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THE

STRUGGLE

OF THE NATIONS

EGYPT, SYRIA,

AND

ASSYRIA

BY

G. MASPEEO

HON. D.C.L, AND FELLOW OF QUEEN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, AND PROFESSOR AT THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE

EDITED BY

A. H. SAYCE

PROFESSOR OF ASSYRIOLOGY, OXFORD

TRANSLATED BY M. L. McCLURE

JIEJIBER OF THE COMJIITTEE OF THE EGYPT EXPLORATIOX FUND

WITH MAP, THREE COLOURED PLATES, AND OVER 400 LLLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.

[published under the direction of the general literature

COMMITTEE.]

EDITOR’S PREEAGE.

It is my pleasant lot to introduce to the English reader another volume of Professor Maspero’s important work. It is no longer the Dawn of Civilization in which we find ourselves, but the full light .of an advanced culture. The nations of the ancient East are no longer each pursuing an isolated existence, and separately developing the seeds of civilization and culture on the hanks of the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia and Africa have met in mortal combat. Babylonia has carried its empire to the frontiers of Egypt, and Egypt itself has been held in bondage by the Hyksos strangers from Asia. In return, Egypt has driven back the wave of invasion to the borders of Mesopotamia, has substituted an empire of its own in Syria for that of the Babylonians, and has forced the Babylonian king to treat with its Pharaoh on equal terms. In the track of war and diplomacy have come trade and commerce; Western Asia is covered with roads, along which the merchant and the courier travel incessantly, and the whole civilised world of the Orient is knit together in a common literary culture and common commercial interests.

The age of isolation has thus been succeeded by an age of intercourse, partly military and antagonistic, partly literary and peaceful. Professor Maspero paints for us this age of intercourse, describes its rise and character, its decline and fall. For the unity of Eastern civilization was again shattered. The Hittites descended from the ranges of the Taurus upon the Egyptian province of Northern Syria, and cut off the Semites of the west from those of the east. The Israelites poured over the Jordan out of Edom and Moab, and took possession of Canaan, while Babylonia itself, for so many centuries the ruling power of the Oriental world, had to make way for its upstart rival Assyria. The old imperial powers were exhausted and played out, and it needed time before the new forces which were to take their place could acquire sufiicient strength for their work.

As usual, Professor Maspero has been careful to embody in his history the

a 2

IV

very latest diseoverios and iiddriuation. Notice, it will be fouml, has been taken even of the dcJa of Meneptah, disinterred last spring by Professor Petrie, on which the name of the Israelites is engraved. Other di.scoveries of the past year whieh relate to the period covered by the Datvn of Givilizatioic must wait to be noticed until a new edition of that volume is called for. Thus, at Elephantine, I found last winter, on a granite boulder, an inscription of Khufuankh — whose sarcophagus of red granite is one of the most beautiful objects in the Gizeh Museum — which carries back the history of the island to the age of the pyramid-builders of the fourth dynasty. The boulder was subsequently concealed under the southern side of the city-wall, and as fragments of inscribed papyrus coeval with the sixth dynasty have been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood, on one of which mention is made of “this domain” of Pepi II., it would seem that the town of Elephantine must have been founded between the period of the fourth dynasty and that of the sixth. Manetho is therefore justified in making the fifth and sixth dynasties of Elephantine origin.

It is in Babylonia, however, that the most startling discoveries have been made. At Tello, M. de Sarzec has found a library of more than thirty thousand tablets, all neatly arranged, piled in order one on the other, and belonging to the age of Gudea (b.c. 2700). Many more tablets of an early date have been unearthed at Abu-Habba (Sippara) and Jokha (Isin) by Dr. Scheil, working for the Turkish government. But the most important finds have been at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, in Northern Babylonia, where the American expedition has at last brought to a close its long work of systematic excavation. Here Sir. Haynes has dug down to the very foundations of the great temple of El-lil, and the chief historical results of his labours have been published by Professor Hilprecht (in The Bahjlonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. i. pt. 2, 1890).

