Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/69

 THE HI-TORY OF CHALL-.EA AND A YKIA. dispersed and decimated times without number, the enemies of Assyria never acquiesced in defeat. In the subjection imposed upon them they panted for revenge, and while paying their tributes they counted the hours and followed with watchful eye ever- movement of their master. Let him be carried into anv distant province, or engaged in lengthened hostilities, and rhev at once flew to their arms. If the prince were righting in Armenia, or on the borders of the Caspian. Chaldara and Susiana would rise against him : if disputing the Xile vailev with the Ethiopians, Syria would revolt in his rear, and the insurrection would spread across the plains of Asia with, the rapidity prairie tire. Thus no question received a final settlement. o ; r. the morrow of the hardest won victory the light had t: :g. The strongest and bravest exhausted themselves at game. Each campaign left gaps in ihe ranks of the jov< I O O I "!^ "* liohtina- classes, and in time, their apparent privile -_> O ^ ^ i C? most crushing of burdens. The same bur:".-,:: has for a century past been slowly destroying the dominant race in modern Tub Its members occupy nearly all the official f 3sts but they have tc supply the army as well. Since the rustom :: recruiting the latter with the children of Christians, separated from their families in infancy and converted to Islarnisir. has >een the military population has decreased year bv - sar. One :r : wars like the last and the Ottoman race will ::-- extinct. Losses in battle were then a chief cause :: ice in a state which tailed to discipline its subject peoples and to incorj irate them in its armies. A further explanation is : und in lassitude and exhaustion which must in time overtake the m -: warlike princes, the bravest generals, and the most highly temp-- of conquering races. A few years of relaxed watchfulness, an indolent and soft-hearted sovereign, are enough to let loose all the pent up forces of insubordination and to um:e them into one formidable effort. We thus see that, in manv respects, nothing could be more precarious than the prosperity ot that Assyria whose insolent triumphs had so often astonished the world since the accession ot Sar^on. o The lirst shock came from the north. About the year 6^2 all western Asia was suddenly overrun by the barbarians whom the Greeks called the Cimmerian Scythians. With an clan that nothing H
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