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A revolt on the part of the Kassite troops gave the Assyrians an excuse for interfering in the affairs of Babylonia, and from this time forward their eyes were turned covetously towards the kingdom of the south. As Assyria grew stronger, Babylonia became weaker.
Thus it will be seen that recent excavation and research have not yet supplied the data for filling in such gaps as still remain in our knowledge of the later history of Assyria and Babylon.
The Israelites were, politically speaking, a comparatively insignificant folk surrounded by mighty empires which had attained a high degree of civilisation. The excavations which are now proceeding in oriental lands, especially the territories occupied by ancient Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, are bringing much valuable and interesting matter to light.
Lastly, priests in their capacity as scribes and as judges formed another distinct class, though it should be noted that in Assyria we meet with scribes occasionally who are not priests. The range thus covered by the temple service, magic, oracles, sacrifices, the lament for the dead, and the judiciary, is exceedingly large. The subdivisions, no doubt, varied in each center.
Deer, which have always abounded in Assyria were either hunted with dogs, or driven by beaters into nets, or sometimes shot with arrows by sportsmen. It is interesting to find this habit of the stag, with which the modern English sportsman is so familiar, not merely existing in Assyria, but noticed by Assyrian sculptors, at the distance of more than twenty-five centuries from our own time.
While we have no evidence to show that the laws of Assyria were on a lower ethical plane than those of Babylonia, still, as the pupils and imitators of the Babylonians in almost everything pertaining to culture and religion, the general tone of life in Assyria was hardly as high as in the south. The warlike spirit of the rulers is but a symptom of the fiercer character of the people.
The value of Homer as a recorder of antiquity, as opening a large and distinct chapter of primitive knowledge, is only now coming by degrees into view, as the text is more carefully examined and its parts compared, and as other branches of ancient study are developed, especially as in Assyria and Egypt, and by the remarkable discoveries of Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik and in Greece.
Further, the establishment of great nations familiarized men with the idea that every large community should have its own domain. The gods were gradually massed, first in the sky, the ocean, and hades, and then in heaven. A specific divine head of the Underworld is found in Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, India, Greece, Rome, but not in Israel.
Nomads of the Suti tribes had long been raiding from the western deserts into Akkad; and the first king set up by the victorious peoples of the Sea-Land had to expel them and to repair their ravages before he could seat himself on a throne which was menaced by Elam on the east and Assyria on the north, and must fall so soon as either of these found a strong leader.
The trees of life and of knowledge are at once suggested by the mysterious sacred tree which appears in the most ancient sculptures and paintings of Egypt and Assyria, and in those of the remoter East. The most ancient types of this mystical tree of life are the date palm, the fig, and the pine or cedar."
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