gain, after the lapse of
many centuries, international politics is being strongly influenced by
the problems connected with the development of trade in Babylonia and
its vicinity.

The history of the ancient rival States, which is being pieced
together by modern excavators, is, in view of present-day political
developments, invested with special interest to us. We have seen
Assyria rising into prominence. It began to be a great Power when
Egypt was supreme in the "Western Land" (the land of the Amorites) as
far north as the frontiers of Cappadocia. Under the Kassite regime
Babylonia's political influence had declined in Mesopotamia, but its
cultural influence remained, for its language and script continued in
use among traders and diplomatists.

At the beginning of the Pharaoh Akhenaton period, the supreme power in
Mesopotamia was Mitanni. As the ally of Egypt it constituted a buffer
state on the borders of North Syria, which prevented the southern
expansion from Asia Minor of the Hittite confederacy and the western
expansion of aggressive Assyria, while it also held in check the
ambitions of Babylonia, which still claimed the "land of the
Amorites". So long as Mitanni was maintained as a powerful kingdom the
Syrian possessions of Egypt were easily held in control, and the
Egyptian merchants enjoyed preferential treatment compared with those
of Babylonia. But when Mitanni was overcome, and its territories were
divided between the Assyrians and the Hittites, the North Syrian
Empire of Egypt went to pieces. A great struggle then ensued between
the nations of western Asia for political supremacy in the "land of
the Amorites".

Babylonia had been seriously handicapped by losing control of its
western caravan road. Prior to the Kassite period its influence was
supreme in Mesopotamia and middle Syria; from the days of Sargon of
Akkad and of Naram-Sin until the close of the Hammurabi Age its
merchants had naught to fear from bandits or petty kings between the
banks of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean coast. The city of
Babylon had grown rich and powerful as the commercial metropolis of
Western Asia.

Separated from the Delta frontier by the broad and perilous wastes of
the Arabian desert, Babylonia traded with Egypt by an indirect route.
Its caravan road ran northward along the west bank of the Euphrates
towards Haran, and then southward through Palestine. This was a long
detour, but it was the only possible way.

D