The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

      CHAPTER XII.

      THE NATIONS OF ASIA MINOR.

       Table of Contents

      The peninsula of Asia Minor is a table-land of about 750 miles in length by 400 in breadth, lying between the Black Sea, the Ægean, and the Mediterranean. This table-land reaches its highest level in the south; here run along the Mediterranean, from east to west, parallel ranges of mountains, the chain of Taurus, and under the snow-clad heights lie green Alpine pastures, while the slopes are filled with the most beautiful wood. Under these mountains on the sea we find here and there narrow and hot but fruitful plains, which are separated into several sharply-divided districts by the spurs of the Taurus, which run athwart them into the sea. Northward of the peaks of Taurus the soil gradually sinks to the Black Sea, so that while the southern coast possesses only short streams, with the exception of the Sarus and Pyramus, the larger arteries of the land empty into the Black Sea—the Iris, the Halys, the Billæus, the Sangarius, and the Rhyndakus. These rivers take their course, partly through rocky districts, partly through extremely fruitful valleys. The centre of the land, from the middle course of the Halys to the Sangarius in the west, is taken up with a wide treeless desert, the great Salt-steppe, the edges of which are formed by a mass of volcanic craters, by deep ravines and large lakes. Further to the west the waters streaming from the table-land find their way to the Ægean, down a series of mountain terraces, so that the valleys of the Mæander and the Hermus are at the same time the highways which connect the coast with the interior. These terraces sometimes advance to the western shore, with steep limestone rocks and precipitous promontories running out into the bright blue sea; at other times they approach the coast with softer outlines; in one place broader, in others narrower plains are left, which, owing to the great fertility of the soil, are covered with orchards and vineyards. Further inland, on the rising heights, is a splendid forest of oaks, firs, and planes, broken by mountain pastures, over which rise the jagged rocks of Ida, Tmolus, Messogis, and Latmus; in the far distance the snow-capped peaks of Taurus fill the horizon. On the western coast the proximity of the ocean softens the heat of summer and the cold of winter; and the combination of sea and mountain, of ocean breezes and upland air, the connection opened to the table-land on the east by the Hermus and Mæander and the calm sea on the west, which forms a passage to a number of adjacent islands—make these districts on the shore of the Ægean Sea the favoured home of civilisation in Asia Minor.

On the north-east, where the peninsula joins the broad mountain land of the isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian, around the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris, on the course of the Araxes, which falls into the Caspian Sea, and the high table-land of Lake Van, lay the home of the Armenians. According to Strabo, their customs were like those of the Medes, who were the neighbours of the Armenians, to the east of the Lake of Urumiah, and at the mouth of the Araxes. And if, according to the same evidence, the Armenians paid the greatest reverence to the goddess Anaitis,[688] the goddess Anahita held a prominent position in the worship of the nations of the table-land of Iran. Moreover, even in modern Armenian, the affinity with the Iranian languages is predominant; and there is therefore no doubt that the Armenians belong to the Indo-Germanic stock, and are a nation of Aryan descent.

On the southern slope of the group of mountains which they possessed south-east of the Lake of Van, on the upper course of the Great Zab, lay the district of Arphaxad, with which we have already become acquainted from Semitic sources; south of the lake lay the Carduchi, whom the later Greeks call the Gordyæans and Gordyenes; but among the Armenians they were known as Kordu, among the Syrians as Kardu.[689] These are the ancestors of the modern Kurds, a nation also of the Aryan stock, whose language is even nearer to those of Iran than the Armenian. Westward of the Carduchi, at the confluence of the two streams of the Euphrates, we again meet with a Semitic race.[690] The north-western slope of the Armenian mountains, as far as the Phasis and the Black Sea, was the home of the Muskai of the Assyrian inscriptions, the Mesech of the Hebrews, the Moschi of the Greeks. Beside them, further to the west, on the coast, were the Tabal of the Assyrians, the Tubal of the Hebrews, the Tibarenes of the Greeks; westward from these, as far as the mouth of the Iris, were the Chalti of the Armenians, the Chalybians (Chaldæans) of the Greeks. Of the origin and language of the Moschi and Tibarenes we know nothing further; the genealogies of the Hebrews placed Mesech and Tubal among the sons of Japhet.

      The territory of the Armenians round Lake Van lies 5,000 feet high. The only extensive plain among the mountains which are the home of the Armenians is the valley on the middle course of the Araxes, which is separated from the district of the Van by the range of the Masis (Ararat). The highest peak of this range, a mighty cone of dark rock, veiled by wide glaciers, rises to a height of 16,000 feet. Only the valley of the Araxes allowed agriculture on any extensive scale; it only brought forth abundant produce. Other more protected and warmer depressions, though small in extent, on the southern slopes, permitted