This was an alphabet, the first in point of time, but so ingenious and so pliable that the majority of ancient and modern nations have found it able to supply all their needs—Greeks and Europeans of the western Mediterranean on the one hand, and Semites of all kinds, Persians and Hindus on the other.

It must have originated between the end of the XVIIIth and the beginning of the XXIst dynasties, and the existence of Pharaonic rule in Phoenicia during this period has led more than one modern scholar to assume that it developed under Egyptian influence.*

Some affirm that it is traceable directly to the hieroglyphs, while others seek for some intermediary in the shape of a cursive script, and find this in the Hieratic writing, which contains, they maintain, prototypes of all the Phoenician letters. Tables have been drawn up, showing at a glance the resemblances and differences which appear respectively to justify or condemn their hypothesis. Perhaps the analogies would be more evident and more numerous if we were in possession of inscriptions going back nearer to the date of origin. As it is, the divergencies are sufficiently striking to lead some scholars to seek the prototype of the alphabet elsewhere—either in Babylon, in Asia Minor, or even in Crete, among those barbarous hieroglyphs which are attributed to the primitive inhabitants of the island. It is no easy matter to get at the truth amid these conflicting theories. Two points only are indisputable; first, the almost unanimous agreement among writers of classical times in ascribing the first alphabet to the Phoenicians; and second, the Phonician origin of the Greek, and afterwards of the Latin alphabet which we employ to-day.

To return to the religion of the Phoenicians: the foreign deities were not content with obtaining a high place in the estimation of priests and people; they acquired such authority over the native gods that they persuaded them to metamorphose themselves almost completely into Egyptian divinities.

One finds among the majority of them the emblems commonly used in the Pharaonic temples, sceptres with heads of animals, head-dress like the Pschent, the crux ansata, the solar disk, and the winged scarab. The lady of Byblos placed the cow’s horns upon her head from the moment she became identified with Hathor.* The Baal of the neighbouring Arvad—probably a form of Bashuf—was still represented as standing upright on his lion in order to traverse the high places: but while, in the monument which has preserved the figure of the god, both lion and mountain are given according to Chaldæan tradition, he himself, as the illustration shows, is dressed after the manner of Egypt, in the striped and plaited loin-cloth, wears a large necklace on his neck and bracelets on his arms, and bears upon his head the white mitre with its double plume and the Egyptian uraaus.**

He brandishes in one hand the weapon of the victor, and is on the point of despatching with it a lion, which he has seized by the tail with the other, after the model of the Pharaonic hunters, Amenôthes I. and Thûtmosis III. The lunar disk floating above his head lends to him, it is true, a Phonician character, but the winged sun of Heliopolis hovering above the disk leaves no doubt as to his Egyptian antecedents.*

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The worship, too, offered to these metamorphosed gods was as much changed as the deities themselves; the altars assumed something of the Egyptian form, and the tabernacles were turned into shrines, which were decorated at the top with a concave groove, or with a frieze made up of repetitions of the uraeus. Egyptian fashions had influenced the better classes so far as to change even their mode of dealing with the dead, of which we find in not a few places clear evidence. Travellers arriving in Egypt at that period must have been as much astonished as the tourist of to-day by the monuments which the Egyptians erected for their dead.

The pyramids which met their gaze, as soon as they had reached the apex of the Delta, must have far surpassed their ideas of them, no matter how frequently they may have been told about them, and they must have been at a loss to know why such a number of stones should have been brought together to cover a single corpse. At the foot of these colossal monuments, lying like a pack of hounds asleep around their master, the mastabas of the early dynasties were ranged, half buried under the sand, but still visible, and still visited on certain days by the descendants of their inhabitants, or by priests charged with the duty of keeping them up. Chapels of more recent generations extended as a sort of screen before the ancient tombs, affording examples of the two archaic types combined—the mastaba more or less curtailed in its proportions, and the pyramid with a more or less acute point. The majority of these monuments are no longer in existence, and only one of them has come down to us intact—that which Amenôthes III. erected in the Serapeum at Memphis in honour of an Apis which had died in his reign.