About midway between the summit and the bottom of the mound, Mr. Haynes laid bare a pavement constructed of huge bricks stamped with the names of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin. He found also the ancient wall of the city, which had been built by Narara-Sin, 13'75 metres wide. The debris of ruined buildings which lies below the pavement of Sargon is as much as 9'25 metres in depth, while that above it, the topmost stratum of which brings us down to the Christian era, is only 11 metres in height. We may form some idea from this of the enormous age to which the history of Babylonian culture and writing reaches back. In fact. Professor Hilprecht quotes with approval Mr. Haynes’s words: “We must cease to apply the adjective ‘ earliest ’ to the time of Sargon, or to any age or epoch within a

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

V thousand years of his advanced civilization.” “ The golden age of Babylonian history seems to include the reign of Sargon and of Ur-Gur.”

Many of the inscriptions which belong to this remote age of human culture have been published by Professor Hilprecht. Among them is a long inscription, in 132 lines, engraved on multitudes of large stone vases presented to the temple of Eblil by a certain Lugal-zaggisi. Lugal-zaggisi was the son of Ukus, the patesi or high priest of the “ Land of the Bow,” as Mesopotamia, with its Bedawin inhabitants, was called. He not only conquered Babylonia, then known as Kengi, “ the land of canals and reeds,” but founded an empire which extended from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. This was centuries before Sargon of Akkad followed in his footsteps. Erech became the capital of Lugal-zaggisi’s empire, and doubtless received at this time its Sumerian title of “ the city ” par excellence.

For a long while previously there had been war between Babylonia and the “ Land of the Bow,” whose rulers seem to have established themselves in the city of Kis. At one time we find the Babylonian prince En-sag(sag)-ana capturing Kis and its king ; at another time it is a king of Kis who makes offerings to the god of Nippur, in gratitude for his victories. To this period belongs the famous “ Stela of the Vultures ” found at Tello, on which is depicted the victory of E-dingh’-ana-gin, the King of Lagas (Tello), over the Semitic hordes of the Land of the Bow. It may be noted that the recent discoveries have shown how correct Professor Maspero has been in assigning the kings of Lagas to a period earlier than that of Sargon of Akkad.

Professor Hilprecht would place E-dingir-ana-gin after Lugal-zaggisi, and see in the Stela of the Vultures a monument of the revenge taken by the Sumerian rulers of Lagas for the conquest of the country by the inhabitants of the north. But it is equally possible that it marks the successful reaction of Chaldsea against the power established by Lugal-zaggisi. However this may be, the dynasty of Lagas (to which Professor Hilprecht has lately added a new king, En-Kbegal) reigned in peace for some time, and belonged to the same age as the first dynasty of Ur. This was founded by a certain Lugal-kigubnidudu, whose inscriptions have been found at Niffer. The dynasty which arose at Ur in later days (cir. B.c. 2700), under Ur-Gur and Dungi, which has hitherto been known as “the first dynasty of Ur,” is thus dethroned from its position, and becomes the second. The succeeding dynasty, which also made Ur its capital, and whose kings, Ine-Sin, Pur-Sin IL, and Gimil-Sin, were the 'immediate predecessors of the first dynasty of Babylon (to which Khammurabi belonged), must henceforth be termed the third.

Among the latest acquisitions from Tello are the seals of the patesi,

VI

1 Aigul-iisiinif^al, which liniilly reniovo nil doubt as to tlio identity of “ Sargaui, king of the city,” with tlie famous iSai'gou of Akkad. 'J’he historical accuracy of kSargon’s annals, moreover, have beeji fidly vindicated. Not only have the American excavators fouiul the contemporary monuments of him and his son Narain-Sin, but also tablets dated in the years of his campaigns against “ the land of the Amorites.” In short, fSargon of Akkad, so lately spoken of as “ a half-mythical ” personage, has now emerged into the full glare of authentic history.

