Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/280

 262 A History of Art in Sardinia and Judaea. lived in the remembrance of their descendants, at any rate in the form of myths. Such are some of the doubts and perplexities which beset this vexed question. Of all the hypotheses put forth hitherto, that to which we most incline as the least open to criticism is the following : The Hittites, who at one time could treat on even terms with Egypt, and arm against her all the tribes of Asia Minor, were a mixed race. In the estimation of Assyriologists, Semitic tribes at a very early date crept in everywhere in Mesopo- tamia, and settled among the older inhabitants. These, until further notice, have been connected with the large but ill-defined Turanian family. In the course of time, the two elements blended together, the younger and stronger imposing its language and traditions upon the older and weaker. Something like this, it is supposed, took place in Syria ; Aramaean tribes, from the south, met cognate or other tribes descending from the upper valleys of the Taurus range, with whom they at first fiercely disputed the possession of the soil ; but finally agreed to take their share and live in amity. This happy result may perhaps have been induced by fear of a common danger ; when the need was felt of rallying under one chief, instead of a loose precarious federation. Hence arose a strong military power which lasted one or two hundred years. During this period, diversity of language and appellatives still served to demonstrate diversity of origin, whether of individuals or localities. But military service, in bringing together clans from every part of the peninsula, aided, too, by the persistent action of a central government, created a state and a nation properly so called, as it had in Assyria and Chaldsea. The ideas and habits thus engendered were preserved after the splitting up of the empire into small divisions, which led to loss of inde- pendence. It was not in the nature of things that the rude mountaineers of Armenia, in their conflict with the Semitic tribes in possession of the vast district which interposes between the Amanus range and the Euphrates, should have come out with the honours of war. For affinity of blood connected these Semites with the powerful tribes established on the middle and lower course of the great river, whose superiority, resulting from a long period of settled life and consequent civilization, was fully acknowledged by semi-nomadic races. A brisk intercourse was kept up between the two cognate groups, and in their straits the distant settlers