew Scriptures,
+we should hardly know that his armies ever left Babylonia, the
+rebuilding and redecoration of whose cities and shrines appear to have
+constituted his chief concern. True, that in such silence about warlike
+operations, he follows the precedent of previous Babylonian kings; but
+probably that precedent arose from the fact that for a long time past
+Babylon had been more or less continuously a client state.
+
+We must, therefore, proceed by inference. There are two or three
+recorded events earlier and later than our date, which are of service.
+First, we learn from Babylonian annals that Kyaxares, besides
+overrunning all Assyria and the northern part of Babylonia after the
+fall of Nineveh, took and pillaged Harran and its temple in north-west
+Mesopotamia. Now, from other records of Nabonidus, fourth in succession
+to Nebuchadnezzar, we shall learn further that this temple did not come
+into Babylonian hands till the middle of the following century. The
+reasonable inference is that it had remained since 606 B.C. in the power
+of the Medes, and that northern Mesopotamia, as well as Assyria, formed
+part of a loose-knit Median "Empire" for a full half century before 552
+B.C.
+
+Secondly, Herodotus bears witness to a certain event which occurred
+about the year 585, in a region near enough to his own country for the
+fact to be sufficiently well known to him. He states that, after an
+expedition into Cappadocia and a war with Lydia, the Medes obtained,
+under a treaty with the latter which the king of Babylon and the prince
+of Cilicia promoted, the Halys river as a "scientific frontier" on the
+north-west. This statement leaves us in no doubt that previously the
+power of Ecbatana had been spread through Armenia into the old Hatti
+country of Cappadocia, as well as over all the north of Mesopotamia, in
+the widest sense of this vague term.
+
+Something more, perhaps, may be inferred legitimately from this same
+passage of Herodotus. The mediation of the two kings, so unexpectedly
+coupled, must surely mean that each stood to one of the two belligerents
+as friend and ally. If so (since a Babylonian king can hardly have held
+such a relation to distant Lydia, while the other prince might well have
+been its friend), Cilicia was probably outside the Median "sphere of
+influence," while Babylon fell within it; and Nebuchadnezzar--for he it
+must have been, when the date is considered, though Herodotus calls him
+by a name, Labynetus, otherwise unknown--was not a wholly independent
+ruler, though ruler doubtless of the first and greatest of the client
+states of Media. Perhaps that is why he has told us so little of
+expeditions and battles, and confined his records so narrowly to
+domestic events. If his armies marched only to do the bidding of an
+alien kinsman-in-law, he can have felt but a tepid pride in their
+achievements.
+
+In 600 B.C., then, we must picture a Median "Empire," probably of the
+raiding type, centred in the west of modern Persia and stretching
+westward over all Armenia (where the Vannic kingdom had ceased to be),
+and southward to an ill-defined point in Mesopotamia. Beyond this point
+south and west extended a Median sphere of influence which included
+Babylonia and all that obeyed Nebuchadnezzar even to the border of Elam
+on the one hand and the border of Egypt on the other. Since the heart of
+this "Empire" lay in the north, its main activities took place there
+too, and probably the discretion of the Babylonian king was seldom
+interfered with by his Median suzerain. In expanding their power
+westward to Asia Minor, the Medes followed routes north of Taurus, not
+the old Assyrian war-road through Cilicia. Of so much we can be fairly
+sure. Much else that we are told of Media by Herodotus--his marvellous
+account of Ecbatana and scarcely less wonderful account of the reigning
+house--must be passed by till some confirmation of it comes to light;
+and that, perhaps, will never be.
+
+
+SECTION 6. ASIA MINOR
+
+A good part of the East, however, remains which owed allegiance neither
+to Media nor to Babylon. It is, indeed, a considerably larger area than
+was independent of the Farther East at the date of our last survey. Asia
+Minor was in all likelihood independent from end to end, from the Aegean
+to the Euphrates--for in 600 B.C. Kyaxares had probably not yet come
+through Urartu--and from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Issus. About much
+of this area we have far more trustworthy information now than when we
+looked at it last, because it had happened to fall under the eyes of the
+Greeks of the western coastal cities, and to form relations with them of
+trade and war. But about the residue, which lay too far eastward to
+concern the Greeks much, we have less information than we had in 800
+B.C., owing to the failure of the Assyrian imperial annals.
+
+The dominant fact in Asia Minor in 600 B.C. is the existence of a new
+imperial power, that of Lydia. Domiciled in the central west of the
+peninsula, its writ ran eastwards over the plateau about as far as the
+former limits of the Phrygian power, on whose ruins it had arisen. As
+has been stated already, there is reason to believe that its "sphere of
+influence," at any rate, included Cilicia, and the battle to be fought
+on the Halys, fifteen years after our present survey, will argue that
+some control of Cappadocia also had been attempted. Before we speak of
+the Lydian kingdom, however, and of its rise to its present position, it
+will be best to dispose of that outlying state on the southeast,
+probably an ally or even client of Lydia, which, we are told, was at
+this time one of the "four powers of Asia." These powers included
+Babylon also, and accordingly, if our surmise that the Mede was then the
+overlord of Nebuchadnezzar be correct, this statement of Eusebius, for
+what it is worth, does not imply that Cilicia had attained an imperial
+position. Doubtless of the four "powers," she ranked lowest.
+
+
+SECTION 7. CILICIA
+
+It will be remembered how much attention a great raiding Emperor of the
+Middle Assyrian period, Shalmaneser II, had devoted to this little
+country. The conquering kings of later dynasties had devoted hardly
+less. From Sargon to Ashurbanipal they or their armies had been there
+often, and their governors continuously. Sennacherib is said to have
+rebuilt Tarsus "in the likeness of Babylon," and Ashurbanipal, who had
+to concern himself with the affairs of Asia Minor more than any of his
+predecessors, was so intimately connected with Tarsus that a popular
+tradition of later days placed there the scene of his death and the
+erection of his great tomb. And, in fact, he may have died there for all
+that we know to the contrary; for no Assyrian record tells us that he
+did not. Unlike the rest of Asia Minor, Cilicia was saved by the
+Assyrians from the ravages of the Cimmerians. Their leader, Dugdamme,
+whom the Greeks called Lygdamis, is said to have met his death on the
+frontier hills of Taurus, which, no doubt, he failed to pass. Thus, when
+Ashurbanipal's death and the shrinking of Ninevite power permitted
+distant vassals to resume independence, the unimpaired wealth of Cilicia
+soon gained for her considerable importance. The kings of Tarsus now
+extended their power into adjoining lands, such as Kue on the east and
+Tabal on the north, and probably over even the holding of the Kummukh;
+for Herodotus, writing a century and a half after our date, makes the
+Euphrates a boundary of Cilicia. He evidently understood that the
+northernmost part of Syria, called by later geographers (but never by
+him) Commagene, was then and had long been Cilician territory. His
+geographical ideas, in fact, went back to the greater Cilicia of
+pre-Persian time, which had been one of the "four great powers of Asia."
+
+The most interesting feature of Cilician history, as it is revealed very
+rarely and very dimly in the annals of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+consists in its relation to the earliest eastward venturing of the
+Greeks. The first Assyrian king with whom these western men seem to have
+collided was Sargon, who late in the eighth century, finding their ships
+in what he considered his own waters, i.e. on the coasts of Cyprus and
+Cilicia, boasts that he "caught them like fish." Since this action of
+his, he adds, "gave rest to Kue and Tyre," we may reasonably infer that
+the "Ionian pirates" did not then appear on the shores of Phoenicia and
+Cilicia for the first time; but, on the contrary, that they were already
+a notorious danger in the easternmost Levant. In the year 720 we find a
+nameless Greek of Cyprus (or Ionia) actually ruling Ashdod. Sargon's
+successor, Sennacherib, had serious trouble with the Ionians only a few
+years later, as has been learned from the comparison of a royal record
+of his, only recently recovered and read, with some statements made
+probably in the first place by the Babylonian historian, Berossus, but
+preserved to us in a chronicle of much later date, not hitherto much
+heeded. Piecing these scraps of information together, the Assyrian
+scholar, King, has inferred that, in the important campaign which a
+revolt of Tarsus, aided by the peoples of the Taurus on the west and
+north, compelled the generals of Sennacherib to wage in Cilicia in the
+year 698, Ionians took a prominent part by land, and probably also by
+sea. Sennacherib is said (by a late Greek historian) to have erected an
+"Athenian" temple in Tarsus after the victory, which was hardly won; and
+if this means, as it may well do, an "Ionic" temple, it states a by no
+means incredible fact, seeing that there had been much local contact
+between the Cilicians and the men of the west. Striking similarities of
+form and artistic execution between the early glyptic and toreutic work
+of Ionia and Cilicia respectively have been mentioned in the last
+chapter; and it need only be added here, in conclusion, that if Cilicia
+had relations with Ionia as early as the opening of the seventh
+century--relations sufficient to lead to alliance in war and to
+modification of native arts--it is natural enough that she should be
+found allied a few years later with Lydia rather than with Media.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PHRYGIA
+
+When we last surveyed Asia Minor as a whole it was in large part under
+the dominance of a central power in Phrygia. This power is now no more,
+and its place has been taken by another, which rests on a point nearer
+to the western coast. It is worth notice, in passing, how Anatolian
+dominion has moved stage by stage from east to west--from the Halys
+basin in northern Cappadocia, where its holders had been, broadly
+speaking, in the same cultural group as the Mesopotamian East, to the
+middle basin of the Sangarius, where western influences greatly modified
+the native culture (if we may judge by remains of art and script). Now
+at last it has come to the Hermus valley, up which blows the breath of
+the Aegean Sea. Whatever the East might recover in the future, the
+Anatolian peninsula was leaning more and more on the West, and the
+dominion of it was coming to depend on contact with the vital influence
+of Hellenism, rather than on connection with the heart of west Asia.
+
+A king Mita of the Mushki first appears in the annals of the New
+Assyrian Kingdom as opposing Sargon, when the latter, early in his
+reign, tried to push his sphere of influence, if not his territorial
+empire, beyond the Taurus to include the principalities of Kue and
+Tabal; and the same Mita appears to have been allied with Carchemish in
+the revolt which ended with its siege and final capture in 717 B.C. As
+has been said in the last chapter, it is usual to identify this king
+with one of those "Phrygians" known to the Greeks as Midas--preferably
+with the son of the first Gordius, whose wealth and power have been
+immortalized in mythology. If this identification is correct, we have to
+picture Phrygia at the close of the eighth century as dominating almost
+all Asia Minor, whether by direct or by indirect rule; as prepared to
+measure her forces (though without ultimate success) against the
+strongest power in Asia; and as claiming interests even outside the
+peninsula. Pisiris, king of Carchemish, appealed to Mita as his ally,
+either because the Mushki of Asia Minor sat in the seat of his own
+forbears, the Hatti of Cappadocia, or because he was himself of Mushki
+kin. There can be no doubt that the king thus invoked was king of
+Cappadocia. Whether he was king also of Phrygia, i.e. really the same as
+Midas son of Gordius, is, as has been said already, less certain. Mita's
+relations with Kue, Tabal and Carchemish do not, in themselves, argue
+that his seat of power was anywhere else than in the east of Asia Minor,
+where Moschi did actually survive till much later times: but, on the
+other hand, the occurrence of inscriptions in the distinctive script of
+Phrygia at Eyuk, east of the Halys, and at Tyana, south-east of the
+central Anatolian desert, argue that at some time the filaments of
+Phrygian power did stretch into Cappadocia and towards the land of the
+later Moschi.
+
+It must also be admitted that the splendour of the surviving rock
+monuments near the Phrygian capital is consistent with its having been
+the centre of a very considerable empire, and hardly consistent with its
+having been anything less. The greatest of these, the tomb of a king
+Midas (son not of Gordius but of Atys), has for façade a cliff about a
+hundred feet high, cut back to a smooth face on which an elaborate
+geometric pattern has been left in relief. At the foot is a false door,
+while above the immense stone curtain the rock has been carved into a
+triangular pediment worthy of a Greek temple and engraved with a long
+inscription in a variety of the earliest Greek alphabet. There are many
+other rock-tombs of smaller size but similar plan and decoration in the
+district round the central site, and others which show reliefs of human
+figures and of lions, the latter of immense proportions on two famous
+façades. When these were carved, the Assyrian art of the New Kingdom was
+evidently known in Phrygia (probably in the early seventh century), and
+it is difficult to believe that those who made such great things under
+Assyrian influence can have passed wholly unmentioned by contemporary
+Assyrian records. Therefore, after all, we shall, perhaps, have to admit
+that they were those same Mushki who followed leaders of the name Mita
+to do battle with the Great Kings of Nineveh from Sargon to
+Ashurbanipal.
+
+There is no doubt how the Phrygian kingdom came by its end. Assyrian
+records attest that the Gimirrai or Cimmerians, an Indo-European
+Scythian folk, which has left its name to Crim Tartary, and the present
+Crimea, swept southward and westward about the middle of the seventh
+century, and Greek records tell how they took and sacked the capital of
+Phrygia and put to death or forced to suicide the last King Midas.
+
+
+SECTION 9. LYDIA
+
+It must have been in the hour of that disaster, or but little before,
+that a Mermnad prince of Sardes, called Guggu by Assyrians and Gyges by
+Greeks, threw off any allegiance he may have owed to Phrygia and began
+to exalt his house and land of Lydia. He was the founder of a new
+dynasty, having been by origin, apparently, a noble of the court who
+came to be elevated to the throne by events differently related but
+involving in all the accounts some intrigue with his predecessor's
+queen. One historian, who says that he prevailed by the aid of Carians,
+probably states a fact; for it was this same Gyges who a few years later
+seems to have introduced Carian mercenaries to the notice of
+Psammetichus of Egypt. Having met and repulsed the Cimmerian horde
+without the aid of Ashurbanipal of Assyria, to whom he had applied in
+vain, Gyges allied himself with the Egyptian rebel who had just founded
+the Saite dynasty, and proceeded to enlarge his boundaries by attacking
+the prosperous Greeks on his western hand. But he was successful only
+against Colophon and Magnesia on the Maeander, inland places, and failed
+before Smyrna and Miletus, which could be provisioned by their fleets
+and probably had at their call a larger proportion of those warlike
+"Ionian pirates" who had long been harrying the Levant. In the course of
+a long reign, which Herodotus (an inexact chronologist) puts at
+thirty-eight years, Gyges had time to establish his power and to secure
+for his Lydians the control of the overland trade; and though a fresh
+Cimmerian horde, driven on, says Herodotus, by Scythians (perhaps these
+were not unconnected with the Medes then moving westward, as we know),
+came down from the north, defeated and killed him, sacked the
+unfortified part of his capital and swept on to plunder what it could of
+the land as far as the sea without pausing to take fenced places, his
+son Ardys, who had held out in the citadel of Sardes, and made his
+submission to Ashurbanipal, was soon able to resume the offensive
+against the Greeks. After an Assyrian attack on the Cimmerian flank or
+rear had brought about the death of the chief barbarian leader in the
+Cilician hills, and the dispersal of the storm, the Lydian marched down
+the Maeander again. He captured Priene, but like his predecessor and his
+successor, he failed to snatch the most coveted prize of the Greek
+coast, the wealthy city Miletus at the Maeander mouth.