That the native chronologists had sutticieiit material for reconstructing the past history of their country, is also now clear. The early Babylonian contract-tablets are dated by events which officially distinguished the several years of a king’s reign, and tablets have been discovered compiled at the close of a reign which give year by year the events which thus characterised them. One of these tablets, for example, from the excavations at Niffer, begins with the words: (1) “The year when Pur-Sin (II.) becomes king. (2) The year when Pur-Sin the king conquers Urbillum,” and ends with “the year when Gimil-Sin becomes King of Ur, and conquers the land of Zabsali” in the Lebanon.

Of special interest to the biblical student are the discoveries made by Mr. Pinches among some of the Babylonian tablets which have recently been acquired by the British Museum. Four of them relate to no less a personage than Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, “ King of Elam,” as well as to Eri-Aku or Arioch, King of Larsa, and his son Dur-makh-ilani ; to Tudghula or Tid’al, the son of Gazza[ui], and to their war against Babylon in the time of Khammu[rabi]. In one of the texts the question is asked, “ Who is the son of a king’s daughter who has sat on the throne of royalty ? Uur-makh-ilani, the son of Eri-Aku, the son of the lady Kur . . . has sat on the throne of royalty,” Ifom which it may perhaps be inferred that Eri-Aku was the son of Kudur- Laghghamar’s daughter ; and in another we read, “ Who is Kudur-Laghghamar, the doer of mischief? He has gathered together the Umman Manda, has devastated the land of Bel (Babylonia), aud [has marched] at their side.” The Umman Manda were the “Barbarian Hordes ” of the Kurdish mountains, on the northern frontier of Elam, and the name corresponds with that of the Goyyim or “nations” in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. We here see Kudur-Laghghamar acting as their suzerain lord. Unfortunately, all four tablets are in a shockingly broken condition, and it is therefore difficult to discover in them a continuous sense, or to determine their precise nature.

They have, however, just been supplemented by further discoveries made by Dr. Scheil at Constantinople. Among the tablets preserved there, he has

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

Vll found letters from Kliammurabi to his vassal Sin-idinnam of Larsa, from which we learn that Sin-idinnam had been dethroned by the Elamites Kudur-Mabug and Eri-A.ku, and had fled for refuge to the court of Khammurabi at Babylon. In the war which subsequently broke out between Khammurabi and Kudur- Laghghamar, the King of Elam (who, it would seem, exercised suzerainty over Babylonia for seven years), Sin-idinnam gave material assistance to tlie Babylonian monarch, and Khammurabi accordingly bestowed presents upon him as a “recompense for his valour on the day of the overthrow of Kudur- Laghghamar.”

I must not conclude this Preface without referring to a fine scarab — found in the rubbish-mounds of the ancient city of Kom Ombos, in Upper Egypt — which bears upon it the name of Sutkhu-Apopi. It shows us that the author of the story of the Expulsion of the Hyksos, in calling the king Ra-Apopi, merely, like an orthodox Egyptian, substituted the name of the god of Heliopolis for that of the foreign deity. Equally interesting are the scarabs brought to light by Professor Flinders Petrie, on which a liitherto unknown Ya’aqob-hal or Jacob-el receives the titles of a Pharaoh.

A. H. SAYGE.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

In presenting to the public Professor IMaspero’s latest volume, the “ Premieres Melees des Peuples,” in its English form, I have little to add to the words I prefixed to the first volume of the series. I have in the present, as in the previous work, preserved Professor Maspero’s spelling of the Egyptian proper names, inserting in the Index the forms in general use among English Egyptologists. With legard to such Syrian 'personal and place names as occur in the Bible, I have followed the spelling of the Revised Version; though here, as in the Assyrian portion of the work, the forms 1‘epresented on the monuments, whether cuneiform texts, Tel el-Amarna tablets, or Egyptian hieroglyphs, are also given.

