Chapter 3 No.3

BASIN OF THE TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES.-The northern part of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, the portion that comprised ancient Assyria, consists of undulating plains, broken in places by considerable mountain ridges.

But all the southern portion of the basin, the part known as Chald?a, or Babylonia, having been formed by the gradual encroachment of the deposits of the Tigris and Euphrates upon the waters of the Persian Gulf, is as level as the sea. During a large part of the year, rains are infrequent; hence agriculture is dependent mainly upon artificial irrigation. The distribution of the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates was secured, in ancient times, by a stupendous system of canals and irrigants, which, at the present day, in a sand-choked and ruined condition, spread like a perfect network over the face of the country (see cut, p. 41).

The productions of Babylonia are very like those of the Nile valley. The luxuriant growth of grain upon these alluvial flats excited the wonder of all the Greek travellers who visited the East. Herodotus will not tell the whole truth, for fear his veracity may be doubted. The soil is as fertile now as in the time of the historian; but owing to the neglect of the ancient canals, the greater part of this once populous district has been converted into alternating areas of marsh and desert.

THE THREE GREAT MONARCHIES.-Within the Tigris-Euphrates basin, three great empires-the Chald?an, the Assyrian, and the Babylonian- successively rose to prominence and dominion. Each, in turn, not only extended its authority over the valley, but also made the power of its arms felt throughout the adjoining regions. We shall now trace the rise and the varied fortunes of these empires, and the slow growth of the arts and sciences from rude beginnings among the early Chald?ans to their fuller and richer development under the Assyrian and Babylonian monarchies.

THE CHALD?ANS A MIXED PEOPLE.-In the earliest times Lower Chald?a was known as Shumir, the Shinar of the Bible, while Upper Chald?a bore the name of Accad. The original inhabitants were conjecturally of Turanian race, and are called Accadians.

[Illustration: ANCIENT BABYLONIAN CANALS.]

These people laid the basis of civilization in the Euphrates valley, so that with them the history of Asian culture begins. They brought with them into the valley the art of hieroglyphical writing, which later developed into the well-known cuneiform system. They also had quite an extensive literature, and had made considerable advance in the art of building.

The civilization of the Accadians was given a great impulse by the arrival of a Semitic people. These foreigners were nomadic in habits, and altogether much less cultured than the Accadians. Gradually, however, they adopted the arts and literature of the people among whom they had settled; yet they retained their own language, which in the course of time superseded the less perfect Turanian speech of the original inhabitants; consequently the mixed people, known later as Chald?ans, that arose from the blending of the two races, spoke a language essentially the same as that used by their northern neighbors, the Semitic Assyrians.

SARGON (SHARRUKIN) I. (3800? B.C.).-We know scarcely anything about the political affairs of the Accadians until after the arrival of the Semites. Then, powerful kings, sometimes of Semitic and then again of Turanian, or Accadian origin, appear ruling in the cities of Accad and Shumir, and the political history of Chald?a begins.

The first prominent monarch is called Sargon I. (Sharrukin), a Semitic king of Agade, one of the great early cities. An inscription recently deciphered makes this king to have reigned as early as 3800 B.C. He appears to have been the first great organizer of the peoples of the Chald?an plains.

Yet not as a warrior, but as a patron and protector of letters, is Sargon's name destined to a sure place in history. He classified and translated into the Semitic, or Assyrian tongue the religious, mythological, and astronomical literature of the Accadians, and deposited the books in great libraries, which he established or enlarged,-the oldest and most valuable libraries of the ancient world. The scholar Sayce calls him the Chald?an Solomon.

CONQUEST OF CHALD?A BY THE ELAMITES (2286 B.C.).-While the Chald?an kings were ruling in the great cities of Lower Babylonia, the princes of the Elamites, a people of Turanian race, were setting up a rival kingdom to the northeast, just at the foot of the hills of Persia.

In the year 2286 B.C., a king of Elam, Kudur-Nakhunta by name, overran Chald?a, took all the cities founded by Sargon and his successors, and from the temples bore off in triumph to his capital, Susa, the statues of the Chald?an gods, and set up in these lowland regions what is known as the Elamite Dynasty.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES REGION.]

More than sixteen hundred years after this despoiling of the Chald?an sanctuaries, a king of Nineveh captured the city of Susa, and finding there these stolen statues, caused them to be restored to their original temples.

The Chedorlaomer of Genesis, whose contact with the history of the Jewish patriarch Abraham has caused his name to be handed down to our own times in the records of the Hebrew people, is believed to have been the son and successor of Kudur-Nakhunta.

CHALD?A ECLIPSED BY ASSYRIA.-After the Elamite princes had maintained a more or less perfect dominion over the cities of Chald?a for two or three centuries, their power seems to have declined; and then for several centuries longer, down to about 1300 B.C., dynasties and kings of which we know very little as yet, ruled the country.

During this period, Babylon, gradually rising into prominence, overshadowed the more ancient Accadian cities, and became the leading city of the land. From it the whole country was destined, later, to draw the name by which it is best known-Babylonia.

Meanwhile a Semitic power had been slowly developing in the north. This was the Assyrian empire, the later heart and centre of which was the great city of Nineveh. For a long time Assyria was simply a province or dependency of the lower kingdom; but about 1300 B.C., the Assyrian monarch Tiglathi-nin conquered Babylonia, and Assyria assumed the place that had been so long held by Chald?a. From this time on to the fall of Nineveh in 606 B.C., the monarchs of this country virtually controlled the affairs of Western Asia.