BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON 53 



distance ; and there is other evidence that his palace 

 was adorned with cedar from Syria, gold from Arabia, 

 and fine vases, reliefs, and bronzes. In short, between 

 3,000 and 2,500 b.c. (the most moderate dates) there 

 was a good civilization spread over what we now call 

 Mesopotamia. 



But it was divided among a score of princedoms, 

 and there was the inevitable drawback of war and 

 pillage and exhaustion. We can trace a thousand 

 years of this sort of confusion, science and art and 

 idealism struggling upward under the constant diffi- 

 culties of war and destruction and impoverishment. 

 In one respect, of course, the situation was favourable 

 to progress. It gave, within narrow frontiers, a dozen 

 different States and cultures competing with and 

 stimulating each other. But it was too early an age 

 for men to see that a peaceful unification, with friendly 

 rivalry in culture, was the best policy, and further 

 progress had to come out of the ambitious schemes of 

 imperialist " conquerors." 



At last, about 2,700 b.c, we get a "King of the 

 Universe " ; that is to say, an aggressive monarch 

 named Sargon,who has united nearly all Mesopotamia 

 under his rule. "We have no illusions to-day about 

 the "glory" of these conquerors, but we recognize 

 the good that came of unification. We have recovered 

 a beautiful relief in stone, carved in honour of the 

 victories of Sargon's son, and it shows that art — one 

 of the chief pulses of civilization — reached a high 

 stage of perfection. 



The early kingdom, however, paid the price of its 

 bloody methods. It became weak, and was shattered ; 

 and small kings continued for centuries to enrich 

 themselves and retard the pace of progress. About 



