In the basins of the Tigris and the Euphrates were several distinct territories: Armenia, or the mountainous region between Asia Minor and the Caspian Sea; Assyria proper, between the Tigris and the Zagros Mountains; Babylonia, the great plain between the lower courses of the Tigris and of the Euphrates, and extending westward to the Syrian Desert; Chaldæa (in the narrower sense, as a province of the Babylonian Empire), west of the Euphrates, at the head of the Persian Gulf; Mesopotamia, between the middle courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates; Elam or Susiana, east of the Tigris, and at the head of the Persian Gulf.
THE REGION WEST OF THE
EUPHRATES
West of the Euphrates we have the peninsula of Asia Minor which later contained the important Lydian nation, and many Greek colonies connected with later history; Syria, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, divided into three distinct parts,—Syria proper; Phœnicia, or the strip of coast between Mount Lebanon and the sea; and Palestine, south of Phœnicia; the peninsula of Arabia, extending southeastward, and having little to do with ancient history.
THE HISTORIC PLATEAU
OF IRAN
East of the Zagros Mountains lay Media and Persia proper,—Media, northeastward, towards the Caspian Sea; and Persia, on the tableland of Iran stretching southward to the Persian Gulf. The latter absorbed the great monarchies of Babylonia and Assyria in the sixth century B. C., and extended almost from the Indus to the Mediterranean, Ægean, Euxine, and Caspian Seas, when it had reached the summit of its power.
THE FAR DISTANT
ORIENT
Farthest to the east was ancient China, drained by two great rivers, the Hoang and the Yangtze. Its remote situation and the barriers on the west formed by the spurs of the Himalayas, combined to make this land the most isolated of the civilized lands of the Old World.
To the west of China lies India, also drained by two great rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, which rise among the slopes of the Himalayas and flow in different directions to the sea. These two countries—China and India—stood nearly alone in ancient times, separated from the peoples of western Asia by the wide, dry plateau of Iran, and hence these countries did not exercise a great influence upon the ancient world, or come into historical view until much later.
THE KNOWN WORLD—ABOUT B.C. 450.