Syrian
conquests, the trophies of their victories over the great generals
of Nineveh, the horrors of their latest discords and of the final
catastrophe were all forgotten; even the documents which might have
helped to recall them lay buried in the heart of the mound which served
as a foundation for the palace of the Achgernenides. Beyond the vague
consciousness of a splendid past, the memory of the common people was
a blank, and when questioned by strangers they could tell them nothing
save legends of the gods or the exploits of mythical heroes; and from
them the Greeks borrowed their Memnon, that son of Tithonus and Eos
who rushed to the aid of Priam with his band of Ethiopians, and whose
prowess had failed to retard by a single day the downfall of Troy.
Further northwards, the Urartians and peoples of ancient Nairi, less
favoured by fortune, lost ground with each successive generation,
yielding to the steady pressure of the Armenians. In the time of
Herodotus they were still in possession of the upper basins of the
Euphrates and Araxus, and, in conjunction with the Matieni and Saspires,
formed a satrapy--the eighteenth--the boundaries of which coincided
pretty closely with those of the kingdom ruled over by the last kings
of Van in the days of Assur-bani-pal; the Armenians, on their side,
constituted the thirteenth satrapy, between Mount Taurus and the Lower
Arsanias.

[Illustration: 325.jpg COINS OF THE SATRAPS WITH ARAMAEAN INSCRIPTIONS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from coins in the _Cabinet des
Medailles_

The whole face of their country had undergone a profound change since
that time: the Urartians, driven northwards, became intermingled with
the tribes on the slopes of the Caucasus, while the Armenians, carried
along towards the east, as though by some resistless current, were
now scaling the mountainous bulwark of Ararat, and slowly but surely
encroaching on the lower plains of the Araxes. These political
changes had been almost completed by the time of Ochus, and Urartu had
disappeared from the scene, but an Armenia now flourished in the very
region where Urartu had once ruled, and its princes, who were related
to the family of the Achaemenides, wielded an authority little short of
regal under the modest name of satraps. Thanks to their influence, the
religions and customs of Iran were introduced into the eastern borders
of Asia Minor. They made their way into the valleys of the Iris and the
Halys,