ppears upon the scene, and behind Greece looms the colossal figure of
the Roman Empire.

During the past decade, excavation has gone on apace in Egypt and
Babylonia, and discoveries of a startling and unexpected nature have
followed in the wake of excavation. Ages that seemed prehistoric step
suddenly forth into the daydawn of history; personages whom a sceptical
criticism had consigned to the land of myth or fable are clothed once
more with flesh and blood, and events which had been long forgotten
demand to be recorded and described. In Babylonia, for example, the
excavations at Niffer and Tello have shown that Sargon of Akkad, so far
from being a creature of romance, was as much a historical monarch as
Nebuchadrezzar himself; monuments of his reign have been discovered, and
we learn from them that the empire he is said to have founded had a very
real existence. Contracts have been found dated in the years when he was
occupied in conquering Syria and Palestine, and a cadastral survey that
was made for the purposes of taxation mentions a Canaanite who had been
appointed "governor of the land of the Amorites." Even a postal service
had already been established along the high-roads which knit the several
parts of the empire together, and some of the clay seals which franked
the letters are now in the Museum of the Louvre.

At Susa, M. de Morgan, the late director of the Service of Antiquities
in Egypt, has been excavating below the remains of the Achremenian
period, among the ruins of the ancient Elamite capital. Here he
has found numberless historical inscriptions, besides a text in
hieroglyphics which may cast light on the origin of the cuneiform
characters. But the most interesting of his discoveries are two
Babylonian monuments that were carried off by Elamite conquerors from
the cities of Babylonia. One of them is a long inscription of about 1200
lines belonging to Manistusu, one of the early Babylonian kings, whose
name has been met with at Niffer; the other is a monument of Naram-Sin,
the Son of Sargon of Akkad, which it seems was brought as booty to Susa
by Simti-silkhak, the grandfather, perhaps, of Eriaku or Arioch.

In Armenia, also, equally important inscriptions have been found by
Belck and Lehmann. More than two hundred new ones have been added to the
list of Vannic texts. It has been discovered from them that the kingdom
of Biainas or Van was founded by Ispuinis and Menuas, who rebuilt
Yan itself and the