



Produced by David Widger





THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES

OF THE

ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD;


OR,


THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA

BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN,

OR NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE.


BY

GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,

CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD



IN THREE VOLUMES.



VOLUME II.



WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS




THE FOURTH MONARCHY



BABYLONIA.


[Illustration: MAP]




CHAPTER I. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.


"Behold, a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was
great; the tree grew and was strong: and the height thereof reached unto
heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth."--Dan. iy.
10, 11.


The limits of Babylonia Proper, the tract in which the dominant power
of the Fourth Monarchy had its abode, being almost identical with those
which have been already described under the head of Chaldaea, will not
require in this place to be treated afresh, at any length. It needs
only to remind the reader that Babylonia Proper is that alluvial tract
towards the mouth of the two great rivers of Western Asia--the Tigris
and the Euphrates--which intervenes between the Arabian Desert on the
one side, and the more eastern of the two streams on the other. Across
the Tigris the country is no longer Babylonia, but Cissia, or Susiana--a
distinct region, known to the Jews as Elam--the habitat of a distinct
people. Babylonia lies westward of the Tigris, and consists of two vast
plains or flats, one situated between the two rivers, and thus forming
the lower portion of the "Mesopotamia" of the Greeks and Romans--the
other interposed between the Euphrates and Arabia, a long but narrow
strip along the right bank of that abounding river. The former of these
two districts is shaped like an ancient amphora, the mouth extending
from Hit to Samarah, the neck lying between Baghdad and Ctesiphon on the
Tigris, Mohammed and Mosaib on the Euphrates, the full expansion of
the body occurring between Serut and El Khithr, and the pointed base
reaching down to Kornah at the junction of the two streams. This tract,
the main region of the ancient Babylonia, is about 320 miles long, and
from 20 to 100 broad. It may be estimated to contain about 18,000 square
miles. The tract west of the Euphrates is smaller than this. Its length,
in the time of the Babylonian Empire, may be regarded as about 350
miles, its average width is from 25 to 30 miles, which would give an
area of about 9000 square miles. Thus the Babylonia of Nabopolassar
and Nebuchadnezzar may be regarded as covering a space of 27,000 square
miles--a space a little exceeding the area of the Low countries.

The small province included within these limits--smaller than Scotland
or Ireland, or Portugal or Bavaria--became suddenly, in the latter half
of the seventh century B.C., the mistress of an extensive empire. On the
fall of Assyria, about B.C. 625, or a little later, Media and Babylonia,
as already observed, divided between them her extensive territory. It
is with the acquisitions thus made that we have now to deal. We have to
inquire what portion exactly of the previous dominions of Assyria fell
to the lot of the adventurous Nabopolassar, when Nineveh ceased to
be--what was the extent of the territory which was ruled from Babylon in
the latter portion of the seventh and the earlier portion of the sixth
century before our era?

Now the evidence which we possess on this point is threefold. It
consists of certain notices in the Hebrew Scriptures, contemporary
records of first-rate historical value; of an account which strangely
mingles truth with fable in one of the books of the Apocrypha; and of a
passage of Berosus preserved by Josephus in his work against Apion.
The Scriptural notices are contained in Jeremiah, in Daniel, and in
the books of Kings and Chronicles. From these sources we learn that the
Babylonian Empire of this time embraced on the one hand the important
country of Susiana or Elymais (Elam), while on the other it ran up the
Euphrates at least as high as Carchemish, from thence extending westward
to the Mediterranean, and southward to, or rather perhaps into, Egypt.
The Apocryphal book of Judith enlarges these limits in every direction.
That the Nabuchodonosor of that work is a reminiscence of the real
Nebuchadnezzar there can be no doubt. The territories of that monarch
are made to extend eastward, beyond Susiana, into Persia; northward to
Nineveh; westward to Cilicia in Asia Minor; and southward to the very
borders of Ethiopia. Among the countries under his sway are enumerated
Elam, Persia, Assyria, Cilicia, Coele-Syria, Syria of Damascus,
Phoenicia, Galilee, Gilead, Bashan, Judsea, Philistia, Goshen, and Egypt
generally. The passage of Berosus is of a more partial character. It
has no bearing on the general question of the extent of the Babylonian
Empire, but, incidentally, it confirms the statements of our other
authorities as to the influence of Babylon in the West. It tells us that
Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt, were subject to Nabopolassar, and
that Nebuchadnezzar ruled, not only over these countries, but also over
some portion of Arabia.

