History.— The origin of the name Asia is involved in obscurity, and it is not certainly known whether it arose among the Greeks or was borrowed by them from some Asiatic people. Modern scholars are inclined to believe that the name Asia is connected with the San skrit uskas, the dawn, as Europe may be con nected with the Hebrew ereb, the west or the sun-setting.
The oldest historical documents are of Asiatic origin, and next to the immediately con tiguous kingdoms of Egypt, Asia possesses the oldest historical monuments in the world.
The oldest historical monuments in Asia are those of Assyria (see ASSYRIA), and with them are associated traditions which carry us back to a remote and indefinite antiquity. A similar vague antiquity belongs to the historical tradi tions of India and China. Criticism, however, reduces all these claims to moderate dimen sions, and assigns to the oldest ascertained facts a period not more remote than some 4,000 years from the present.
The earliest facts in the history of Asia, apart from documents and monuments, consist in the migrations of races, the evidence of which is derived from tradition, from language, from customs and from religion. The earliest known seat of the Aryan race was on the banks of the Oxus. Hence probably from the pressure of the Mongolian tribes to the north they spread themselves to the southeast and southwest, pressing upon the Dravidian inhabitants of In dia and the Semitic races of southwestern Asia. Finally they drove the Dravidians to the south of India and occupied Persia and other parts of western Asia, spreading into Europe. It is a remarkable circumstance that in this invasion the Aryans appear to have acquired the use of letters from the peoples with whom they came in contact, the Dravidian letters being borrowed in India and the Semitic in Persia as the origi nal basis of the Sanskrit and Zendic alphabets. At a later period the Greeks likewise adopted a Semitic alphabet from the Phoenicians. The Semites have spread within historical times into northern Africa, and their migrations had prob ably taken a similar course before they were recorded in history. A large portion of the Mongols are still, as they have always been, a nomadic race, and their migrations, carrying everywhere the terror of predatory arms, have spread from the settled part•of their own race in China along the north of Asia into northern Europe.
The early religion of the Aryan race,— a nation of shepherds,— divided itself after their separation into two related but widely different developments, Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism (see INDIA (Religion); ZEND-AVESTA). The former became rich in mythological, theolog ical and philosophical literature; but historical literature properly so called is wanting, and consequently there is a great absence of cer tainty with regard to the dates of early events. The war which the Mahabharata (see SAN SKRIT LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) professes to narrate is believed to be the earliest event in Indian history that can be regarded as historical, and probably took place about 1200-1400 B.c. In China authentic history extends back prob ably to about 1100 a.c., with a long preceding period of which the names of dynasties are pre served without chronological arrangement. The kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia, Media and Persia alternately predominated in southwest ern Asia. The arms of the Pharaohs also ex tended into Asia, but their_ conquests there were short-lived. From Cyrus (B.c. 559), who ex tended the empire of Persia from the Indus to the Mediterranean, while his son, Cambyses, added Egypt and Libya to it, to the conquest of Alexander (B.c. 330), Persia was the dominant power in Asia. The administration of Persia was not without vigor and policy yet the Mace donian conquest was an event of great import ance to Asia, bringing it, along with northern Africa, into closer relation with the more ad vanced and progressive continent of Europe. The division of Alexander's empire led to the protracted struggle between the Greek dynasties of Egypt and Syria. which ended in the absorp tion of both kingdoms in the Roman empire. After the unfortunate issue of the second Punic War Hannibal took refuge with Antiochus the Great of Syria, who, in the course of his con quests, had come in contact with the Romans, and was at length incited to try his strength with them. In the course of the war with Antiochus, L. Scipio, together with his brother, the conqueror of Carthage, passed into Asia. The kingdom of Antiochus was spared after his overthrow ; but in B.C. 65 Syria became a Roman province. The Roman empire ultimately ex tended to the Tigris.