+
+Up to the date of our present survey, however, and for half a century
+yet to come, these conquests of the Lydian kings in Ionia and Caria
+amounted to little more than forays for plunder and the levy of
+blackmail, like the earlier Mesopotamian razzias. They might result in
+the taking and sacking of a town here and there, but not in the holding
+of it. The Carian Greek Herodotus, born not much more than a century
+later, tells us expressly that up to the time of Croesus, that is, to
+his own father's time, all the Greeks kept their freedom: and even if he
+means by this statement, as possibly he does, that previously no Greeks
+had been subjected to regular slavery, it still supports our point: for,
+if we may judge by Assyrian practice, the enslaving of vanquished
+peoples began only when their land was incorporated in a territorial
+empire. We hear nothing of Lydian governors in the Greek coastal cities
+and find no trace of a "Lydian period" in the strata of such Ionian and
+Carian sites as have been excavated. So it would appear that the Lydians
+and the Greeks lived up to and after 600 B.C. in unquiet contact, each
+people holding its own on the whole and learning about the other in the
+only international school known to primitive men, the school of war.
+
+Herodotus represents that the Greek cities of Asia, according to the
+popular belief of his time, were deeply indebted to Lydia for their
+civilization. The larger part of this debt (if real) was incurred
+probably after 600 B.C.; but some constituent items of the account must
+have been of older date--the coining of money, for example. There is,
+however, much to be set on the other side of the ledger, more than
+Herodotus knew, and more than we can yet estimate. Too few monuments of
+the arts of the earlier Lydians and too few objects of their daily use
+have been found in their ill-explored land for us to say whether they
+owed most to the West or to the East. From the American excavation of
+Sardes, however, we have already learned for certain that their script
+was of a Western type, nearer akin to the Ionian than even the Phrygian
+was; and since their language contained a great number of Indo-European
+words, the Lydians should not, on the whole, be reckoned an Eastern
+people. Though the names given by Herodotus to their earliest kings are
+Mesopotamian and may be reminiscent of some political connection with
+the Far East at a remote epoch--perhaps that of the foreign relations of
+Ur, which seem to have extended to Cappadocia--all the later royal and
+other Lydian names recorded are distinctly Anatolian. At any rate all
+connection with Mesopotamia must have long been forgotten before
+Ashurbanipal's scribes could mention the prayer of "Guggu King of Luddi"
+as coming from a people and a land of which their master and his
+forbears had not so much as heard. As the excavation of Sardes and of
+other sites in Lydia proceeds, we shall perhaps find that the higher
+civilization of the country was a comparatively late growth, dating
+mainly from the rise of the Mermnads, and that its products will show an
+influence of the Hellenic cities which began not much earlier than 600
+B.C., and was most potent in the century succeeding that date.
+
+We know nothing of the extent of Lydian power towards the east, unless
+the suggestions already based on the passage of Herodotus concerning the
+meeting of Alyattes of Lydia with Kyaxares the Mede on the Halys, some
+years later than the date of our present survey, are well founded. If
+they are, then Lydia's sphere of influence may be assumed to have
+included Cilicia on the south-east, and its interests must have been
+involved in Cappadocia on the north-east. It is not unlikely that the
+Mermnad dynasty inherited most of what the Phrygian kings had held
+before the Cimmerian attack; and perhaps it was due to an oppressive
+Lydian occupation of the plateau as far east as the Halys and the foot
+of Anti-Taurus, that the Mushki came to be represented in later times
+only by Moschi in western Armenia, and the men of Tabal by the equally
+remote and insignificant Tibareni.
+
+
+SECTION 10. THE GREEK CITIES
+
+Of the Greek cities on the Anatolian coast something has been said
+already. The great period of the elder ones as free and independent
+communities falls between the opening of the eighth century and the
+close of the sixth. Thus they were in their full bloom about the year
+600. By the foundation of secondary colonies (Miletus alone is said to
+have founded sixty!) and the establishment of trading posts, they had
+pushed Hellenic culture eastwards round the shores of the peninsula, to
+Pontus on the north and to Cilicia on the south. In the eyes of
+Herodotus this was the happy age when "all Hellenes were free" as
+compared with his own experience of Persian overlordship. Miletus, he
+tells us, was then the greatest of the cities, mistress of the sea; and
+certainly some of the most famous among her citizens, Anaximander,
+Anaximenes, Hecataeus and Thales, belong approximately to this epoch, as
+do equally famous names from other Asiatic Greek communities, such as
+Alcaeus and Sappho of Lesbos, Mimnermus of Smyrna or Colophon, Anacreon
+of Teos, and many more. The fact is significant, because studies and
+literary activities like theirs could hardly have been pursued except in
+highly civilized, free and leisured societies where life and wealth were
+secure.
+
+If, however, the brilliant culture of the Asiatic Greeks about the
+opening of the sixth century admits no shadow of doubt, singularly few
+material things, which their arts produced, have been recovered for us
+to see to-day. Miletus has been excavated by Germans to a very
+considerable extent, without yielding anything really worthy of its
+great period, or, indeed, much that can be referred to that period at
+all, except sherds of a fine painted ware. It looks as if the city at
+the mouth of the greatest and largest valley, which penetrates Asia
+Minor from the west coast, was too important in subsequent ages and
+suffered chastisements too drastic and reconstructions too thorough for
+remains of its earlier greatness to survive except in holes and corners.
+Ephesus has given us more archaic treasures, from the deposits bedded
+down under the later reconstructions of its great shrine of Artemis; but
+here again the site of the city itself, though long explored by
+Austrians, has not added to the store. The ruins of the great Roman
+buildings which overlie its earlier strata have proved, perhaps, too
+serious an impediment to the excavators and too seductive a prize.
+Branchidae, with its temple of Apollo and Sacred Way, has preserved for
+us a little archaic statuary, as have also Samos and Chios. We have
+archaic gold work and painted vases from Rhodes, painted sarcophagi from
+Clazomenae, and painted pottery made there and at other places in Asia
+Minor, although found mostly abroad. But all this amounts to a very poor
+representation of the Asiatic Greek civilization of 600 B.C. Fortunately
+the soil still holds far more than has been got out of it. With those
+two exceptions, Miletus and Ephesus, the sites of the elder Hellenic
+cities on or near the Anatolian coast still await excavators who will go
+to the bottom of all things and dig systematically over a large area;
+while some sites await any excavation whatsoever, except such as is
+practised by plundering peasants.
+
+In their free youth the Asiatic Greeks carried into fullest practice the
+Hellenic conception of the city-state, self-governing, self-contained,
+exclusive. Their several societies had in consequence the intensely
+vivid and interested communal existence which develops civilization as a
+hot-house develops plants; but they were not democratic, and they had
+little sense of nationality--defects for which they were to pay dearly
+in the near future. In spite of their associations for the celebration
+of common festivals, such as the League of the twelve Ionian cities, and
+that of the Dorian Hexapolis in the south-west, which led to discussion
+of common political interests, a separatist instinct, reinforced by the
+strong geographical boundaries which divided most of the civic
+territories, continually reasserted itself. The same instinct was ruling
+the history of European Greece as well. But while the disaster, which in
+the end it would entail, was long avoided there through the insular
+situation of the main Greek area as a whole and the absence of any
+strong alien power on its continental frontier, disaster impended over
+Asiatic Greece from the moment that an imperial state should become
+domiciled on the western fringe of the inland plateau. Such a state had
+now appeared and established itself; and if the Greeks of Asia had had
+eyes to read, the writing was on their walls in 600 B.C.
+
+Meanwhile Asiatic traders thronged into eastern Hellas, and the Hellenes
+and their influence penetrated far up into Asia. The hands which carved
+some of the ivories found in the earliest Artemisium at Ephesus worked
+on artistic traditions derived ultimately from the Tigris. So, too,
+worked the smiths who made the Rhodian jewellery, and so, the artists
+who painted the Milesian ware and the Clazomenae sarcophagi. On the
+other side of the ledger (though three parts of its page is still hidden
+from us) we must put to Greek credit the script of Lydia, the rock
+pediments of Phrygia, and the forms and decorative schemes of many
+vessels and small articles in clay and bronze found in the Gordian
+tumuli and at other points on the western plateau from Mysia to
+Pamphylia. The men of "Javan," who had held the Syrian sea for a century
+past, were known to Ezekiel as great workers in metal; and in Cyprus
+they had long met and mingled their culture with that of men from the
+East.
+
+It was implied in the opening of this chapter that in 600 B.C. social
+changes in the East would be found disproportionate to political
+changes; and on the whole they seem so to have been. The Assyrian Empire
+was too lately fallen for any great modification of life to have taken
+place in its area, and, in fact, the larger part of that area was being
+administered still by a Chaldaean monarchy on the established lines of
+Semitic imperialism. Whether the centre of such a government lay at
+Nineveh or at Babylon can have affected the subject populations very
+little. No new religious force had come into the ancient East, unless
+the Mede is to be reckoned one in virtue of his Zoroastrianism. Probably
+he did not affect religion much in his early phase of raiding and
+conquest. The great experience, which was to convert the Jews from
+insignificant and barbarous highlanders into a cultured, commercial and
+cosmopolitan people of tremendous possibilities had indeed begun, but
+only for a part of the race, and so far without obvious result. The
+first incursion of Iranians in force, and that slow soakage of
+Indo-European tribes from Russia, which was to develop the Armenian
+people of history, are the most momentous signs of coming change to be
+noted between 800 and 600 B.C. with one exception, the full import of
+which will be plain at our next survey. This was the eastward movement
+of the Greeks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE EAST IN 400 B.C.
+
+
+As the fifth century draws to its close the East lies revealed at last
+in the light of history written by Greeks. Among the peoples whose
+literary works are known to us, these were the first who showed
+curiosity about the world in which they lived and sufficient
+consciousness of the curiosity of others to record the results of
+inquiry. Before our present date the Greeks had inquired a good deal
+about the East, and not of Orientals alone. Their own public men,
+military and civil, their men of science, their men of letters, their
+merchants in unknown number, even soldiers of theirs in thousands, had
+gone up into Inner Asia and returned. Leading Athenians, Solon, Hippias
+and Themistocles, had been received at Eastern courts or had accompanied
+Eastern sovereigns to war, and one more famous even than these,
+Alcibiades, had lately lived with a Persian satrap. Greek physicians,
+Democedes of Croton, Apollonides of Cos, Ctesias of Cnidus, had
+ministered to kings and queens of Persia in their palaces. Herodotus of
+Halicarnassus had seen Babylon, perhaps, and certainly good part of
+Syria; Ctesias had dwelt at Susa and collected notes for a history of
+the Persian Empire; Xenophon of Attica had tramped from the
+Mediterranean to the Tigris and from the Tigris to the Black Sea, and
+with him had marched more than ten thousand Greeks. Not only have works
+by these three men of letters survived, wholly or in part, to our time,
+but also many notes on the East as it was before 400 B.C. have been
+preserved in excerpts, paraphrases and epitomes by later authors. And we
+still have some archaeological documents to fall back upon. If the
+cuneiform records of the Persian Empire are less abundant than those of
+the later Assyrian Kingdom, they nevertheless include such priceless
+historical inscriptions as that graven by Darius, son of Hystaspes, on
+the rock of Behistun. There are also hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic
+texts of Persian Egypt; inscriptions of Semitic Syria and a few of
+archaic Greece; and much other miscellaneous archaeological material
+from various parts of the East, which, even if uninscribed, can inform
+us of local society and life.
+
+
+SECTION 1. EASTWARD MOVEMENT OF THE GREEKS
+
+The Greek had been pushing eastward for a long time. More than three
+hundred years ago, as has been shown in the last chapter, he had become
+a terror in the farthest Levant. Before another century had passed he
+found his way into Egypt also. Originally hired as mercenaries to
+support a native revolt against Assyria, the Greeks remained in the Nile
+valley not only to fight but to trade. The first introduction of them to
+the Saite Pharaoh, Psammetichus, was promoted by Gyges the Lydian to
+further his own ends, but the first development of their social
+influence in Egypt was due to the enterprise of Miletus in establishing
+a factory on the lowest course of the Canopic Nile. This post and two
+standing camps of Greek mercenaries, one at Tahpanhes watching the
+approach from Asia, the other at Memphis overawing the capital and
+keeping the road to Upper Egypt, served to introduce Ionian civilization
+to the Delta in the seventh century. Indeed, to this day our knowledge
+of the earliest fine painted pottery of Ionia and Caria depends largely
+on the fragments of their vases imported into Egypt which have been
+found at Tahpanhes, Memphis and another Greek colony, Naukratis, founded
+a little later (as will be told presently) to supersede the original
+Milesian factory. Though those foreign vases themselves, with their
+decoration of nude figure subjects which revolted vulgar Egyptian
+sentiment, did not go much beyond the Greek settlements (like the Greek
+courtesans of Naukratis, who perhaps appealed only to the more
+cosmopolitan Saites), their art certainly influenced all the finer art
+of the Saitic age, initiating a renascence whose characteristics of
+excessive refinement and meticulous delicacy survived to be reinforced
+in the Ptolemaic period by a new infusion of Hellenic culture.
+
+So useful or so dangerous--at any rate so numerous--did the Greeks
+become in Lower Egypt by the opening of the sixth century that a
+reservation was assigned to them beside the Egyptian town of Piemro, and
+to this alone, according to Herodotus, newcomers from the sea were
+allowed to make their way. This foreign suburb of Piemro was named
+Naukratis, and nine cities of the Asiatic Greeks founded a common
+sanctuary there. Other maritime communities of the same race (probably
+the more powerful, since Miletus is named among them) had their
+particular sanctuaries also and their proper places. The Greeks had come
+to Egypt to stay. We have learned from the remains of Naukratis that
+throughout the Persian domination, which superseded the Saitic before
+the close of the sixth century, a constant importation of products of
+Ionia, Attica, Sparta, Cyprus and other Hellenic centres was maintained.
+The place was in full life when Herodotus visited Egypt, and it
+continued to prosper until the Greek race, becoming rulers of all the
+land, enthroned Hellenism at Alexandria on the sea itself.
+
+
+SECTION 2. PHOENICIAN CARRIERS
+
+Nor was it only through Greek sea-rovers and settlers in Cilicia, and
+through Greek mercenaries, merchants and courtesans in the Nile-Delta,
+that the East and the West had been making mutual acquaintance. Other
+agencies of communication had been active in bringing Mesopotamian
+models to the artists of the Ionian and Dorian cities in Asia Minor, and
+Ionian models to Mesopotamia and Syria. The results are plain to see, on
+the one hand in the fabric and design of early ivories, jewellery and
+other objects found in the archaic Artemisium at Ephesus, and in the
+decoration of painted pottery produced at Miletus; on the other hand, in
+the carved ivories of the ninth century found at Calah on the Tigris.
+But the processes which produced these results are not so clear. If the
+agents or carriers of those mutual influences were certainly the
+Phoenicians and the Lydians, we cannot yet apportion with confidence to
+each of these peoples the responsibility for the results, or be sure
+that they were the only agents, or independent of other middlemen more
+directly in contact with one party or the other.
+
+The Phoenicians have pushed far afield since we looked at them last. By
+founding Carthage more than half-way towards the Pillars of Hercules the
+city of Tyre completed her occupation of sufficient African harbours,
+beyond the reach of Egypt, and out of the Greek sphere, to appropriate
+to herself by the end of the ninth century the trade of the western
+Mediterranean basin. By means of secondary settlements in west Sicily,
+Sardinia and Spain, she proceeded to convert this sea for a while into
+something like a Phoenician lake. No serious rival had forestalled her
+there or was to arise to dispute her monopoly till she herself, long
+after our date, would provoke Rome. The Greek colonies in Sicily and
+Italy, which looked westward, failed to make head against her at the
+first, and soon dropped out of the running; nor did the one or two
+isolated centres of Hellenism on other shores do better. On the other
+hand, in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, although it was her own
+home-sea, Tyre never succeeded in establishing commercial supremacy, and
+indeed, so far as we know, she never seriously tried to establish it. It
+was the sphere of the Aegean mariners and had been so as far back as
+Phoenician memory ran. The Late Minoan Cretans and men of Argolis, the
+Achaean rovers, the Ionian pirates, the Milesian armed merchantmen had
+successively turned away from it all but isolated and peaceful ships of
+Sidon and Tyre, and even so near a coast as Cyprus remained foreign to
+the Phoenicians for centuries after Tyre had grown to full estate. In
+the Homeric stories ships of the Sidonians, though not unknown, make
+rare appearances, and other early legends of the Greeks, which make
+mention of Phoenician visits to Hellenic coasts, imply that they were
+unusual phenomena, which aroused much local curiosity and were long
+remembered. The strangeness of the Phoenician mariners, the unfamiliar
+charm of their cargoes--such were the impressions left on Greek story by
+the early visits of Phoenician ships.