From these statements, which, on the whole, are tolerably accordant, we
may gather that the great Babylonian Empire of the seventh century
B.C. inherited from Assyria all the southern and western portion of her
territory, while the more northern and eastern provinces fell to the
share of Media. Setting aside the statement of the book of Judith
(wholly unconfirmed as it is by any other authority), that Persia was at
this time subject to Babylon, we may regard as the most eastern portion
of the Empire the district of Susiana, which corresponded nearly with
the modern Khuzistan and Luristan. This acquisition advanced the eastern
frontier of the Empire from the Tigris to the Bakhtiyari Mountains, a
distance of 100 or 120 miles. It gave to Babylon an extensive tract
of very productive territory, and an excellent strategic boundary.
Khuzistan is one of the most valuable provinces of modern Persia. It
consists of a broad tract of fertile alluvium, intervening between the
Tigris and the mountains, well watered by numerous large streams, which
are capable of giving an abundant irrigation to the whole of the low
region. Above this is Luristan, a still more pleasant district, composed
of alternate mountain, valley, and upland plain, abounding in beautiful
glens, richly wooded, and full of gushing brooks and clear rapid rivers.
Much of this region is of course uncultivable mountain, range succeeding
range, in six or eight parallel lines, as the traveller advances to the
north-east; and most of the ranges exhibiting vast tracts of bare
and often precipitous rock, in the clefts of which snow rests till
midsummer. Still the lower flanks of the mountains are in general
cultivable, while the valleys teem with orchards and gardens, and the
plains furnish excellent pasture. The region closely resembles Zagros,
of which it is a continuation. As we follow it, however, towards the
south-east into the Bakhtiyari country, where it adjoins upon the
ancient Persia, it deteriorates in character; the mountains becoming
barer and more arid, and the valleys narrower and less fertile.

All the other acquisitions of Babylonia at this period lay towards the
west. They consisted of the Euphrates valley, above Hit; of Mesopotamia
Proper, or the country about the two streams of the Bilik and the
Khabour; of Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Idumasa, Northern Arabia, and
part of Egypt. The Euphrates valley from Hit to Balis is a tract of no
great value, except as a line of communication. The Mesopotamian Desert
presses it closely upon the one side, and the Arabian upon the other.
The river flows mostly in a deep bed between cliffs of marl, gypsum, and
limestone, or else between bare hills producing only a few dry sapless
shrubs and a coarse grass; and there are but rare places where, except
by great efforts, the water can be raised so as to irrigate, to any
extent, the land along either bank. The course of the stream is fringed
by date-palms as high as Anah, and above is dotted occasionally with
willows, poplars, sumacs, and the unfruitful palm-tree. Cultivation
is possible in places along both banks, and the undulating country on
either side affords patches of good pasture. The land improves as we
ascend. Above the junction of the Khabour with the main stream, the left
bank is mostly cultivable. Much of the land is flat and well-wooded,
while often there are broad stretches of open ground, well adapted for
pasturage. A considerable population seems in ancient times to have
peopled the valley, which did not depend wholly or even mainly on its
own products, but was enriched by the important traffic which was always
passing up and down the great river.

Mesopotamia Proper, or the tract extending from the head streams of the
Khabour about Mardin and Nisibin to the Euphrates at Bir, and thence
southwards to Karkesiyeh or Circesium, is not certainly known to have
belonged to the kingdom of Babylon, but may be assigned to it on grounds
of probability. Divided by a desert or by high mountains from the valley
of the Tigris, and attached by means of its streams to that of the
Euphrates, it almost necessarily falls to that power which holds the
Euphrates under its dominion. The tract is one of considerable extent
and importance. Bounded on the north by the range of hills which Strabo
calls Mons Masius, and on the east by the waterless upland which lies
directly west of the middle Tigris, it comprises within it all the
numerous affluents of the Khabour and Bilik, and is thus better supplied
with water than almost any country in these regions. The borders of the
streams afford the richest pasture, and the whole tract along the flank
of Masius is fairly fertile. Towards the west, the tract between the
Khabour and the Bilik, which is diversified by the Abd-el-Aziz hills,
is a land of fountains. "Such," says Ibn Haukal, "are not to be found
elsewhere in all the land of the Moslems, for there are more than three
hundred pure running brooks." Irrigation is quite possible in this
region; and many remains of ancient watercourses show that large tracts,
at some distance from the main streams, were formerly brought under
cultivation.

