THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION 



143 



vent of its first founder. The steady 

 average length of the reigns speaks of 

 the permanence and stability of the work 

 which had been done by the great and 

 wise man who had united all the wrang- 

 ling communities of Babylonia into a 

 single strong State. 



But no human work can endure for- 

 ever, and the first empire of Babylonia 

 was no exception to the rule. It suf- 

 fered the fate common to most early em- 

 pires. The more highly cultured and ad- 

 vanced and more peaceful people were 

 overwhelmed by the descent of a ruder 

 and more warlike race, who had envied 

 the wealth and prosperity of their neigh- 

 bors. 



The conquering race, in this instance, 

 was one of those wild mountain peoples 

 who occupied the hill country between the 

 Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Find- 

 ing a footing on the Babylonian plain 

 near the mouth of the rivers, they grad- 

 ually advanced, until their chief ascended 

 the throne of Babylon and set up a new 

 dynasty. They were called the Kassites, 

 and for over 570 years they ruled over 

 Babylonia, but a Babylonia that was no 

 longer as it had once been, the one great 

 power in the world of the ancient Orient. 



A new power, Assyria, had begun to 

 rise above the horizon, and from now on- 

 ward, with occasional intervals of weak- 

 ness and decline, this power strides like 

 a Colossus over the whole of the ancient 

 world, terrifying the nations by its re- 

 morseless cruelty, and crushing down all 

 opposition and all national aspirations by 

 the ruthless force of one of the most 

 tremendous implements of warfare ever 

 forged by the hand of man. 



ASSYRIAN RUTHLESSNKSS 



With the possible exception of the 

 Huns, or the wild hordes of Tamerlane, 

 there has probably never existed in the 

 history of the world a power so purely 

 and solely destructive, so utterly devoid 

 of the slightest desire to make any real 

 contribution to the welfare of the human 

 race, as Assyria. But the Huns and the 

 hordes of Tamerlane were untaught sav- 

 ages. 



In the case of Assyria you have a 

 highly organized and civilized people, 



skilled to an astounding degree in the 

 arts, with all the power to do great 

 things for humanity, but absolutely de- 

 ficient in the will. 



If you can imagine a man with no small 

 amount of learning, with all the externals 

 of civilization, with a fine taste in certain 

 aspects of art, and a tremendous aptitude 

 for organization and discipline, and then 

 imagine such a man imbued with the 

 ruthless spirit of a Red Indian brave and 

 an absolute delight in witnessing the most 

 ghastly forms of human suffering, you 

 will have a fairly accurate conception of 

 the ordinary Assyrian, king or com- 

 moner ; the outside, a splendid specimen 

 of highly developed humanity — the inside 

 a mere ravening tiger. 



There have been other great conquer- 

 ing races which could be cruel enough on 

 occasion, but at least they contributed 

 something to the sum of human knowl- 

 edge or achievement. The Roman Em- 

 pire, for instance, ruthless as were its 

 methods often, was actually a great boon 

 to the world. 



ASSYRIA AN IMITATOR 



Assyria, made no such contribution to 

 human life. Totally lacking in original- 

 ity, she took her art, her language, her 

 literature, and her science from the elder 

 Babylonian race upon which she waged 

 such constant war. 



She created nothing; she existed sim- 

 ply to destroy ; and when she ceased to 

 destroy, she was destroyed. In a word, 

 she was the scourge of God, or, as Isaiah 

 put it, with his vivid insight, her function 

 in the world was just to be God's ax and 

 saw to do the rough hewing that Provi- 

 dence needed for the shaping of the race. 



Early in their history the Babylonians 

 seem to have sent a colony northwest- 

 ward up the rivers into the land of 

 Mesopotamia. There the colonists 

 founded a city which they called Assur, 

 after their god Ashur (see map, page 

 216). In the time of Hammurabi, Assur 

 was still merely a colony of Babylonia 

 and subject to the empire. 



In the less luxurious uplands of Meso- 

 potamia the race had no temptation to 

 degeneracy. Warfare with their wild 

 neighbors from the hills, and warfare 



