[76] The Pennsylvania documents published by Poebel (see above, [p. 114], n. 1) suggest that variant traditions were current with regard to the number of mythical and semi-mythical rulers of Babylonia and the duration of their rule. For instance, in two of the lists drawn up under the Nîsin kings, and separated from one another by an interval of only sixty-seven years, the total duration of the preceding dynasties appears to be given in one as 32,243, and in the other as 28,876 years. But this fact does not, of course, prevent the use of the figures which have come to us from Berossus, in order to ascertain the beginning of the historical period in the system he employed.
[CHAPTER IV]
THE WESTERN SEMITES AND THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON
The rise of Babylon to a position of pre-eminence among the warring dynasties of Sumer and Akkad may be regarded as sealing the final triumph of the Semite over the Sumerian. His survival in the long racial contest was due to the reinforcements he received from men of his own stock, whereas the Sumerian population, when once settled in the country, was never afterwards renewed. The great Semitic wave, under which the Sumerian sank and finally disappeared, reached the Euphrates from the coast-lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. But the Amurru, or Western Semites, like their predecessors in Northern Babylonia, had come originally from Arabia. For it is now generally recognized that the Arabian peninsula was the first home and cradle of the Semitic peoples. Arabia, like the plains of Central Asia, was, in fact, one of the main breeding-grounds of the human race, and during the historic period we may trace four great migrations of Semitic nomad tribes, which successively broke away from the northern margin of the Arabian pasture-lands and spread over the neighbouring countries like a flood. The first great racial movement of the kind is that of which the effects were chiefly apparent in Akkad, or Northern Babylonia, where the Semites first obtained a footing when overrunning the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. The second is distinguished from the first, as the Canaanite or Amorite, since it gave to Canaan its Semitic inhabitants; but how long an interval separated the one movement from the other it is impossible to say. The process may well have been a continuous one, with merely a change in the direction of advance; but it is convenient to distinguish them by their effects as separate movements, the sensitization of Canaan following that of Babylonia, but at the same time contributing to its complete success. Of the later migrations we are not for the moment concerned, and in any case only one of them falls within the period of this history. That was the third great movement, which began in the fourteenth century and has been termed the Aramean from the kingdom it established in Syria with its capital at Damascus. The fourth, and last, took place in the seventh century of our own era, when the armies of Islam, after conquering Western Asia and Northern Africa, penetrated even to South-Western Europe. It was by far the most extensive of the four in the area it covered, and, in spite of being the last of the series, it illustrates the character and methods of the earlier movements in their initial stages, when the desert nomad, issuing in force from his own borders, came within the area of settled civilization.
It is true that great tracts of Central Arabia are to-day quite uninhabitable, but there is reason to believe that its present condition of aridity was not so marked in earlier periods. We have definite proof of this in the interior of Southern Arabia, where there is still a belt of comparatively fertile country between the flat coastal regions and the steep mountain range, that forms the southern boundary of the central plateau.[1] On the coast itself there is practically no rainfall, and even on the higher slopes away from the coast it is very scanty. Here the herds of goats frequently go without water for many weeks, and they have learnt to pull up and chew the fleshy roots of a species of cactus to quench their thirst. But further still inland there is a broad belt of country, which is marvellously fertile and in a high state of cultivation. The rainfall there is regular during a portion of the year, the country is timbered, and the main mountain range, though possessing no towns of any size, is thickly dotted with strong fighting towers, which dominate the well-farmed and flourishing villages. To the north of the range, beyond the cultivation, is a belt roamed over by the desert-nomads with their typical black tents of woven goat-hair, and then comes the central desert, a region of rolling sand. But here and there the ruins of palaces and temples may still be seen rising from the sand or built on some slight eminence above its level.
At the time of the Sabæan kingdom, as early as the sixth century b.c., this region of Southern Arabia must have been far more fertile than it is at the present day. The shifting sand, under the driving pressure of the simoom, doubtless played its part in overwhelming tracts of cultivated country; but that alone cannot account for the changed conditions. The researches of Stein, Pumpelly, Huntington and others have shown the results of desiccation in Central Asia,[2]and it is certain that a similar diminution of the rainfall has taken place in the interior of Southern Arabia.[3] To such climatic changes, which seem, according to the latest theories, to occur in recurrent cycles,[4] we may probably trace the great racial migrations from Central Arabia, which have given their inhabitants to so many countries of Western Asia and North Africa.
It is possible to form a very clear picture of the Semite who issued from this region, for the life of the pastoral nomad, all the world over, is the same.[5] And even at the present day, in the hollows of the Arabian desert, there is enough deposit of moisture to allow of a sufficient growth of grass for pasture-lands, capable of supporting nomadic tribes, who move with their flocks of sheep and goats from one more favoured area to another. The life of such a nomad is forced into one mould by the conditions imposed by the desert; for the grass-land cannot support him and he must live on the milk and young of his flocks. He is purely a shepherd, carrying with him the simplest and lightest tents, tools, and weapons for his needs. The type of society is that of the patriarchal family, for each nomad tribe consists of a group of relatives; and, under the direction of their chief, not only the men of the clan, but the women and children, all take an active part in tending the flocks and in practising the simple arts of skin-curing and the weaving of hair and wool. So long as the pasture-lands can support his flocks, the nomad is content to leave the settled agriculturist beyond the desert edge in peace. Some of the semi-nomad tribes upon the margin of the cultivation may engage in barter with their more civilised neighbours, and even at times demand subsidies for leaving their crops in peace. But the bulk of the tribes would normally remain within their own area, while conditions existed which were capable of supplying the needs of their simple life. It is when the pasture lands dry up that the nomad must leave his own area or perish, and it is then that he descends upon the cultivation and proceeds to adapt himself to new conditions, should he conquer the settled races whose higher culture he himself absorbs.
While still held within the grip of the desert, there was never any prospect of his development or advance in civilization. The only great changes that have taken place in the life of the Arabian nomad have been due to the introduction of the horse and the camel. But these have merely increased his mobility, while leaving the man himself unchanged. The Arabs of the seventh century b.c., depicted in the reliefs from Nineveh as fleeing on their camels before the advance of the Assyrians, can have differed in no essential feature from their earliest predecessors, who made their way to the Euphrates valley on foot or with only the ass as a beast of burden. For, having once succeeded in domesticating his flocks and in living by their means upon the rolling steppes of pasture-land, the nomad's needs are fully satisfied, and his ways of life survive through succeeding generations. He cannot accumulate possessions, as he must be able to carry all his goods continually with him, and his knowledge of the uneventful past is derived entirely from oral tradition. The earliest inscriptions recovered in Arabia are probably not anterior to the sixth century b.c., and they were naturally not the work of nomads, but of Semitic tribes who had forsaken their wanderings for the settled life of village and township in the more hospitable regions of the south.