other, its direct length from east to west was nearly sixteen degrees,
or about 980 miles, while its length for all practical purposes, owing
to the interposition of the desert between its western and its eastern
provinces, was perhaps not less than 1400 miles. Its width was very
disproportionate to this. Between Zagros and the Arabian Desert, where
the width was the greatest, it amounted to about 280 miles; between
Amanus and Palmyra it was 250; between the Mons Masius and the middle
Euphrates it may have been 200; in Syria and Idumsea it cannot have been
more than 100 or 160. The entire area of the Empire was probably from
240,000 to 250,000 square miles--which is about the present size of
Austria. Its shape may be compared roughly to a gnomon, with one longer
and one shorter arm.

It added to the inconvenience of this long straggling form, which made
a rapid concentration of the forces of the Empire impossible, that the
capital, instead of occupying a central position, was placed somewhat
low in the longer of the two arms of the gnomon, and was thus nearly
1000 miles removed from the frontier province of the west. Though in
direct distance, as the crow flies, Babylon is not more than 450 miles
from Damascus, or more than 520 from Jerusalem, yet the necessary detour
by Aleppo is so great that it lengthens the distance, in the one case
by 250, in the other by 380 miles. From so remote a centre it was
impossible for the life-blood to circulate very vigorously to the
extremities.

The Empire was on the whole fertile and well-watered. The two great
streams of Western Asia--the Tigris and the Euphrates--which afforded
an abundant supply of the invaluable fluid to the most important of
the provinces, those of the south-east, have already been described at
length; as have also the chief streams of the Mesopotamian district, the