the fords of the Euphrates and the great lines of trade. But the
northerner was not suited by nature for the hot and enervating climate
of the south. His force diminished, his numbers lessened, and the
subjugated Semite increased in strength. Mitanni perished like the
Hittite empire, and with the rise of the second Assyrian empire the
intruding nations of the north found themselves compelled to struggle
for bare existence. Ararat had become the leader among them, and in the
latter days of the older Assyrian dynasty had wrested territory from the
Assyrians themselves, and had imposed its dominion from the borders of
Cappadocia to the shores of Lake Urumiyeh. But on a sudden all was
changed. Tiglath-pileser swept the land of Ararat to the very gates of
its capital, destroying and plundering as he went, and a war began
between north and south which ended in the triumph of Assyria. Ararat
indeed remained, though reduced to its original dimensions in the
neighbourhood of Lake Van; but its allies in Comagênê and Cappadocia, in
Cilicia and among the Hittites, were subjugated and dispersed. The
tribes of Meshech and Tubal retreated to the coasts of the Black Sea,
and Ararat and its sister-kingdom of Minni were too exhausted to
withstand the invasion of a new race from new quarters of the world. The
Aryan Kimmerians from Russia poured through them, settling on their way
in Minni; while other Aryans from Phrygia made themselves masters of
Ararat, which henceforth took the name of Armenia. The Aramæan was
avenged: the invaders who in days before the Exodus had already robbed
him of his lands were themselves pursued to their northern retreats. The
south proved to them a land of decay and destruction; Gog and his host
were given, "on the mountains of Israel," to the vulture and the beast
of prey.