A SKETCH OF BABYLONIAN SOCIETY. 581 



advances of the tribes and the retreats of the agricultural population 

 were accompanied by ruins of dikes and canals until a strong hand 

 again forced the nomads back and restored the water courses. These 

 tribes became gradually settled and constituted the fourth racial element, 

 as appears from several historical notices and from Assyrian contracts. 



Finally, we must notice the pushing forward of the Semitic Kaldi 

 tribes from the south, and the contemporaneous efforts of the Assyrians 

 froni the north to obtain the supremacy in Babylonia. But while the 

 preceding four elements composed the basis or foundation out of and 

 upon which ruling classes developed, these two latter parties formed 

 external factors which influenced the social and political life of Babylon. 



If we also mention as a potent external factor the Elamite monarchy, 

 which endeavored to play off the Kaldi and the Assyrians against each 

 other in their struggle for Babylon, we have briefly sketched the pic- 

 ture of the inhabitants, their origin, and those of their neighbors who 

 come into consideration. 



From these elements and their sediment was formed what we are 

 accustomed to regard as the Babylonian state. We must not imagine 

 an oriental state, however, as being any such firmly-welded whole as 

 are our modern European states. Race feeling operated in a manner 

 altogether different from among us. There the whole life of the State 

 was concentrated about great cult centers. Surface configuration, 

 intercourse relations, and the coincident power of single provinces 

 welded a greater political unit about a cult center. Thus was formed 

 a political organization that perhaps soon after was merged into a 

 larger unit, and left nothing but a name behind it in proof of its former 

 existence. Among these political units we know of Sumer and Akkad, 

 that is the power once connected with Ur, the Kingdom of Babylon; 

 also smaller ones in the north, such as the kingdom of "the four regions" 

 and the Kingdom of Kisshat, of which the cult center is not yet pre- 

 cisely determined but probably to be sought in northern Mesopotamia. 1 

 Farther away from the proper center lies Elam, which had attained the 

 rank of a State since primeval times. We see Assyria and farther to 

 the north, the proto- Armenian tribes. 



The political history of Babylon, even in the earliest times, presents 

 an alternating picture of centralization and disintegration of the empires 

 embodying the centralization. The question presents itself, what could 

 have been the cause which in so remote a period again and again led 

 to the consolidation of a great district, while as yet, in all neighboring 

 provinces, with few exceptions, only a more or less feeble tribal bond 

 could be formed. The answer may be inferred from the following 

 circumstances: 



(1) As soon as an individual by reason of the domination of one of 

 the smaller commonwealths had succeeded in restoring the centraliza- 



1 According to Winckler, whose theory we follow, perhaps Harran. 