Opposite to Mesopotamia Proper, on the west or right bank of the
Euphrates, lay Northern Syria, with its important fortress of
Carchemish, which was undoubtedly included in the Empire. This tract is
not one of much value. Towards the north it is mountainous, consisting
of spurs from Amanus and Taurus, which gradually subside into the desert
a little to the south of Aleppo. The bare, round-backed, chalky or rocky
ranges, which here continually succeed one another, are divided only by
narrow tortuous valleys, which run chiefly towards the Euphrates or
the lake of Antioch. This mountain tract is succeeded by a region of
extensive plains, separated from each other by low hills, both equally
desolate. The soil is shallow and stony; the streams are few and of
little volume; irrigation is thus difficult, and, except where it can be
applied, the crops are scanty. The pistachio-nut grows wild in places;
Vines and olives are cultivated with some success; and some grain is
raised by the inhabitants; but the country has few natural advantages,
and it has always depended more upon its possession of a carrying trade
than on its home products for prosperity.

West and south-west of this region, between it and the Mediterranean,
and extending southwards from Mount Amanus to the latitude of Tyre, lies
Syria Proper, the Coele-Syria of many writers, a long but comparatively
narrow tract of great fertility and value. Here two parallel ranges of
mountains intervene between the coast and the desert, prolific parents
of a numerous progeny of small streams. First, along the line of the
coast, is the range known as Libanusin the south, from lat. 33 deg. 20' to
lat. 34 deg. 40', and as Bargylus in the north, from lat. 34 deg. 45' to the
Orontes at Antioch, a range of great beauty, richly wooded in places,
and abounding in deep glens, foaming brooks, and precipices of a
fantastic form. [PLATE VII., Fig 2.] More inland is Antilibanus,
culminating towards the south in Hermon, and prolonged northward in the
Jebel Shashabu, Jebel Biha, and Jebel-el-Ala, which extends from near
Hems to the latitude of Aleppo. More striking than even Lebanon at its
lower extremity, where Hermon lifts a snowy peak into the air during
most of the year, it is on the whole inferior in beauty to the coast
range, being bleaker, more stony, and less broken up by dells and
valleys towards the south, and tamer, barer, and less well supplied with
streams in its more northern portion. Between the two parallel ranges
lies the "Hollow Syria," a long and broadish valley, watered by the
two streams of the Orontes and the "Litany" which, rising at no great
distance from one another, flow in opposite directions, one hurrying
northwards nearly to the flanks of Amanus, the other southwards to the
hills of Galilee. Few places in the world are more, remarkable, or have
a more stirring history, than this wonderful vale. Extending for above
two hundred miles from north to south, almost in a direct line, and
without further break than an occasional screen of low hills, it
furnishes the most convenient line of passage between Asia and Africa,
alike for the journeys of merchants and for the march of armies. Along
this line passed Thothines and Barneses, Sargon, and Sennacherib,
Neco and Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander and his warlike successors, Pompey,
Antony, Kaled, Godfrey of Bouillon; along this must pass every great
army which, starting from the general seats of power in Western Asia,
seeks conquests in Africa, or which, proceeding from Africa, aims at the
acquisition of an Asiatic dominion. Few richer tracts are to be found
even in these most favored portions of the earth's surface. Towards the
south the famous El-Bukaa is a land of cornfields and vineyards, watered
by numerous small streams which fall into the Litany. Towards the
north El-Ghab is even more splendidly fertile, with a dark rich soil,
luxuriant vegetation, and water in the utmost abundance, though at
present it is cultivated only in patches immediately about the towns,
from fear of the Nusairiyeh and the Bedouins.


[Illustration: PLATE VII.]