Phoenicians visiting the Nile valley must have carried back with them to their native country a remembrance of this kind of burying-place, and have suggested it to their architects as a model. One of the cemeteries at Arvad contains a splendid specimen of this imported design.*

It is a square tower some thirty-six feet high; the six lower courses consist of blocks, each some sixteen and a half feet long, joined to each other without mortar. The two lowest courses project so as to form a kind of pedestal for the building. The cornice at the top consists of a deep moulding, surmounted by a broad flat band, above which rises the pyramid, which attains a height of nearly thirty feet. It is impossible to deny that it is constructed on a foreign model; it is not a slavish imitation, however, but rather an adaptation upon a rational plan to the conditions of its new home. Its foundations rest on nothing but a mixture of soil and sand impregnated with water, and if vaults had been constructed beneath this, as in Egypt, the body placed there would soon have corrupted away, owing to the infiltration of moisture. The dead bodies were, therefore, placed within the structure above ground, in chambers corresponding to the Egyptian chapel, which were superimposed the one upon the other. The first storey would furnish space for three bodies, and the second would contain twelve, for which as many niches were provided. In the same cemetery we find examples of tombs which the architect has constructed, not after an Egyptian, but a Chaldæan model. A round tower is here substituted for the square structure and a cupola for the pyramid, while the cornice is represented by crenellated markings. The only Egyptian feature about it is the four lions, which seem to support the whole edifice upon their backs.*

Arvad was, among Phoenician cities, the nearest neighbour to the kingdoms on the Euphrates, and was thus the first to experience either the brunt of an attack or the propagation of fashions and ideas from these countries. In the more southerly region, in the country about Tyre, there are fewer indications of Babylonian influence, and such examples of burying-places for the ruling classes as the Kabr-Hiram and other similar tombs correspond with the mixed mastaba of the Theban period. We have the same rectangular base, but the chapel and its crowning pyramid are represented by the sarcophagus itself with its rigid cover. The work is of an unfinished character, and carelessly wrought, but there is a charming simplicity about its lines and a harmony in its proportions which betray an Egyptian influence.

The spirit of imitation which we find in the religion and architecture of Phoenicia is no less displayed in the minor arts, such as goldsmiths’work, sculpture in ivory, engraving on gems, and glass-making. The forms, designs, and colours are all rather those of Egypt than of Chaldæa. The many-hued glass objects, turned out by the manufacturers of the Said in millions, furnished at one time valuable cargoes for the Phoenicians; they learned at length to cast and colour copies of these at home, and imitated their Egyptian models so successfully that classical antiquity was often deceived by them.*

Their engravers, while still continuing to employ cones and cylinders of Babylonian form, borrowed the scarab type also, and made use of it on the bezils of rings, the pendants of necklaces, and on a kind of bracelet used partly for ornament and partly as a protective amulet. The influence of the Egyptian model did not extend, however, amongst the masses, and we find, therefore, no evidence of it in the case of common objects, such as those of coarse sand or glazed earthenware. Egyptian scarab forms were thus confined to the rich, and the material upon which they are found is generally some costly gem, such as cut and polished agate, onyx, haematite, and lapis-lazuli. The goldsmiths did not slavishly copy the golden and silver bowls which were imported from the Delta; they took their inspiration from the principles displayed in the ornamentation of these objects, but they treated the subjects after their own manner, grouping them afresh and blending them with new designs. The intrinsic value of the metal upon which these artistic conceptions had been impressed led to their destruction, and among the examples which have come down to us I know of no object which can be traced to the period of the Egyptian conquest. It was Theban art for the most part which furnished the Phoenicians with their designs. These included the lotus, the papyrus, the cow standing in a thicket and suckling her calf, the sacred bark, and the king threatening with his uplifted arm the crowd of conquered foes who lie prostrate before him.

The king’s double often accompanied him on some of the original objects, impassive and armed with the banner bearing the name of Horus. The Phoenician artist modified this figure, which in its original form did not satisfy his ideas of human nature, by transforming it into a protective genius, who looks with approval on the exploits of his protégé, and gathers together the corpses of those he has slain. Once these designs had become current among the goldsmiths, they continued to be supplied for a long period, without much modification, to the markets of the Eastern and Western worlds. Indeed, it was natural that they should have taken a stereotyped form, when we consider that the Phoenicians who employed them held continuous commercial relations with the country whence they had come—a country of which, too, they recognised the supremacy. Egypt in the Ramesside period was, as we have seen, distinguished for the highest development of every branch of industry; it had also a population which imported and exported more raw material and more manufactured products than any other.

