George Stephen Goodspeed - A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians

1. In thelofty table-land of Armenia, lying some seven thousand feet above sea level,and guarded on the south by mountain walls, the rivers Tigris and Euphrateshave their origin. Breaking through the southern range, the one stream on itseastern, the other on its western flank, they flow at first speedily down asteep incline from an altitude of eleven hundred feet in a generalsoutheasterly direction, draw closer to one another as they descend, and, aftertraversing a region measuring as the crow flies over eight hundred miles inlength, issue as one stream into the Persian gulf. This region from thenorthern mountains to the southern sea, dominated and nourished by the tworivers, is the scene of the historical development to be traced in this volume.A striking difference in geological structure divides it into two parts ofnearly equal length. For the first four hundred miles the country falls offfrom the mountains in a gentle slope. The difference in elevation between thenorthern and southern extremities aggregates about a thousand feet. A plain of"secondary formation" is thus made, composed of limestone andselenite, through which the rivers have cut their way. From this point to the gulfsucceeds a flat alluvial district, the product of the deposit of the rivers,made up of sand, pebbles, clay, and loam, upon which the rivers have builttheir channels and over which they spread their waters in the season ofinundation.

2. Theformer of these two divisions was called by the Greeks Mesopotamia, a termwhich they probably borrowed from the Semites, to whom the district, or atleast a part of it, was known in Hebrew phrase as Aram naharayim,"Aram of the two rivers," or to the Arameans as Beth naharn,"region (house) of the rivers." Marked out by the rivers and thenorthern mountains into an irregular triangle, drifting out over the Euphratesinto the desert on the southwest, and rising over the Tigris to the Zagrosmountains on the east and northeast, this region occupies an area of more thanfifty-five thousand square miles, in size about equal to the State of Illinois.Its physical contour and characteristics separate it into two fairlywell-defined districts. In the northern and higher portion, isolated ranges,thrown off from the central chains, diversify the plain, which is watered bythe mountain streams gathering into rivers of considerable size, like theBalikh and the Khabur. Limestone and, in some places, volcanic rock form the basisof a fertile soil. South and southeast of the Khabur the waters cease, gypsumand marl predominate, and the plain, down to the beginning of the alluvium,becomes a veritable steppe, the home of wandering Bedouin. The northern part,at least that west and north of the Khabur, was probably the region known tothe Egyptians as Nahrina, and in the Roman period constituted the province ofMesopotamia. On the other hand, Xenophon seems to call the southern portionArabia; the term is a striking evidence of the character of the district assteppe land, hardly to be distinguished from the western desert, and occupiedby the same wandering tribes.

3. Thesecond and southern division of the great Tigro-Euphrates valley is entirelythe gift of the rivers, a shifting delta, over which they pour themselves fromthe higher and solider formation of Mesopotamia. The proximity of the mountainsin the northeast gives the whole plain a southwestern slope with the resultthat the Euphrates has spread over a portion of the southwestern desert andthereby added a considerable district to the proper alluvial region. Moreover,the process of land-making still continues in the south, the waters of the gulfbeing pushed back at the rate of about seventy-two feet every year. At present,this division comprises about thirty thousand square miles, but calculations,based upon the increase of the land about the Persian gulf, make it appear thatin the ancient period it contained only twenty-three thousand square miles.Thus it was about equal in area to the southern half of the State of Louisiana,which it also resembled in being largely made up of alluvial and swampydistricts that are the deltas of river systems. It lay also between the samedegrees of latitude (about 30-33 N.). This was the land known to the Greeks,from the name of its capital city, Babylon, as Babylonia. It is an"interminable moorland," slightly undulating in the central districtsand falling away imperceptibly toward the south into swamps and marshes, wherethe waters of the rivers and the gulf meet and are indistinguishable. The plainalso stretches away toward the east, as in Mesopotamia, beyond the Tigris for adistance of from thirty to fifty miles, until it meets the mountains; while, onthe western side, across the Euphrates, it merges into the desert at a distanceof twenty or thirty miles, where a line of low hills checks the river'soverflow and gathers it into lakes and morasses.

4. In theseregions of Mesopotamia and Babylonia, so diversified in physical characteristics,the one essential unifying element was the rivers. To them a large section ofthe land owed its existence; the fertility and the prosperity of the whole wasdependent upon them; they were the chief means of communication, the mainchannels of trade, the distributors of civilization. It was in recognition ofthis that the ancient inhabitants called the Euphrates "the life of theland," and the Tigris "the bestower of blessing." Both areinundating rivers, nourished by mountain snows. Yet, though they lie so neartogether and finally become one, they exhibit many striking differences. TheEuphrates is the longer. It rises on the northern side of the Taurus range andwinds its way through the plateau in a southwesterly direction as though makingfor the Mediterranean which is only a hundred miles away. At about latitude 3730', it turns due south and breaks into the plain. It runs in this directionfor a hundred miles, then bending around toward the east, finds at last itstrue southeastern course and, covering in all a distance of seventeen hundredand eighty miles, unites with the Tigris and the sea. Unlike most great rivers,its lower course is less full and majestic than its upper waters. In itspassage through the Mesopotamian plain it receives but two tributaries, theBalikh and the Khabur, and these from the upper portion. Thereafter it makesits way alone between desert and steppe with waning power. From the mouth ofthe Khabur to the alluvium its width gradually diminishes from four hundred totwo hundred and fifty yards; its velocity, from four to two and one half milesan hour. At the southern boundary of Mesopotamia it spreads out in canals andpools and swamps, some of its water reaching the Tigris; but it recovers itsformer greatness farther down, receiving in its turn contributions from itssister stream. The Tigris has its source on the southeastern slopes of theTaurus, and makes a much more direct and speedy journey to the sea. Its lengthis eleven hundred and forty-six miles; its depth, volume, and velocity muchgreater than those of the Euphrates. It receives numerous tributaries from theeastern mountains not far distant in the north the Subnat, toward the middleof its course the upper and lower Zab, farther to the south the Turnat and theRadanu, all streams of considerable size, which swell its waters as theydescend. The inundation of the Tigris begins earlier and is finished beforethat of the Euphrates. The latter, with its more northern source, rises moreslowly and steadily, and its high waters continue longer. Accordingly, thewhole inundation period, including that of both rivers, is spread over half theyear, from March to September (Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, I. pp. 12 f.).The water sometimes rises very high. Loftus, in the spring of 1849, found thatthe Tigris had risen twenty-two and one half feet, which was about five feetabove the ordinary height (Chaldaea and Susiana, p. 7).