acterized the political condition of Greece. But there were no aspiring forces in Egypt, no ambitious nationality, to convert that centralization of power into a means of foreign conquest. The expeditions of Rameses and Sesostris were as exceptional phases of Egyptian life as the conquests of Alexander were in the history of Greece.

Very different was the history of the Mesopotamian valley, and of the States which there grew up into power. Unlike Greece and Egypt, the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris was from the earliest times the scene of a hurtling of rival nationalities, of a series of great conflicts and changes, one power rising in succession upon the ruins of another; and, at the same time, each was inspired by a spirit of ambition and conquest, which made it a great political power. This, at least, is true of every one of the ancient Mesopotamian powers after the early Chaldeans. Assyria succeeded to Chaldea; the Mede and Babylonian to the Assyrian; and the Persian to all. And after that, the Greek, the Parthian, and the Arab followed each other in successive developments of civilisation, power, and religion. Babylon and Nineveh perished, only to give place to Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. Until at last, with the advent of the barbarous Mongols, followed by the rude Turks, the fabric of empire, the reign of civilisation ended, and barrenness and depopulation overspread the region, until now-a-days the once famous valley, the most famous of its size in the world, presents nearly the same aspect as it did to the first Chaldean settlers a land of barrenness and desolation; as if the power and science of civilized man had never raised it from its primitive sterility into a region blooming as the rose, a garden-land of fertility, and for ever famous as the seat of ancient power, and in many respects the fountain of subsequent western civili

sation.

In the infancy of mankind, and when the lower portion of the valley still lay in the chaotic state natural to the embouchure of great rivers, half land half water, a Hamitic population first appears on the scene, navigating in reed skiffs the mouths of the rivers and the shallows of the Persian Gulf, and doubtless living to a great extent upon the produce of the rivers and sea. By and by the process of reclaiming the land from the loosely wandering and ever overflowing waters begins. The rivers are confined to their main channels by embankments, and in the alluvial soil thus reclaimed the population find abundant harvests. The colossal figure of Nimrod suddenly rises as a great monarch on the scene, and, temporarily welding together the various tribes of the locality, becomes a militant king of so exceptionally great power for those early times as to leave

behind him a name and fame which, even at the present day, live in the memory and imagination of the wandering Arabs who now pasture their flocks upon the ruins of Assyrian and Babylonian greatness. It was a great but transient outburst of power, the creation of one man, and in the main perishing with him. A long historical blank follows; but still, as the recent explorations show, the Hamitic population, now mingled to some extent with other blood, and assuming the name of Chaldeans, steadily work their way inland, raising town after town in the lower part of the valley. First Ur (in early times on the shores of the Persian Gulf), then Larsa and Erech, then Wipur, and at last Babylon, arise on the alluvial flats. Navigation expands, trade is developed, and the industrial arts, notably those of textile fabrics, are prosecuted with success. Babylon, and all the other cities of the new state, arose like London, out of the soil in which it was built. It was built out of the clay on which it afterwards stood. Just as at the present day, in the suburbs of London, we see first the clay-surface of the ground scarped off and converted into bricks, and then the bricks converted into rows of houses upon the place from which the clay had been taken, even so was it with the cities of Babylonia. They arose out of the ground on which they stood. And mighty indeed were many of the edifices so reared' by the waters of Babylon.' After Nimrod, Chedor-laomer is the next great name which appears in Chaldean history. Like his greater predecessor, temporarily uniting the various peoples of the region-not only of the valley, but also of the adjoining region to the east,-he turned the energies of his people into the channels of war, and carried his arms not only up the whole length of the valley, but also into Syria, down past Damascus, to the shores of the Dead Sea. This also, like Nimrod's, was the exploit of an exceptional man, never to be repeated until the era of the Assyrian Sargonids. Nevertheless Chaldean-now in turn to be called Babylonianpower gradually streamed up the 'Doab,' or valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, new towns or cities arising on the scene, till Nineveh begins to rise into view on the banks of the upper Tigris.

Then a new power appears on the scene. The Semites in the upper portion of the valley begin to overshadow the Babylonians, and grow into the dominant power. The Chaldeans were a people of the sea-coast and the alluvial plain; the Semites were a people who came from, and doubtless had for long sojourned in the mountains which border the valley on the north. This Semitic population (from whose loins came Abraham and the Jewish nation) evidently straggled down into the valleyland of the Tigris and Euphrates in weak and desultory

bands; and to a trifling extent they seem to have formed part of the population of Babylonia (probably existing among the Chaldeans as small but distinct tribes) from the earliest period of which we have trustworthy records. But in process of time the Semite Asshur went forth from Chaldea and founded Nineveh. Probably he went forth as a Babylonian governor, as a satrap of the king: certainly he could not have gone forth in hostility to the Babylonian government, because, for centuries afterwards, Nineveh and the adjoining district was an integral part of the Babylonian kingdom. It is not less evident that this Semitic population, henceforth to be called the Assyrian, must have been more numerous in the upper portion of the valley than in the lower. Asshur in fact, and his companions, in going forth from Chaldea, probably did so with a view to rejoin the main body of their own race. They went forth from an alien people, carrying with them the knowledge of civilisation and the arts which they had acquired among that people; and as a dominant caste or family, they communicated that knowledge to the uncultivated Semitic population in the upper portion of the valley. Asshur, to whom this new nation owed its development, seems to have left in his descendants a dynasty (so to speak) of princes, a ruling family, which ere long became kings. The new state gradually outgrew its vassalage to Babylonia, and became first the rival of that earlier kingdom, and at last the dominating power in the valley.

