Talk:Bronze Age (for deletion, kept for Palestinian details)

Additional content for after 1200-1150 B.C.

Egypt

Egyptian Revival

The half-hearted Assyrian occupation of Egypt (671-663 B.C.) was terminated by a revival of Egyptian nationalism somewhat like that which had accompanied the expulsion of the Hyksos, although it lacked the intensity of the earlier movement. The new leader of the Egyptians was Psammeticus (or Psametik) of Sais, in the western Delta, who had been appointed governor by the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal. After the Assyrian yoke had been cast off, Psammeticus unified Egypt once more and became the first ruler of the XXVI, or Saite Dynasty. The Saite period of Egyptian history (663-525 B.C.) represents a temporary revival of Egypt as a world power, a role which she was to share with the Neo-Babylonians, Medes and Lydians. Although the Saite culture is often criticized for its sterile archaism—an attempt to recreate the glories of the Empire—it is nevertheless interesting, especially in its literary aspects. The greatest prosperity of the Saites was during the reign of Ahmoses II (569-525 B.C.), when Egypt traded not only with the Near East but also with the rising Greek states of Asia Minor, the Aegean islands and European Greece. Many professional Greek soldiers found employment in the Egyptian armies of this period.

In the end, however, Egypt, like Media, Lydia and Babylonia, was incorporated into the expanding Persian Empire. In 525 B.C. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, fought his way past Pelusium and into the Nile Valley. Egypt was organized as a Persian satrapy and had to submit to the indignity of having a Persian governor and Persian garrisons stationed throughout the land. Despite several revolts in which the Egyptians temporarily expelled the Persians, Egypt remained a Persian province until the coming of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.

Rule of the Ptolemies

When Alexander died in 323 B.C., the rich prize of Egypt was taken by one of his generals, Ptolemy, son of Lagus. Successfully holding Egypt against his rivals, Ptolemy eventually took the title of King about 306 B.C., and his descendants ruled Egypt as the successors of the Pharaohs until the death of Cleopatra in 30 B.C. Under the Ptolemies, Egypt was once more an imperial state controlling Cyrene, Cyprus and southern Syria. In the Ptolemiac period all Egypt was turned into a vast plantation, which was operated for the benefit of its Macedonian rulers. The land, the chief source of wealth, was considered the property of the king. Some land he retained and rented out for cultivation by the royal serfs (the Egyptian peasantry); other land, given to the nobles or to military (mostly Greek and Macedonian) colonists, was subject to taxation. The external trade of the country was a state monopoly, while all internal trade was taxed. There were also numerous lucrative state monopolies: salt, papyrus, linens, oils, mines and banks. For the administration of this great business enterprise, an extensive bureaucracy was built up. While foreign affairs, the armed forces, and the administration of justice were handled by ministers with great authority, the financial affairs were under the supervision of an official called the dioecetes, whose bureau directed the activieits of the royal officials in the provinces (nomes) and their territorial subdivisions. Agricultural production was carefully planned in advance of each growing season, and it was possible to estimate the revenues long before they were received.

Alexandria, the great city in the Delta founded by Alexander, was made the capital of Egypt as well as the center of literary and scientific activity in the Hellenistic world. In the Library and the Museum at Alexandria famous scholars and scientists—Euclid, Eratosthenes, Aristarchus and many more—lived and worked under Ptolemaic patronage.

In Ptolemaic times, Greek was the official language of Egypt, and although the natives retained their own language, they acquired a veneer of Greek culture and began to assume Greek names in addition to their Egyptian ones.

Roman Exploitation

Under the Romans after 30 B.C., Egypt was the private possession of the Roman emperor and was governed by a special equestrian prefect appointed by him. The bureaucracy of the Ptolemaic period was retained and amplified by the Romans, who exploited Egypt more thoroughly than the Ptolemies had done. As a matter of fact, the tribute exacted by the Romans was four times that received by the Ptolemies. In addition to duties on imports and exports, taxes and assessments paid in coin, there were fifty varieties of taxes paid in kind, and two hundred miscellaneous taxes. Thus, Egypt sent to Rome a revenue equivalent to twenty million dollars a year, in addition to five million bushels of wheat, as an annual tribute.

Alexandria, organized as a municipality on the Greek order, was a large city with a population of perhaps 300,000 in the Roman period. Cosmopolitan, with a large foreign population, the city was the scene of numerous riots and disorders; the Jewish colony was large and cordially hated by the pagans; anti-Jewish riots were common.

In the 3rd century of the Christian Era, Egypt began to show definite effects of the Roman exploitation; productivity declined, and the peasants often fled from their holdings. In the time of Zenobia of Palmyra, Egypt was temporarily attached to that state. In the reign of Diocletian a serious Egyptian revolt was quelled with great difficulty. Independence was declared by Achilleus (L. Domitius Domitianus) in A.D. 296, and Diocletian was forced to punish the Egyptians severely when he retook the country in 297. After this, Egypt was divided into three provinces, a number which later was increased to five.