While this translation was passing through the press, fresh discoveries were made which have thrown further light upon a few points dealt with in the text, and in these cases the Editor or Translator has ventured to add such short notes as seemed needful. As an example of these, I may call attention to the notes on p. 29, in which Professor Hommel’s unhesitating identification of Khammurabi with the Amraphel of Genesis xiv. 1 is given, and also the true reading of Rim-Sin as determined by Mr. Pinches.

I have not referred in the notes to Professor HommeTs letter in the Academy of October 17th last, dealing with the word “ Arpachshad,” which he considers to be an Egypticised form of the territorial name “ Ur Kasdim,” or “Ur of the Chaldees.” This important elucidation of an ethnological term occurring in Genesis x., in a passage ascribed by recent critics to the time of the Exile, will doubtless receive the consideration it merits.

M. L. McCLURE.

London,

November 14, 1896.

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CHAPTEK I.

THE FIRST CHALD>EAN EMPIRE AND THE HYKSOS IN EGYPT.

PAGE

Syria : The Part Played by it ix the Ancient World— ^Babylon and the

First Chald.ean Empire — The Dominion of the Hyksos ; Ahmosis ... 3

Chapter II. Syria At The Beginning Of The Egyptian Conquest

Nineveh and the First Cossajan Kings — The Peoples of Syria, their 'J’owns,

their Civilization, their Eeligion — PiiffiNiciA ... ... ... ill

Chapter III. The Eighteenth Theban Dynasty

Thutmosis I. AND HIS Army — HATSHOPsiTu AND Thutmosis III.: The Organisation of the Syrian Provinces— Amen6thes III. : The Eoyal Worshippers OF Atonu ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 209

Chapter IV. The Reaction Against Egypt

The XIX'*’ Dy^nasty: Harmhabi — The Hittite Empire in Syria and in Asia Minor — Seti I. and Eamses II. — The People of the Sea: Minephtah AND THE Israelite Exodus ... ... ... ... ... 341

XII

Contents

CHAVTFAi V.

THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE.

Ramses III. — The Theiun City under the Rame.s.sides — Mansers and

Chapter VI. The Rise Of The Assyrian Empire

Phcenicia and the Northern Nations after the ])eath of Eam.ses III. — The First Assyrian Empire ; Tiglath-pileser I.— The Aram.eans and the Khati ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 569

Chapter VII. The Hebrews And The Philistines— Damascus

The Israelites in the Land of Cana.yn : The Judges — The Philistines and THE Hebrew Kingdom — Saul, Davhd, Solomon, the Defection of the Ten Tribes- — The XXP' Egyptian Dynasty — Sheshonq — Damascus ... 073

THE FIRST CHALDH]AN EMPIRE AND THE HYKSOS IN EGYPT.

SYEIA : THK PART PLAYED BY IT IN THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD — BABYLON AND THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE THE DOMINION OF THE HYKSOS : AHMOSIS.

Syria, owing to its geographical position, condemned to he subject to neighbouring powers — Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, the valley of the Orontes and of the Litany, and surrounding regions: the northern table-land, the country about Damascus, the Mediterranean coast, the Jordan and the Dead Sea—Civilization and primitive inhabitants, Semites and Asiatics: the almost entire absence of Egyptian influence, the predominance of that of Ghaldsea.

Babylon, its ruins and its environs — It extends its ride over Mesopotamia; its earliest dynasty and its struggle with Central Chaldxa — Elam, its geographical position, its peoples : Kutur-Nalchunta conquers Larsam — Eimsin (Eri-Aku) ; Khammurabi founds the first Babylonian empire ; his victories, his buildings, his canals — The Elamites in Syria: Kudur-lagamar — Syria recognizes the authority of Hammurabi and his successors.