Parallel with the southern part of the Coele-Syrian valley, to the west
and to the east, were two small but important tracts, usually regarded
as distinct states. Westward, between the heights of Lebanon and the
sea, and extending somewhat beyond Lebanon, both up and down the coast,
was Phoenicia, a narrow strip of territory lying along the shore, in
length from 150 to 180 miles, and in breadth varying from one mile to
twenty. This tract consisted of a mere belt of sandy land along the sea,
where the smiling palm-groves grew from which the country derived its
name, of a broader upland region along the flank of the hills, which
was cultivated in grain, and of the higher <DW72>s of the mountains
which furnished excellent timber. Small harbors, sheltered by rocky
projections, were frequent along the coast. Wood cut in Lebanon was
readily floated down the many streams to the shore, and then conveyed
by sea to the ports. A narrow and scanty land made commerce almost a
necessity. Here accordingly the first great maritime nation of antiquity
grew up. The Phoenician fleets explored the Mediterranean at a time
anterior to Homer, and conveyed to the Greeks and the other inhabitants
of Europe, and of Northern and Western Africa, the wares of Assyria,
Babylon, and Egypt. Industry and enterprise reaped their usual harvest
of success; the Phoenicians grew in wealth, and their towns became great
and magnificent cities. In the time when the Babylonian Empire came
into being, the narrow tract of Phoenicia--smaller than many an
English county--was among the most valuable countries of Asia; and its
possession was far more to be coveted than that of many a land whose
area was ten or twenty times as great.

Eastward of Antilibanus, in the tract between that range and the great
Syrian desert, was another very important district--the district which
the Jews called "Aram-Dammesek," and which now forms the chief part of
the Pashalik of Damascus. From the eastern flanks of the Antilibanus two
great and numerous smaller streams flow down into the Damascene plain,
and, carrying with them that strange fertilizing power which water
always has in hot climates, convert the arid sterility of the desert
into a garden of the most wonderful beauty. The Barada and Awaaj,
bursting by narrow gorges from the mountain chain, scatter themselves in
numerous channels over the great flat, intermingling their waters, and
spreading them out so widely that for a circle of thirty miles the
deep verdure of Oriental vegetation replaces the red hue of the Hauran.
Walnuts, planes, poplars, cypresses, apricots, orange-trees, citrons,
pomegranates, olives, wave above; corn and grass of the most luxuriant
growth, below. In the midst of this great mass of foliage the city of
Damascus "strikes out the white arms of its streets hither and thither"
among the trees, now hid among them, now overtopping them with its domes
and minarets, the most beautiful of all those beautiful towns which
delight the eye of the artist in the East. In the south-west towers
the snow-clad peak of Hermon, visible from every part of the Damascene
plain. West, north-west, and north, stretches the long Antilibanus
range, bare, gray, and flat-topped, except where about midway in its
course, the rounded summit of Jebel Tiniyen breaks the uniformity of the
line. Outside the circle of deep verdure, known to the Orientals as El
Merj ("the Meadow"), is a setting or framework of partially cultivable
land, dotted with clumps of trees and groves, which extend for many
miles over the plain. To the Damascus country must also be reckoned
those many charming valleys of Hermon and Antilibanus which open out
into it, sending their waters to increase its beauty and luxuriance,
the most remarkable of which are the long ravine of the Barada, and the
romantic Wady Halbon, whose vines produced the famous beverage which
Damascus anciently supplied at once to the Tyrian merchant-princes and
to the voluptuous Persian kings.

Below the Coelo-Syrian valley, towards the south, came Palestine, the
Land of Lands to the Christian, the country which even the philosopher
must acknowledge to have had a greater influence on the world's
history than any other tract which can be brought under a single
ethnic designation. Palestine--etymologically the country of the
Philistines--was somewhat unfortunately named. Philistine influence may
possibly have extended at a very remote period over the whole of it; but
in historical times that warlike people did but possess a corner of
the tract, less than one tenth of the whole--the low coast region
from Jamnia to Gaza. Palestine contained, besides this, the regions of
Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea, to the west of the Jordan, and those of
Ituraea, Trachonitis, Bashan, and Gilead, east of that river. It was a
tract 140 miles long, by from 70 to 100 broad, containing probably about
11,000 square miles. It was thus about equal in size to Belgium, while
it was less than Holland or Hanover, and not much larger than the
principality of Wales, with which it has been compared by a recent
writer.

