Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading. George Park Fisher
Neku, in turn, was vanquished by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, which had now become the formidable power. The defeat of Neku ended Egyptian rule in the East. Apries (588 B.C.), the Hophra of Scripture, was dethroned by a revolt of his own soldiers, in a war with the Greeks of Cyrene, and was succeeded by Aahmes, or Amasis (570–526), under whose auspices foreigners, and especially Greeks, acquired an augmented influence. Egypt had escaped from permanent subjection to Assyria or Babylon; but a new empire, the Persian Empire of Cyrus, was advancing on the path to universal dominion. Cyrus was too busy with other undertakings to attack Egypt; but Cambyses, his successor, led an army into that country; and, having defeated Psammeticus III., at the battle of Pelusium, he made it a Persian province (525 B.C.).
LITERATURE.—See the list on p. 16. 1. Works on Oriental History as a whole: DUNCKER'S History of Antiquity. It includes, also, Greece. Lenormant and Chevalier, Manual of the Ancient History of the East (2 vols.); G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies (3 vols.), The Sixth Great Monarchy (Parthia), The Seventh Great Monarchy (the Sassanidæ), The Origin of Nations (1 vol.), Manual of Ancient History (1 vol.), Egypt and Babylon (1 vol.). LENORMANT, The Beginnings of History (1 vol.); P. Smith, The Ancient History of the East (1 vol.), History of the World (Ancient History, 3 vols.); Maspero, History of the Ancient Orient (3 vols.); Doublier, Gesch. des Alterthums (from the cultural point of view, 1 vol.); E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterthums.
2. Works on the History of Egypt. BRUGSCH-BEY, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs (2 vols.); G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt (2 vols.);, Aperçu de l'Histoire d'Egypte (1864), and numerous other writings; WILKINSON, Manners and Customs of Egypt (3 vols.); ERMAN, Egypt; Petrie, History of Egypt; Erman, Egyptian Life (1894); Birch, Records of the Past (translations of Egyptian and Assyrian Monuments, 11 vols.), Egypt from the Earliest Times; Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt (1883); FERGUSSON'S History of Architecture; the great illustrative works of the French savans under Napoleon I.; the great illustrated works of Rossellini, and the works of Lepsius; the novels of Ebers, The Sisters; Uarda; The Egyptian Princess.
CHAPTER II.
ASSYRIA AND BABYLON.
THE GEOGRAPHY.—Assyria and Babylonia were geographically connected. They were inhabited by the same race, and, for the greater part of their history, were under one government. Babylonia comprised the lower basin of the Euphrates and Tigris, while Assyria included the hilly region along the upper and middle Tigris; the boundary being where the two rivers, in their long progress from their sources in the mountains of Armenia, at length approach one another at a place about three hundred and fifty miles from their outlet in the Persian Gulf. Both streams, in particular the Euphrates, annually flooded the adjacent territory, and by canals and dams were made to add to its productiveness. The shores of the Euphrates, after its descent from the plateau to the plains, were fertile beyond measure. Here the date-palm, whose juice as well as fruit were so highly prized, flourished. Even now wheat grows wild near the river's mouth.
THE EARLY INHABITANTS.—The oldest inhabitants of this region of whom we have any knowledge were the Sumerians, whose territory included both Sumer ("Shinar"), or southern Babylonia, and Akkad, or northern Babylonia. On the east were the Elamites, with Susa for their capital; to the north of these were the warlike Kassites. The Sumerians, who preceded the Semites in the occupancy of Babylonia, were of an unknown stock. They were the founders of Babylonian culture. Even by them the soil was skillfully cultivated with the help of dikes and canals. They were the inventors of the cuneiform writing. The cuneiform characters were originally pictures; but these were resolved into wedge-shaped characters of uniform appearance, the significance of which was determined by their position and local relation to one another. It is not known how long the Sumerian period lasted, nor even when it closed; the chronology of the earliest Semitic period is also very uncertain. The south-Babylonian kings Urukagina, of Shirpurla (Lagash), and Enshagkushana, of a district which included Nippur, are dated by most Assyriologists as early as 4000 B.C., or even earlier. Whether they were Sumerians, or Semites, is not certain; their inscriptions do not settle the question. It was probably not far from this time, however, that the one race supplanted the other. A Semitic people—coming either directly from the ancestral home, Arabia, or from a previous settlement in Mesopotamia, north-west of Babylonia—invaded the land and conquered the Sumerians. They planted themselves first in northern Babylonia, and then gradually extended their power over the districts on the south. The conquerors adopted the civilization of the conquered. The earliest Semitic kings all used the Sumerian dialect in their inscriptions. It was only by slow degrees that the native language was superseded by that of the new rulers. Later—before the time of Hammurabi; see below—these Semites carried their settlements northward, and became the founders of Assyria.
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE.—Berosus, a Babylonian priest, wrote a history of his country as early as 250 B.C. He was a trustworthy writer, as far as his means of knowledge went; but it is only fragments of his work that we possess, and these in inaccurate quotations, partly at second hand. Greek writers, as Ctesias, drew from Persian sources; and their narratives up to the later times of the Persian rule can not be relied on. The great source of knowledge is the rapidly increasing store of records in the cuneiform character. A vast number of inscriptions on stone and clay, representing nearly every department of literature, have been unearthed, and the material which they afford has already given us an extensive knowledge of Babylonian and Assyrian history. The site of Nineveh has been extensively excavated, and we have, therefore, especially full information as to the history and literature of Assyria. Babylonian monuments in considerable number have more recently come to light. Aside from Nineveh and Babylon, especially important excavations have been undertaken at Nifpur, Lagash (Telloh)—thus far the chief source of Sumerian material—and Susa.
I. THE OLD KINGDOM OF BABYLON.
EARLY HISTORY.—The history of ancient Babylonia is still very obscure, and the chronology only tentative. We see at first a number of independent cities, each ruled by a petty king, who was also a priest. Then appear groups of cities, one of which exercised sway over a more or less extended district. The center of power was now in Erech, now in Ur, or Babylon, or some other city, whose king ruled supreme over numerous vassal kings. Among the first important names known to us are those of Sargon I. (3800 B.C.), king of Agade, a great conqueror and builder, and his son, Naram-sin. Another great builder was Gudea, king of Shirpurla. Most conspicuous of all is Hammurabi (2250 B.C.), king of Babylon, who is probably the "Amraphel" of Gen. xiv. His kingdom included not only the whole of Babylonia proper, but also Assyria, and probably even the "West Land" as far as the Mediterranean. The records show him to have been a truly great ruler, both in war and in peace. He is known to us chiefly from a collection of his Letters to certain officials of his kingdom, and from his elaborate Code of civil laws, found at Susa in 1899, and first published in 1902; perhaps the most important single monument of early civilization which has thus far come to light. The laws, written in the Babylonian (Semitic) language, and engraved on a stele of hard black stone, were about two hundred and eighty in number, and bear an interesting general resemblance to the old Hebrew laws, especially those preserved in Exodus xxi. and xxii.
In the time of the kings Kadashman-bel and Burnaburiash II. (about 1400 B.C.) falls the Amarna Correspondence (see p. 40). At Tell el-Amarna, in upper Egypt, were unearthed, in 1887, more than three hundred clay tablets containing diplomatic dispatches, written in the cuneiform character, and nearly all in the Babylonian language. They were addressed to the Egyptian king, or to his ministers, and had been sent from various officials and royal personages in Babylonia, Assyria, Palestine (including a number of letters from Abdi-khiba of Jerusalem), and other districts. They furnish a large amount of important