THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION 



147 



even more constant with the wild beasts, 

 the lions and elephants, which abounded 

 in the district, kept them hardy and bold, 

 and welded them together into a people 

 capable of and ready for great achieve- 

 ments should the opportunity arise. 



This opportunity came with the Kas- 

 site conquest of Babylonia. The familiar 

 rule of their mother-city was broken, and 

 they owed no allegiance, but rather the 

 reverse, to the conquerors. The patesis 

 of Assur threw off the yoke of Babylon, 

 called themselves kings, and established 

 a kingdom (Assyria) which speedily be- 

 came a formidable rival to the more an- 

 cient southern State. 



FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OF STRIFE 



Five centuries or so ensued, filled with 

 more or less constant strife and bicker- 

 ing between the two States. In the mean- 

 time Egypt, under the great soldier Pha- 

 raohs of the XVII Ith dynasty, took ad- 

 vantage of the divisions of the only two 

 powers that could have resisted her con- 

 quest of all Palestine and Syria, and 

 pushed her empire as far as to the banks 

 of the Euphrates. 



In the letters of the time which have 

 been preserved (the Tell-el-Amarna tab- 

 lets) it is interesting and amusing to see 

 the eagerness with which the kings of 

 Assyria, Babylonia, and Mitanni plead 

 for recognition by the Egyptian Pharaoh, 

 each striving to impress upon the great 

 king the value of his own friendship and 

 the worthlessness of his neighbor's. 



Pharaoh of Egypt is the dominating 

 figure of the whole world at this stage, 

 and the kings of the East, whatever their 

 private pride, are, in their public corre- 

 spondence, his very humble and obedient 

 servants. The balance of power, how- 

 ever, was to be readjusted before long. 



There is no need to wade through the 

 dreary story of Assyrian conquest, save 

 where we find it touching upon the Scrip- 

 ture records. King after king repeats, 

 with monotonous reiteration, the story of 

 endless campaigns, all marked by the same 

 ruthless slaughter, the same ghastly cru- 

 elty, and the same lack of permanent 

 results. Apparently it was quite impos- 

 sible for an Assyrian king to be a peace- 

 ful sovereign. His State lived by and 



for the army alone, and if he did not 

 give the army successful employment he 

 was quickly murdered to make way for 

 some one who would lead the troops to 

 conquest and plunder. 



A KING REVIEWS HIS REIGN 



Take, as a single specimen of an As- 

 syrian conqueror, Ashur-natsir-pal III, 

 whose magnificent palace at Kalah, with 

 its alabaster slabs exquisitely carved in 

 relief, was excavated by Layard in the 

 forties of last century. The slabs are 

 now one of the glories of the British 

 Museum, where also the statue of the 

 great conqueror stands. 



We have the record of eighteen years 

 of his reign : there is scarcely a year in 

 which he was not at war ; and this is 

 the kind of war he made: 



"To the city of Tela I approached. 

 The city was very strong ; three fortress- 

 walls surrounded it. The inhabitants 

 trusted to their strong walls and their 

 numerous army ; they did not come down 

 or embrace my feet. With battle and 

 slaughter I attacked the city and cap- 

 tured it. Three thousand of their fight- 

 ing men I slew with the sword ; their 

 spoil, their goods, their oxen, and their 

 sheep I carried away ; many captives I 

 burned with fire. 



"I captured many of their soldiers 

 alive ; I cut off the hands and feet of 

 some; of others I cut off the noses, the 

 ears, and the fingers ; I put out the eyes 

 oi many soldiers. I built up a pyramid 

 of the living and a pyramid of heads. 

 On high I hung up their heads on trees 

 in the neighborhood of their city. Their 

 young men and their maidens I burned 

 with fire. The city I overthrew, dug it 

 up, and burned it with fire ; I annihi- 

 lated it." 



A STAGGERING CRUELTY 



The imagination is staggered at the 

 very thought of that pyramid of the liv- 

 ing — human beings piled one upon an- 

 other, suffocating, strangling, perishing 

 slowly and miserably before that other 

 pyramid of their more fortunate friends 

 to whom death had come swiftly, and at 

 the thought of the monster who not only 

 did this, but gloried in it, and caused the 