In the 3rd century also, the new Christian faith gained many converts in Egypt. As a result, widespread Roman persecutions of the Christians, especially those instigated by Decius and Diocletian, caused much suffering in Egypt. After Christianity was graned equality with the other religions in the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great, Egypt, and especially Alexandria, became an important Christian centre. It was in Egypt in the 4th century that there originated the famous controversy between the orthodox Christians and the Arians which was to divide the Christian world for many centuries. On the orthodox side was the young Alexandrian deacon, Athanasius, later Bishop of Alexandria, and on the other side was the Alexandrian presbyter, Arius. As time passed, the native Egyptian church, the Coptic, became more and more a nationalist organization which was hostile to Greek influences.

Moslem Occupation

During the Byzantine period, Egypt was governed by Constantinople, but the hold of the Eastern Roman Empire over the country was gradually weakened. Early in the 7th century, the Persians penetrated as far as Egypt and had to be expelled by the Emperor Heraclius. Then, with the rise of Islam, Egypt was lost.

In December 639, the Ommiad commander, Amr-ibn-al-As, led an army from Palestine into Egypt. By September 642, conquest was complete, the Byzantine government having agreed to a fixed payment of tribute in return for the Moslem promise to leave the Christians in possession of their churches and not to interfere in the administration of their communal affairs. From this time, Egypt was a province of the Eastern caliphate and was ruled by governors. However, in 868 Egypt was given in fief to a Turkish general Bayikbeg who entrusted Egypt to his stepson Ahmad ibn Tulun. The latter founded a quasi-independent dynasty known as the Tulunid. The period of Tulunid power ended in 935 when Muhammed ibn Tughj conquered Fostat and established the rule of the Ikshidite Dynasty.

Fatimids

In 969, Egypt was invaded from the west by Jauhar el-Kaid, a Fatimid general, and Cairo was made the capital of the Fatimid caliph Mo’izz. Under the first two Fatimid caliphs, Egypt enjoyed a sound administration, but with the third, al-Hakim (985-1021), there began a period of repressive government and an increasingly bad economic situation. Although during the reign of al-Hakim’s grandson, al-Mustansir (1036-1094), his general, Badr al-Jamali, restored order within Egypt, he was unable to prevent the Seljuks from usurping Fatimid power in Syria and Palestine. Jerusalem was recovered from the Turks, but it was lost again in 1099 to the Crusaders, who also obtained other Fatimid territory in Palestine. The Fatimid rulers were by this time too weak to cope with the combined problems of the Seljuk Turks, the Crusaders, and the internal strife in Egypt, and the last of the Fatimid caliphs, Adid, was forced to ask for help from Nureddin (1118-1174), Seljuk ruler of Syria. In 1169, Adid appointed a powerful Seljuk general, Shirguh, as vizier of Egypt.

Seljuks & Ayyubids

Shirguh was succeeded, on his death two months later, by his nephew Saladin (1138-1193), who still professed to be only a deputy of Nureddin. Saladin, with the help of Nureddin, kept the Franks out of Egypt, deposed the caliph Adid, and gradually substituted the Sunnite form of Islam for the previously dominant Shiite form. After the death of the ex-caliph, he was given the prefecture of Egypt as deputy of Nureddin, and after the latter’s death in 1174, he took the title of Sultan, which officially started the Ayyubid Dynasty, in Egypt. By 1183, he had extended his rule to include North Syria. The rest of his life is notable primarily for his wars with the Crusaders. He died in 1193, only a few months after a temporary peace between the Franks and the Moslems had been established.

Mamelukes

The heirs of Saladin ruled Egypt and varying parts of his empire, until they were supplanted in 1250 by the Mamelukes, the name given to the enfranchised slaves who, under the Ayyubids, had made up the court and officered the army. The period of the Mamelukes lasted until 1517, and was marked by a succession of wars, internal struggles for power, and general tumult. The first period of Mameluke rule was under the Bahri Mamelukes (to 1382), the second under the Burji Mamelukes.

Egypt Under the Ottomans

A long struggle between the Egyptian and Ottoman sultanates ended in the defeat of the Egyptians in 1517. After that time, Egypt has been nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire. However, even after the conquest the Mamelukes retained their power, and Egypt’s importance to the Ottoman Empire, apart form the tribute which it paid, was mainly that it served as a base of operations for the maintenance of Ottoman power over Syria and Arabia.

Hittites

The Hittites sacked Babylon in 1595. Hittite power declined in the 12th century B.C.

Mesopotamia

Middle Babylonian Kingdom

After 1200 B.C., the Semites of the plain had thrown off the yoke of the Kassite peoples, resulting in the ensuing Middle Babylonian period. During this time, the Babylonians fought with the Assyrians, the mountaineers of Elam. After a long struggle, the southern desert tribes would fall victims to Assyrian imperialism. Babylon was plundered by Sennacherib in 689, and except for brief periods of revolt, Babylonia remained a province of Assyria until the last quarter of the 7th century.

Assyrian Empire

Assyria lay north of Babylon along the upper Tigris and the waters of the Great and Little Zab rivers. The history of Assyria after its first rise to national greatness falls into three main periods:

Period I. (1300-1100 B.C.) The first problem of the Assyrians was to secure their frontiers. On the west were the once-powerful Mitannians, to the north the Urartu around Lake Van, to the east the Elamite tribes, and to the south the Kassites. During the first part of this period there was continuous fighting with the Mitannians and Urartu led by the great Assyrian king, Shalmaneser I, and his successors. By the end of the period, when defensible frontiers had been secured on the east, north, and west, the Assyrians were able, under Tiglath-pileser I, to turn their attention to the south in Babylonia, where the Kassite dynasty had recently fallen (1169 B.C.). At the end of the 12th century B.C., Tiglath-pileser captured Babylon, but the Assyrians were unable to retain it after his death, when the pressure from the Hittites in Syria forced them to turn their attention once more to the west.