+
+That they did pay such visits, however, from time to time is certain.
+The little Egyptian trinkets, which occur frequently in Hellenic strata
+of the eighth to the sixth centuries, are sufficient witness of the
+fact. They are most numerous in Rhodes, in Caria and Ionia, and in the
+Peloponnese. But the main stream of Tyrian commerce hugged the south
+rather than the north coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Phoenician
+sailors were essentially southerners--men who, if they would brave now
+and again the cold winds of the Aegean and Adriatic, refused to do so
+oftener than was necessary--men to whom African shores and a climate
+softened by the breath of the Ocean were more congenial.
+
+If, however, the Phoenicians were undoubtedly agents who introduced the
+Egyptian culture to the early Hellenes of both Asia and Europe, did they
+also introduce the Mesopotamian? Not to anything like the same extent,
+if we may judge by the products of excavations. Indeed, wherever
+Mesopotamian influence has left unmistakable traces upon Greek soil, as
+in Cyprus and Ionia or at Corinth and Sparta, it is often either certain
+or probable that the carrying agency was not Phoenician. We find the
+nearest affinities to archaic Cypriote art (where this was indebted to
+Asiatic art at all) in Cilician and in Hittite Syrian art. Early Ionian
+and Carian strata contain very little that is of Egyptian character, but
+much whose inspiration can be traced ultimately to Mesopotamia; and
+research in inner Asia Minor, imperfect though its results are yet, has
+brought to light on the plateau so much parallelism to Ionian
+Orientalizing art, and so many examples of prior stages in its
+development, that we must assume Mesopotamian influence to have reached
+westernmost Asia chiefly by overland ways. As for the European sites,
+since their Orientalism appears to have been drawn from Ionia, it also
+had come through Asia overland.
+
+Therefore on the whole, though Herodotus asserts that the Phoenician
+mariners carried Assyrian cargoes, there is remarkably little evidence
+that those cargoes reached the West, and equally little that Phoenicians
+had any considerable direct trade with Mesopotamia. They may have been
+responsible for the small Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects which have
+been found by the excavators of Carchemish and Sakjegeuzi in strata of
+the ninth and eighth centuries; but the carrying of similar objects
+eastward across the Euphrates was more probably in Hittite hands than
+theirs. The strongest Nilotic influence which affected Mesopotamian art
+is to be noticed during the latter half of the New Assyrian Kingdom,
+when there was no need for alien intermediaries to keep Nineveh in
+communication with its own province of Egypt.
+
+Apparently, therefore, it was not through the Phoenicians that the
+Greeks had learned most of what they knew about the East in 400 B.C.
+Other agents had played a greater part and almost all the
+intercommunication had been effected by way, not of the Levant Sea, but
+of the land bridge through Asia Minor. In the earlier part of our story,
+during the latter rule of Assyria in the farther East and the subsequent
+rule of the Medes and the Babylonians in her room, intercourse had been
+carried on almost entirely by intermediaries, among whom (if something
+must be allowed to the Cilicians) the Lydians were undoubtedly the most
+active. In the later part of the story it will be seen that the
+intermediaries have vanished; the barriers are down; the East has itself
+come to the West and intercourse is immediate and direct. How this
+happened--what agency brought Greeks and Orientals into an intimate
+contact which was to have the most momentous consequences to
+both--remains to be told.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE COMING OF THE PERSIANS
+
+We have seen already how a power, which had grown behind the frontier
+mountains of the Tigris basin, forced its way at last through the
+defiles and issued in the riverine plains with fatal results to the
+north Semitic kings. By the opening of the sixth century Assyria had
+passed into Median hands, and these were reaching out through Armenia to
+central Asia Minor. Even the south Semites of Babylonia had had to
+acknowledge the superior power of the newcomers and, probably, to accept
+a kind of vassalage. Thus, since all lower Mesopotamia with most part of
+Syria obeyed the Babylonian, a power, partly Iranian, was already
+overshadowing two-thirds of the East before Cyrus and his Persians
+issued upon the scene. It is important to bear this fact in mind when
+one comes to note the ease with which a hitherto obscure king of Anshan
+in Elam would prove able to possess himself of the whole Semitic Empire,
+and the rapidity with which his arms would appear in the farthest west
+of Asia Minor on the confines of the Greeks themselves. Nebuchadnezzar
+allied with and obedient to the Median king, helping him on the Halys in
+585 B.C. to arrange with Lydia a division of the peninsula of Asia Minor
+on the terms _uti possidetis_--that is the significant situation which
+will prepare us to find Cyrus not quite half a century later lord of
+Babylon, Jerusalem and Sardes.
+
+What events, passing in the far East among the divers groups of the
+Iranians themselves and their Scythian allies, led to this king of a
+district in Elam, whose own claim to have belonged by blood to any of
+those groups is doubtful, consolidating all the Iranians whether of the
+south or north under his single rule into a mighty power of offence, we
+do not know. Stories current among the Greeks and reported by Herodotus
+and Ctesias represented Cyrus as in any case a Persian, but as either
+grandson of a Median king (though not his natural heir) or merely one of
+his court officials. What the Greeks had to account for (and so have we)
+is the subsequent disappearance of the north Iranian kings of the Medes
+and the fusion of their subjects with the Persian Iranians under a
+southern dynasty. And what the Greeks did not know, but we do, from
+cuneiform inscriptions either contemporary with, or very little
+subsequent to, Cyrus' time, only complicates the problem; since these
+bear witness that Cyrus was known at first (as has been indicated
+already) for a king of Elam, and not till later for a king of Persia.
+Ctesias, who lived at Susa itself while at was the Persian capital,
+agrees with Herodotus that Cyrus wrested the lordship of the Medes from
+the native dynasty by force; but Herodotus adds that many Medes were
+consenting parties.
+
+These problems cannot be discussed here. The probability is, summarily,
+this. Some part of the southern or Persian group of Iranians which,
+unlike the northern, was not contaminated with Scyths, had advanced into
+Elam while the Medes were overrunning and weakening the Semitic Empire;
+and in Anshan it consolidated itself into a territorial power with Susa
+for capital. Presently some disaffection arose among the northern
+Iranians owing, perhaps, to favour shown by the Median kings to their
+warlike Scythian subjects, and the malcontents called in the king of
+Anshan. The issue was fought out in central West Persia, which had been
+dominated by the Medes since the time of Kyaxares' father, Phraortes,
+and when it was decided by the secession of good part of the army of
+King Astyages, Cyrus of Anshan took possession of the Median Empire with
+the goodwill of much of the Median population. This empire included
+then, beside the original Median land, not only territories conquered
+from Assyria but also all that part of Persia which lay east of Elam.
+Some time, doubtless, elapsed before the sovereignty of Cyrus was
+acknowledged by all Persia; but, once his lordship over this land was an
+accomplished fact, he naturally became known as king primarily of the
+Persians, and only secondarily of the Medes, while his seat remained at
+Susa in his own original Elamite realm. The Scythian element in and
+about his Median province remained unreconciled, and one day he would
+meet his death in a campaign against it; but the Iranian element
+remained faithful to him and his son, and only after the death of the
+latter gave expression by a general revolt to its discontent with the
+bargain it had made.
+
+
+SECTION 4. FALL OF LYDIA
+
+Cyrus must have met with little or no opposition in the western Median
+provinces, for we find him, within a year or two of his recognition by
+both Persians and Medes, not only on his extreme frontier, the Halys
+river, but able to raid across it and affront the power of Lydia. To
+this action he was provoked by Lydia itself. The fall of the Median
+dynasty, with which the royal house of Lydia had been in close alliance
+since the Halys pact, was a disaster which Croesus, now king of Sardes
+in the room of Alyattes, was rash enough to attempt to repair. He had
+continued with success his father's policy of extending Lydian dominion
+to the Aegean at the expense of the Ionian Greeks; and, master of
+Ephesus, Colophon and Smyrna, as well as predominant partner in the
+Milesian sphere, he secured to Lydia the control and fruition of
+Anatolian trade, perhaps the most various and profitable in the world at
+that time. A byword for wealth and luxury, the Lydians and their king
+had nowadays become soft, slow-moving folk, as unfit to cope with the
+mountaineers of the wild border highlands of Persia as, if Herodotus'
+story is well founded, they were ignorant of their quality. Croesus took
+his time, sending envoys to consult oracles near and far. Herodotus
+tells us that he applied to Delphi not less than thrice and even to the
+oracle of Ammon in the Eastern Sahara. At least a year must have been
+spent in these inquiries alone, not to speak of an embassy to Sparta and
+perhaps others to Egypt and Babylon. These preliminaries at length
+completed, the Lydian gathered the levies of western Asia Minor and set
+out for the East. He found the Halys in flood--it must have been in late
+spring--and having made much ado of crossing it, spent the summer in
+ravaging with his cavalry the old homeland of the Hatti. Thus he gave
+Cyrus time to send envoys to the Ionian cities to beg them attack Lydia
+in the rear, and time to come down himself in force to his far western
+province. Croesus was brought to battle in the first days of the autumn.
+The engagement was indecisive, but the Lydians, having no mind to stay
+out the winter on the bleak Cappadocian highlands and little suspicion
+that the enemy would think of further warfare before spring, went back
+at their leisure to the Hermus valley, only to hear at Sardes itself
+that the Persian was hot in pursuit. A final battle was fought under the
+very walls of the Lydian capital and lost by Croesus; the lower town was
+taken and sacked; and the king, who had shut himself with his guards
+into the citadel and summoned his allies to his rescue come five months,
+was a prisoner of Cyrus within two weeks. It was the end of Lydia and of
+all buffers between the Orient and Greece. East and West were in direct
+contact and the omens boded ill to the West. Cyrus refused terms to the
+Greeks, except the powerful Milesians, and departing for the East again,
+left Lydia to be pacified and all the cities of the western coasts,
+Ionian, Carian, Lycian and what not, excepting only Miletus, to be
+reduced by his viceroys.
+
+
+SECTION 5. PERSIAN EMPIRE
+
+Cyrus himself had still to deal with a part of the East which, not
+having been occupied by the Medes, though in a measure allied and
+subservient to them, saw no reason now to acknowledge the new dynasty.
+This is the part which had been included in the New Babylonian Empire.
+The Persian armies invaded Babylonia. Nabonidus was defeated finally at
+Opis in June 538; Sippara fell, and Cyrus' general appearing before
+Babylon itself received it without a struggle at the hands of the
+disaffected priests of Bel-Marduk. The famous Herodotean tale of Cyrus'
+secret penetration down the dried bed of Euphrates seems to be a
+mistaken memory of a later recapture of the city after a revolt from
+Darius, of which more hereafter. Thus once more it was given to Cyrus to
+close a long chapter of Eastern history--the history of imperial
+Babylon. Neither did he make it his capital, nor would any other lord of
+the East so favour it. If Alexander perhaps intended to revive its
+imperial position, his successor, Seleucus, so soon as he was assured of
+his inheritance, abandoned the Euphratean city for the banks of the
+Tigris and Orontes, leaving it to crumble to the heap which it is
+to-day.
+
+The Syrian fiefs of the Babylonian kings passed _de jure_ to the
+conqueror; but probably Cyrus himself never had leisure or opportunity
+to secure them _de facto_. The last decade of his life seems to have
+been spent in Persia and the north-east, largely in attempts to reduce
+the Scythian element, which threatened the peace of Media; and at the
+last, having brought the enemy to bay beyond the Araxes, he met there
+defeat and death. But Cambyses not only completed his father's work in
+Syria, but fulfilled what is said to have been his further project by
+capturing Egypt and establishing there a foreign domination which was to
+last, with some intervals, nearly two hundred years. By the end of the
+sixth century one territorial empire was spread over the whole East for
+the first time in history; and it was with a colossus, bestriding the
+lands from the Araxes to the Upper Nile and from the Oxus to the Aegean
+Sea, that the Greeks stood face to face in the gate of the West.
+
+Before, however, we become absorbed in contemplation of a struggle which
+will take us into a wider history, let us pause a moment to consider the
+nature of the new power come out of the East, and the condition of such
+of its subject peoples as have mattered most in the later story of
+mankind. It should be remarked that the new universal power is not only
+non-Semitic for the first time in well-certified history, but controlled
+by a very pure Aryan stock, much nearer kin to the peoples of the West
+than any Oriental folk with which they have had intimate relations
+hitherto. The Persians appeared from the Back of Beyond, uncontaminated
+by Alarodian savagery and unhampered by the theocratic prepossessions
+and nomadic traditions of Semites. They were highlanders of unimpaired
+vigour, frugal habit, settled agricultural life, long-established social
+cohesion and spiritual religious conceptions. Possibly, too, before they
+issued from the vast Iranian plateau, they were not wholly unversed in
+the administration of wide territories. In any case, their quick
+intelligence enabled them to profit by models of imperial organization
+which persisted in the lands they now acquired; for relics of the
+Assyrian system had survived under the New Babylonian rule, and perhaps
+also under the Median. Thereafter the experience gained by Cambyses in
+Egypt must have gone for something in the imperial education of his
+successor Darius, to whom historians ascribe the final organization of
+Persian territorial rule. From the latter's reign onward we find a
+regular provincial system linked to the centre as well as might be by a
+postal service passing over state roads. The royal power is delegated to
+several officials, not always of the ruling race, but independent of
+each other and directly responsible to Susa: these live upon their
+provinces but must see to it first and foremost that the centre receives
+a fixed quota of money and a fixed quota of fighting men when required.
+The Great King maintains royal residences in various cities of the
+empire, and not infrequently visits them; but in general his viceroys
+are left singularly free to keep the peace of their own governorates and
+even to deal with foreign neighbours at their proper discretion.
+
+If we compare the Persian theory of Empire with the Assyrian, we note
+still a capital fault. The Great King of Susa recognized no more
+obligation than his predecessors of Nineveh to consider the interests of
+those he ruled and to make return to them for what he took. But while,
+on the one hand, no better imperial theory was conceivable in the sixth
+century B.C., and certainly none was held or acted upon in the East down
+to the nineteenth century A.D., on the other, the Persian imperial
+practice mitigated its bad effects far more than the Assyrian had done.
+Free from the Semitic tradition of annual raiding, the Persians reduced
+the obligation of military service to a bearable burden and avoided
+continual provocation of frontier neighbours. Free likewise from Semitic
+supermonotheistic ideas, they did not seek to impose their creed. Seeing
+that the Persian Empire was extensive, decentralized and provided with
+imperfect means of communication, it could subsist only by practising
+provincial tolerance. Its provincial tolerance seems to have been
+systematic. We know a good deal of the Greeks and the Jews under its
+sway, and in the history of both we miss such signs of religious and
+social oppression as marked Assyrian rule. In western Asia Minor the
+satraps showed themselves on the whole singularly conciliatory towards
+local religious feeling and even personally comformable to it; and in
+Judaea the hope of the Hebrews that the Persian would prove a deliverer
+and a restorer of their estate was not falsified. Hardly an echo of
+outrage on the subjects of Persia in time of peace has reached our ears.
