The races of the ancient Eastern world, or, at any rate, that portion of them which helped to make its history, either existed no longer or had sunk into their dotage.  They had worn each other out in the centuries of their prime, Chaldaeans and Assyrians fighting against Cossaeans or Elamites, Egyptians against Ethiopians and against Hittites, Urartians, Armaeans, the peoples of Lebanon and of Damascus, the Phoenicians, Canaanites and Jews, until at last, with impoverished blood and flagging energies, they were thrown into conflict with younger and more vigorous nations.  The Medes had swept away all that still remained of Assyria and Urartu; the Persians had overthrown the Medes, the Lydians, and the Chaldaeans, till Egypt alone remained and was struck down by them in her turn.  What had become of these conquered nations during the period of nearly two hundred years that the Achaemenians had ruled over them?  First, as regards Elam, one of the oldest and formerly the most powerful of them all.  She had been rent into two halves, each of them destined to have a different fate.  In the mountains, the Uxians, Mardians, Elymasans, and Cossaeans—­tribes who had formerly been the backbone of the nation—­had relapsed into a semi-barbarous condition, or rather, while the rest of the world had progressed in civilization and refinement, they had remained in a state of stagnation, adhering obstinately to the customs of their palmy days:  just as they had harried the Chaldaeans or Assyrians in the olden times, so now they harried the Persians; then, taking refuge in their rocky fastnesses, they lived on the proceeds of their forays, successfully resisting all attempts made to dislodge them.  The people of the plains, on the other hand, kept in check from the outset by the presence of the court at Susa, not only promptly resigned themselves to their fate, but even took pleasure in it, and came to look upon themselves as in some sort the masters of Asia.  Was it not to their country, to the very spot occupied by the palace of their king, that, for nearly two hundred years, satraps, vassal kings, the legates of foreign races, ambassadors of Greek republics—­in a word, all the great ones of this world—­came every year to render homage, and had not the treasures which these visitors brought with them been expended, in part at any rate, on their country?  The memory of their former prosperity paled before the splendours of their new destiny, and the glory of their ancestors suffered eclipse.  The names of the national kings, the story of their Chaldaean and 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