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118 as is evident from the rapid rise which ensued of the great Greek-speaking ports of Alexandria and Antioch, the coastal capitals, that is to say, of seamen going inland.

If these facts be considered with a geographical eye, a belt of fertility will be seen extending north-westward up the Euphrates, then curving to southward along the rain-gathering mountains of Syria, and ending westward in Egypt. It is a populous belt, for it is inhabited by the settled ploughmen. Except for two intervals of sterility, the trunk road of antiquity ran through its corn-fields from Babylon to Memphis. The key to some of the greater events of Ancient History is to be found in the subjection of the peoples of this agricultural strip now to this and now to that neighbouring race of superior mobility. From the south, with all the depth of Arabia behind them, the Camel-men advanced north-eastward against Mesopotamia, north-westward against Syria, and westward against Egypt; from the north-east, with all the vast depth of the Heartland behind them, the Horsemen came down from the Iranian upland into Mesopotamia; and from the north-west, whether across the peninsula of Asia Minor or directly to the Levantine shore, came the Shipmen against Syria and Egypt,