e been
an integral portion of the Empire. This is Palmyrene, or the Syrian
Desert--the tract lying between Coelo-Syria on the one hand and the
valley of the middle Euphrates on the other, and abutting towards the
south on the great Arabian Desert, to which it is sometimes regarded
as belonging. It is for the most part a hard sandy or gravelly plain,
intersected by low rocky ranges, and either barren or productive only
of some sapless shrubs and of a low thin grass. Occasionally, however,
there are oases, where the fertility is considerable. Such an oasis is
the region about Palmyra itself, which derived its name from the palm
groves in the vicinity; here the soil is good, and a large tract is
even now under cultivation. Another oasis is that of Karyatein, which
is watered by an abundant stream, and is well wooded, and productive of
grain. The Palmyrene, however, as a whole possesses but little value,
except as a passage country. Though large armies can never have
traversed the desert even in this upper region, where it is
comparatively narrow, trade in ancient times found it expedient to
avoid the long detour by the Orontes Valley, Aleppo, and Bambuk, and
to proceed directly from Damascus by way of Palymra to Thapsaeus on the
Euphrates. Small bands of light troops also occasionally took the same
course; and the great saving of distance thus effected made it important
to the Babylonians to possess an authority over the region in question.

Such, then, in its geographical extent, was the great Babylonian Empire.
Reaching from Luristan on the one side to the borders of Egypt on the
other, its direct length from east to west was nearly sixteen degrees,
or about 980 miles, while its length for all practical purposes, owing
to the interposition of the desert between its western and its eastern
provinces, was perhaps not less than 1400 miles. Its width was very
disproportionate to this. Between Zagros and the Arabian Desert, where
the width was the greatest, it amounted to about 280 miles; between
Amanus and Palmyra it was 250; between the Mons Masius and the middle
Euphrates it may have been 200; in Syria and Idumsea it cannot have been
more than 100 or 160. The entire area of the Empire was probably from
240,000 to 250,000 square miles--which is about the present size of
Austria. Its shape may be compared roughly to a gnomon, with one longer
and one shorter arm.

It added to the inconvenience of this long straggling form, w