The great natural division of the country is the Jordan valley. This
remarkable depression, commencing on the west flank of Hermon, runs with
a course which is almost due south from lat. 33 deg. 25' to lat. 31 deg. 47',
where it is merged in the Dead Sea, which may be viewed, however, as a
continuation of the valley, prolonging it to lat. 31 deg. 8'. This valley is
quite unlike any other in the whole world. It is a volcanic rent in
the earth's surface, a broad chasm which has gaped and never closed
up. Naturally, it should terminate at Merom, where the level of the
Mediterranean is nearly reached. By some wonderful convulsion, or at any
rate by some unusual freak of Nature, there is a channel opened out from
Merom, which rapidly sinks below the sea level, and allows the stream to
flow hastily, down and still down, from Merom to Gennesareth, and from
Gennesareth to the Dead Sea, where the depression reaches its lowest
point, and the land, rising into a ridge, separates the Jordan valley
from the upper end of the Gulf of Akabah. The Jordan valley divides
Palestine, strongly and sharply, into two regions. Its depth, its
inaccessibility (for it can only be entered from the highlands on either
side down a few steep watercourses), and the difficulty of passing
across it (for the Jordan has but few fords), give it a separating power
almost equal to that of an arm of the sea. In length above a hundred
miles, in width varying from one mile to ten, and averaging some five
miles, or perhaps six, it must have been valuable as a territory,
possessing, as it does, a rich soil, abundant water, and in its lower
portion a tropical climate.

On either side of the deep Jordan cleft lies a highland of moderate
elevation, on the right that of Galilee, Samaria, and Judsea, on the
left that of Ituraea, Bashan, and Gilead. The right or western highland
consists of a mass of undulating hills, with rounded tops, composed of
coarse gray stone, covered, or scarcely covered, with a scanty soil, but
capable of cultivation in corn, olives, and figs. This region is
most productive towards the north, barer and more arid as we proceed
southwards towards the desert. The lowest portion, Judaea, is
unpicturesque, ill-watered, and almost treeless; the central, Samaria,
has numerous springs, some rich plains, many wooded heights, and in
places quite a sylvan appearance; the highest, Galilee, is a land of
water-brooks, abounding in timber, fertile and beautiful. The average
height of the whole district is from 1500 to 1800 feet above the
Mediterranean. Main elevations within it vary from 2500 to 4000 feet.
The axis of the range is towards the East, nearer, that is, to the
Jordan valley than to the sea. It is a peculiarity of the highland that
there is one important break in it. As the Lowland mountains of Scotland
are wholly separated from the mountains of the Highlands by the low
tract which stretches across from the Frith of Forth to the Frith of
Clyde, or as the ranges of St. Gall and Appenzell are divided off from
the rest of the Swiss mountains by the flat which extends from the Rhine
at Eagatz to the same river at Waldshut, so the western highland of
Palestine is broken in twain by the famous "plain of Esdraelon,"
which runs from the Bay of Acre to the Jordan valley at Beth-Shean or
Scythopolis.

East of the Jordan no such depression occurs, the highland there being
continuous. It differs from the western highland chiefly in this--that
its surface, instead of being broken up into a confused mass of rounded
hills, is a table-land, consisting of a long succession of slightly
undulating plains. Except in Trachonitis and southern Ituraea, where the
basaltic rock everywhere crops out, the soil is rich and productive, the
country in places wooded with fine trees, and the herbage luxuriant. On
the west the mountains rise almost precipitously from the Jordan valley,
above which they tower to the height of 3000 or 4000 feet. The outline
is singularly uniform; and the effect is that of a huge wall guarding
Palestine on this side from the wild tribes of the desert. Eastward the
tableland <DW72>s gradually, and melts into the sands of Arabia. Here
water and wood are scarce; but the soil is still good, and bears the
most abundant crops.

Finally, Palestine contains the tract from which it derives its
name, the low country of the Philistines, which the Jews called the
_Shephelah_, together with a continuation of this tract northwards to
the roots of Carmol, the district known to the Jews as "Sharon," or "the
smooth place." From Carmol to the Wady Sheriah, where the Philistine
country ended, is a distance of about one hundred miles, which gives the
length of the region in question. Its breadth between the shore and the
highland varies from about twenty-five miles, in the south, between Gaza
and the hills of Dan, to three miles, or less, in the north, between
Dor and the border of Manasseh. Its area is probably from 1400 to 1500
square miles, This low strip is along its whole course divided into two
parallel belts or bands-the first a flat sandy tract along the shore,
the Ramleh of the modern Arabs; the second, more undulating, a region
of broad rolling plains rich in corn, and anciently clothed in part with
thick woods, watered by reedy streams, which flow down from the great
highland. A valuable tract is this entire plain, but greatly exposed to
ravage. Even the sandy belt will grow fruit-trees; and the towns which
stand on it, as Gaza, Jaffa, and Ashdod, are surrounded with huge groves
of olives, sycamores, and palms, or buried in orchards and gardens,
bright with pomegranates and orange-trees. The more inland region is
of marvellous fertility. Its soil is a rich loam, containing scarcely a
pebble, which yields year after year prodigious crops of grain--chiefly
wheat--without manure or irrigation, or other cultivation than a light
ploughing. Philistia was the granary of Syria, and was important doubly,
first, as yielding inexhaustible supplies to its conqueror, and secondly
as affording the readiest passage to the great armies which contended in
these regions for the mastery of the Eastern World.

