ASSYR'IA (Gk. 'Aaavpia, in O. Per in scriptions Apra, E. Syr. Atkor, W. Syr. Ar. th fir, Assyr. Asshur. Later abbreviated to Syria). An ancient country in Mesopotamia. It took its name from the city of Ashur (Asshur, Assur), which was the earliest capital of the dis trict. The country occupied the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain. and was bounded on the north by the mountains of Armenia : on the south by Snsiana and Babylonia ; on the east by Media; and on the west, according to sonic authorities, by the Tigris. according to others, by the water shed of the Euphrates; and this limit seems to be the more correct, for many Assyrian ruins are found to the west of the Tigris. _Assyria was thus about 3.50 miles long from north to south, with a. breadth varying from 170 to 300 miles, and em braced an area of about 75.000 square miles. This plain is diversified by mountain chains on the north and east, and watered by the Tigris and its affluents, between two of which—the Greater and the Lesser Zab—lay the finest part of the coun try. known at one time as _\diabene. This history of Assyria can now, with the aid of the cuneiform inscriptions recovered from the excavations in :Mesopotamia, be traced hack to about B.C. 1800, when its rulers, with their seat in the city of Ashur, first began to make their presence felt. How far beyond this period the settlements reach back, it is impossible to say. So notch. however, is certain: that the earliest settlers of whom we have any knowledge belonged to the same branch of the Semitic race and spoke the same language as those settled in the south and known as Babylonians. Whether these settlers of Meso potamia came from the north or the south—a question still in dispute, with indications, how ever, in favor of the south—the Mesopotamian culture begins in the south (see BA ISYLONIA ) and spreads northward. As a consequence, Assyrian civilization, including its methods of government, its arts and sciences, is an offshoot of Babylonia. and it was only in improved meth ods of warfare that the Assyrians displayed any notable originality. The Assyrians were a more rugged and more warlike people than their south ern cousins, and while the latter are not by any means lacking in political ambition, it is the Assyrians who consistently carry out the policy of territorial aggrandizement, and furnish the most noteworthy examples. prior to Alexander
the Great, of the attempt to place the whole world under submission. The extension of power in Assyria begins, as in Babylonia, with the growing importance of a central society. About B.C. 1800 we find the rulers of Ashur, who bear titles which indicate that they exercised reli gious as well as secular leadership, holding sway over the northern part of Mesopotamia, and already beginning to extend their dominion even beyond these boundaries. They pass first of all into the mountainous regions of the east, and subsequently advancing to the west, they encounter the forces of Egypt. whose Asiatic campaigns begin about the same time as the rise of Assyria. Indeed, but for the Egyptians, who checked the extension of Assyrian power toward the west for seine centuries, we should have seen the standards of the Assyrian arinits planted on the shores of the Mediterranean. As it was, these armies directed their chief attention toward obtaining control of Babylonia. The conflict be tween Babylonia and Assyria, once begun, never entirely ceased. Occasionally there were tem porary intervals of peace, brought about through stress of circumstances; hut toward the end of the Eleventh Century Assyria, under the leadership of Tiglathpileser I. (c.1120 to 1090 n.c.). ob tained a large measure of control over Baby lonia, and the ruler emphasized this by taking to himself the title of 'Ring of the Four Quar ters of the World,' which had previously been a prerogative of the rulers of the south. He extended and fortified his dominions to the north, northeast, and northwest. With him, ton. be gins that devotion to the arts which character ized the great monarchs of Assyria no less than their military expeditions. He once more made Ashur the capital of the kingdom. in place of Calah, to which the seat of government had been removed by Shalmaneser I. (e.1300 n.c.) and rebuilt the city, adorning it with extensive palaces and beautifying the temples of the gods.