Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

42 HISTORY OF PERSIA chap.
of this fact cannot be overestimated, and it must be borne
in mind in
considering every question
in these
early days;
moreover, it circumscribes the area in which these epoch-
events occurred. It must also be recollected that
making
land recently formed by deltaic action is generally of little
agricultural or other value.
The Rivers of Babylonia and Elam.—At the earliest
historical period in Babylonia and in Elam the rivers
which were the makers of the country were those which
exist to-day ; but their courses were somewhat different,
and they all reached the Persian Gulf independently by
one or more mouths.
The Euphrates,— Starting from the west, the Euphrates,
still termed the Frat, which rises in the Taurus not very
far from the Tigris, followed a course in its lower reaches
to the east of the bed it now occupies, and thus diminished
the area of Babylonia as compared with to-day ;
country to the west has always
for the
been in historical times
hopelessly sterile. The Euphrates, which, unlike its sister
river Tigris, receives no tributaries of any value, played
a greater part in the earliest stages of civilization ; its
banks being lower, its stream less swift, and its waters
falling more slowly during the summer. It is thus not
surprising to find that not only Babylon but every city of
Sumer and Akkad, with the sole exception of Opis, was
situated on the Euphrates or on one of its offshoots. Its
waters discharged by two maia branches, on the southern
of which " Ur of the Chaldees " was the great emporium
for trade moving east and west ; but it does not appear
that at this very early period there was any commerce
with India.-^
The Tigris, —We next come to the Tigris,^ which,
rising near Diarbekr, receives constant accessions from the
rivers draining the Zagros, of which the Great and the
^
Kennedy demonstrates that the trade between Babylonia and India arose at the
commencement of the seventh century b.c. vide his ; '*
Early Commerce of Babylon with
India," yournal R. As. Soc. 1898, art. xvi.
^ The earliest name for the river was the Sumerian Idigna,
semitized by the
Babylonians as Diglat,
which occurs under the form of the form Hiddekel in Gen. ii.
14.. The meaning of the original name is uncertain, but it was assimilated by the
Persians to the word Tig/tra, an arrow (the same word as tigA, the modern Persian for a
razor), from which the Greek form Tigris is derived. To-day it is termed the Dijla,
the Arabic form of the Babylonian Diglat.