Period II. (885-763 B.C.) After two centuries of confusion following the death of Tiglath-pileser I, the Assyrians emerged at the beginning of the 9th century B.C. as a completely militarized state. Under three great warrior-kings—Ashurnasirpal II, Shalmaneser II, and Adadnirari III—whose reigns cover the period 885-783 B.C., the Assyrians once more secured their frontiers to the north and east, reached the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and penetrated Babylonia. Ashurnasirpal II, who boasted that he had “no rival among the princes of the Four Quarters of the World,” campaigned against one or another enemy of Assyria almost every year of his long reign, and his successors followed his example. Nevertheless, a century of such sustained effort had its necessary price, and the Assyrian state collapsed into a temporary anarchy after an eclipse of the sun in 763 B.C.

Period III. (745-612 B.C.) By 745 B.C., order in Assyria had been restored by Tiglath-pileser III, who also accomplished the reconquest of Babylonia and was crowned king in the ancient city of Hammurabi in 728 B.C. Under Sargon II, who established a new Assyrian dynasty in 722 B.C., the Assyrians began a truly imperial age. It was Sargon II who captured and deported the Isrealites, destroyed the Hittite fortress of Carchemish, and extended his realm to the borders of Egypt. Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) carried the Assyrian standards into Elam and also destroyed the city of Babylon after it had revolted in 689. Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) in 671 carried out the conquest of Egypt; and between 669 and 626 B.C., during the reign of his son Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian Empire attained its greatest limits.

This period saw the imperial throne occupied by rulers whose names were familiar through the part they played in the Old Testament: Sargon II, who carried off the Isrealites; Sennacherib, to whom the Jews paid tribute; Esarhaddon, who conquered Egypt; and Ashurbanipal, whose great library preserved the treasures of Babylonian literature. Under the Assyrians, Mesopotamia was only part of an extensive empire which included Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

Thereafter, Assyria began to disintegrate very rapidly. The Babylonians revolted in 625 and then allied themselves with the Medes from the Iranian plateau. New invasions of the Near East by the Cimmerians and Scythians, and the rise of nationalism in Medea and Babylonia saddened the last years of Ashurbanipal and sapped the military and financial reserves of Assyria. A combined force of Medes, Babylonias, and Scythians captured the Assyrian capital of Ninevah in 612 B.C., and thus brought the independence of Assyria to an end.

Assyrian Civilization. Patterned after the Babylonian, the Assyrian culture was responsible for a number of important innovations. The formation of their empire has been called the first real attempt at political organization in the ancient world. Conquered territories were divided into provinces, and all paid tribute to the king. In remote areas the provinces retained their own local governments, with officials who were vassals of the Assyrian ruler; other areas maintained native governments with Assyrian governors and garrisons, while still others were kept in complete subjection. Many cities enjoyed municipal autonomy under charters granted by the king. The Assyrian army was better organized and more versatile than any which had preceeded it. War chariots were employed; there were both heavy and light armed infantrymen, as well as bowmen and slingers. The Assyrian engineers developed efficient siege machinery which the best fortified cities could not withstand.

In chemistry and medicine the Assyrians made considerable progress beyond the points attained by the Babylonians. They were expert at working leather and making dyes. In medicine the Assyrians employed almost four hundred vegetable and mineral drugs. Medical texts reveal the use of charms and incantations in the treatment of disease, although in many cases more efficacious remedies were employed; for example, physicians used cold baths to reduce fever, and recognized that dental infections were responsible for some illnesses. There are also examples of psychiatry and mental healing.

The Assyrians were masters of psychological warfare. They deliberately encouraged stories of their ferocity in combat and their implacable punishment for those who dared to oppose them. As a result, their enemies often fled before them without striking a blow, and their subjects hesitated to raise the standard of revolt. The official Assyrian inscriptions are full of bloodthirsty accounts of battle and the punishments meted out to the enemy.

Neo-Babylonian Kingdom

With the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom (612 B.C.) under Nabopolassar and his successor, Nebuchadnezzar, the plain once more dominated the highlands, and the territory of the new Babylonian rulers extended beyond the confines of Mesopotamia to include Palestine and Syria. Nebuchadnezzar was responsible for the attack on Jerusalem and the subsequent Babylonian captivity of the Jews, which began in 597 B.C.. Nebuchadnezzar is remembered as the builder of the Hanging Gardens and the king who carried off the Jews into the Babylonian captivity (587-586 B.C.). A contemporary Babylonian relief supports the Biblical tradition that some Jews were thrown into "fiery furnaces."

Defeated by the Persians under Cyrus the Great, the last of the Neo-Babylonian monarchs, Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, also figure prominently in the Old Testament. Nabonidus was an elderly scholar and antiquarian who seems to have lacked the energy or competance to direct his kingdom in a critical period when other states, Lydia and Medea, were crumbling before the advance of Persia under Cyrus the Great. In 539 B.C., when Cyrus finally turned his attention to Babylonia, he encountered little resistance. In fact, there is ground for suspicion that the Babylonians, particularly the priests, were willing to exchange Nabonidus for Cyrus.