+If the sovereign of the Asiatic Greek cities ran counter to Hellenic
+feeling by insisting on "tyrant" rule, he did no more than continue a
+system under which most of those cities had grown rich. It is clear that
+they had little else to complain of than absence of a democratic freedom
+which, as a matter of fact, some of them had not enjoyed in the day of
+their independence. The satraps seem to have been supplied with few, or
+even no, Persian troops, and with few Persian aides on their
+administrative staff. The Persian element in the provinces must, in
+fact, have been extraordinarily small--so small that an Empire, which
+for more than two centuries comprehended nearly all western Asia, has
+left hardly a single provincial monument of itself, graven on rock or
+carved on stone.
+
+
+SECTION 6. JEWS
+
+If we look particularly at the Jews--those subjects of Persia who
+necessarily share most of our interest with the Greeks--we find that
+Persian imperial rule was no sooner established securely over the former
+Babylonian fief in Palestine than it began to undo the destructive work
+of its predecessors. Vainly expecting help from the restored Egyptian
+power, Jerusalem had held out against Nebuchadnezzar till 587. On its
+capture the dispersion of the southern Jews, which had already begun
+with local emigrations to Egypt, was largely increased by the
+deportation of a numerous body to Babylonia. As early, however, as 538,
+the year of Cyrus' entry into Babylon (doubtless as one result of that
+event), began a return of exiles to Judaea and perhaps also to Samaria.
+By 520 the Jewish population in South Palestine was sufficiently strong
+again to make itself troublesome to Darius, and in 516 the Temple was in
+process of restoration. Before the middle of the next century Jerusalem
+was once more a fortified city and its population had been further
+reinforced by many returned exiles who had imbibed the economic
+civilization, and also the religiosity of Babylonia. Thenceforward the
+development of the Jews into a commercial people proceeds without
+apparent interruption from Persian governors, who (as, for example,
+Nehemiah) could themselves be of the subject race. Even if large
+accretions of other Semites, notably Aramaeans, be allowed
+for--accretions easily accepted by a people which had become rather a
+church than a nation--it remains a striking testimony to Persian
+toleration that after only some six or seven generations the once
+insignificant Jews should have grown numerous enough to contribute an
+important element to the populations of several foreign cities. It is
+worth remark also that even when, presumably, free to return to the home
+of their race, many Jews preferred to remain in distant parts of the
+Persian realm. Names mentioned on contract tablets of Nippur show that
+Jews found it profitable to still sit by the waters of Babylon till late
+in the fifth century; while in another distant province of the Persian
+Empire (as the papyri of Syene have disclosed) a flourishing
+particularist settlement of the same race persisted right down to and
+after 500 B.C.
+
+
+SECTION 7. ASIA UNDER PERSIA
+
+On the whole evidence the Persians might justifiably claim that their
+imperial organization in its best days, destitute though it was of
+either the centralized strength or the theoretic justification of modern
+civilized rule, achieved a very considerable advance, and that it is not
+unworthy to be compared even to the Roman in respect of the freedom and
+peace which in effect it secured to its subjects.
+
+[Plate 5: PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS
+HYSTASPIS]
+
+Not much more need--or can--be said about the other conquered peoples
+before we revert to the Greeks. Though Cyrus did not live to receive in
+person the submission of all the west Asian peoples, his son Cambyses
+had received it before his short reign of eight years came to an end.
+Included in the empire now were not only all the mainland territories
+once dominated by the Medes and the Babylonians, but also much wider
+lands east, west and south, and even Mediterranean islands which lay
+near the Asiatic shores. Among these last was Cyprus, now more closely
+linked to Phoenicia than of old, and combining with the latter to
+provide navies for the Great King's needs. On the East, the Iranian
+plateau, watched from two royal residences, Pasargadae in the south and
+Ecbatana in the north, swelled this realm to greater dimensions than any
+previous eastern empire had boasted. On the south, Cambyses added Cyrene
+and, less surely, Nabia to Egypt proper, which Assyria had possessed for
+a short time, as we have seen. On the west, Cyrus and his generals had
+already secured all Asia which lay outside the Median limit, including
+Cilicia, where (as also in other realms, e.g. Phoenicia, Cyprus, Caria)
+the native dynasty accepted a client position.
+
+This, however, is not to be taken to mean that all the East settled down
+at once into contented subservience. Cambyses, by putting his brother to
+death, had cut off the direct line of succession. A pretender appeared
+in the far East; Cambyses died on the march to meet him, and at once all
+the oriental provinces, except the homeland of Persia, were up in
+revolt. But a young cognate of the royal house, Darius, son of
+Hystaspes, a strong man, slew the pretender, and once secure on the
+throne, brought Media, Armenia, Elam and at last Babylonia, back to
+obedience. The old imperial city on the Euphrates would make one more
+bid for freedom six years later and then relapse into the estate of a
+provincial town. Darius spent some twenty years in organizing his empire
+on the satrap system, well known to us from Greek sources, and in
+strengthening his frontiers. To promote the latter end he passed over
+into Europe, even crossing the Danube in 511 to check Scythian raids;
+and he secured the command of the two straits and the safety of his
+northwest Asiatic possessions by annexing the south-east of the Balkan
+peninsula with the flourishing Greek cities on its coasts.
+
+
+SECTION 8. PERSIA AND THE GREEKS
+
+The sixth century closed and the fifth century ran three years of its
+course in apparently unbroken peace between East and West. But trouble
+was near at hand. Persia had imposed herself on cities which possessed a
+civilization superior, not only potentially but actually, to her own; on
+cities where individual and communal passion for freedom constituted the
+one religion incompatible with her tolerant sway; on cities conscious of
+national identity with a powerful group outside the Persian Empire, and
+certain sooner or later to engage that group in warfare on their behalf.
+
+Large causes, therefore, lay behind the friction and intrigue which,
+after a generation of subjection, caused the Ionian cities, led, as of
+old, by Miletus, to ring up the first act of a dramatic struggle
+destined to make history for a very long time to come. We cannot examine
+here in detail the particular events which induced the Ionian Revolt.
+Sufficient to say they all had their spring in the great city of
+Miletus, whose merchant princes and merchant people were determined to
+regain the power and primacy which they had enjoyed till lately. A
+preliminary failure to aggrandize themselves with the goodwill of Persia
+actually brought on their revolt, but it only precipitated a struggle
+inevitable ultimately on one side of the Aegean or the other.
+
+After setting the whole Anatolian coast from the Bosporus to Pamphylia
+and even Cyprus in a blaze for two years, the Ionian Revolt failed,
+owing as much to the particularist jealousies of the Greek cities
+themselves as to vigorous measures taken against them by Darius on land
+and his obedient Phoenicians at sea. A naval defeat sealed the fate of
+Miletus, whose citizens found, to the horror of all Greece, that, on
+occasion, the Persian would treat rebels like a loyal successor of
+Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar. But even though it failed, the Revolt
+brought on a second act in the drama. For, on the one hand, it had
+involved in Persian politics certain cities of the Greek motherlands,
+notably Athens, whose contingent, greatly daring, affronted the Great
+King by helping to burn the lower town of Sardes; and on the other, it
+had prompted a despot on the European shore of the Dardanelles, one
+Miltiades, an Athenian destined to immortal fame, to incense Darius yet
+more by seizing his islands of Lemnos and Imbros.
+
+Evidently neither could Asiatic Greeks be trusted, even though their
+claws were cut by disarmament and their motives for rebellion had been
+lessened by the removal of their despots, nor could the Balkan province
+be held securely, while the western Greeks remained defiant and Athens,
+in particular, aiming at the control of Aegean trade, supported the
+Ionian colonies. Therefore Darius determined to strike at this city
+whose exiled despot, Hippias, promised a treacherous co-operation; and
+he summoned other Greek states to make formal submission and keep the
+peace. A first armada sent to coast round the northern shore in 492
+added Macedonia to the Persian Empire; but it was crippled and stayed by
+storms. A second, sent two years later direct across the Aegean, reduced
+the Cyclad isles, revenged itself on Eretria, one of the minor culprits
+in the Sardian affair, and finally brought up by the Attic shore at
+Marathon. The world-famous defeat which its landing parties suffered
+there should be related by a historian rather of Greece than of the
+East; and so too should the issue of a third and last invasion which,
+ten years later, after old Darius' death, Xerxes led in person to defeat
+at Salamis, and left to meet final rout under his generalissimo at
+Plataea. For our purpose it will be enough to note the effects which
+this momentous series of events had on the East itself.
+
+
+SECTION 9. RESULTS OF THE PERSIAN ATTACKS ON GREECE
+
+Obviously the European failure of Persia affected the defeated less than
+the victorious party. Except upon the westernmost fringe of the Persian
+Empire we have no warrant for saying that it had any serious political
+result at all. A revolt of Egypt which broke out in the last year of
+Darius, and was easily suppressed by his successor, seems not to have
+been connected with the Persian disaster at Marathon; and even when two
+more signal defeats had been suffered in Greece, and a fourth off the
+shore of Asia itself--the battle of Mycale--upon which followed closely
+the loss of Sestus, the European key of the Hellespont, and more
+remotely the loss not only of all Persian holdings in the Balkans and
+the islands, but also of the Ionian Greek cities and most of the
+Aeolian, and at last (after the final naval defeat off the Eurymedon) of
+the whole littoral of Anatolia from Pamphylia right round to the
+Propontis--not even after all these defeats and losses did the Persian
+power suffer diminution in inner Asia or loss of prestige in inland Asia
+Minor. Some years, indeed, had still to elapse before the ever-restless
+Egyptian province used the opportunity of Xerxes' death to league itself
+with the new power and make a fresh attempt to shake off the Persian
+yoke; but once more it tried in vain.
+
+When Persia abandoned direct sovereignty over the Anatolian littoral she
+suffered little commercial loss and became more secure. It is clear that
+her satraps continued to manage the western trade and equally clear that
+the wealth of her empire increased in greater ratio than that of the
+Greek cities. There is little evidence for Hellenic commercial expansion
+consequent on the Persian wars, but much for continued and even
+increasing Hellenic poverty. In the event Persia found herself in a
+position almost to regain by gold what she had lost by battle, and to
+exercise a financial influence on Greece greater and longer lasting than
+she ever established by arms. Moreover, her empire was less likely to be
+attacked when it was limited by the western edge of the Anatolian
+plateau, and no longer tried to hold any European territory. There is a
+geographical diversity between the Anatolian littoral and the plateau.
+In all ages the latter alone has been an integral part of inner Asia,
+and the society and politics of the one have remained distinct from
+those of the other. The strong frontier of Asia at its western
+peninsular extremity lies not on, but behind the coast.
+
+At the same time, although their immediate results to the Persian Empire
+were not very hurtful, those abortive expeditions to Europe had sown the
+seeds of ultimate catastrophe. As a direct consequence of them the
+Greeks acquired consciousness of their own fighting value on both land
+and sea as compared with the peoples of inner Asia and the Phoenicians.
+Their former fear of numerical superiorities was allayed, and much of
+the mystery, which had hitherto magnified and shielded Oriental power,
+was dissipated. No less obviously those expeditions served to suggest to
+the Greeks for the first time that there existed both a common enemy of
+all their race and an external field for their own common encroachment
+and plundering. So far as an idea of nationality was destined ever to be
+operative on Greek minds it would draw its inspiration thenceforward
+from a sense of common superiority and common hostility to the Oriental.
+Persia, in a word, had laid the foundations and promoted the development
+of a Greek nationality in a common ambition directed against herself. It
+was her fate also, by forcing Athens into the front of the Greek states,
+to give the nascent nation the most inspiriting and enterprising of
+leaders--the one most fertile in imperial ideas and most apt to proceed
+to their realization: and in her retreat before that nation she drew her
+pursuer into a world which, had she herself never advanced into Europe,
+would probably not have seen him for centuries to come.
+
+Moreover, by a subsequent change of attitude towards her victorious
+foe--though that change was not wholly to her discredit--Persia bred in
+the Greeks a still better conceit of themselves and a better
+understanding of her weakness. The Persians, with the intelligence and
+versatility for which their race has always been remarkable, passed very
+rapidly from overweening contempt to excessive admiration of the Greeks.
+They set to work almost at once to attract Hellenic statesmen and men of
+science to their own society, and to make use of Hellenic soldiers and
+sailors. We soon find western satraps cultivating cordial relations with
+the Ionian cities, hospitably entertaining Greeks of distinction and
+conciliating Greek political and religious prepossessions. They must
+have attained considerable success, while thus unwittingly preparing
+disaster. When, a little more than a century later, western Europe would
+come eastward in force, to make an end of Persian dominion, some of the
+greater Ionian and Carian cities would offer a prolonged resistance to
+it which is not to be accounted for only by the influence of Persian
+gold or of a Persian element in their administration. Miletus and
+Halicarnassus shut their gates and defended their walls desperately
+against Alexander because they conceived their own best interests to be
+involved in the continuance of the Persian Empire. Nor were the Persians
+less successful with Greeks actually taken into their service. The Greek
+mercenaries remained to a man loyal to the Great King when the Greek
+attack came, and gave Alexander his hardest fighting in the three great
+battles which decided the fate of the East. None the less, such an
+attitude towards Greeks was suicidal. It exalted the spirit of Europe
+while it depraved the courage and sapped the self-reliance of Asia.
+
+
+SECTION 10. THE FIRST COUNTER-ATTACKS
+
+This, however, is to anticipate the sequel. Let us finally fix our eyes
+on the Eastern world in 400 B.C. and review it as it must then have
+appeared to eyes from which the future was all concealed. The coasts of
+Asia Minor, generally speaking, were in Greek hands, the cities being
+autonomous trading communities, as Greeks understood autonomy; but most
+of them until four years previously had acknowledged the suzerainty or
+rather federal leadership of Athens and now were acknowledging less
+willingly a Spartan supremacy established at first with Persian
+co-operation. Many of these cities, which had long maintained very close
+relations with the Persian governors of the nearer _hinterland_, not
+only shaped their policy to please the latter, but even acknowledged
+Persian suzerainty; and since, as it happens, at this particular moment
+Sparta had fallen out with Persia, and a Spartan army, under
+Dercyllidas, was occupying the Aeolian district of the north, the
+"medizing" cities of Ionia and Caria were in some doubt of their future.
+On the whole they inclined still to the satraps. Persian influence and
+even control had, in fact, greatly increased on the western coast since
+the supersession of Athens by a power unaccustomed to imperial politics
+and notoriously inapt in naval matters; and the fleets of Phoenicia and
+Cyprus, whose Greek princes had fallen under Phoenician domination, had
+regained supremacy at sea.
+
+Yet, only a year before, "Ten Thousand" heavy-armed Greeks (and near
+half as many again of all arms), mostly Spartan, had marched right
+through western Asia. They went as mercenary allies of a larger native
+force led by Cyrus, Persian prince-governor of west central Anatolia,
+who coveted the diadem of his newly enthroned brother. Having traversed
+the old Lydian and Phrygian kingdoms they moved down into Cilicia and up
+again over north Syria to the Euphrates, bound (though they only learned
+it at last by the waters of the Great River itself) for Babylon. But
+they never reached that city. Cyrus met death and his oriental soldiers
+accepted defeat at Cunaxa, some four days' march short of the goal. But
+the undefeated Greeks, refusing to surrender, and, few though they were,
+so greatly dreaded by the Persians that they were not directly molested,
+had to get back to their own land as best they might. How, robbed of
+their original leaders they yet reached the Black Sea and safety by way
+of the Tigris valley and the wild passes of Kurdish Armenia all readers
+of Xenophon, the Athenian who succeeded to the command, know well. Now
+in 400 B.C. they were reappearing in the cities of west Asia and Europe
+to tell how open was the inner continent to bold plunderers and how
+little ten Orientals availed in attack or defence against one Greek.