The small nation which acted as a commercial intermediary between Egypt and the rest of the world had in this traffic a steady source of profit, and even in providing Egypt with a single article—for example, bronze, or the tin necessary for its preparation—could realise enormous profits. The people of Tyre and Sidon had been very careful not to alienate the good will of such rich customers, and as long as the representatives of the Pharaoh held sway in Syria, they had shown themselves, if not thoroughly trustworthy vassals, at least less turbulent than their neighbours of Arvad and Qodshû. Even when the feebleness and impotence of the successors of Ramses III. relieved them from the obligation of further tribute, they displayed towards their old masters such deference that they obtained as great freedom of trade with the ports of the Delta as they had enjoyed in the past. They maintained with these ports the same relations as in the days of their dependence, and their ships sailed up the river as far as Memphis, and even higher, while the Egyptian galleys continued to coast the littoral of Syria. An official report addressed to Hrihor by one of the ministers of the Theban Amon, indicates at one and the same time the manner in which these voyages were accomplished, and the dangers to which their crews were exposed. Hrihor, who was still high priest, was in need of foreign timber to complete some work he had in hand, probably the repair of the sacred barks, and commanded the official above mentioned to proceed by sea to Byblos, to King Zikarbâl,* in order to purchase cedars of Lebanon.

The messenger started from Tanis, coasted along Kharu, and put into the harbour of Dor, which then belonged to the Zakkala: while he was revictualling his ship, one of the sailors ran away with the cash-box. The local ruler, Badilu, expressed at first his sympathy at this misfortune, and gave his help to capture the robber; then unaccountably changing his mind he threw the messenger into prison, who had accordingly to send to Egypt to procure fresh funds for his liberation and the accomplishment of his mission. Having arrived at Byblos, nothing occurred there worthy of record. The wood having at length been cut and put on board, the ship set sail homewards. Driven by contrary winds, the vessel was thrown upon the coast of Alasia, where the crew were graciously received by the Queen Khatiba. We have evidence everywhere, it may be stated, as to the friendly disposition displayed, either with or without the promptings of interest, towards the representative of the Theban pontiff. Had he been ill-used, the Phoenicians living on Egyptian territory would have been made to suffer for it.

Navigators had to take additional precautions, owing to the presence of Ægean or Asiatic pirates on the routes followed by the mercantile marine, which rendered their voyages dangerous and sometimes interrupted them altogether. The Syrian coast-line was exposed to these marauders quite as much as the African had been during the sixty or eighty years which followed the death of Ramses II.; the seamen of the north—Achæans and Tyrseni, Lycians and Shardanians—had pillaged it on many occasions, and in the invasion which followed these attacks it experienced as little mercy as Naharaim, the Khâti, and the region of the Amorites. The fleets which carried the Philistines, the Zakkala, and their allies had devastated the whole coast before they encountered the Egyptian ships of Ramses III. near Magadîl, to the south of Carmel. Arvad as well as Zahi had succumbed to the violence of their attack, and if the cities of Byblos, Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre had escaped, their suburbs had been subjected to the ravages of the foe.*

Peace followed the double victory of the Egyptians, and commerce on the Mediterranean resumed once more its wonted ways, but only in those regions where the authority of the Pharaoh and the fear of his vengeance were effective influences. Beyond this sphere there were continual warfare, piracy, migrations of barbaric hordes, and disturbances of all kinds, among which, if a stranger ventured, it was at the almost certain risk of losing his life or liberty. The area of undisturbed seas became more and more contracted in proportion as the memory of past defeats faded away. Cyprus was not comprised within it, and the Ægeans, who were restrained by the fear of Egypt from venturing into any region under her survey, perpetually flocked thither in numerous bodies. The Achæans, too, took up their abode on this island at an early date—about the time when some of their bands were infesting Libya, and offering their help to the enemies of the Pharaoh. They began their encroachments on the northern side of the island—the least rich, it is true, but the nearest to Cilicia, and the easiest to hold against the attacks of their rivals. The disaster of Piriu had no doubt dashed their hopes of finding a settlement in Egypt: they never returned thither any more, and the current of emigration which had momentarily inclined towards the south, now set steadily towards the east, where the large island of Cyprus offered an unprotected and more profitable field of adventure. We know not how far they penetrated into its forests and its interior. The natives began, at length, under their influence, to despise the customs and mode of existence with which they had been previously contented: they acquired a taste for pottery rudely decorated after the Mycenean manner, for jewellery, and for the bronze swords which they had seen in the hands of the invaders. The Phoenicians, in order to maintain their ground against the intruders, had to strengthen their ancient posts or found others—such as Carpasia, Gerynia, and Lapathos on the Achæan coast itself, Tamassos near the copper-mines, and a new town, Qart-hadashât, which is perhaps only the ancient Citium under a new name.* They thus added to their earlier possessions on the island regions on its northern side, while the rest either fell gradually into the hands of Hellenic adventurers, or continued in the possession of the native populations. Cyprus served henceforward as an advance-post against the attacks of Western nations, and the Phoenicians must have been thankful for the good fortune which had made them see the wisdom of fortifying it. But what became of their possessions lying outside Cyprus? They retained several of them on the southern coasts of Asia Minor, and Rhodes remained faithful to them, as well as Thasos, enabling them to overlook the two extremities of the Archipelago;** but, owing to the movements of the People of the Sea and the political development of the Mycenean states, they had to give up the stations and harbours of refuge which they held in the other islands or on the continent.

