230 HISTORY OF GREECE. CHAPTER XIX. ASSYRIANS. - BABYLON. TIIE r,ame of the Assyrians, who formed one wing of thin early system of intercourse and commerce, rests chiefly upon the great cities of Nineveh and Babylon. To the Assyrians of Nineveh (as has been already mentioned) is ascribed in early times a very extensive empire, covering much of Upper Asia, as well as Mesopotamia or the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Respecting this empire, its commencement, its ex- tent, or even the mode in which it was put down, nothing certain can be affirmed ; but it seems unquestionable that many great and flourishing cities, and a population inferior in enter- prise, but not in industry, to the Phenicians, were to be found on the Euphrates and Tigris, in times anterior to the first Olym- piad. Of these cities, Nineveh on the Tigris and Babylon or the Euphrates were the chief; 1 the latter being in some sort of dependence, probably, on the sovereigns of Nineveh, yet gov- erned by kings or chiefs of its own, and comprehending an here- ditary order of priests named Chaldeans, masters of all the science and literature as well as of the religious ceremonies cur- rent among the people, and devoted, from very early times, to that habit of astronomical observation which their brilliant sky so much favored. The people called Assyrians or Syrians for among the Greek authors no constant distinction is maintained between the two 2 1 Hcroclot. i, 178. T^f tie 'Aaavpiric i-crrl /iev KOV KO.I u/U.a 7roA7/zarc fit' ya.la iroTCka.' rb 6e 6vofj,aa~6ra~pv /cat IcxvpoTaroi', Kat IvQa aipi, rf/<; Nivov uvaarurov yevonevrjf, TUftaffi^'ia KdTEGTTjKte, r/v Ba/St'^ov. The existence of these and several other great cities is an important item to be taken in, in our conception of the old Assyria : Opis on the Tigris, and Sittake on one of the canals very near the Tigris, can be identified (Xenoph Anab. ii, 4, 13-25) : compare Diodor. 5i, 11. 2 Hcrodot. i, 72; iii, 90-91 ; vii, 63 ; Strabo, xvi, p. 736, also ii, p. 84, it- which he takes exception to the distribution of the oiKOVpevti (inhabited por