Hie Hyksos conquer Egypt at the end of the XIV*^ dynasty; the founding of'Avaris — Uncertainty both of ancients and moderns with regard to the origin of the Hyksos : probability of their being the Khati — Their kings adopt the manners and civilization of the Egyptians : the monuments of Khiani and of Apophis I. and II. — The XV‘^‘ dynasty,

Semitic incursions following the Hyksos — The migration of the Phoenicians and the Israelites into Syria : Terah, Abraham and his sojourn in the land of Canaan — Isaac, Jacob, J oseph : the Israelites go down into Egypt and settle in the land of Goshen.

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Ththcs rcroJts (u/dinat the Ilnkava: popnlitr trailitioaa f/.s to the on'jin of the tear, tin roviance of Apophis and SaqiiAnri — The Theban princeaaea and the laat hin'ja of the XVI1''‘ dynastp ; Tiddqni Kamoais, Aliinosia I. — The lords of El-K<dj, ami the jxirt they played dariny the loar of independence — TIte takiny of Avaris and the expidsion of the Hykabs.

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The reoryanization of Egypt — Ahmosis [. and his Nubian loars, the reopening of the

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quarries of TArah — Amenbthes 1. and his mother Nofritari: the jewellery of Queen Ahleotpu — The xvars of Amenuth.es I., the apotheosis of Nofrttari — The accession of ThAtrnoais I. and the re-yeneration of Egypt.

THE ENAMELLED GOLD NECKLACE OP QUEEN AHHOTPU IN THE GIZEU MUSEUM.'

Chapter I. The First Chald/ean Empire And The Hyksos In Egypt

Syria : the part played by it in the ancient world — Babylon and the first Chaldsean empire — The

dominion of the Hyksos : Ahmosis.

SOME countries seem destined from their origin to become the battle-fields of the contending nations which environ them. Into such regions, and to their cost, neighbouring peoples come from century to century to settle their quarrels and bring to an issue the questions of supremacy which disturb their little corner of the world. The nations around are eager for the possession of a country thus situated ; it is seized upon bit by bit, and in the strife dismembered and trodden underfoot : at best the only course open to its inhabitants is to join forces with one of its invaders, and while helping the intruder to overcome the rest, to secure for themselves a position of permanent servitude. Should some unlooked-for chance relieve them from the presence of their foreign lord, they will probably be quite incapable of profiting by the

' Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The vignette, also by Faucher-Qudin, from a photograph by Deveria taken in 1864, represents the gilded mask of the cofiin of Queen Ahhotpu I. Of. p. 95, et seq., of the present volume.

THE FIRST CHALDJEAN EMPIRE.

respite which fortune puts in tlieir way, or of making any effectual attempt to organize themselves in view of future attacks. They tend to become split up into numerous rival communities, of which even the pettiest will aim at autonomy, keeping up a perpetual frontier war for the sake of becoming possessed of or of retaining a glorious sovereignty over a few acres of corn in the plains, or some wooded ravines in the mountains. Year after year there will be scenes of bloody conflict, in which petty armies will fight petty battles on behalf of petty interests, but so fiercely, and with such furious animosity, that the country will suffer from the strife as much as, or even more than, from an invasion. There will be no truce to their struggles until they all fall under the sway of a foreign master, and, except in the interval between two conquests, they will have no national existence, their history being almost entirely merged in that of other nations.

From remote antiquity Syria was in the condition just described, and thus destined to become subject to foreign rule. Chaldaia, Egypt, Assyria, and Persia presided in turn over its destinies, while Macedonia and the empires of the West were only waiting their opportunity to lay hold of it. By its position it formed a kind of meeting-place where most of the military nations of the ancient world were bound sooner or later to come violently into collision. Confined between the sea and the desert, Syria offers the only route of easy access to an army marching northwards from Africa into Asia, and all conquerors, whether attracted to Mesopotamia or to Egypt by the accumulated riches on the banks of the Euphrates or the Nile, were obliged to pass through it in order to reach the object of their cupidity. It might, perhaps, have escaped this fatal consequence of its position, had the formation of the country permitted its tribes to mass themselves together, and oppose a compact body to the invading hosts ; but the range of mountains which forms its backbone subdivides it into isolated districts, and by thus restricting each tribe to a narrow existence maintained among them a mutual antagonism. The twin chains, the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, which divide the country down the centre, are composed of the same kind of calcareous rocks and sandstone, while the same sort of reddish clay has been deposited on their slopes by the glaciers of the same geological period.^ Arid and bare on the northern side, they send out towards the south featureless monotonous ridges, furrowed here and