+Such stories then and there incited Sparta to a forward policy, and one
+day would encourage a stronger Western power than hers to march to the
+conquest of the East.
+
+We are fortunate in having Xenophon's detailed narrative of the
+adventures of these Greeks, if only because it throws light by the way
+on inner Asia almost at the very moment of our survey. We see Sardes
+under Persia what it had been under Lydia, the capital city of Anatolia;
+we see the great valley plains of Lydia and Phrygia, north and south,
+well peopled, well supplied, and well in hand, while the rough foothills
+and rougher heights of Taurus are held by contumacious mountaineers who
+are kept out of the plains only by such periodic chastisement as Cyrus
+allowed his army to inflict in Pisidia and Lycaonia. Cilicia is being
+administered and defended by its own prince, who bears the same name or
+title as his predecessor in the days of Sennacherib, but is feudally
+accountable to the Great King. His land is so far his private property
+that Cyrus, though would-be lord of all the empire, encourages the
+pillage of the rich provincial capital. The fleet of Cyrus lands men and
+stores unmolested in north Syria, while the inner country up to the
+Euphrates and down its valley as far as Babylonia is at peace. The Great
+King is able to assemble above half a million men from the east and
+south to meet his foe, besides the levy of Media, a province which now
+seems to include most of the ancient Assyria. These hundreds of
+thousands constitute a host untrained, undisciplined, unstable, unused
+to service, little like the ordered battalions of an essentially
+military power such as the Assyrian had been.
+
+From the story of the Retreat certain further inferences may be drawn.
+First, Babylonia was a part of the empire not very well affected to the
+Great King; or else the Greeks would have been neither allowed by the
+local militia to enter it so easily nor encouraged by the Persians to
+leave it. Second, the ancient Assyria was a peaceful province not
+coerced by a standing Persian force or garrisons of any strength. Third,
+southern Kurdistan was not held by or for the Great King and it paid
+tribute only to occasional pressure. Fourth, the rest of Kurdistan and
+Armenia as far north as the upper arm of the Euphrates was held,
+precariously, by the Persians; and lastly, north of the Euphrates valley
+up to the Black Sea all was practical independence. We do not know
+anything precise about the far eastern provinces or the south Syrian in
+this year, 400. Artaxerxes, the Great King, came from Susa to meet his
+rebellious brother, but to Babylon he returned to put to death the
+betrayed leaders of the Greeks. At this moment Ctesias, the Cnidian
+Greek, was his court physician and no friend either to Cyrus or to
+Spartans; he was even then in correspondence with the Athenian Conon who
+would presently be made a Persian admiral and smash the Spartan fleet.
+Of his history of Persia some few fragments and some epitomized extracts
+relating to this time have survived. These have a value, which the mass
+of his book seems not to have had; for they relate what a contemporary,
+singularly well placed to learn court news, heard and saw. One gathers
+that king and court had fallen away from the ideas and practice of the
+first Cyrus. Artaxerxes was unwarlike, lax in religion (though he had
+been duly consecrated at Pasargadae) and addicted to non-Zoroastrian
+practices. Many Persians great and small were disaffected towards him
+and numbers rallied to his brother; but he had some Western adventurers
+in his army. Royal ladies wielded almost more power at the court than
+the Great King, and quarrelled bitterly with one another.
+
+Plutarch, who drew material for his life of Artaxerxes not only from
+Ctesias, but also from authorities now lost to us, leaves us with much
+the same impression of the lords of the East at the close of the fifth
+century B.C. Corrupt and treacherous central rule, largely directed by
+harem intrigue; an unenthusiastic body of subjects, abandoned to the
+schemes of satraps; inefficient and casually collected armies in which
+foreign mercenaries were almost the only genuine soldiers--such was
+Persia now. It was something very unlike the vigorous rule of Cyrus and
+the imperial system of the first Darius--something very like the Ottoman
+Empire in the eighteenth century A.D.--something which would collapse
+before the first Western leader of men who could command money of his
+own making and a professional army of his own people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE VICTORY OF THE WEST
+
+
+The climax was reached in about seventy years more. When these had
+passed into history, so had also the Persian Empire, and the East, as
+the Greeks had conceived it thus far and we have understood it, was
+subject to the European race which a century and a half before it had
+tried to subdue in Europe itself. To this race (and to the historian
+also) "the East," as a geographical term, standing equally for a spatial
+area and for a social idea, has ceased to mean what it once meant: and
+the change would be lasting. It is true that the East did not cease to
+be distinguished as such; for it would gradually shake itself free
+again, not only from control by the West, but from the influence of the
+latter's social ideas. Nevertheless, since the Western men, when they
+went back to their own land, had brought the East into the world known
+to them--into a circle of lands accepted as the dwelling of civilized
+man--the date of Alexander's overthrow of the Persian Empire makes an
+epoch which divides universal history as hardly any other divides it.
+
+Dramatic as the final catastrophe would be, it will not surprise us when
+it comes, nor did it, as a matter of fact, surprise the generation which
+witnessed it. The romantic conception of Alexander, as a little David
+who dared a huge Goliath, ignores the facts of previous history, and
+would have occurred to no contemporary who had read the signs of the
+times. The Eastern colossus had been dwindling so fast for nearly a
+century that a Macedonian king, who had already subdued the Balkan
+peninsula, loomed at least as large in the world's eye, when he crossed
+the Hellespont, as the titular Emperor of contumacious satraps and
+ever-rebelling provinces of western Asia. To accept this view we have
+only to look back over seventy years since that march of Ten Thousand
+Greeks, with which our last survey closed.
+
+
+SECTION 1. PERSIA AND ITS PROVINCES
+
+Before the expedition of Cyrus there may have been, and evidently were,
+enough seeds of corruption in the state of Persia; but they had not
+become known by their fruits. No satrap for a century past had tried to
+detach himself and his province from the Empire; hardly a subject people
+had attempted to re-assert its independence. There were, indeed, two
+exceptions, both of them peoples which had never identified themselves
+at any time with the fortunes of their alien masters. One of these was,
+of course, the Asiatic Greek, the other was the Egyptian people; but the
+contumacy of the first threatened a danger not yet realized by Asia; the
+rebellious spirit of the last concerned, as yet, itself alone.
+
+It was Egypt, however, which really gave the first warning of Persian
+dissolution. The weakest spot in the Assyrian Empire proved weakest in
+the Persian. The natural barriers of desert, swamp and sea, set between
+Egypt and the neighbouring continent, are so strong that no Asiatic
+Power, which has been tempted to conquer the rich Nile valley, has ever
+been able to keep it long. Under its own leaders or some rebellious
+officer of its new masters it has reasserted independence sooner or
+later, and all history is witness that no one, whether in Asia or in
+Europe, holds Egypt as a foreign province unless he holds also the sea.
+During the century which had elapsed since Cambyses' conquest the
+Egyptians had rebelled more than once (most persistently about 460),
+calling in the sea-lords to their help on each occasion. Finally, just
+before the death of Darius Nothus, and some five years before Cyrus left
+Sardes, they rose again under an Egyptian, and thereafter, for about
+sixty years, not the kings of Susa, but three native dynasties in
+succession, were to rule Egypt. The harm done to the Persian Empire by
+this defection was not measured by the mere loss of the revenues of a
+province. The new kings of Egypt, who owed much to Greek support, repaid
+this by helping every enemy of the Great King and every rebel against
+his authority. It was they who gave asylum to the admiral and fleet of
+Cyrus after Cunaxa, and sent corn to Agesilaus when he invaded Asia
+Minor; they supplied money and ships to the Spartan fleet in 394, and
+helped Evagoras of Cyprus in a long resistance to his suzerain. When
+Tyre and the cities of the Cilician coast revolted in 380, Egypt was
+privy to their designs, and she made common cause with the satraps and
+governors of Western Asia, Syria and Phoenicia when, in combination,
+they planned rebellion in 373 to the grave peril of the Empire. Twelve
+years later we find an Egyptian king marching in person to raise
+Phoenicia.
+
+The Persian made more than one effort to recover his province. After
+conspicuous failure with his own generals Artaxerxes adopted tardily the
+course which Clearchus, captain of the Ten Thousand, is said to have
+advised after the battle of Cunaxa, and tried his fortune once more with
+Greek _condottieri_, only to find Greek generals and Greek mercenaries
+arrayed against them. It had come to this, that the Persian king and his
+revolted province equally depended on mercenary swords, neither daring
+to meet Greek except with Greek. Well had the lesson of the march of the
+Ten Thousand been read, marked and digested in the East!
+
+
+SECTION 2. PERSIA AND THE WEST
+
+It had been marked in the West as well, and its fruits were patent
+within five years. The dominant Greek state of the hour, avowing an
+ambition which no Greek had betrayed before, sent its king, Agesilaus,
+across to Asia Minor to follow up the establishment of Spartan hegemony
+on the coasts by an invasion of inland Persia. He never penetrated
+farther than about half-way up the Maeander Valley, and did Persia no
+harm worth speaking of; for he was not the leader, nor had he the
+resources in men and in money, to carry through so distant and doubtful
+an adventure. But Agesilaus' campaigning in Asia Minor between 397 and
+394 has this historical significance: it demonstrates that Greeks had
+come to regard a march on Susa as feasible and desirable.
+
+It was not, however, in fact feasible even then. Apart from the lack of
+a military force in any one state of Greece large enough, sufficiently
+trained, and led by a leader of the necessary magnetism and genius for
+organization, to undertake, unaided by allies on the way, a successful
+march to a point many months distant from its base--apart from this
+deficiency, the Empire to be conquered had not yet been really shaken.
+The Ten Thousand Greeks would in all likelihood never have got under
+Clearchus to Cunaxa or anywhere within hundreds of miles of it, but for
+the fact that Cyrus was with them and the adherents of his rising star
+were supplying their wants and had cleared a road for them through Asia
+Minor and Syria. In their Retreat they were desperate men, of whom the
+Great King was glad to be quit. The successful accomplishment of that
+retreat must not blind us to the almost certain failure which would have
+befallen the advance had it been attempted under like conditions.
+
+
+SECTION 3. THE SATRAPS
+
+What, ultimately, was to reduce the Persian Empire to such weakness that
+a Western power would be able to strike at its heart with little more
+than forty thousand men, was the disease of disloyalty which spread
+among the great officers during the first half of the fourth century.
+Before Cyrus' expedition we have not heard of either satraps or client
+provinces raising the standard of revolt (except in Egypt), since the
+Empire had been well established; and if there was evident collusion
+with that expedition on the part of provincial officers in Asia Minor
+and Syria, the fact has little political significance, seeing that Cyrus
+was a scion of the royal House, and the favourite of the Queen-Mother.
+But the fourth century is hardly well begun before we find satraps and
+princes aiding the king's enemies and fighting for their own hand
+against him or a rival officer. Agesilaus was helped in Asia Minor both
+by the prince of Paphlagonia and by a Persian noble. Twenty years later
+Ariobarzanes of Pontus rises in revolt; and hard on his defection
+follows a great rebellion planned by the satraps of Caria, Ionia, Lydia,
+Phrygia and Cappadocia--nearly all Asia Minor in fact--in concert with
+coastal cities of Syria and Phoenicia. Another ten years pass and new
+governors of Mysia and Lydia rise against their king with the help of
+the Egyptians and Mausolus, client prince of Halicarnassus. Treachery or
+lack of resources and stability brought these rebels one after another
+to disaster; but an Empire whose great officers so often dare such
+adventures is drawing apace to its catastrophe.
+
+The causes of this growing disaffection among the satraps are not far to
+seek. At the close of the last chapter we remarked the deterioration of
+the harem-ridden court in the early days of Artaxerxes; and as time
+passed, the spectacle of a Great King governing by treachery, buying his
+enemies, and impotent to recover Egypt even with their mercenary help
+had its effect. Belief gained ground that the ship of Empire was
+sinking, and even in Susa the fear grew that a wind from the West was to
+finish her. The Great King's court officers watched Greek politics
+during the first seventy years of the fourth century with ever closer
+attention. Not content with enrolling as many Greeks as possible in the
+royal service, they used the royal gold to such effect to buy or support
+Greek politicians whose influence could be directed to hindering a union
+of Greek states and checking the rising power of any unit, that a Greek
+orator said in a famous passage that the archers stamped on the Great
+King's coins were already a greater danger to Greece than his real
+archers had ever been.
+
+By such lavish corruption, by buying the soldiers and the politicians of
+the enemy, a better face was put for a while on the fortunes of the
+dynasty and the Empire. Before the death of the aged Artaxerxes Mnemon
+in 358, the revolt of the Western satraps had collapsed. His successor,
+Ochus, who, to reach the throne, murdered his kin like any
+eighteenth-century sultan of Stambul, overcame Egyptian obstinacy about
+346, after two abortive attempts, by means of hireling Greek troops, and
+by similar vicarious help he recovered Sidon and the Isle of Cyprus. But
+it was little more than the dying flicker of a flame fanned for the
+moment by that same Western wind which was already blowing up to the
+gale that would extinguish it. The heart of the Empire was not less
+rotten because its shell was patched, and in the event, when the storm
+broke a few years later, nothing in West Asia was able to make any stand
+except two or three maritime cities, which fought, not for Persia, but
+for their own commercial monopolies.
+
+
+SECTION 4. MACEDONIA
+
+The storm had been gathering on the Western horizon for some time past.
+Twenty years earlier there had come to the throne of Macedonia a man of
+singular constructive ability and most definite ambition. His
+heritage--or rather his prize, for he was not next of kin to his
+predecessor--was the central southern part of the Balkan peninsula, a
+region of broad fat plains fringed and crossed by rough hills. It was
+inhabited by sturdy gentry and peasantry and by agile highlanders, all
+composed of the same racial elements as the Greeks, with perhaps a
+preponderant infusion of northern blood which had come south long ago
+with emigrants from the Danubian lands. The social development of the
+Macedonians--to give various peoples one generic name--had, for certain
+reasons, not been nearly so rapid as that of their southern cousins.
+They had never come in contact with the higher Aegean civilization, nor
+had they mixed their blood with that of cultivated predecessors; their
+land was continental, poor in harbours, remote from the luxurious
+centres of life, and of comparatively rigorous climate; its
+configuration had offered them no inducement to form city-states and
+enter on intense political life. But, in compensation, they entered the
+fourth century unexhausted, without tribal or political impediments to
+unity, and with a broad territory of greater natural resources than any
+southern Greek state. Macedonia could supply itself with the best cereal
+foods and to spare, and had unexploited veins of gold ore. But the most
+important thing to remark is this--that, compared with Greece, Macedonia
+was a region of Central Europe. In the latter's progress to imperial
+power we shall watch for the first time in recorded history a
+continental European folk bearing down peninsular populations of the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Philip of Macedon, who had been trained in the arts of both war and
+peace in a Greek city, saw the weakness of the divided Hellenes, and the
+possible strength of his own people, and he set to work from the first
+with abounding energy, dogged persistence and immense talent for
+organization to make a single armed nation, which should be more than a
+match for the many communities of Hellas. How he accomplished his
+purpose in about twenty years: how he began by opening mines of precious
+metal on his south-eastern coast, and with the proceeds hired
+mercenaries: how he had Macedonian peasants drilled to fight in a
+phalanx formation more mobile than the Theban and with a longer spear,
+while the gentry were trained as heavy cavalry: how he made experiments
+with his new soldiers on the inland tribes, and so enlarged his
+effective dominions that he was able to marshal henceforward far more
+than his own Emathian clansmen: how for six years he perfected this
+national army till it was as professional a fighting machine as any
+condottiere's band of that day, while at the same time larger and of
+much better temper: how, when it was ready in the spring of the year
+353, he began a fifteen years' war of encroachment on the holdings of
+the Greek states and particularly of Athens, attacking some of her
+maritime colonies in Macedonia and Thrace: how, after a campaign in
+inland Thrace and on the Chersonese, he appeared in Greece, where he
+pushed at last through Thermopylae: how, again, he withdrew for several
+seasons into the Balkan Peninsula, raided it from the Adriatic to the
+Black Sea, and ended with an attack on the last and greatest of its free
+Greek coastal cities, Perinthus and Byzantium: how, finally, in 338,
+coming south in full force, he crushed in the single battle of Chaeronea
+the two considerable powers of Greece, Athens and Thebes, and secured at
+last from every Greek state except Sparta (which he could afford to
+neglect) recognition of his suzerainty--these stages in Philip's making
+of a European nation and a European empire must not be described more
+fully here. What concerns us is the end of it all; for the end was the
+arraying of that new nation and that new empire for a descent on Asia. A
+year after Chaeronea Philip was named by the Congress of Corinth
+Captain-General of all Greeks to wreak the secular vengeance of Hellas
+on Persia.
