Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
Above all, the Phoenicians, like the rest of the Aramaean nations as compared with the Indo-Germans, lacked the instinct of political life the noble idea of self-governing freedom.
Urtaki, the Susianian king, took umbrage at this refusal, and, determining to revenge himself, commenced hostilities by an invasion of Babylonia. Belubager, king of the important Aramaean tribe of the Gambulu, assisted him and Saul-Mugina, in alarm, sent to his brother for protection. An Assyrian army was dispatched to his aid, before which Urtaki fled.
Many indications point more particularly to the regions of the Euphrates; so that, singularly enough, the primitive seats of the two most important civilized stocks, the Indo-Germanic and the Aramaean, almost coincide as regards locality.
That done, he would send forward envoys to demand ransom of the Phoenician towns, who grudgingly paid it or rashly withheld it according to the measure of his compulsion. Since last we looked at the Aramaean states, Damascus has definitely asserted the supremacy which her natural advantages must always secure to her whenever Syria is not under foreign domination.
South lay Patin and Bit Agusi; south of these again, Hamath and below it Damascus all new Aramaean states, which were waiting for quiet times to develop according to the measure of their respective territories and their command of trade routes. It was destined to outstrip the rest of those new Semitic states; but for the moment it was little stronger than they.
Those noble and enduring creations in the field of intellect, which owe their origin to the Aramaean race, do not belong primarily to the Phoenicians.
It is true that under the Great King the various petty states and provinces were encouraged to manage their own affairs so long as they paid the required tribute, but their horizon naturally expanded with increase of commerce and the necessity for service in the king's armies. At this time Aramaic was the speech of Syria, and the population, especially in the cities, was still largely Aramaean.
If the nation which had opened up maritime commerce on the Mediterranean had been already dislodged by its younger rival from the sole command of the western half, from the possession of both lines of communication between the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean, and from the monopoly of the carrying trade between east and west, the sovereignty at least of the seas to the west of Sardinia and Sicily might still be saved for the Orientals; and to its maintenance Carthage applied all the tenacious and circumspect energy peculiar to the Aramaean race.
On their retirement Babylonia, falling into weak native hands, was a prey to a succession of inroads from the Kassite mountains beyond Elam, from Elam itself, from the growing Semitic power of Asshur, Babylon's former vassal, from the Hittite Empire founded in Cappadocia about 1500 B.C., from the fresh wave of Arabian overflow which is distinguished as the Aramaean, and from yet another following it, which is usually called Chaldaean; and it was not till almost the close of the twelfth century that one of these intruding elements attained sufficient independence and security of tenure to begin to exalt Babylonia again into a mistress of foreign empire.
This remarkable nation has often been confounded with its eastern neighbours, the wandering Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramaean branch than to the proper children of Ishmael.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking