Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/767

Rh reaction, was there such a centralization of authority that the patesi sank rapidly to the status of a mere governor whose every act was directed from the capital. By the first dynasty of Babylon, the correspondence of Hammurapi shows the process complete and the smallest details are controlled by the monarch at home.

Then follows the Kashshite conquest. These mountaineers from the east might well be particularistic, and where Hammurapi had over-centralized they brought in a system which can only be called feudal. Already the foundation was laid, for, from the beginning, Babylonia like Egypt had possessed a land organization which was ancestor and prototype of the manorial system of medieval Europe. Once more like its successor, the actual feudal development came only with the invasion of foreigners with cruder ideals. No longer do we have governors appointed and removed by the crown, but a group of great landlords, holding because they had aided the king in battle, and with charters which freed them from the usual dues, so that the royal officials are definitely prohibited from so much as entering the domain thus granted out, whether to inflict taxes, to collect rents, to levy troops, or for any other seigniorial right whatsoever. The influence of these great feudal barons on the course of history is infinitely more important than is that of the majority of so-called kings of an earlier time.

Meanwhile, Egypt had outgrown a similar feudal regime and had cast out the foreigners who had taken advantage of the weakness which feudalism had brought in its train. The reaction carried the Egyptians across the desert, beyond the Sinaitic Peninsula, which they had always held as a bridge-head against Syria, and up to the Euphrates. The archive-materials now show full-grown powers, in direct contact with each other, evenly matched and adopting the principle of the balance of power, diplomacy developed to a high degree, recognition of commercial interests and of spheres of influence, treaties with extradition clauses for equals and with close regulations for subject allies. But one modern characteristic we miss; we look in vain for actual provincial organization.

This provincial system we first find developed among the Assyrians. Their earlier conquests were of the usual type, but Assyria had one great advantage over her rivals: city, state, and god were identical. The original city-state of Ashur merged into the empire and other capitals became the royal residences, but the name of the larger state was still Ashur, the city was still peculiarly sacred, and the chief god, Ashur, the deified state itself, was worshipped in the best days with an almost single-minded devotion which left other