Link Relations of Southwestern Asia 



293 



mountain ranges alread}" noted, the 

 northern dike, and the lower barrier of 

 the Taurus. Into this funnel' poured 

 the Hittite, and across it still wander 

 the low tents of the Kizil-Bash, kin of 

 scattered Asian hordes. 



From the very opening of history 

 Asia Minor has always been, as to its 

 interior, Asian, and as to its coasts, 

 European. When Greek historj^ opens, 

 Greece rims Asia. Minor, but its inte- 

 rior is full of strange tongues, faiths, 

 and gods. Somewhere at its mid-point 

 along the Halys the two tides of migra- 

 tion, one from Europe and the other 

 from Asia, early met, for through all 

 the historic period, as Mr. W. M. Ram- 

 say has pointed out," east of the Halys 

 the Semitic horror of the pig prevails, 

 while west it is an esteemed purificatory 

 sacrifice. In some relation with this 

 great rift valley, the trade of the East 

 has always flowed. Wherever it im- 

 pinges on Europe, economic expansion 



" W. M. Ramsay : The Historical Geography 

 of Asia Minor, 1890, p. 32. 



Trade Routes from the East to Egypt 

 From Gibbin's History of Commerce in Europe 



comes. This was as true when it poured 



through Venice in the fourteenth cen- 

 tur}' after Christ as when it poured 

 through Ephesus in the fourth century 

 before. When the Suez Canal turned 

 this profit-giving stream onto Salonica 

 and Trieste, instantly the Hungarian 

 plains awoke from their economic leth- 

 argy and made in the last thirty years a 

 material advance such as outstrips that 

 of most of our own western cities. 



In its early stages this trade, as we 

 have pointed out, passed from Babylon 

 to T3're and Sidon. There instantly 

 followed the expansion of Phoenicia, 

 which brought on a long struggle be- 

 tween Greece and Persia. This, in the 

 phase to which Marathon, Thermopylae, 

 and Plataea direct attention, was a strug- 

 gle for the conquest of Greece. In its 

 wider and more enduring battle, it was 

 in a truer sense a wrestle for the trade 

 of the Mediterranean. The shock of 

 conflict was decisive, not on land but at 

 sea. Themistocles and Aristides, Gelon 

 and Theron are the real heroes, and the 