" Drake remarked in the Lebanon several varieties of limestone (Bueton-Deake, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. pp. 90, 91), which have been carefully catalogued by Blanche and Lartet (Duo de Ldynes, Voyage d’ exploration a la mer Morte, vol. iii. pp. 40, 41, 49-58). Above these strata, which belong to the Jurassic formation, come reddish sandstone, then beds of very hard yellowish limestone, and finally marl. The name Lebanon, in Assyrian Libnana, W'ould appear to signify “ the white mountain;” the Amorites called the Anti-Lebanon Saniru, Shenir, according to the Assyrian texts (Fk. Delitzsch, TFo lag das Parodies? p. 104) and the Hebrew books {Dent. iii. 9; 1 Ghron. V. 23).

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there by short narrow valleys, hollowed out in places into basins or funnelshaped ravines, which are widened year by year by the down-rush of torrents. These ridges, as they proceed southwards, become clothed with verdure and offer a more varied outline, the ravines being more thickly wooded, and the summits less uniform in contoiir and colouring. Lebanon becomes white and ice-crowned in winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude of perpetual snows : the highest of them. Mount Timarun, reaches 10,52G feet, while only three others exceed 9000.^ Anti-Lebanon is, speaking generally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower than its neighbour : it becomes higher, however, towai’ds the south, where the triple peak of Mount Hermon^ rises to a height of 9184 feet. The Orontes and the Litany drain the intermediate space. The Orontes rising on the west side of the Anti-Lebanon, near the ruins of Baalbek,^ rushes northwards in such a violent manner, that the dwellers on its banks call it the rebel — Nahr el-Asi.^ About a third of the way towards its mouth it enters a depression, which ancient dykes help to transform into a lake ; it flows thence, almost parallel to the sea-coast, as far as the 36th degree of latitude. There it meets the last spurs of the Amanos, but, failing to cut its way through them, it turns abruptly to the west, and then to the south, falling into the Mediterranean after having received an increase to its volume from the waters of the Afrin.^ The Litany rises a short distance from the Orontes ; it flows at first through a wide and fertile plain, which soon contracts, however, and forces it into a channel between the spurs of the Lebanon and the Galileean hills.® The water thence makes its way between two cliffs of

* Bokton-Drake, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. p. 88, attributed to it an altitude of 9175 English feet ; others estimate it at 10,539 feet. The mountains which exceed 3000 metres are Dahr el-Kozib, 3046 metres ; Jebel-Miskiyah, 3080 metres ; and Jebel-Makhmal or Makmal, 3040 metres (Elisee Eeclus, Nouvelle G^ographie universelle, vol. ix. pp. 693, 694). As a matter of fact, these heights are not yet determined with the accuracy desirable.

^ It was sometimes called in the plural, Hermonim, the Hermons (Ps. xlii. 6).

® Pliny, Natural History, Bk. V. xviii. : “Amnis Orontes, natus inter Libanum et Antilibanum, juxta Heliopolin.” On the source of the Orontes, cf. Burton-Drake, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. pp. 58-66.