+
+How long he had consciously destined his fighting machine to an ultimate
+invasion of Asia we do not know. The Athenians had explicitly stated to
+the Great King in 341 that such was the Macedonian's ambition, and four
+years earlier public suggestion of it had been made by the famous
+orator, Isocrates, in an open letter written to Philip himself. Since
+the last named was a man of long sight and sustained purpose, it is not
+impossible that he had conceived such an ambition in youth and had been
+cherishing it all along. While Philip was in Thebes as a young man, old
+Agesilaus, who first of Greeks had conceived the idea of invading the
+inland East, was still seeking a way to realize his oft-frustrated
+project; and in the end he went off to Egypt to make a last effort after
+Philip was already on the throne. The idea had certainly been long in
+the air that any military power which might dominate Hellas would be
+bound primarily by self-interest and secondarily by racial duty to turn
+its arms against Asia. The Great King himself knew this as well as any
+one. After the Athenian warning in 341, his satraps in the north-west of
+Asia Minor were bidden assist Philip's enemies in every possible way;
+and it was thanks in no small measure to their help, that the Byzantines
+repulsed the Macedonians from their walls in 339.
+
+Philip had already made friends of the princely house of Caria, and was
+now at pains to secure a footing in north-west Asia Minor. He threw,
+therefore, an advance column across the Dardanelles under his chief
+lieutenant, Parmenio, and proposed to follow it in the autumn of the
+year 336 with a Grand Army which he had been recruiting, training and
+equipping for a twelvemonth. The day of festival which should inaugurate
+his great venture arrived; but the venture was not to be his. As he
+issued from his tent to attend the games he fell by the hand of a
+private enemy; and his young son, Alexander, had at first enough to do
+to re-establish a throne which proved to have more foes than friends.
+
+
+SECTION 5. ALEXANDER'S CONQUEST OF THE EAST
+
+A year and a half later Alexander's friends and foes knew that a greater
+soldier and empire-maker than Philip ruled in his stead, and that the
+father's plan of Asiatic conquest would suffer nothing at the hands of
+the son. The neighbours of Macedonia as far as the Danube and all the
+states of the Greek peninsula had been cowed to submission again in one
+swift and decisive campaign. The States-General of Greece, re-convoked
+at Corinth, confirmed Philip's son in the Captain-Generalship of Hellas,
+and Parmenio, once more despatched to Asia, secured the farther shore of
+the Hellespont. With about forty thousand seasoned horse and foot, and
+with auxiliary services unusually efficient for the age, Alexander
+crossed to Persian soil in the spring of 334.
+
+There was no other army in Asia Minor to offer him battle in form than a
+force about equal in numbers to his own, which had been collected
+locally by the western satraps. Except for its contingent of Greek
+mercenaries, this was much inferior to the Macedonian force in fighting
+value. Fended by Parmenio from the Hellespontine shore, it did the best
+it could by waiting on the farther bank of the Granicus, the nearest
+considerable stream which enters the Marmora, in order either to draw
+Alexander's attack, or to cut his communications, should he move on into
+the continent. It did not wait long. The heavy Macedonian cavalry dashed
+through the stream late on an afternoon, made short work of the Asiatic
+constituents, and having cleared a way for the phalanx helped it to cut
+up the Greek contingent almost to a man before night fell. Alexander was
+left with nothing but city defences and hill tribes to deal with till a
+fuller levy could be collected from other provinces of the Persian
+Empire and brought down to the west, a process which would take many
+months, and in fact did take a full year. But some of the Western cities
+offered no small impediment to his progress. If Aeolia, Lydia and Ionia
+made no resistance worth mentioning, the two chief cities of Caria,
+Miletus and Halicarnassus, which had been enjoying in virtual freedom a
+lion's share of Aegean trade for the past century, were not disposed to
+become appanages of a military empire. The pretension of Alexander to
+lead a crusade against the ancient oppressor of the Hellenic race
+weighed neither with them, nor, for that matter, with any of the Greeks
+in Asia or Europe, except a few enthusiasts. During the past seventy
+years, ever since celebrations of the deliverance of Hellas from the
+Persian had been replaced by aspirations towards counter invasion, the
+desire to wreak holy vengeance had gone for little or nothing, but
+desire to plunder Persia had gone for a great deal. Therefore, any
+definite venture into Asia aroused envy, not enthusiasm, among those who
+would be forestalled by its success. Neither with ships nor men had any
+leading Greek state come forward to help Alexander, and by the time he
+had taken Miletus he realized that he must play his game alone, with his
+own people for his own ends. Thenceforward, neglecting the Greeks, he
+postponed his march into the heart of the Persian Empire till he had
+secured every avenue leading thither from the sea, whether through Asia
+Minor or Syria or Egypt.
+
+After reducing Halicarnassus and Caria, Alexander did no more in Asia
+Minor than parade the western part of it, the better to secure the
+footing he had gained in the continent. Here and there he had a brush
+with hill-men, who had long been unused to effective control, while with
+one or two of their towns he had to make terms; but on the approach of
+winter, Anatolia was at his feet, and he seated himself at Gordion, in
+the Sakaria valley, where he could at once guard his communications with
+the Hellespont and prepare for advance into farther Asia by an easy
+road. Eastern Asia Minor, that is Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, he
+left alone, and its contingents would still be arrayed on the Persian
+side in both the great battles to come. Certain northern districts also,
+which had long been practically independent of Persia, e.g. Bithynia and
+Paphlagonia, had not been touched yet. It was not worth his while at
+that moment to spend time in fighting for lands which would fall in any
+case if the Empire fell, and could easily be held in check from western
+Asia Minor in the meantime. His goal was far inland, his danger he well
+knew, on the sea--danger of possible co-operation between Greek fleets
+and the greater coastal cities of the Aegean and the Levant. Therefore,
+with the first of the spring he moved down into Cilicia to make the
+ports of Syria and Egypt his, before striking at the heart of the
+Empire.
+
+The Great King, last and weakest of the Darius name, had realized the
+greatness of his peril and come down with the levy of all the Empire to
+try to crush the invader in the gate of the south lands. Letting his foe
+pass round the angle of the Levant coast, Darius, who had been waiting
+behind the screen of Amanus, slipped through the hills and cut off the
+Macedonian's retreat in the defile of Issus between mountain and sea.
+Against another general and less seasoned troops a compact and
+disciplined Oriental force would probably have ended the invasion there
+and then; but that of Darius was neither compact nor disciplined. The
+narrowness of the field compressed it into a mob; and Alexander and his
+men, facing about, saw the Persians delivered into their hand. The fight
+lasted little longer than at Granicus and the result was as decisive a
+butchery. Camp, baggage-train, the royal harem, letters from Greek
+states, and the persons of Greek envoys sent to devise the destruction
+of the Captain-General--all fell to Alexander.
+
+Assured against meeting another levy of the Empire for at least a
+twelvemonth, he moved on into Syria. In this narrow land his chief
+business, as we have seen, was with the coast towns. He must have all
+the ports in his hand before going up into Asia. The lesser dared not
+gainsay the victorious phalanx; but the queen of them all, Tyre,
+mistress of the eastern trade, shut the gates of her island citadel and
+set the western intruder the hardest military task of his life. But the
+capture of the chief base of the hostile fleets which still ranged the
+Aegean was all essential to Alexander, and he bridged the sea to effect
+it. One other city, Gaza, commanding the road to Egypt, showed the same
+spirit with less resources, and the year was far spent before the
+Macedonians appeared on the Nile to receive the ready submission of a
+people which had never willingly served the Persian. Here again,
+Alexander's chief solicitude was for the coasts. Independent Cyrene,
+lying farthest west, was one remaining danger and the openness of the
+Nile mouths another. The first danger dissolved with the submission,
+which Cyrene sent to meet him as he moved into Marmarica to the attack;
+the second was conjured by the creation of the port of Alexandria,
+perhaps the most signal act of Alexander's life, seeing to what stature
+the city would grow, what part play in the development of Greek and Jew,
+and what vigour retain to this day. For the moment, however, the new
+foundation served primarily to rivet its founder's hold on the shores of
+the Greek and Persian waters. Within a few months the hostile fleets
+disappeared from the Levant and Alexander obtained at last that command
+of the sea without which invasion of inner Asia would have been more
+than perilous, and permanent retention of Egypt impossible.
+
+Thus secure of his base, he could strike inland. He went up slowly in
+the early part of 331 by the traditional North Road through Philistia
+and Palestine and round the head of the Syrian Hamad to Thapsacus on
+Euphrates, paying, on the way, a visit of precaution to Tyre, which had
+cost him so much toil and time a year before. None opposed his crossing
+of the Great River; none stayed him in Mesopotamia; none disputed his
+passage of the Tigris, though the ferrying of his force took five days.
+The Great King himself, however, was lying a few marches south of the
+mounds of Nineveh, in the plain of Gaugamela, to which roads converging
+from south, east and north had brought the levies of all the empire
+which remained to him. To hordes drawn from fighting tribes living as
+far distant as frontiers of India, banks of the Oxus, and foothills of
+the Caucasus, was added a phalanx of hireling Greeks more than three
+times as numerous as that which had been cut up on the Granicus. Thus
+awaited by ten soldiers to each one of his own on open ground chosen by
+his enemy, Alexander went still more slowly forward and halted four and
+twenty hours to breathe his army in sight of the Persian out posts.
+Refusing to risk an attack on that immense host in the dark, he slept
+soundly within his entrenchments till sunrise of the first day of
+October, and then in the full light led out his men to decide the fate
+of Persia. It was decided by sundown, and half a million broken men were
+flying south and east into the gathering night. But the Battle of
+Arbela, as it is commonly called--the greatest contest of armies before
+the rise of Rome--had not been lightly won. The active resistance of the
+Greek mercenaries, and the passive resistance of the enormous mass of
+the Asiatic hordes, which stayed attack by mere weight of flesh and
+closed again behind every penetrating column, made the issue doubtful,
+till Darius himself, terrified at the oncoming of the heavy Macedonian
+cavalry, turned his chariot and lost the day. Alexander's men had to
+thank the steadiness which Philip's system had given them, but also, in
+the last resort, the cowardice of the opposing chief.
+
+The Persian King survived to be hunted a year later, and caught, a dying
+man, on the road to Central Asia; but long before that and without
+another pitched battle the Persian throne had passed to Alexander.
+Within six months he had marched to and entered in turn, without other
+let or hindrance than resistance of mountain tribesmen in the passes,
+the capitals of the Empire--Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana; and
+since these cities all held by him during his subsequent absence of six
+years in farther Asia, the victory of the West over the Ancient East may
+be regarded as achieved on the day of Arbela.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+Less than ten years later, Alexander lay dead in Babylon. He had gone
+forward to the east to acquire more territories than we have surveyed in
+any chapter of this book or his fathers had so much as known to exist.
+The broad lands which are now Afghanistan, Russian Turkestan, the
+Punjab, Scinde, and Beluchistan had been subdued by him in person and
+were being held by his governors and garrisons. This Macedonian Greek
+who had become an emperor of the East greater than the greatest
+theretofore, had already determined that his Seat of Empire should be
+fixed in inner Asia; and he proposed that under his single sway East and
+West be distinct no longer, but one indivisible world, inhabited by
+united peoples. Then, suddenly, he was called to his account, leaving no
+legitimate heir of his body except a babe in its mother's womb. What
+would happen? What, in fact, did happen?
+
+It is often said that the empire which Alexander created died with him.
+This is true if we think of empire as the realm of a single emperor. As
+sole ruler of the vast area between the Danube and the Sutlej Alexander
+was to have no successor. But if we think of an empire as the realm of a
+race or nation, Greater Macedonia, though destined gradually to be
+diminished, would outlive its founder by nearly three hundred years; and
+moreover, in succession to it, another Western empire, made possible by
+his victory and carried on in some respects under his forms, was to
+persist in the East for several centuries more. As a political conquest,
+Alexander's had results as long lasting as can be credited to almost any
+conquest in history. As the victory of one civilization over another it
+was never to be brought quite to nothing, and it had certain permanent
+effects. These this chapter is designed to show: but first, since the
+development of the victorious civilization on alien soil depended
+primarily on the continued political supremacy of the men in whom it was
+congenital, it is necessary to see how long and to what extent political
+dominion was actually held in the East by men who were Greeks, either by
+birth or by training.
+
+Out of the turmoil and stress of the thirty years which followed
+Alexander's death, two Macedonians emerged to divide the Eastern Empire
+between them. The rest--transient embarrassed phantoms of the Royal
+House, regents of the Empire hardly less transient, upstart satraps, and
+even one-eyed Antigonus, who for a brief moment claimed jurisdiction
+over all the East--never mattered long to the world at large and matter
+not at all here and now. The end of the fourth century sees Seleucus of
+Babylonia lording it over the most part of West Asia which was best
+worth having, except the southern half of Syria and the coasts of Asia
+Minor and certain isles in sight of them, which, if not subject to
+Ptolemy of Egypt, were free of both kings or dominated by a third,
+resident in Europe and soon to disappear. In the event those two,
+Seleucus and Ptolemy, alone of all the Macedonian successors, would
+found dynasties destined to endure long enough in kingdoms great enough
+to affect the general history of civilization in the Ancient East.
+
+Seleucus has no surviving chronicler of the first or the second rank,
+and consequently remains one of the most shadowy of the greater men of
+action in antiquity. We can say little of him personally, except that he
+was quick and fearless in action, prepared to take chances, a born
+leader in war, and a man of long sight and persistent purpose. Alexander
+had esteemed and distinguished him highly, and, marrying him to Apama, a
+noble Iranian lady, convinced him of his own opinion that the point from
+which to rule an Asiatic empire was Babylonia. Seleucus let the first
+partition of the dead man's lands go by, and not till the first turmoil
+was over and his friend Ptolemy was securely seated in Egypt, did he ask
+for a province. The province was Babylonia. Ejected by the malevolence
+of Antigonus, he regained it by grace of Ptolemy in 312, established
+ascendency over all satraps to east of him during the next half-dozen
+years, letting only India go, and then came west in 305 to conquer and
+slay Antigonus at Ipsus in central Asia Minor. The third king,
+Lysimachus of Thrace, was disposed of in 281, and Seleucus, dying a few
+months later, left to his dynastic successors an Asiatic empire of
+seventy-two provinces, very nearly equal to Alexander's, with important
+exceptions in Asia Minor.
