THE HEBREWS AND THEIR NEIGHBORS.
CHAPTER I.
Syria.
yria is the northern extremity of the Arabian peninsula. The word Syria is a shortened form of Assyria, and was given by the Greeks, at first to the whole Assyrian empire, and later restricted to the strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates valley. Today the name is applied to the region east of Palestine, reaching to the Taurus mountains on the north and on the south and west bounded by deserts.
Its very location determined that this should never become the home of a united, homogeneous people. It has always been a highway connecting Asia and Africa and trade routes have extended through it since the earliest recorded ages. Egyptian armies pressing into Asia in an early day traversed its midst and so did those of somewhat later times pushing westward from Mesopotamia, bound upon foreign conquest.
"Syria lies between two continents—Asia and Africa; between two primeval homes of men—the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile; between two great centers of empire—Western Asia and Egypt; between all these, representing the Eastern and ancient world, and the Mediterranean, which is the gateway to the Western and modern world. Syria has been likened to a bridge between Asia and Africa—a bridge with the desert on one side and the sea upon the other; and, in truth, all the great invasions of Syria, with two exceptions, have been delivered across her northern and southern ends.... Syria is not only the bridge between Asia and Africa: she is the refuge of the drifting populations of Arabia. She has not only been the highroad of civilizations and the battle-field of empires, but the pasture and the school of innumerable little tribes. She has been not merely an open channel of war and commerce for nearly the whole world, but the vantage-ground and opportunity of the world's highest religions. In this strange mingling of bridge and harbour, of highroad and field, of battle-ground and sanctuary, of seclusion and opportunity—rendered possible through the striking division of her surface into mountain and plain—lies all the secret of Syria's history, under the religion which has lifted her fame to glory."[1]
The country falls naturally into many small districts in which petty states have arisen but which never developed into strong kingdoms. These have left but scanty remains of their civilizations.
We know nothing of Syria prior to 3500 B.C. There are evidences that this region, like Chaldea, was occupied first by a primitive people, probably belonging to the Turanian race. When a great Semitic outpouring from Arabia caused the ancient Chaldean nation to be engulfed by a vigorous people, Syria as well suffered an invasion.