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Identifier: storyofancientna00west (find matches)
Title: The story of the ancient nations : a text-book for high schools
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Westermann, William Linn, 1873-1954
Subjects: History, Ancient
Publisher: New York : London : D. Appleton and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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organization. 81. The Fall of Assyria.—The provincial system was agreat advance toward the development oi the imperial formoi government. It was the first system which made a greatand permanent empire possible. After the fall of Assyriathe idea was adopted with little change by the Persians,whose empire covered about the same territory as theAssyrian. From them it was handed on to the Romans,and by their genius was moulded into the great provin- 68 CIVILIZATION OF EGYPT AND WESTERN ASIA cial system of the Roman Empire, which we shall studylater. The Assyrian organization was far from being a perfectone. It was only an advance over earlier forms. Its chiefweakness lay in the fact that it took the strength of the con-quered peoples in oppressive taxes. It sought, not to gov-ern the dependent nations for their own welfare, but tomake the Assyrians rich. As a consequence the hatredagainst Assyria grew stronger as time went by. About60() b. c, the Babylonians combined with the Medes, who
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The Four Great Kingdoms in 600 b. c.Egypt, Lydia, Babylonia, and Me lia. dwelt east of Assyria, took the city of Nineveh, and over-threw forever the sway of Assyria. So completely was themighty capital destroyed, that its very location was for-gotten, and remained unknown until the nineteenth cen-tury, when the excavators brought to light the remains ofthe palaces of the hated city, Nineveh. 82. The Sum of Her Work.—The important work of Assyriamay be summed up as follows: 1. She adopted ami scattered by force of arms the civiliza-tion which Babylon had developed. 2. She leveled the nations, by her conquests and deporta-tions, so that national feeling was overcome, and the East wasprepared to follow any foreign conqueror. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORIENTAL NATIONS 69 3. She developed the provincial form of government, whichwas better suited than any previous one had been, to rule anempire of vast extent. 83. The Four Great Kingdoms of the East.—After the de-cline and overthrow of Assyria

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