The main body of the Assyrians were a race but recently descended from the highlands of Armenia, the upland region which bounds the valley on the north; and they showed the characteristics of their origin, alike in the locality where they established their power, and in their physical organization. They were a stronger and brawnier race than the Babylonians, and, unlike the Babylonians, they delighted in the hardy pursuits of the chase. Nineveh, the chief seat of their power, and apparently the centre of their population, was situated at the confluence of the Zab and the Tigris, and comparatively near to the mountains. In the woody heights of the adjoining Zagros chain, the Assyrian monarchs and princes could enjoy the perilous pleasures of the chase, in which they delighted; and on the western side of Tigris, the low range of the Sinjar hills, and the wide open plains which stretched to the Euphrates, afforded ample scope for the chase of the gazelle, the hare, and also of the wild buffalo: while, either on the one side of the river or on the other, the lion, 'king of beasts,' was easily found in those times, and was the favourite object of pursuit to the martial sovereigns of Assyria. So as regards physical and moral

organization, the Assyrians bore to the Babylonians somewhat the same relation as the British do to the French. But in quickness and originality of mental capacity, the Babylonians had an immense superiority over their Assyrian neighbours. In arts and science, Nineveh simply copied Babylon; and in the form of their religion the Assyrians likewise followed the Chaldeans, although the spirit of their religion was graver, and never seems to have given birth to the license which unquestionably was connected with Babylonian worship. Comparatively devoid of originality alike in the arts, in science, and in religion, the Assyrians were nevertheless conspicuous in two of the greatest elements of national power, namely, in military spirit and skill, and in political capacity. They possessed that element of ascendency over other peoples, which in a higher degree characterized the Romans. The Assyrians, in fact, may justly be called the Romans of Asia. As the Romans in art and science borrowed from the Greeks, so, in great degree, did the Assyrians borrow from the Babylonians; and in physical prowess and bravery, in political ambition and military skill, and also in the comparative grave spirit of their religion, they as much excelled any other Asiatic nation, as the Romans did the other peoples of Europe. But the Assyrians were before the Romans,-they were a great power before Rome was founded,-and naturally, if not necessarily, they were far behind the Romans in those principles of enlightened humanity and conciliation, without which no stable fabric of widespread empire of foreign rule can possibly be erected. It was as a conquering and luxurious race that the Assyrians flashed forth over the old world. They were the proud lords of western India, levelling cities, firing tower and temple, and carrying away peoples as it pleased them. Hardy in the camp, they were luxurious at home. Heroism and effeminacy by turns claimed them. Warlike booty enriched the state, and brought all that luxury and magnificence could desire within the reach of the king and the nobles. But they were great warriors to the last, and only fell in an hour of passing weakness, and before the attacks of a combined host greatly exceeding in numbers the army which they could muster in defence.

Another and totally different people next appear on the scene. The Medes become the masters, not of Nineveh,-for they destroyed it utterly-but of Assyria, the upper portion of the Mesopotamian valley. And here we are brought face to face with a strange but unquestionably historic fact. Although thus becoming the masters of Assyria only six centuries before Christ, the Medes had conquered and established a dynasty in

Babylonia sixteen centuries previous to that date. Nevertheless, in the long interval between these two successful irruptions into the Valley, they totally disappear from the view of history. They are never mentioned so far as has yet been discovered -in the records either of Babylonia or of Assyria. As a nationality, they seem to have totally disappeared from the countries adjoining those kingdoms. In what character then did they first appear in the Valley, more than twenty centuries B.C., and what became of them in the long period which elapsed before they again appeared in the vicinity as a nation, some two centuries before the fall of Nineveh? It seems to us that the Medes who conquered Babylonia or Chaldæa twenty-two centuries B.C., were a migratory band of that race; that they were not the Median race or nationality as a whole, but simply an adventurous offshoot from it; and that their irruption was like those of the Scythic and Celtic peoples, which play so remarkable a part in the history of ancient times-an irruption not made by the race en masse, but merely by one or more roving tribes, seeking their fortunes in the world. The Median conquest of Chaldæa took place at a time when the main body of that people still sojourned in Bactria and the adjoining regions, to the north-east of their future and more famous settlement in the western provinces of the country now called Persia. The Median dynasty in Chaldæa lasted upwards of two centuries; and when it was overthrown and supplanted by a native Chaldæan dynasty, we conjecture that some of the conquering tribe remained absorbed in the Chaldean population— where they left traces of their language; while the upper and more energetic portions of the intruders withdrew from the Valley, first into the country from which they had issued (namely, the western provinces of modern Persia), and soon afterwards migrated northwards, either returning to their homes in Bactria, or setting out on new expeditions into the region around the Black Sea, where scattered settlements of Medes were recognisable in the time of Herodotus. One settlement of Medes is noticed by the father of history, so far west as in the country adjoining the Adriatic, who still preserved the dress and appearance of the parent race. Certain it is that as a recognisable nationality, the 'Madai' disappeared from the borders of the Mesopotamian valley, until the middle of the ninth century Previous to that date, the Assyrian kings had again and again ascended through the passes of the Zagros chain to the plateau of Iran, without ever experiencing any serious opposition, and without ever meeting with any people calling themselves Medes. It is only in the later half of the ninth century B.C. that the Assyrian monarchs, in their victorious and hardly

B.C.