They still continued, however, to pay visits to these localities—sometimes in the guise of merchants and at others as raiders, according to their ancient custom. They went from port to port as of old, exposing their wares in the market-places, pillaging the farms and villages, carrying into captivity the women and children whom they could entice on board, or whom they might find defenceless on the strand; but they attempted all this with more risk than formerly, and with less success. The inhabitants of the coast were possessed of fully manned ships, similar in form to those of the Philistines or the Zakkala, which, at the first sight of the Phoenicians, set out in pursuit of them, or, following the example set by their foe, lay in wait for them behind some headland, and retaliated upon them for their cruelty. Piracy in the Archipelago was practised as a matter of course, and there was no islander who did not give himself up to it when the opportunity offered, to return to his honest occupations after a successful venture. Some kings seem to have risen up here and there who found this state of affairs intolerable, and endeavoured to remedy it by every means within their power: they followed on the heels of the corsairs and adventurers, whatever might be their country; they followed them up to their harbours of refuge, and became an effective police force in all parts of the sea where they were able to carry their flag. The memory of such exploits was preserved in the tradition of the Cretan empire which Minos had constituted, and which extended its protection over a portion of continental Greece.

If the Phoenicians had had to deal only with the piratical expeditions of the peoples of the coast or with the jealous watchfulness of the rulers of the sea, they might have endured the evil, but they had now to put up, in addition, with rivalry in the artistic and industrial products of which they had long had the monopoly. The spread of art had at length led to the establishment of local centres of production everywhere, which bade fair to vie with those of Phoenicia. On the continent and in the Cyclades there were produced statuettes, intaglios, jewels, vases, weapons, and textile fabrics which rivalled those of the East, and were probably much cheaper. The merchants of Tyre and Sidon could still find a market, however, for manufactures requiring great technical skill or displaying superior taste—such as gold or silver bowls, engraved or decorated with figures in outline—but they had to face a serious falling off in their sales of ordinary goods. To extend their commerce they had to seek new and less critical markets, where the bales of their wares, of which the Ægean population was becoming weary, would lose none of their attractions. We do not know at what date they ventured to sail into the mysterious region of the Hesperides, nor by what route they first reached it. It is possible that they passed from Crete to Cythera, and from this to the Ionian Islands and to the point of Calabria, on the other side of the straits of Otranto, whence they were able to make their way gradually to Sicily.*

Did the fame of their discovery, we may ask, spread so rapidly in the East as to excite there the cupidity and envy of their rivals? However this may have been, the People of the Sea, after repeated checks in Africa and Syria, and feeling more than ever the pressure of the northern tribes encroaching on them, set out towards the west, following the route pursued by the Phoenicians. The traditions current among them and collected afterwards by the Greek historians give an account, mingled with many fabulous details, of the causes which led to their migrations and of the vicissitudes which they experienced in the course of them. Daedalus having taken flight from Crete to Sicily, Minos, who had followed in his steps, took possession of the greater part of the island with his Eteocretes. Iolaos was the leader of Pelasgic bands, whom he conducted first into Libya and finally to Sardinia. It came also to pass that in the days of Atys, son of Manes, a famine broke out and raged throughout Lydia: the king, unable to provide food for his people, had them numbered, and decided by lot which of the two halves of the population should expatriate themselves under the leadership of his son Tyrsenos. Those-who were thus fated to leave their country assembled at Smyrna, constructed ships there, and having embarked on board of them what was necessary, set sail in quest of a new home. After a long and devious voyage, they at length disembarked in the country of the Umbrians, where they built cities, and became a prosperous people under the name of Tyrseni, being thus called after their leader Tyrsenos.*

