st period. It had suffered gradual
decline, under a series of inert and luxury-loving kings, until it was
unable to withstand the gradual encroachment on every side of the
restless hill tribes, who were ever ready to revolt when the authority
of Ashur was not asserted at the point of the sword.

After 950 B.C. the Hittites of North Syria, having shaken off the last
semblance of Assyrian authority, revived their power, and enjoyed a
full century of independence and prosperity. In Cappadocia their
kinsmen had freed themselves at an earlier period from the yoke of the
Muski, who had suffered so severely at the hands of Tiglath-pileser I.
The Hittite buildings and rock sculptures of this period testify to
the enduring character of the ancient civilization of the "Hatti".
Until the hieroglyphics can be read, however, we must wait patiently
for the detailed story of the pre-Phrygian period, which was of great
historical importance, because the tide of cultural influence was then
flowing at its greatest volume from the old to the new world, where
Greece was emerging in virgin splendour out of the ruins of the
ancient Mykenaean and Cretan civilizations.

It is possible that the conquest of a considerable part of Palestine
by the Philistines was not unconnected with the revival of Hittite
power in the north. They may have moved southward as the allies of the
Cilician State which was rising into prominence. For a period they
were the overlords of the Hebrews, who had been displacing the older
inhabitants of the "Promised Land", and appear to have been armed with
weapons of iron. In fact, as is indicated by a passage in the Book of
Samuel, they had made a "corner" in that metal and restricted its use
among their vassals. "Now", the Biblical narrative sets forth, "there
was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the
Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords and spears; but
all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man
his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock".[420] "We
are inclined", says Professor Macalister, "to picture the West as a
thing of yesterday, new fangled with its inventions and its
progressive civilization, and the East as an embodiment of hoary and
unchanging traditions. But when West first met East on the shores of
the Holy Land, it was the former which represented the magnificent
traditions of the past, and the latter which looked forward to the
futu