South of the region to which we have given the name of Palestine,
intervening between it and Egypt, lay a tract, to which it is difficult
to assign any political designation. Herodotus regarded it as a portion
of Arabia, which he carried across the valley of the Arabah and
made abut on the Mediterranean. To the Jews it was "the land of the
south"--the special country of the Amalekites. By Strabo's time it had
come to be known as Idumsea, or the Edomite country; and under this
appellation it will perhaps be most convenient to describe it here.
Idumasa, then, was the tract south and south-west of Palestine from
about lat. 31 deg. 10'. It reached westward to the borders of Egypt, which
were at this time marked by the Wady-el-Arish, southward to the range of
Sinai and the Elanitic Gulf, and eastward to the Great Desert. Its
chief town was Petra, in the mountains east of the Arabah valley. The
character of the tract is for the most part a hard gravelly and rocky
desert; but occasionally there is good herbage, and soil that admits of
cultivation; brilliant flowers and luxuriantly growing shrubs bedeck the
glens and terraces of the Petra range; and most of the tract produces
plants and bushes on which camels, goats, and even sheep will browse,
while occasional palm groves furnish a grateful shade and an important
fruit. The tract divides itself into four regions--first, a region of
sand, low and flat, along the Mediterranean, the Shephelah without
its fertility; next, a region of hard gravelly plain intersected by
limestone ridges, and raised considerably above the sea level, the
Desert of El-Tin, or of "the Wanderings;" then the long, broad, low
valley of the Arabah, which rises gradually from the Dead Sea to an
imperceptible watershed, and then falls gently to the head of the
Gulf of Akabah, a region of hard sand thickly dotted with bushes, and
intersected by numerous torrent courses; finally a long narrow region
of mountains and hills parallel with the Arabah, constituting Idumsea
Proper, or the original Edom, which, though rocky and rugged, is full
of fertile glens, ornamented with trees and shrubs, and in places
cultivated in terraces. In shape the tract was a rude square or oblong,
with its sides nearly facing the four cardinal points, its length from
the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Akabah being 130 miles, and its width
from the Wady-el-Arish to the eastern side of the Petra mountains 120
miles. The area is thus about 1560 square miles.

Beyond the Wady-el-Arish was Egypt, stretching from the Mediterranean
southwards a distance of nearly eight degrees, or more than 550 miles.
As this country was not, however, so much a part of the Babylonian
Empire as a dependency lying upon its borders, it will not be necessary
to describe it in this place.

One region, however, remains still unnoticed which seems to have been
an integral portion of the Empire. This is Palmyrene, or the Syrian
Desert--the tract lying between Coelo-Syria on the one hand and the
valley of the middle Euphrates on the other, and abutting towards the
south on the great Arabian Desert, to which it is sometimes regarded
as belonging. It is for the most part a hard sandy or gravelly plain,
intersected by low rocky ranges, and either barren or productive only
of some sapless shrubs and of a low thin grass. Occasionally, however,
there are oases, where the fertility is considerable. Such an oasis is
the region about Palmyra itself, which derived its name from the palm
groves in the vicinity; here the soil is good, and a large tract is
even now under cultivation. Another oasis is that of Karyatein, which
is watered by an abundant stream, and is well wooded, and productive of
grain. The Palmyrene, however, as a whole possesses but little value,
except as a passage country. Though large armies can never have
traversed the desert even in this upper region, where it is
comparatively narrow, trade in ancient times found it expedient to
avoid the long detour by the Orontes Valley, Aleppo, and Bambuk, and
to proceed directly from Damascus by way of Palymra to Thapsaeus on the
Euphrates. Small bands of light troops also occasionally took the same
course; and the great saving of distance thus effected made it important
to the Babylonians to possess an authority over the region in question.

Such, then, in its geographical extent, was the great Babylonian Empire.
Reaching from Luristan on the one side to the borders of Egypt on the
other, its direct length from east to west was nearly sixteen