The remaining portions of the nations who had taken part in the attack on Egypt—of which several tribes had been planted by Ramses III. in the Shephelah, from Gaza to Carmel—proceeded in a series of successive detachments from Asia Minor and the Ægean Sea to the coasts of Italy and of the large islands; the Tursha into that region which was known afterwards as Etruria, the Shardana into Sardinia, the Zakkala into Sicily, and along with the latter some Pulasati, whose memory is still preserved on the northern slope of Etna. Fate thus brought the Phonician emigrants once more into close contact with their traditional enemies, and the hostility which they experienced in their new settlements from the latter was among the influences which determined their further migration from Italy proper, and from the region occupied by the Ligurians between the Arno and the Ebro. They had already probably reached Sardinia and Corsica, but the majority of their ships had sailed to the southward, and having touched at Malta, Gozo, and the small islands between Sicily and the Syrtes, had followed the coast-line of Africa, until at length they reached the straits of Gribraltar and the southern shores of Spain. No traces remain of their explorations, or of their early establishments in the western Mediterranean, as the towns which they are thought—with good reason in most instances—to have founded there belong to a much later date. Every permanent settlement, however, is preceded by a period of exploration and research, which may last for only a few years or be prolonged to as many centuries. I am within the mark, I think, in assuming that Phonician adventurers, or possibly even the regular trading ships of Tyre and Sidon, had established relations with the semi-barbarous chiefs of Botica as early as the XIIth century before our era, that is, at the time when the power of Thebes was fading away under the weak rule of the pontiffs of Amon and the Tanite Pharaohs.

The Phoenicians were too much absorbed in their commercial pursuits to aspire to the inheritance which Egypt was letting slip through her fingers. Their numbers were not more than sufficient to supply men for their ships, and they were often obliged to have recourse to their allies or to mercenary tribes—the Leleges or Carians—in order to provide crews for their vessels or garrisons for their trading posts; it was impossible, therefore, for them to think of raising armies fit to conquer or keep in check the rulers on the Orontes or in Naharaim. They left this to the races of the interior—the Amorites and Hittites—and to their restless ambition. The Hittite power, however, had never recovered from the terrible blow inflicted on it at the time of the Asianic invasion.

The confederacy of feudal chiefs, which had been brought momentarily together by Sapalulu and his successors, was shattered by the violence of the shock, and the elements of which it was composed were engaged henceforward in struggles with each other. At this time the entire plain between the Amanus and the Euphrates was covered with rich cities, of which the sites are represented to-day by only a few wretched villages or by heaps of ruins. Arabian and Byzantine remains sometimes crown the summit of the latter, but as soon as we reach the lower strata we find in more or less abundance the ruins of buildings of the Greek or Persian period, and beneath these those belonging to a still earlier time. The history of Syria lies buried in such sites, and is waiting only for a patient and wealthy explorer to bring it to light.* The Khâti proper were settled to the south of the Taurus in the basin of the Sajur, but they were divided into several petty states, of which that which possessed Carchemish was the most important, and exercised a practical hegemony over the others. Its chiefs alone had the right to call themselves kings of the Khâti. The Patinu, who were their immediate neighbours on the west, stretched right up to the Mediterranean above the plains of Naharairn and beyond the Orontes; they had absorbed, it would seem, the provinces of the ancient Alasia. Aramaeans occupied the region to the south of the Patinu between the two Lebanon ranges, embracing the districts of Hamath and Qobah.**

The valleys of the Amanus and the southern slopes of the Taurus included within them some half-dozen badly defined principalities—Samalla on the Kara-Su,* Gurgum** around Marqasi, the Qui*** and Khilakku**** in the classical Cilicia, and the Kasku^ and Kummukh^^ in a bend of the Euphrates to the north and north-east of the Khâti.

The ancient Mitanni to the east of Carchemish, which was so active in the time of the later Amenôthes, had now ceased to exist, and there was but a vague remembrance of its farmer prowess. It had foundered probably in the great cataclysm which engulfed the Hittite empire, although its name appears inscribed once more among those of the vassals of Egypt on the triumphal lists of Ramses III. Its chief tribes had probably migrated towards the regions which were afterwards described by the Greek geographers as the home of the Matieni on the Halys and in the neighbourhood of Lake Urmiah. Aramaean kingdoms, of which the greatest was that of Bit-Adîni,* had succeeded them, and bordered the Euphrates on each side as far as the Chalus and Balikh respectively; the ancient Harran belonged also to them, and their frontier stretched as far as Hamath, and to that of the Patinu on the Orontes.