* The Egyptians knew it in early times by the name of Aunrati, or Araunti (E. de Eouge, Le Poeme de Pen-ta-our, 1856, p. 8, whose opinion has since been adopted by all Egyptologists) ; it is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions under the name of Arantti (Fr. Delitzsch, TFo lag das Parodies? p. 274). All are agreed in acknowledging that this name is not Semitic, and an Aryan origin is attributed to it, but without convincing proof ; according to Strabo (xvi. ii. § 7, p. 750), it was originally called Typhon, and was only styled Orontes after a certain Orontes had built the first bridge across it. The name of Axios which it sometimes bears appears to have been given to it by Greek colonists, in memory of a river in Macedonia (Sozomen, History, vii. 15). This is probably the origin of the modern name of Asi, and the meaning, rebellious river, which Arab tradition attaches to the latter term, probably comes from a popular etymology which likened Axios to Asi : the identification was all the easier since it justifies the epithet by the violence of its current (Pococke, Travels, French trans. 1777, vol. iii. pp. 414, 415).

^ The Afrin is the Aprie of cuneiform inscriptions, at first confounded with one of the two rivers of Damascus, the Baradah (Finzi, Eicerche per lo Studio dell’ Antichita Assira, p. 284), the exact position of which was discovered by H. Eawlinson (G. Eawlinson, The Five Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 89).

® The Litany was identified b}' Eeland {Paliestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata, vol. i. pp. 290, 291) with the river of the Lion, aIovtos woTap.6s of Ptolemy (v. 15), commonly called Leontes : Strabo, who mentions the river, gives it no name at all (xvi. ii. § 24, p. 758). Eeland’s hypothesis has been strenuously opposed by Poulain de Bossay (Essais de restitution et d’ interpretation d’un a(ELE-STBIA AND TEE NOETEERN TABLE-LAND.

perpendicular rock, tke ravine being in several places so narrow, tkat tke branches of the trees on the opposite sides interlace, and an active man could readily leap across it. Near Yakhmur some detached rocks appear to have been arrested in their fall, and, leaning like flying buttresses against the mountain face, constitute a natural bridge over the torrent.^ The basins of the two rivers lie in one valley, extending eighty leagues in length, divided by an almost imperceptible watershed into two beds of unequal slope. The central part of the valley is given up to marshes. It is only towards the south that we find cornfields, vineyards, plantations of mulberry and olive trees, spread out over the plain, or disposed in terraces on the hillsides. Towards the north, the alluvial deposits of the Orontes have gradually formed a black and fertile soil, upon which grow luxuriant crops of cereals and other produce. Coele- Syria, after having generously nourished the Oriental empires which had preyed upon her, became one of the granaries of the Eoman world, under the capable rule of the Caesars.

Syria is surrounded on all sides by countries of varying aspect and soil. That to the north, flanked by the Amanos, is a gloomy mountainous region, with its greatest elevation on the seaboard : it slopes gradually towards the interior, spreading out into chalky table-lands, dotted over with bare and rounded hills, and seamed with tortuous valleys which open out to the Euphrates, the Orontes, or the desert. Vast, slightly undulating plains succeed the table-lands : the soil is dry and stony, the streams are few in number a,nd contain but little water. The Sajur flows into the Euphrates,^ the Afrin n,nd the Karasu when united yield their tribute to the Orontes,® while the others for the most part pour their waters into enclosed basins. The Khalus of the Greeks sluggishly pursues its course southward, and after reluctantly leaving the gardens of Aleppo, finally loses itself on the borders of the desert in a small salt lake full of islets : ^ about halfway between the Khalus and the

passage de Scylax, pp. 39, 40), and it is now acknowledged that the Lion Kiver and the Litany have nothing in common (Kiepeet, Handhuch der Alien Geographie, p. 159, n. 2). The Samaritan Chronicles published by Neubauer call it the Nahar Litah [Journal Asiatique, 1869, vol. ii. p. 442). The Anastasi Papyrus, No. 1, pi. xs. 1. 8, pi. xxi. 1. 8, mentions a watercourse between Tyre and Sidon, called the Nazana, which can only be the Nahr Kasi'miye'h, that is to say, the lower stream of the Litany (Maspeeo, Notes sur diffdrents points de grammaire et d’histoire, § 13, in the Melanges d' Archeblogie Egyptienne et Assyrienne, vol. i. pp. 140, 141).