THE ASSYKIAN EMPIRE. 51 



trade routes were again opened, and perhaps extended, 

 by the bran new energies of the barbarian kings. 



Babylonia or Chaldsea, the alluvial country, which 

 occupies the lower course of the Euphrates, was un- 

 doubtedly the original abode of civilisation in Western 

 Asia. But it was on the banks of the Tigris that the 

 first great empire arose — the first at least of which we 

 know. For who can tell how many cities, undreamt 

 of by historians, lie buried beneath the Assyrian plains ? 

 and Nineveh itself may have been built from some 

 dead metropolis, as Babylon bricks were used in the 

 building of Bagdhad. Recorded history is a thing of 

 yesterday — the narrative of modern man. There is, 

 however, a science of history ; by this we are enabled 

 to restore in faint outline the unwritten past, and by 

 this we are assured that whatever the names and number 

 of the forgotten empires may have been, they merely 

 repeated one another. In describing the empire of 

 Nineveh we describe them all. 



The Assyrian empire covered a great deal of ground. 

 The kingdom of Troy was one of its fiefs. Its rule 

 was sometimes extended to the islands of the Grecian 

 sea. Babylon was its subject. It stretched far away 

 into Asia. But the conquered provinces were loosely 

 governed, or rather, no attempt was made to govern them 

 at all. Phoenicia was allowed to remain a federation 

 of republics. Israel, Judah, and Damascus, were 

 allowed to continue their angry bickerings and petty 

 wars. The relations between the conquered rulers and 

 their subjects were left untouched. Their laws, their 

 manners, and their religion, were in no way changed. 

 It was merely required that the vassal kings or senates 

 should acknowledge the Emperor of Nineveh as their 

 suzerain or lord ; that they should send him a certain 