It was, as we have seen, a complete breaking up of the old nationalities, and we have evidence also of a similar disintegration in the countries to the north of the Taurus, in the direction of the Black Sea. Of the mighty Khâti with whom Thûtmosis III. had come into contact, there was no apparent trace: either the tribes of which they were composed had migrated towards the south, or those who had never left their native mountains had entered into new combinations and lost even the remembrance of their name. The Milidu, Tabal (Tubal), and Mushku (Meshech) stretched behind each other from east to west on the confines of the Tokhma-Su, and still further away other cities of less importance contended for the possession of the Upper Saros and the middle region of the Halys. These peoples, at once poor and warlike, had been attracted, like the Hittites of some centuries previous, by the riches accumulated in the strongholds of Syria. Eevolutions must have been frequent in these regions, but our knowledge of them is more a matter of conjecture than of actual evidence. Towards the year 1170 B.C. the Mushku swooped down on Kummukh, and made themselves its masters; then pursuing their good fortune, they took from the Assyrians the two provinces, Alzi and Purukuzzi, which lay not far from the sources of the Tigris and the Balikh.*

A little later the Kashku, together with some Aramaeans, broke into Shubarti, then subject to Assyria, and took possession of a part of it. The majority of these invasions had, however, no permanent result: they never issued in the establishment of an empire like that of the Khâti, capable by its homogeneity of offering a serious resistance to the march of a conqueror from the south. To sum up the condition of affairs: if a redistribution of races had brought about a change in Northern Syria, their want of cohesion was no less marked than in the time of the Egyptian wars; the first enemy to make an attack upon the frontier of one or other of these tribes was sure of victory, and, if he persevered in his efforts, could make himself master of as much territory as he might choose. The Pharaohs had succeeded in welding together their African possessions, and their part in the drama of conquest had been played long ago; but the cities of the Tigris and the Lower Euphrates—Nineveh and Babylon-were ready to enter the lists as soon as they felt themselves strong enough to revive their ancient traditions of foreign conquest.

The successors of Agumkakrimê were not more fortunate than he had been in attempting to raise Babylon once more to the foremost rank; their want of power, their discord, the insubordination and sedition that existed among their Cossæan troops, and the almost periodic returns of the Theban generals to the banks of the Euphrates, sometimes even to those of the Balikh and the Khabur, all seemed to conspire to aggravate the helpless state into which Babylon had sunk since the close of the dynasty of Uruazagga. Elam was pressing upon her eastern, and Assyria on her northern frontier, and their kings not only harassed her with persistent malignity, but, by virtue of their alliances by marriage with her sovereigns, took advantage of every occasion to interfere both in domestic and state affairs; they would espouse the cause of some pretender during a revolt, they would assume the guardianship of such of their relatives as were left widows or minors, and, when the occasion presented itself, they took possession of the throne of Bel, or bestowed it on one of their creatures. Assyria particularly seemed to regard Babylon with a deadly hatred. The capitals of the two countries were not more than some one hundred and eighty-five miles apart, the intervening district being a flat and monotonous alluvial plain, unbroken by any feature which could serve as a natural frontier. The line of demarcation usually followed one of the many canals in the narrow strip of land between the Euphrates and the Tigris; it then crossed the latter, and was formed by one of the rivers draining the Iranian table-land,—either the Upper Zab, the Radanu, the Turnat, or some of their ramifications in the spurs of the mountain ranges. Each of the two states strove by every means in its power to stretch its boundary to the farthest limits, and to keep it there at all hazards. This narrow area was the scene of continual war, either between the armies of the two states or those of partisans, suspended from time to time by an elaborate treaty which was supposed to settle all difficulties, but, as a matter of fact, satisfied no one, and left both parties discontented with their lot and jealous of each other. The concessions made were never of sufficient importance to enable the conqueror to crush his rival and regain for himself the ancient domain of Khammurabi; his losses, on the other hand, were often considerable enough to paralyse his forces, and prevent him from extending his border in any other direction. When the Egyptians seized on Naharaim, Assyria and Babylon each adopted at the outset a different attitude towards the conquerors. Assyria, which never laid any permanent claims to the seaboard provinces of the Mediterranean, was not disposed to resent their occupation by Egypt, and desired only to make sure of their support or their neutrality. The sovereign then ruling Assyria, but of whose name we have no record, hastened to congratulate Thûtmosis III. on his victory at Megiddo, and sent him presents of precious vases, slaves, lapis-lazuli, chariots and horses, all of which the Egyptian conqueror regarded as so much tribute. Babylon, on the other hand, did not take action so promptly as Assyria; it was only towards the latter years of Thûtmosis that its king, Karaîndash, being hard pressed by the Assyrian Assurbelnishishu, at length decided to make a treaty with the intruder.*