After 539 B.C., Babylonia and Assyria ceased to be independent and passed successively under the rule of the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, the Parthians, and the other later conquerors of the Near East. The city of Babylon itself remained an important administrative center for many centuries, but the old cities of Assyria were abandoned. When Xenophon passed by the Assyrian capital of Nineveh at the end of the 5th century B.C., only a huge mound of earth remained to mark the site of a once thriving urban center.

The Neo-Babylonian period was the final one in which the Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia were their own masters. Many centuries of domination by one foreign group after another followed the capture of Babylon by the Persians in 539 B.C. On the other hand, until the Mongol invasion of the 13th century A.D., the economic and cultural importance of the area was not diminished. No matter what group was in power, and no matter how far-flung the political entity of which Mesopotamia happened to be a part at the moment, the vicinity of Babylon continued to be a site of an administrative center. That is to say, the captial was in this area, for the sites of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon and Baghdad are close neighbours. Because of its possibilities for agricultural production and its favourable position for trade, the plain constituted a rich and populous province. The economic wealth of other regions might rise and fall, but Babylonia possessed a stability in this respect, which kept it on a fairly even keel. Further, as a major contributor to Near Eastern, Greek and Roman civilisations, Babylonia remained a primary center of cultural diffusion throughout antiquity.

Persian Mesopotamia

The coming of the Persians under Cyrus the Great in 538 B.C. marked the first of a series of instances in which the inhabitants of Persia were to extend their political control over Mesopotamia. In the Persian period, the Tigris-Euphrates Valley was divided into two satrapies known as Chaldea and Assyria, with the former including the plain and the latter the highlands. The importance of Babylon was recognized in the fact that it was one of the four major administrative centers of the Persian Empire, a vast political unit which stretched from the Indus to the Nile. During the period, the population of Mesopotamia remained largely Semitic. A triumph may be seen in that the conquerors adopted a system of writing based on a modification of the Babylonian cuneiform script.

Alexander the Great

The Persian Empire endured until it was crushed by the onslaught of Greeks and Macedonians led by Alexander the Great. Alexander's campaigns began in Asia Minor in 335 B.C. and carried him to Babylon late in 331. When he returned from his eastern conquests in 325, he established his headquarters at Babylon, where he died in 323. With the disintegration of Alexander's empire, Mesopotamia and most of the old Persian holdings — except Egypt — fell into the hands of Seleucus, one of Alexander's Macedonian generals.

Selucid Mesopotamia

Seleucus established a dynasty which dominated the Near East for the next two centuries. The capital, a new city called Seleucia, was located on the Tigris about twenty miles south of Baghdad. At its greatest extend the empire stretched eastward to the Indus and included the old Persian homeland. It was here, just south of the Caspian Sea, that a new movement of Persian nationalism appeared about the middle of the 3rd century B.C..

Parthian Kingdom

A group known as the Parthians began to represent themselves as the successors of the Persians and to call upon the Iranian tribes to unite against the Greeks and Macedonian foreigners. Gathering momentum, the anti-Seleucid revolt restored the independence of Persia before the 3rd century ended. Then the Parthian monarchs looked westward toward Mesopotamia. Under the famoous Mithradates I, the first major Parthian king, the hordes from Iran expelled the Seleucids from the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and the Parthians became the rulers of Mesopotamia.

The Parthians are best remembered as the formidable opponents of the Romans in the Near East. They were the victors over Crassus at Carrhae (modern Haran) in the 1st century B.C. and the victims of the Roman emperor Trajan when his campaigns of A.D. 114-116 carried the Roman standards all the way to the Persian Gulf. Just as in the case of the Persian Empire, so under the Parthians, Mesopotamia was a vital region and a center of administration. During the 1st century B.C., however, the capital city of Seleucia on the Tigris was replaced as capital by the rival city of Ctesiphon, just across the river.

The Parthian Kingdom survived the campaigns of Trajan and regained territory temporarily surrendered during the brief Roman occupation, but there were later Roman attacks. In the time of Marcus Aurelius, a new penetration — which might have been more serious than that of Trajan — was nullified by the great plague which the legions carried back home with them. Subsequently, the Parthians were weakened by the campaigns of Septimus Severus and Caracalla, with the result that they ultimately collapsed before new pressure emanating from Persia.

Sassanian Kingdom

The Sassanian Persians, whose kings claimed descent form the Achaemenids (the founders of the First Persian Empire), revolted against the Parthians in A.D. 224. By 227 Mesopotamia had fallen to the Sassanians and the Parthian Kingdom had ceased to exist. The Sassanian Kingdom now came into being, with the Persians replacing the Parthians as the opponents of the Romans. During the Sassanian period the conflict between East and West continued, with first one side and then the other gaining the upper hand. The Persian defeat and capture of the Roman emperor Valerian in the middle of the 3rd century has often been compared to the Parthian victory over Crassus. But the Romans, too, had their share of glory with the victories of Diocletian and the preliminary successes of John the Apostate. In Byzantine times the Eastern emperors at Constantinople carried on the warfare against the Sassanians with little or no permanent achievement.

