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Updated: June 12, 2025
Still less was it the result of any lack of tenacity and idiosyncrasy of national feeling; on the contrary the Aramaeans defended their nationality with the weapons of intellect as well as with their blood against all the allurements of Greek civilization and all the coercive measures of eastern and western despots, and that with an obstinacy which no Indo- Germanic people has ever equalled, and which to us who are Occidentals seems to be sometimes more, sometimes less, than human.
But with the commencement of the Assyrian period the case is altered. The entire people seems by degrees to have been Assyrianized, or at any rate Semitized-assimilated, that is, to the stock of nations to which the Jews, the northern Arabs, the Aramaeans or Syrians, the Phoenicians, and the Assyrians belong.
Up to a late period Aramaic hordes appear from time to time in western Assyria; and in a higher stage of culture, contact between Aramaeans and Assyrians was maintained by commercial intercourse and by warfare. Since the earliest mention of Ramman's cult is in the city of Ashur, it may be that he was originally connected with that place.
Northward were the Aramaeans and an Aramaic speech; southward the land of Canaan and the language which we term Hebrew. The spot where the cairn was erected bore yet another title. It was also called Mizpah, the "watch-tower," the outpost from which the dweller in Canaan could discern the approaching bands of an enemy from the north or east.
Still less was it the result of any lack of tenacity and idiosyncrasy of national feeling; on the contrary the Aramaeans defended their nationality with the weapons of intellect as well as with their blood against all the allurements of Greek civilization and all the coercive measures of eastern and western despots, and that with an obstinacy which no Indo- Germanic people has ever equalled, and which to us who are Occidentals seems to be sometimes more, sometimes less, than human.
As hard to arrest as their own blown sands, the moving Arabs fall on the nearest fertile regions, there to plunder, fight, and eventually settle down. So in comparatively modern times have the Shammar tribesmen moved into Syria and Mesopotamia, and so in antiquity moved the Canaanites, the Aramaeans, and the Chaldaeans.
Here far-sighted engineers and stronghanded rulers turned the waters of Babylon into waters of life, and the Sawâd became a great heart of civilisation, breathing in man-power Sumerians and Amorites and Kassites and Aramaeans and Chaldeans and Persians and Greeks and Arabs and breathing out the works of man grain and wool and Babylonish garments, inventions still used in our machine-shops, and emotions still felt in our religion.
The elaborate system of nail-writing of the ancient Sumerians was too involved for the Aramaean business man. He invented a new alphabet which could be written much faster than the old wedge-shaped figures of Babylon. The spoken language of the Aramaeans followed their business correspondence. Aramaean became the English of the ancient world.
He was not, however, allowed to retain his kingdom, the government of which was assumed by Sargon himself, who is the Arceanus of Ptolemy's Canon. The submission of Babylonia was followed by the reduction of the Aramaeans, and the conquest of at least a portion of Susiana.
The peoples, which were of most account in 1000, are still of the most account in 800 the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Mushki of Cappadocia, the tribesmen of Urartu, the Aramaeans of Damascus, the trading Phoenicians on the Syrian coast and the trading Greeks on the Anatolian.
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