+
+In Asia Minor neither Seleucus nor the Seleucids ever held anything
+effectively except the main lines of communication from East to West and
+the district in which these come down to the Aegean Sea. The south
+coast, as has been said, remained in Egyptian hands almost all through
+the Seleucid period. The southwest obeyed the island republic of Rhodes.
+Most of the Greek maritime cities of the northwest and north kept their
+freedom more or less inviolate; while inland a purely Greek monarchy,
+that of Pergamum, gradually extended its sway up to the central desert.
+In the north a formidable barrier to Seleucid expansion arose within
+five years of Seleucus' death, namely, a settlement of Gauls who had
+been invited across the straits by a king of Bithynia. After charging
+and raiding in all directions these intractable allies were penned by
+the repeated efforts of both the Seleucid and the Pergamene kings into
+the upper Sakaria basin (henceforth to be known as Galatia) and there
+they formed a screen behind which Bithynia and Paphlagonia maintained
+sturdy independence. The north-east also was the seat of independent
+monarchies. Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, ruled by princes of Iranian
+origin, were never integral parts of the Seleucid Empire, though
+consistently friendly to its rulers. Finally, in the hill-regions of the
+centre, as of the coasts, the Seleucid writ did not run.
+
+Looked at as a whole, however, and not only from a Seleucid point of
+view, the Ancient East, during the century following Seleucus' death
+(forty-three years after Alexander's), was dominated politically by
+Hellenes over fully nine-tenths of its area. About those parts of it
+held by cities actually Greek, or by Pergamum, no more need be said. As
+for Seleucus and his successors, though the latter, from Antiochus Soter
+onward, had a strain of Iranian blood, they held and proved themselves
+essentially Hellenic. Their portraits from first to last show European
+features, often fine. Ptolemy Lagus and all the Lagidae remained
+Macedonian Greeks to a man and a woman and to the bitter end, with the
+greatest Hellenic city in the world for their seat. As for the remaining
+tenth part of the East, almost the whole of it was ruled by princes who
+claimed the title "philhellene," and justified it not only by political
+friendliness to the Seleucidae and the Western Greeks, but also by
+encouraging Greek settlers and Greek manners. So far as patronage and
+promotion by the highest powers could further it, Hellenism had a fair
+chance in West Asia from the conquest of Alexander down to the
+appearance of Rome in the East. What did it make of this chance? How far
+in the event did those Greek and Macedonian rulers, philhellenic Iranian
+princes and others, hellenize West Asia? If they did succeed in a
+measure, but not so completely that the East ceased to be distinct from
+the West, what measure was set to their several influences, and why?
+
+[Plate 6: HELLENISM IN ASIA. ABOUT 150 B.C.]
+
+Let us see, first, what precisely Hellenism implied as it was brought to
+Asia by Alexander and practised by his successors. Politically it
+implied recognition by the individual that the society of which he was a
+member had an indefeasible and virtually exclusive claim on his good
+will and his good offices. The society so recognized was not a family or
+a tribe, but a city and its proper district, distinguished from all
+other cities and their districts. The geographical configuration and the
+history of Greece, a country made up in part of small plains ringed in
+by hills and sea, in part of islands, had brought about this limitation
+of political communities, and had made patriotism mean to the Greek
+devotion to his city-state. To a wider circle he was not capable of
+feeling anything like the same sense of obligation or, indeed, any
+compelling obligation at all. If he recognized the claim of a group of
+city-states, which remotely claimed common origin with his own, it was
+an academic feeling: if he was conscious of his community with all
+Hellenes as a nation it was only at moments of particular danger at the
+hands of a common non-Hellenic foe. In short, while not insensible to
+the principle of nationality he was rarely capable of applying it
+practically except in regard to a small society with whose members he
+could be acquainted personally and among whom he could make his own
+individuality felt. He had no feudal tradition, and no instinctive
+belief that the individualities composing a community must be
+subordinate to any one individual in virtue of the latter's patriarchal
+or representative relation to them.
+
+Let us deal with this political implication of Hellenism before we pass
+on to its other qualities. In its purity political Hellenism was
+obviously not compatible with the monarchical Macedonian state, which
+was based on feudal recognition of the paternal or representative
+relation of a single individual to many peoples composing a nation. The
+Macedonians themselves, therefore, could not carry to Asia, together
+with their own national patriotism (somewhat intensified, perhaps, by
+intercourse during past generations with Greek city-states) any more
+than an outside knowledge of the civic patriotism of the Greeks. Since,
+however, they brought in their train a great number of actual Greeks and
+had to look to settlement of these in Asia for indispensable support of
+their own rule, commerce and civilization, they were bound to create
+conditions under which civic patriotism, of which they knew the value as
+well as the danger, might continue to exist in some measure. Their
+obvious policy was to found cities wherever they wished to settle
+Greeks, and to found them along main lines of communication, where they
+might promote trade and serve as guardians of the roads; while at the
+same time, owing to their continual intercourse with each other, their
+exposure to native sojourners and immigrants and their necessary
+dependence on the centre of government, they could hardly repeat in Asia
+the self-centred exclusiveness characteristic of cities in either
+European Greece or the strait and sharply divided valleys of the west
+Anatolian coast. In fact, by design or not, most Seleucid foundations
+were planted in comparatively open country. Seleucus alone is said to
+have been responsible for seventy-five cities, of which the majority
+clustered in that great meeting-place of through routes, North Syria,
+and along the main highway through northern Asia Minor to Ephesus. In
+this city, Seleucus himself spent most of his last years. We know of few
+Greek colonies, or none, founded by him or his dynasty beyond the
+earlier limits of the Ancient East, where, in Afghanistan, Turkestan and
+India, Alexander had planted nearly all his new cities. Possibly his
+successor held these to be sufficient; probably he saw neither prospect
+of advantage nor hope of success in creating Greek cities in a region so
+vast and so alien; certainly neither he nor his dynasty was ever in such
+a position to support or maintain them, if founded east of Media, as
+Alexander was and proposed to be, had longer life been his. But in
+western Asia from Seleucia on Tigris, an immense city of over half a
+million souls, to Laodicea on Lycus and the confines of the old Ionian
+littoral, Seleucus and his successors created urban life, casting it in
+a Hellenic mould whose form, destined to persist for many centuries to
+come, would exercise momentous influence on the early history of the
+Christian religion.
+
+By founding so many urban communities of Greek type the Macedonian kings
+of West Asia undeniably introduced Hellenism as an agent of political
+civilization into much of the Ancient East, which needed it badly and
+profited by it. But the influence of their Hellenism was potent and
+durable only in those newly founded, or newly organized, urban
+communities and their immediate neighbourhood. Where these clustered
+thickly, as along the Lower Orontes and on the Syrian coast-line, or
+where Greek farmers had settled in the interspaces, as in Cyrrhestica
+(i.e. roughly, central North Syria), Hellenism went far to make whole
+districts acquire a civic spirit, which, though implying much less sense
+of personal freedom and responsibility than in Attica or Laconia, would
+have been recognized by an Athenian or a Spartan as kin to his own
+patriotism. But where the cities were strung on single lines of
+communication at considerable intervals, as in central Asia Minor and in
+Mesopotamia, they exerted little political influence outside their own
+walls. For Hellenism was and remained essentially a property of
+communities small enough for each individual to exert his own personal
+influence on political and social practice. So soon as a community
+became, in numbers or distribution, such as to call for centralized, or
+even representative, administration, patriotism of the Hellenic type
+languished and died. It was quite incapable of permeating whole peoples
+or of making a nation, whether in the East or anywhere else. Yet in the
+East peoples have always mattered more than cities, by whomsoever
+founded and maintained.
+
+Hellenism, however, had, by this time, not only a political implication
+but also moral and intellectual implications which were partly effects,
+partly causes, of its political energy. As has been well said by a
+modern historian of the Seleucid house, Hellenism meant, besides a
+politico-social creed, also a certain attitude of mind. The
+characteristic feature of this attitude was what has been called
+Humanism, this word being used in a special sense to signify
+intellectual interest confined to human affairs, but free within the
+range of these. All Greeks were not, of course, equally humanistic in
+this sense. Among them, as in all societies, there were found
+temperaments to which transcendental speculation appealed, and these
+increasing in number, as with the loss of their freedom the city-states
+ceased to stand for the realization of the highest possible good in this
+world, made Orphism and other mystic cults prevail ever more and more in
+Hellas. But when Alexander carried Hellenism to Asia it was still
+broadly true that the mass of civilized Hellenes regarded anything that
+could not be apprehended by the intellect through the senses as not only
+outside their range of interest but non-existent. Further, while nothing
+was held so sacred that it might not be probed or discussed with the
+full vigour of an inquirer's intelligence, no consideration except the
+logic of apprehended facts should determine his conclusion. An argument
+was to be followed wherever it might lead, and its consequences must be
+faced in full without withdrawal behind any non-intellectual screen.
+Perfect freedom of thought and perfect freedom of discussion over the
+whole range of human matters; perfect freedom of consequent action, so
+the community remained uninjured--this was the typical Hellene's ideal.
+An instinctive effort to realize it was his habitual attitude towards
+life. His motto anticipated the Roman poet's "I am human: nothing human
+do I hold no business of mine!"
+
+By the time the Western conquest of Asia was complete, this attitude,
+which had grown more and more prevalent in the centres of Greek life
+throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, had come to exclude anything
+like religiosity from the typical Hellenic character. A religion the
+Greek had of course, but he held it lightly, neither possessed by it nor
+even looking to it for guidance in the affairs of his life. If he
+believed in a world beyond the grave, he thought little about it or not
+at all, framing his actions with a view solely to happiness in the
+flesh. A possible fate in the hereafter seemed to him to have no bearing
+on his conduct here. That disembodied he might spend eternity with the
+divine, or, absorbed into the divine essence, become himself
+divine--such ideas, though not unknown or without attraction to rarer
+spirits, were wholly impotent to combat the vivid interest in life and
+the lust of strenuous endeavour which were bred in the small worlds of
+the city-states.
+
+The Greeks, then, who passed to Asia in Alexander's wake had no
+religious message for the East, and still less had the Macedonian
+captains who succeeded him. Born and bred to semibarbaric superstitions,
+they had long discarded these, some for the freethinking attitude of the
+Greek, and all for the cult of the sword. The only thing which, in their
+Emperor's lifetime, stood to them for religion was a feudal devotion to
+himself and his house. For a while this feeling survived in the ranks of
+the army, as Eumenes, wily Greek that he was, proved by the manner and
+success of his appeals to dynastic loyalty in the first years of the
+struggle for the succession; and perhaps, we may trace it longer still
+in the leaders, as an element, blended with something of homesickness
+and something of national tradition, in that fatality which impelled
+each Macedonian lord of Asia, first Antigonus, then Seleucus, finally
+Antiochus the Great, to hanker after the possession of Macedonia and be
+prepared to risk the East to win back the West. Indeed, it is a
+contributory cause of the comparative failure of the Seleucids to keep
+their hold on their Asiatic Empire that their hearts were never wholly
+in it.
+
+For the rest, they and all the Macedonian captains alike were
+conspicuously irreligious men, whose gods were themselves. They were
+what the age had made them, and what all similar ages make men of
+action. Theirs was a time of wide conquests recently achieved by right
+of might alone, and left to whomsoever should be mightiest. It was a
+time when the individual had suddenly found that no accidental
+defects--lack of birth, or property, or allies--need prevent him from
+exploiting for himself a vast field of unmeasured possibilities, so he
+had a sound brain, a stout heart and a strong arm. As it would be again
+in the age of the Crusades, in that of the Grand Companies, and in that
+of the Napoleonic conquests, every soldier knew that it rested only with
+himself and with opportunity, whether or no he should die a prince. It
+was a time for reaping harvests which others had sown, for getting
+anything for nothing, for frank and unashamed lust of loot, for selling
+body and soul to the highest bidder, for being a law to oneself. In such
+ages the voice of the priest goes for as little as the voice of
+conscience, and the higher a man climbs, the less is his faith in a
+power above him.
+
+Having won the East, however, these irreligious Macedonians found they
+had under their hand a medley of peoples, diverse in many
+characteristics, but almost all alike in one, and that was their
+religiosity. Deities gathered and swarmed in Asia. Men showed them
+fierce fanatic devotion or spent lives in contemplation of the idea of
+them, careless of everything which Macedonians held worth living for,
+and even of life itself. Alexander had been quick to perceive the
+religiosity of the new world into which he had come. If his power in the
+East was to rest on a popular basis he knew that basis must be
+religious. Beginning with Egypt he set an example (not lost on the man
+who would be his successor there) of not only conciliating priests but
+identifying himself with the chief god in the traditional manner of
+native kings since immemorial time; and there is no doubt that the cult
+of himself, which he appears to have enjoined increasingly on his
+followers, his subjects and his allies, as time went on, was consciously
+devised to meet and captivate the religiosity of the East. In Egypt he
+must be Ammon, in Syria he would be Baal, in Babylon Bel. He left the
+faith of his fathers behind him when he went up to the East, knowing as
+well as his French historian knew in the nineteenth century, that in
+Asia the "dreams of Olympus were less worth than the dreams of the Magi
+and the mysteries of India, pregnant with the divine." With these last,
+indeed, he showed himself deeply impressed, and his recorded attitude
+towards the Brahmans of the Punjab implies the earliest acknowledgment
+made publicly by a Greek, that in religion the West must learn from the
+East.
+
+Alexander, who has never been forgotten by the traditions and myths of
+the East, might possibly, with longer life, have satisfied Asiatic
+religiosity with an apotheosis of himself. His successors failed either
+to keep his divinity alive or to secure any general acceptance of their
+own godhead. That they tried to meet the demand of the East with a new
+universal cult of imperial utility and that some, like Antiochus IV, the
+tyrant of early Maccabaean history, tried very hard, is clear. That they
+failed and that Rome failed after them is writ large in the history of
+the expansion of half-a-dozen Eastern cults before the Christian era,
+and of Christianity itself.
+
+Only in the African province did Macedonian rule secure a religious
+basis. What an Alexander could hardly have achieved in Asia, a Ptolemy
+did easily in Egypt. There the _de facto_ ruler, of whatever race, had
+been installed a god since time out of mind, and an omnipotent
+priesthood, dominating a docile people, stood about the throne. The
+Assyrian conquerors had stiffened their backs in Egypt to save
+affronting the gods of their fatherland; but the Ptolemies, like the
+Persians, made no such mistake, and had three centuries of secure rule
+for their reward. The knowledge that what the East demanded could be
+provided easily and safely even by Macedonians in the Nile valley alone
+was doubtless present to the sagacious mind of Ptolemy when, letting all
+wider lands pass to others, he selected Egypt in the first partition of
+the provinces.
+
+The Greek, in a word, had only his philosophies to offer to the
+religiosity of the East. But a philosophy of religion is a complement
+to, a modifying influence on, religion, not a substitute sufficient to
+satisfy the instinctive and profound craving of mankind for God. While
+this craving always possessed the Asiatic mind, the Greek himself, never
+naturally insensible to it, became more and more conscious of his own
+void as he lived in Asia. What had long stood to him for religion,
+namely passionate devotion to the community, was finding less and less
+to feed on under the restricted political freedom which was now his lot
+everywhere. Superior though he felt his culture to be in most respects,
+it lacked one thing needful, which inferior cultures around him
+possessed in full. As time went on he became curious, then receptive, of
+the religious systems among whose adherents he found himself, being
+coerced insensibly by nature's abhorrence of a vacuum. Not that he
+swallowed any Eastern religion whole, or failed, while assimilating what
+he took, to transform it with his own essence. Nor again should it be
+thought that he gave nothing at all in return. He gave a philosophy
+which, acting almost as powerfully on the higher intelligences of the
+East as their religions acted on his intelligence, created the
+"Hellenistic" type, properly so called, that is the oriental who
+combined the religious instinct of Asia with the philosophic spirit of
+Greece--such an oriental as (to take two very great names), the Stoic
+apostle Zeno, a Phoenician of Cyprus, or the Christian apostle, Saul the
+Jew of Tarsus. By the creation of this type, East and West were brought
+at last very near together, divided only by the distinction of religious
+philosophy in Athens from philosophic religion in Syria.
