The main part of the population of Syria and Mesopotamia was
Aramæan--that is to say, it consisted of Semites from Arabia who spoke
Aramaic dialects. But it was exposed to constant attacks from the north,
and from time to time passed under the yoke of a northern conqueror. At
one time it was the Hittites who poured down the slopes of Mount Taurus
and occupied the fertile plains and cities of northern Syria. At another
time a kindred people from the highlands of Armenia established a
kingdom in Mesopotamia known as that of Mitanni to its own subjects, as
that of Aram-Naharaim to the Hebrews.

The northern invaders sundered the Semites of the West from those of the
East. The kings of Mitanni held guard over the fords of the Euphrates,
and intrigued in Palestine against the Egyptian Pharaohs. But this did
not prevent them from marrying into the Pharaoh's family, while their
daughters were sent to the harem of the Egyptian king. Towards the end
of the Eighteenth dynasty the sacred blood of the Pharaohs became
contaminated by these foreign alliances. For two generations in
succession the queen-mother was a Mitannian princess, and a king finally
sat upon the Pharaohs' throne who attempted to supplant the religion of
which he was the official head by a foreign cult, and thereby brought
about the fall of his house and empire.

The power of Mitanni or Aram-Naharaim--Aram of the Two Rivers--does not
seem to have long survived this event. Chushan-rishathaim, we learn from
the Book of Judges, held Palestine in subjection for eight years, until
he was driven out by the Kenizzite Othniel, and about the same time
Ramses III. of Egypt records his victory over the Mesopotamian king.
After this we hear no more of a king of Aram-Naharaim in Canaan or on
the frontier of Egypt, and when the name of Mitanni is met with a little
later in the Assyrian inscriptions it is that of a small and