History of the Eastern Nations till their Incorporation in the Persian Empire
Leaving India - that great fragment of the original Caucasian civilization - and proceeding westward, we find two large masses of the human species filling in the earliest times the countries lying between the Indus and the Mediterranean - namely, an Judo-Persian mass filling the whole tract of country between the Indus and the Tigris; and a Semitic-Aramaic mass filling the greater part of lesser Asia and the whole peninsula of Arabia, and extending itself into the parts of Africa adjoining the Red Sea. That in the most remote ages these lands were the theatres of a civilized activity is certain, although no records have been transmitted from them to us, except a few fragments relative to the Semitic nations. The general facts, however, with regard to these ante-historic times, seem to be: 1st, That the former of the two masses mentioned - namely, the population between the Indus and the Caspian - was essentially a prolongation of the great Indian nucleus, possessing a culture similar to the Indian in its main aspects, although varied, as was inevitable, by the operation of those physical causes which distinguish the climate of Persia and Cabool from that of Hindoostan; 2d, That the Semitic or Aramaic mass divided itself at a very early period into a number of separate peoples or nations, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Arabians, etc., and that each of these acquired a separate development, and worked out for itself a separate career; 3d , That upwards of a thousand years before Christ the spirit of conquest appeared among the Semitic nations, dashing them violently against each other; and that at length one Semitic fragment - that is, the Assyrians - attained the supremacy over the rest, and founded a great dominion, called the Assyrian empire, which stretched from Egypt to the borders of India (B.C. 800); and 4th, That the pressure of this Semitic power against the Indo-Persic mass was followed by a reaction - one great section of the Indo-Persians rising into strength, supplanting the Assyrian empire, and founding one of their own, called the Persian empire (B.C. 536) , which was destined in its turn to be supplanted by the confederacy of Grecian states in B.C. 326.
Beginning with Egypt, let us trace separately the career of each of the Eastern nations till that point of time at which we find them all embodied in the great Persian empire
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