The Islamic Caliphates

At length, the Sassanians were destroyed and the ancient period came to an end with the rise of a new group, the Arabs. After the death of the Prophet, Mohammed, in 632, the Arabs began to expand outside their homeland. Under the inspiration of Islam they were irresistable. Syria and Palestine were conquered; then Mesopotamia fell in 637.

Under the Orthodox, Ommiad and Abbasside caliphs, Mesopotamia continued its old administrative, economic and cultural importance. Kufa on the Euphrates replaced Ctesiphon as the capital, until the foundation of Baghdad by the Abbasside caliph, al-Mansur, in 762. Baghdad, home of Harun al-Rashid and scene of the stories of the Arabian Knights, is still capital of Mesopotamia. In the 8th century, Baghdad was not merely a provincial capital, as Kufa had been under the Ommiads, it was also the imperial seat of the new Abbasside Dynasty, replacing Damascus as the political center of the Moslem world. The change from Damascus to Baghdad is said to have had the further effect of promoting the Persianification of the Arab rulers, whose political ideas and social habits were now modified by lingering Sassanian influences.

After reaching its peak in the 8th and 9th centuries, the vigour of the Abbassides was gradually lost. By the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks had extended their sway southward into Mesopotamia. Between 1055 and 1194, a Seljuk sultan wielded temporal power in Baghdad, while by his side Abbasside caliphs sat as mere puppets clutching about them the tattered remnants of spiritual authority as successors of the Prophet.

Mongolian Mesopotamia

Although the Mongols under Genghis Khan swept across Persia and into Mesopotamia between 1218 and 1222, it was Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan and brother of Kublai Khan, who effectively subdued Mesopotamia. In 1258, Baghdad surrendered to Hulagu after a siege in which 800,000 non-combatants were slaughtered. For the next eighty years, Mesopotamia was a province of the Mongol empire; for another seventy years it was the possession of one or another of the smaller Mongolian states. A second Mongolian sack of Baghdad occurred in 1393, when the ferocious Tamerlane descended upon the city. During the 15th century, Mesopotamia knew further suffering under the rule of two Turkomen dynasties known as the Black Sheep and the White Sheep.

At the very end of the middle period, a revived Persia once more conquered and for a few years held the Tigris-Euphrates valley (1509-1534). By the 16th century, however, Mesopotamia was ruined. Under the Mongols, the irrigation system so necessary to agricultural prosperity had been completely destroyed; and much of the cultivated area had become barren and arid. There was undoubtedly a serious decline in population, with very little recovery having taken place since that time.

Ottoman Mesopotamia

In 1534, the Persians were expelled from Mesopotamia by the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent, the great Ottoman sultan. From then until the present, Mesopotamia has been a Turkish possession.

Palestine

Rise & Fall of the Hebrew Kingdom

The Hebrews were subjects of the Philistines, but at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. an independent Hebrew kingdom was established under Saul about 1025 B.C. and continued under the reigns of David (1013-973 B.C.) and Solomon (973-933 B.C.). Following Solomon’s death, his kingdom divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The former was conquered by the Assyrians under Sargon II in 722 B.C., and its population deported to various parts of the Near East as far north as the Caucasus. The kingdom of Judah lasted until 586 B.C.

Various invaders, such as the Scythians, described by Jeremiah, came and went during this period. When Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, was destroyed in 612 B.C. by the Neo-Babylonian empire (Chaldea), the subject peoples celebrated their deliverance with a joy expressed by the Jewish prophet Ezekial in his writings. But the liberation of the Hebrews was short lived, for they allied with Egypt against Chaldea and suffered further enslavement when defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. The last king of Judah, Zedekiah, was deported with most of his people to Chaldea (the Babylonian captivity) and Jerusalem was destroyed. However, when the Persians defeated the Chaldeans in 539 B.C., some 40,000 to 50,000 Hebrews were returned from captivity to Palestine. Jerusalem was restored and the temple rebuilt.

Under Persian rule considerable autonomy was allowed, and the Hebrews maintained their theocratic rule and developed a distinguished Jewish literature. The conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. did not affect their status. It was under his successors that Hellenistic influences began to permeate the Near East and Greek religion to be imposed on its peoples. Large numbers of Jews, unwilling to submit to such changes, migrated to Egypt, and others spread throughout the Hellenistic world.

Egyptian & Seleucid Rule

The contending forces of the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria sought throughout this period to control Palestine for its wealth and for its importance as a commercial outlet for the Asiatic hinterland. In the 3rd century B.C. the Ptolemies held the upper hand, while in the following century Palestine came under the domination of the Seleucid rulers. It was in this latter period that the Book of Daniel was written, prophesying incorrectly the end of Antiochus III and the Seleucid rule. The reckless brutality with with Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to Hellenize the Jewish people provoked a revolt under the leadership of the Maccabeans, or Hasmoneans, in 167 B.C. The Syrian armies were driven out of Palestine and an independent kingdom was re-established. The Hasmonean rulers allied themselves with the Roman empire but later became Rome’s vassals.

Roman Period

From 64 B.C., when Pompey took Palestine for Rome, until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by Titus, Palestine was ruled by the Romans as a dependency of the Roman state. Such Hebrew kings as Herod were still called “King of the Jews,” but most of the power was held by Roman procurators, such as Pontius Pilate, who, with Roman legions at their command, maintained a firm control over Palestine. However, as a land bridge between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean, and between Egypt and Asia Minor, Palestine was traversed by important trade routes. It was densely inhabited by an industrious artisan and agricultural population during the height of the Roman era, and was truly a land “flowing with milk and honey.”

Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, the geographic location and the natural productivity of the land began slowly to reassert the position of Palestine as an important province of the Roman Empire. In 132 the Jews under Akiba ben Joseph and Simon Bar Cocheba staged a bloody revolt, which the chronicler Dio Cassius records as “no small one, nor short lived.” However, by 134, Jericho had been destroyed, Bethlehem devastated, Jerusalem barred to the Jews, and many Jewish captives sold into slavery. In the 3rd century much of Palestine became populated with non-Jews—Greeks, Arabs, Gauls, and North Africans, among whom Christianity gradually spread. The country recovered economically and the area south of Beersheba and the Dead Sea became intensely cultivated. Palestine was still an important land bridge in the Near East, and at Gaza there were 30,000 inhabitants whose chief occupation was winding silk thread coming from the Orient by way of Aqaba.

In 323 Emperor Constantine, by building his residence and the seat of government on the Bosporus, brought greater stability to the eastern portion of the empire, and Palestine prospered from this reorganization. Likewise, Constantine’s recognition of Christianity favored the development of many religious communities in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other places associated with the life of Jesus. After St. Helena’s miraculous discovery of the place of the Holy Sepulchre, the three crosses, and the scroll with Pilate’s inscription, Jerusalem once again became the Palestinian metropolis, and many elaborate and richly ornamented churches were built there. Undoubtedly the greatest Palestinian of that age was Eusebius, who died in about 340; he is often called the father of ecclesiastical history, for he was a voluminous chronicler of Christian developments.

Palestine as Sanctuary

Until 614, when the Persian Khosrau II sacked Jerusalem, the city, along with most of Palestine, was a Christian sanctuary and center of wealth and luxury. Pilgrims of every sort came to the Holy Land where, among the costly churches, the Church of Mary, erected by Justinian, was the most noteworthy; monasteries were founded in and about Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth.

Moslem Rule

Although much of Syria and the northern part of Palestine were conquered by the Arabs under abu-Bakr, Jerusalem did not surrender to the superior Arab force until 637, when the caliph Omar entered the city in his tattered garment of camel’s hair. The Moslem rulers did not molest the Christian population or the Holy Places. The site of the Temple was recognized and the Mosque of Omar was built over the Unhewn Stone. Mohammed had considered this a holy spot second only the Mecca, and prior to his control over Mecca, had always prayed facing Jerusalem. Under the Code of Omar, Christians were subordinated in Palestine but lived a life of relative ease. Few Jews were to be found in the land, and most of these drifted away or were converted to Islam. With the Ommiad caliphate established at nearby Damascus, Palestine from 661 to 750 experienced a century of comparative tranquility and prosperity. Caliph Abd-al-Malik (685-705) built on the sacred area in Jerusalem the incomparable Dome of the Rock and its accompanying Aqsa Mosque, which replaced Omar’s mosque. But this favored position of Palestine came to abrupt end when the Ommiad dynasty was supplanted by the Abbasside caliphs, who transferred the seat of government from Damascus to far-off Baghdad (750-1258).

From the middle of the 8th century until the fall of Jerusalem to the crusaders in 1099, Palestine was a minor and subordinate province of a great empire, and suffered greatly from misrule and frequent civil wars. In 974, Byzantine armies under John I Zimisces occupied Palestine, and the Christians of Jerusalem rejoiced over their deliverance. After Zimisces’ death in 976, the Moslems returned, but there was no religious fanaticism and few reprisals against the Christians. Islam at the time was openly rent by the Sunni and Shiite struggles, and Palestine was the scene of bitter rivalry. The Seljuk Turks, as the champions of the Sunni creed, subdued Palestine in 1072 and held it for the next quarter century. The cruelties of these Turks toward Christians and the hazards which suddenly confronted every pilgrim were the immediate causes of the Crusades.

The Crusades

The First Crusade, preached by Pope Urban II at Clermont, France, in 1095, reached the Levant in 1098. The Fatimids of Egypt, who had taken Palestine from the Seljuks, retreated before the onslaught of the Crusaders, evacuating the cities of Lydda, Er Ramle, and Jaffa. The Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert II, duke of Normandy, and Tancred reached the heights of Emmaus on June 10, 1099, but a valiant Moslem defense on the walls of Jerusalem made the attackers despair of taking the Holy City. However, with the arrival of Pisan and Genoese engineers, Jerusalem fell on July 15, and seven days of frightful pillage, arson, and slaughter followed. Most of the Jews were herded into the principal synagogue, which was then fired. Perhaps ten thousand Moslems were butchered in the holy area of the Dome of the Rock. When the carnage ended, all Moslems were cleared from the city, and at ceremonies in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Godfrey of Bouillon was invested as King of Jerusalem and the Latin ruler of the Levant. Godfrey died in 1100 and was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, who became king of Jerusalem as Baldwin I.

