Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/29

 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AND SEMITIC EMPIRES 17 Testament as Abraham's contemporary under the name of Amraphel, when Chedorlaomer was King of Elam. Hammurabi was a very great ruler, who enjoyed a very long reign, and brought most of what is called on the map (1) 'the area of Semitic Empire ' under his sway. But he is especially notable because he drew up a great legal code, which was engraved on a great block of stone, and is preserved to this day. From this Code of Hammurabi we see what was the nature of the Baby- lonian state ; how it was divided into the three classes of nobles, freemen and slaves, the legal rights possessed by each class, the penalties for misdoings, the independent position of the women, the regulations for trade and commerce. All these show that a very high standard of civilisation, and an elaborate system of justice and government had been attained four thousand years ago. It was not Hammurabi who made these laws, but it was he who gave them permanent shape, much like our King Alfred in England. In the time of Hammurabi's successor, an independent principality was set up on the north coast of the Persian Gulf, which was called the Kingdom of the Sea. Three or four generations later, new forces appeared on the scene. Barbarian tribes called the Kassites attacked Babylonia from the east, having perhaps first mastered Elam; and from the west came an invasion of the Hittites, or Khatti, who are by no means to be confused with the Kassites. The Hittites were not like the Semites. Possibly they were early inhabitants of Asia Minor, the land beyond the ranges of Mount Taurus ; it is not likely that they were akin The to the people whom we shall find in Italy under Hittites. the name of Etruscans, or to the predecessors of the Hellenes in Greece who are usually called Pelasgians ; but we can say with certainty that they were not Aryans. Their invasion of Babylonia seems to have been a great raid rather than a con- quest ; but they remained in occupation of some part of North- western Mesopotamia, where they set up the kingdom of Mitani, extending into Syria. The Kassites however came as conquerors, when Babylon was weakened by the Hittite raid and by the defiance of the Country B