erformer to come on the scene and
play such a part as his abilities permitted. The Cilician conquest, if
this be indeed the date at which it took place, had the boards to itself
for a hundred years after the defeat of Assurirba. The time was too
short to admit of its striking deep root in the country. Its leaders and
men were, moreover, closely related to the Syrian Hittites; the language
they spoke was, if not precisely the Hittite, at any rate a dialect of
it; their customs were similar, if, perhaps, somewhat less refined, as
is often the case with mountain races, when compared with the peoples of
the plain. We are tempted to conclude that some of the monuments found
south of the Taurus were their handiwork, or, at any rate, date from
their time. For instance, the ruined palace at Sinjirli, the lower
portions of which are ornamented with pictures similar to those
at Pteria, representing processions of animals, some real, others
fantastic, men armed with lances or bending the bow, and processions
of priests or officials. Then there is the great lion at Marash, which
stands erect, with menacing head, its snarling lips exposing the teeth;
its body is seamed with the long lines of an inscription in the Asiatic
character, in imitation of those with which the bulls in the Assyrian
palaces are covered. These Cilicians gave an impulse to the civilization
of the Khati which they sorely needed, for the Semitic races, whom they
had kept in subjection for centuries, now pressed them hard on all the
territory over which they had formerly reigned, and were striving to
drive them back into the hills.

[Illustration: 248.jpg LION AT MAKASH]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the cast shown at the
Paris Exhibition of 1889.

The Aramaeans in particular gave them a great deal of trouble. The states
on the banks of the Euphrates had found them awkward neighbours; was
this the moment chosen by the Pukudu, the Eutu, the Gambulu, and a dozen
other Aramaean tribes, for a stealthy march across the frontier of Elam,
between Durilu and the coast? The tribes from which, soon after, the
Kaldi nation was formed, were marauding round Eridu, Uru, and Larsa, and
may have already begun to lay the foundations of their supremacy over
Babylon: it is, indeed, an open question whether those princes of the
Countries of the Sea who succeeded the Pashe dynasty did not come from
the stock of the Kaldi Aramaeans. While they were thus consolidat