Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/129

Rh its length it is overlooked by the range of the Persian Mountains, the high Iranian brink of the Heartland. One of the great events of Classical History was when the Persian Highlanders came down on to the Euphrates plain under their King Cyrus, and, after conquering Babylon, passed on by the Syrian road through Damascus to the conquest of Egypt.

The gorge by which the Euphrates escapes from the Armenian upland is more than 800 miles in a direct line from the river mouth and only a little more than 100 miles from the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea near Aleppo. Immediately west of this gorge the High Upland of Armenia, some one and a half miles in average elevation, drops to the much lower peninsular tableland of Asia Minor. A second great event in Classical History was when the Macedonians, under King Alexander, having crossed the Dardanelles and traversed the open centre of Asia Minor, descended by the Taurus passes into Cilicia, and struck through Syria into Egypt, and then from Egypt back through Syria to the Euphrates, and down the Euphrates to Babylon. It is true that Alexander thus led his Macedonians overland into Arabia, but their attack was really based on sea-power,