+
+The history of the Near East during the last three centuries before the
+Christian era is the history of the gradual passing of Asiatic religions
+westward to occupy the Hellenic vacuum, and of Hellenic philosophical
+ideas eastward to supplement and purify the religious systems of West
+Asia. How far the latter eventually penetrated into the great Eastern
+continent, whether even to India or China, this is no place to discuss:
+how far the former would push westward is written in the modern history
+of Europe and the New World. The expansion of Mithraism and of
+half-a-dozen other Asiatic and Egyptian cults, which were drawn from the
+East to Greece and beyond before the first century of the Hellenistic
+Age closed, testifies to the early existence of that spiritual void in
+the West which a greater and purer religion, about to be born in Galilee
+and nurtured in Antioch, was at last to fill. The instrumentality of
+Alexander and his successors in bringing about or intensifying that
+contact and intercourse between Semite and Greek, which begot the
+philosophic morality of Christianity and rendered its westward expansion
+inevitable, stands to their credit as a historic fact of such tremendous
+import that it may be allowed to atone for more than all their sins.
+
+This, then, the Seleucids did--they so brought West and East together
+that each learned from the other. But more than that cannot be claimed
+for them. They did not abolish the individuality of either; they did not
+Hellenize even so much of West Asia as they succeeded in holding to the
+end. In this they failed not only for the reasons just considered--lack
+of vital religion in their Macedonians and their Greeks, and
+deterioration of the Hellenism of Hellenes when they ceased to be
+citizens of free city-states--but also through individual faults of
+their own, which appear again and again as the dynasty runs its course;
+and perhaps even more for some deeper reason, not understood by us yet,
+but lying behind the empirical law that East is East and West is West.
+
+As for the Seleucid kings themselves they leave on us, ill-known as
+their characters and actions are, a clear impression of approximation to
+the traditional type of the Greek of the Roman age and since. As a
+dynasty they seem to have been quickly spoilt by power, to have been
+ambitious but easily contented with the show and surface of success, to
+have been incapable and contemptuous of thorough organization, and to
+have had little in the way of policy, and less perseverance in the
+pursuit of it. It is true that our piecemeal information comes largely
+from writers who somewhat despised them; but the known history of the
+Seleucid Empire, closed by an extraordinarily facile and ignominious
+collapse before Rome, supports the judgment that, taken one with
+another, its kings were shallow men and haphazard rulers who owed it
+more to chance than to prudence that their dynasty endured so long.
+
+Their strongest hold was on Syria, and in the end their only hold. We
+associate them in our minds particularly with the great city of Antioch,
+which the first Seleucus founded on the Lower Orontes to gather up trade
+from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor in the North Syrian country. But,
+as a matter of fact, that city owes its fame mainly to subsequent Roman
+masters. For it did not become the capital of Seleucid preference till
+the second century B.C.--till, by the year 180, the dynasty, which had
+lost both the Western and the Eastern provinces, had to content itself
+with Syria and Mesopotamia alone. Not only had the Parthians then come
+down from Turkestan to the south of the Caspian (their kings assumed
+Iranian names but were they not, like the present rulers of Persia,
+really Turks?), but Media too had asserted independence and Persia was
+fallen away to the rule of native princes in Fars. Seleucia on Tigris
+had become virtually a frontier city facing an Iranian and Parthian
+peril which the imperial incapacity of the Seleucids allowed to develop,
+and even Rome would never dispel. On the other flank of the empire a
+century of Seleucid efforts to plant headquarters in Western Asia Minor,
+whether at Ephesus or Sardes, and thence to prosecute ulterior designs
+on Macedonia and Greece, had been settled in favour of Pergamum by the
+arms and mandate of the coming arbiter of the East, the Republic of
+Rome. Bidden retire south of Taurus after the battle of Magnesia in 190,
+summarily ordered out of Egypt twenty years later, when Antiochus
+Epiphanes was hoping to compensate the loss of west and east with gain
+of the south, the Seleucids had no choice of a capital. It must
+thenceforth be Antioch or nothing.
+
+That, however, a Macedonian dynasty was forced to concentrate in north
+Syria whatever Hellenism it had (though after Antiochus Epiphanes its
+Hellenism steadily grew less) during the last two centuries before the
+Christian era was to have a momentous effect on the history of the
+world. For it was one of the two determining causes of an increase in
+the influence of Hellenism upon the Western Semites, which issued
+ultimately in the Christian religion. From Cilicia on the north to
+Phoenicia and Palestine in the south, such higher culture, such
+philosophical study as there were came more and more under the influence
+of Greek ideas, particularly those of the Stoic School, whose founder
+and chief teacher (it should never be forgotten) had been a Semite, born
+some three hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth. The Hellenized
+University of Tarsus, which educated Saul, and the Hellenistic party in
+Palestine, whose desire to make Jerusalem a southern Antioch brought on
+the Maccabaean struggle, both owed in a measure their being and their
+continued vitality to the existence and larger growth of Antioch on the
+Orontes.
+
+But Phoenicia and Palestine owed as much of their Hellenism (perhaps
+more) to another Hellenized city and another Macedonian dynasty--to
+Alexandria and to the Ptolemies. Because the short Maccabaean period of
+Palestinian history, during which a Seleucid did happen to be holding
+all Syria, is very well and widely known, it is apt to be forgotten
+that, throughout almost all other periods of the Hellenistic Age,
+southern Syria, that is Palestine and Phoenicia as well as Cyprus and
+the Levant coast right round to Pamphylia, was under the political
+domination of Egypt. The first Ptolemy added to his province some of
+these Asiatic districts and cities, and in particular Palestine and
+Coele-Syria, very soon after he had assumed command of Egypt, and making
+no secret of his intention to retain them, built a fleet to secure his
+end. He knew very well that if Egypt is to hold in permanency any
+territory outside Africa, she must be mistress of the sea. After a brief
+set-back at the hands of Antigonus' son, Ptolemy made good his hold when
+the father was dead; and Cyprus also became definitely his in 294. His
+successor, in whose favour he abdicated nine years later, completed the
+conquest of the mainland coasts right round the Levant at the expense of
+Seleucus' heir. In the event, the Ptolemies kept almost all that the
+first two kings of the dynasty had thus won until they were supplanted
+by Rome, except for an interval of a little more than fifty years from
+199 to about 145; and even during the latter part of this period south
+Syria was under Egyptian influence once more, though nominally part of
+the tottering Seleucid realm.
+
+The object pursued by the Macedonian kings of Egypt in conquering and
+holding a thin coastal fringe of mainland outside Africa and certain
+island posts from Cyprus to the Cyclades was plainly commercial, to get
+control of the general Levant trade and of certain particular supplies
+(notably ship-timber) for their royal port of Alexandria. The first
+Ptolemy had well understood why his master had founded this city after
+ruining Tyre, and why he had taken so great pains both earlier and later
+to secure his Mediterranean coasts. Their object the Ptolemies obtained
+sufficiently, although they never eliminated the competition of the
+Rhodian republic and had to resign to it the command of the Aegean after
+the battle of Cos in 246. But Alexandria had already become a great
+Semitic as well as Grecian city, and continued to be so for centuries to
+come. The first Ptolemy is said to have transplanted to Egypt many
+thousands of Jews who quickly reconciled themselves to their exile, if
+indeed it had ever been involuntary; and how large its Jewish population
+was by the reign of the second Ptolemy and how open to Hellenic
+influence, may be illustrated sufficiently by the fact that at
+Alexandria, during that reign, the Hebrew scriptures were translated
+into Greek by the body of Semitic scholars which has been known since as
+the Septuagint. Although it was consistent Ptolemaic policy not to
+countenance Hellenic proselytism, the inevitable influence of Alexandria
+on south Syria was stronger than that consciously exerted by Antiochus
+Epiphanes or any other Seleucid; and if Phoenician cities had become
+homes of Hellenic science and philosophy by the middle of the third
+century, and if Yeshua or Jason, High Priest of Jehovah, when he applied
+to his suzerain a hundred years later for leave to make Jerusalem a
+Greek city, had at his back a strong party anxious to wear hats in the
+street and nothing at all in the gymnasium, Alexandria rather than
+Antioch should have the chief credit--or chief blame!
+
+Before, however, all this blending of Semitic religiosity with Hellenic
+philosophical ideas, and with something of the old Hellenic mansuetude,
+which had survived even under Macedonian masters to modify Asiatic
+minds, could issue in Christianity, half the East, with its dispersed
+heirs of Alexander, had passed under the common and stronger yoke of
+Rome. Ptolemaic Alexandria and Seleucid Antioch had prepared Semitic
+ground for seed of a new religion, but it was the wide and sure peace of
+the Roman Empire that brought it to birth and gave it room to grow. It
+was to grow, as all the world knows, westward not eastward, making
+patent by its first successes and by its first failures how much
+Hellenism had gone to the making of it. The Asian map of Christianity at
+the end, say, of the fourth century of the latter's existence, will show
+it very exactly bounded by the limits to which the Seleucid Empire had
+carried Greeks in any considerable body, and the further limits to which
+the Romans, who ruled effectively a good deal left aside by their
+Macedonian predecessors--much of central and eastern Asia Minor for
+example, and all Armenia--had advanced their Graeco-Roman subjects.
+
+Beyond these bounds neither Hellenism nor Christianity was fated in that
+age to strike deep roots or bear lasting fruit. The Farther East--the
+East, that is to say, beyond Euphrates--remained unreceptive and
+intolerant of both influences. We have seen how almost all of it had
+fallen away from the Seleucids many generations before the birth of
+Christ, when a ring of principalities, Median, Parthian, Persian,
+Nabathsean, had emancipated the heart of the Orient from its short
+servitude to the West; and though Rome, and Byzantium after her, would
+push the frontier of effective European influence somewhat eastward
+again, their Hellenism could never capture again that heart which the
+Seleucids had failed to hold. This is not to say that nothing of
+Hellenism passed eastward of Mesopotamia and made an abiding mark.
+Parthian and Sassanian art, the earlier Buddhist art of north-western
+India and Chinese Turkestan, some features even of early Mohammedan art,
+and some, too, of early Mohammedan doctrine and imperial policy,
+disprove any sweeping assertion that nothing Greek took root beyond the
+bounds of the Roman Empire. But it was very little of Hellenism and not
+at all its essence. We must not be deceived by mere borrowings of exotic
+things or momentary appreciations of foreign luxuries. That the
+Parthians were witnessing a performance of the Bacchae of Euripides,
+when the head of hapless Crassus was brought to Ctesiphon, no more
+argues that they had the Western spirit than our taste for Chinese
+curios or Japanese plays proves us informed with the spirit of the East.
+
+The East, in fine, remained the East. It was so little affected after
+all by the West that in due time its religiosity would be pregnant with
+yet another religion, antithetical to Hellenism, and it was so little
+weakened that it would win back again all it had lost and more, and keep
+Hither Asia in political and cultural independence of the West until our
+own day. If modern Europe has taken some parts of the gorgeous East in
+fee which were never held by Macedonian or Roman, let us remember in our
+pride of race that almost all that the Macedonians and the Romans did
+hold in Asia has been lost to the West ever since. Europe may and
+probably will prevail there again; but since it must be by virtue of a
+civilization in whose making a religion born of Asia has been the
+paramount indispensable factor, will the West even then be more creditor
+than debtor of the East?
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ON BOOKS
+
+The authorities cited at the end of Prof. J. L. Myres' _Dawn of History_
+(itself an authority), in the Home University Library, are to a great
+extent suitable for those who wish to read more widely round the theme
+of the present volume, since those (e.g. the geographical works given in
+_Dawn of History_, p. 253, paragraph 2) which are not more or less
+essential preliminaries to a study of the Ancient East at any period,
+mostly deal with the historic as well as the prehistoric age. To spare
+readers reference to another volume, however, I will repeat here the
+most useful books in Prof. Myres' list, adding at the same time certain
+others, some of which have appeared since the issue of his volume.
+
+For the history of the whole region in the period covered by my volume,
+E. Meyer's _Geschichte Alterthums_, of a new edition of which a French
+translation is in progress and has already been partly issued, is the
+most authoritative. Sir G. Maspero's _Histoire ancienne des peuples de
+l'Orient classique_ (English translation in 3 vols. under the titles
+_The Dawn of Civilization_ (Egypt and Chaldaea); _The Struggle of the
+Nations_ (Egypt, Syria, and Assyria); _The Passing of the Empires_) is
+still valuable, but rather out of date. There has appeared recently a
+more modern and handy book than either, Mr. H. R. Hall's _The Ancient
+History of the Near East_ (1913), which gathers up, not only what was in
+the books by Mr. Hall and Mr. King cited by Prof. Myres, but also the
+contents of Meyer's and Maspero's books, and others, and the results of
+more recent research, in some of which the author has taken part. This
+book includes in its scope both Egypt and the Aegean area, besides
+Western Asia.
+
+For the special history of Babylonia and Assyria and their Empires, R.
+W. Rogers' _History of Babylonia and Assyria_, 2 vols., has been kept up
+to date and is the most convenient summary for an English reader. H.
+Winckler's _History of Babylonia and Assyria_ (translated from the
+German by J. A. Craig, 1907) is more brilliant and suggestive, but needs
+to be used with more caution. A. T. Olmstead's _Western Asia in the Days
+of Sargon of Assyria_ (1908) is an instructive study of the Assyrian
+Empire at its height.
+
+For the Hittite Empire and civilization J. Garstang's _The Land of the
+Hittites_ (1910) is the best recent book which aims at being
+comprehensive. But it must be borne in mind that this subject is in the
+melting-pot at present, that excavations now in progress have added
+greatly to the available evidence, and that very few of the Boghazkeui
+archives were published when Garstang's book was issued. D. G. Hogarth's
+articles on the Hittites, in Enc. Brit, and Enc. Brit. Year-book,
+summarize some more recent research; but there is no compendium of
+Hittite research which is really up to date.
+
+For Semitic Syrian history, Rogers and Winckler, as cited above, will
+probably be found sufficient; and also for the Urartu peoples. For
+Western Asia Minor and the Greeks, besides D.G. Hogarth's _Ionia and
+the East_, the new edition of Beloch's _Griechische Geschichte_ gives
+all, and more than all, that the general reader will require. If German
+is a difficulty to him, he must turn to J.B. Bury's _History of Greece_
+and to the later part of Hall's _Ancient History of the Near East_,
+cited above. For Alexander's conquest he can go to J. Karst, _Geschichte
+des hellenistischen Zeitalters_, Vol. I (1901), B. Niese, _Geschichte
+der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten_ (1899), or D.G. Hogarth,
+_Philip and Alexander of Macedon_ (1897); but the great work of J.G.
+Droysen, _Das Hellenismus_ (French translation), lies behind all these.
+
+Finally, the fourth English volume of A. Holm's _History of Greece_
+(1898) and E.R. Bevan's _House of Seleucus_ (1902) will supply most
+that is known of the Hellenistic Age in Asia.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ancient East, by D. G. Hogarth
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIENT EAST ***
+
+This file should be named 8east10.txt or 8east10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8east11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8east10a.txt
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Julie Barkley
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/8east10.zip b/old/8east10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..35c75e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8east10.zip
diff --git a/old/8east10h.zip b/old/8east10h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..79e43c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8east10h.zip