The Latins held almost all of modern Palestine and established there, as elsewhere in Levant, a feudal system parallel to that which existed in France of that day. Most of the Crusaders went home within a few months and their hold on Palestine was tenuous thereafter. The succeeding generations were easily corrupted by the vices and luxuries of the Near East and often fought among themselves. The Moslems of the hinterland and Egypt, on the other hand, soon regained their organization. In 1187, under Saladin, they regained Palestine at the Battle of Tiberius and on October 1 formally entered Jerusalem. The loss of the city inaugurated the Third Crusade (1189-1192), which, though Acre was captured, failed in its objective to take Jerusalem. Palestine was lost to the West and became reunited with the Moslem areas of the Near East under Saladin. Several decades later, Emperor Frederick II, leading the Sixth Crusade (1228-1229), took Jerusalem and succeeded in obtaining the right of Christians to visit and reside in the Holy City. This treaty, signed in 1229, gave Christians a similar privilege in much of Palestine.

Peaceful relations between Christian and Moslem came to an end in 1244, when the country was overrun and Jerusalem was sacked by the Chorasmians from central Asia. The country was again overrun in 1260 by the Mongols under Hulagu. Recovered piece by piece in the next three decades by the Mameluke sultans of Egypt, Palestine became a completely Moslem land in the fall of Acre in 1291, and the epoch of the Crusades was ended.

Later Moslem Rule

From 1291 to 1516, Palestine was a province of the realm of the Mamelukes. Since few of the main trade routes connecting East and West crossed Palestine during this era, a general decline set in. Tartars from central Asia overran the land in the middle of the 14th century, and frequent earthquakes levelled the walls of many cities and greatly damaged the churches and mosques. In the 14th century Jews expelled from France came to settle in Jerusalem, Er Ramle, and other cities of the country; German and Spanish Jews came during the 15th century; and by 1522 some 4,000 Jews resided in Jerusalem.

Sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Turks defeated the Mamelukes in 1516 at Marj-Dabik, and by this one battle Syria and Palestine were added to the Ottoman Empire. After conquering Egypt in 1517, Selim organized the government of Palestine along feudal lines similar to those in effect there. His “Domesday Book” for Palestine remained the basis for land law and tenure until the present.

Persia

About 1500 B.C., waves of tribal invaders speaking dialects of the Indo-Iranian tongues invaded from the north to east, the most advanced and powerful calling themselves the Mad (Medes). By the eighth century they had reached the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and come into mortal conflict with the Assyrians. At the zenith of the Median empire, about 600 B.C., King Cyaxares captured Nineveh and marched into central Anatolia.

Achaemenid Iran

The successors of Cyaxares were weak and succumbed to a rebellion in 550 B.C. led by Cyrus, a descendant of Achaemenes, who belonged to the tribe called the Pars, which had recently settled in the southeast. The Pars (Persians) borrowed Median organization and traditions and launched forth on a series of amazing conquests. The Medo-Persian army reached the Aegean Sea opposite Greece in 546 B.C., captured in 539, and seized Egypt a decade later. Cyrus proved to be a wise ruler and a generous victor. The Jews called him the Messiah, and later Greek writers praised his sagacity. His son, Cambyses II, died violently in 522 B.C., leaving the kingdom rent by civil war, during which a false pretender, Smerdis or Gaumata, temporarily mounted the throne. In a brilliant two-year campaign, 520-518 B.C., Darius I, claiming kinship to Achaemenes, reunited the country, recording his feats on the famous Behistun rock carving. His rule was long and noteworthy. Herodotus gives detailed figures on the organization of the immense realm called “the land of the Aryans,” or Eranshahr, the larges the world had seen up to that time. The new capital, called by the Greeks Persepolis, was adorned with exquisitely beautiful rock carvings depicted the glories and wealth of his realm. It is also fairly well established that at his court there lived Zoroaster, one of the greatest of the Aryan-speaking prophets, whose teachings were eventually codified in the sacred books known as the Zend-Avesta. Because some Greeks encouraged the Ionians to revolt in Asia Minor (499-494 B.C.), Darius sent two punitive forces to punish them. The first army was only partly successful, but the second was overwhelmed at Marathon in 490 B.C. A more ambitious attempt to subjugate the Greeks was attempted by Xerxes (Darius’ successor), but after a naval disaster at Salamis in 480 B.C. and a decimation of the land forces at Platea the next year, the invading forces were withdrawn to the shores of Asia Minor. Vastness of the kingdom, degeneration of the royal line, and the ambitions of powerful satraps combined to bring about a decentralization of authroity in spite of good post roads and an originally enlightened provincial policy, The effort of Cyrus the Younger, satrap of Asia Minor, to seize the throne in 401 B.C. resulted in the retreat of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries described by Xenophon. This incident also revealed the weakness and wealth of the empire, temporarily held together by Artaxerxes III.

Hellenistic Period

The last of the Achaemenid line, Darius III, proved totally incapable of organizing the defense of the empire, and in two battles at Issus in 333 B.C. and Arbela in 331 B.C., he led the flight before the conquering phalanx of Alexander of Macedon. In spite of military defeat, the culture and wealth of the Persian would greatly impressed Alexander, who married two of its princesses and adopted many Oriental traditions, much to the irritation of some of his associates. Upon the death of Alexander in 323 B.C., Seleucus Nicator carved out a kingdom including Iran. But the Seleucid rulers, in spite of their plans to build Hellenistic centers, were gradually driven westward by the implacable advance of new Iranian leaders, the Parthians.

