of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The great Theban dynasty
is then exhibited in its romantic rise under the Pharaohs.
Maspero writes not as a mere chronicler or reciter of events,
but as a philosophical historian. He makes the reader
understand how fatally the chronic militarism of these
competing empires drained each of its manhood and brought
Babylon and Assyria simultaneously into a hopeless condition
of national anæmia. Equally pathetic is the picture drawn of
the gradual but sure decay of the grand empire of the
Pharaohs. Maspero, with masterly skill, passes a processional
of these despots before our eyes.


_I.--The Chaldæan Empire and the Hyksos_


Some countries seem destined from their origin to become the
battlefields of the contending nations which environ them. Into such
regions neighbouring peoples come to settle their quarrels, and bit by
bit they appropriate it, so that at best the only course open to the
inhabitants is to join forces with one of the invaders. From remote
antiquity this was the experience of Syria, which was thus destined to
become subject to foreign rule. Chaldæa, Egypt, Assyria and Persia in
turn presided over its destinies. Semites dwelt in the south and the
centre, while colonies from beyond the Taurus occupied the north. The
influence of Egypt never penetrated beyond the provinces lying nearest
the Dead Sea. The remaining populations looked rather to Chaldæa, and
received the continuous impress of the kingdoms of the Euphrates.

The lords of Babylon had, ordinarily, a twofold function, the priest at