Arsacid Dynasty

A military caste, the Parthians adopted Hellenistic titles and called themselves Philhellenes, but they vigorously opposed Seleucid rule. Following an obscure founder, Arsaces, who ruled about 250 B.C., the dynasty came to the attention of the Western world when Mithridates II (c. 124-87) defeated the Seleucidae and threatened to re-establish the great empire of Darius. In penetrating westward, the Parthians under King Orodes finally came under attack from the Romans in the year B.C. the wars that ensued were to last three centuries, sometimes with Parthian victories, such as at Carrhae in 53 B.C. and the destruction of Mark Antony’s hundred thousand legionnaires in Media in 36 B.C., and at other times with notable Roman successes. The battlefields were in Mesopotamia and Armenia, and a long struggle, in which neither could win a decisive victory, exhausted both states. After the death of Trajan in Cilicia in A.D. 117, the Romans abandoned efforts to subjugate Mesopotamia, and sporadic excursions thereafter often resulted in disaster. However, patricide and regicide were rife in the Arsacid house, barbaric customs had taken the place of Hellenistic culture, and constant civil wars over the question of succession to the throne drained the nation’s wealth and resulted in a marked decline in culture and strength.

Sassanid Dynasty

The province of Pars again supplied leadership for Iran. Claiming ancient royal ancestry, Ardashir I (Artaxerxes) defeated Artabanus V in 226, and instituted a purge of all things Parthian and Hellenistic. His descendants were to rule Eranshahr for over four centuries (226-641) and to bring about a renaissance of old Iranian art and thought. Devotees of Mazda, the god of light, the Sassanian kings re-established fire worship, built temples, fanatically uprooted heresies such as those taught by Mani and Mazdak, and codified the teachings of Zoroaster. After the acceptance of Christianity by Armenia and Byzantium as a state religion, adherents of this faith were suspect as traitors, and under Shapur II (309-379), Christians were persecuted as potential allies of enemy states. Arts and crafts flourished, many beautiful objects such as plates of silver having survived to demonstrate the high degree of skill existing at that age. The Sassanian monarchs imbued Iran with vigor in all fields. A script known as Pahlavi was widely used, though few specimens of literature have survived. Many roads and irrigation projects, bridges, new cities, and palaces were built, partly by the Roman slaves captured in the campaign of Shapur I against the emperor Valerian in 259. The ruins of all these still stand in southeastern Iran in attestation of their former grandeur. But Eranshahr was to have no respite from wars. The White Huns poured across the Oxus river and were halted only by elaborate military preparations in the fifth century. A little later the Roman emperors Constantine and Julian revived the hope of a conquest of Mesopotamia, but met disaster. In the sixth century, Sassanian naval forces were operating in the Red Sea, while armed land forces were on the outskirts of Constantinople. The Sassanian zenith in conquest and the arts was attained under Khosrau I, who ruled from 531 to 579. Khosrau II Parvez (590-628) seemed to be on the verge of surpassing all his illustrious ancestors, for he had recaptured Egypt and Asia Minor by 621, when the hollowness of the imperial structure was exposed by the dramatic duel with Heraclius, emperor of Byzantium. The latter advanced through Mesopotamia, drove Khosrau Parvez from his throne, and left the kingdom rent by intrigues and palace revolts.

Medieval Iran

Arab armies decimated Iranian forces in a series of critical battles between 640 and 642, and an Arab-Moslem military heirarchy was set up. This small group was soon inundated by Iranian clients or converts, who superficially adhered to Moslem forms but continued the content of their earlier cultures. Because of their advanced ability in administration and intellectual pursuits, Iranians soon dominated the Eastern caliphate at Baghdad. Iranians, with Arabicized names (Al Ghazzali, Ibn Sina, and At Tabari), writing in Arabic, contributed more to Arabic literature, philosophy, and science that did the Arabs themselves. Beginning in the eighth century, increasing numbers of Turkic tribes moved westward across Iran. By the eleventh century they had captured the caliphate and were the rulers of the Islamic world. The Seljuk period, 1055-1220, was one of the most creative in Iranian history, and Rayy became one of the great cities of the medieval world. But the feudal Turk war lords could not long remain loyal to any one chief. A series of regional feudal states grew up, each fighting its neighbor in interminable wars. These were swept away by the fierce hordes of the Mongols who invaded Iran under the leadership of Genghis Khan in 1221; Hulagu Khan, who captured Baghdad in 1258; and Tamerlane in 1369. So devastating was the effect of these calamities that it was almost two centuries before Iran became an integrated state again. In the interim, clashing rivals set up fragmentary states such as those of the Black and White Sheep dynasties, 1378-1502, the Sabadars, the Karts, and others.

The Safawid Dynasty

Out of this chaos there emerged in 1502 a thirteen-year-old scion of a sainted mystic known as Safi-al-Din. The boy, Ismail, succeeded in unifying Iran again, and his successors raised Iran to the stature of a great power in the two succeeding centuries. They ushered in the modern period in Iran. The climax of the Safawid rule came during the brilliant reign of Shah Abbas the Great (1586-1628). He fought victorious wars against encroaching Turks and Portuguese, adopted the official faith of Shiite Islam, moved his capital to Isfahan, which became one of the world’s most ornamented spots, and fostered trade, art, roadbuilding, and foreign diplomatic relations. He modernized the army, and employed two British cannoneers, who equipped it with its first artillery.