sweeping towards the southern regions, which seemed to them their natural prey.  The successive invasions of Parthians, Turks, Mongols in Asia, of Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Huns in Europe, have, it is well said, ’illustrated the law, and made us familiar with its operations.  But there was a time in history before it had come into force, and when its very existence must have been unsuspected.  Even since it began to operate, it has so often undergone prolonged suspension that the wisest may be excused if they cease to bear it in mind, and are as much startled when a fresh illustration of it occurs, as if the like had never happened before.’[14183] No wonder that now, when the veil was for the first time rent asunder, all the ancient monarchies of the South—­Assyria, Babylon, Media, Egypt, even Greece and Asia Minor—­stood aghast at the spectacle of these savage hordes rushing down on the seats of luxury and power."[14184] Assyria seems to have suffered from the attack almost as much as any other country.  The hordes probably swarmed down from Media through the Zagros passes into the most fruitful portion of the empire—­the flat country between the mountains and the Tigris.  Many of the old cities, rich with the accumulated stores of ages, were besieged, and perhaps taken, and their palaces wantonly burnt by the barbarous invaders.  The tide then swept on.  Wandering from district to district, plundering everywhere, settling nowhere, the clouds of horse passed over Mesopotamia, the force of the invasion becoming weaker as it spread itself, until in Syria it reached its term through the policy of the Egyptian king, Psamatik I. That monarch bribed the nomads to advance no further,[14185] and from this time their power began to wane.  Their numbers must have been greatly thinned in the long course of battles, sieges, and skirmishes wherein they were engaged year after year; they suffered also through their excesses;[14186] and perhaps through intestine dissensions.  At last they recognised that their power was broken.  Many bands probably returned across the Caucasus into the Steppe country.  Others submitted and took service under the native rulers of Asia.[14187] Great numbers were slain, and, except in a province of Armenia, which thenceforward became known as Sacasene,[14188] and perhaps in one Syrian town, which acquired the name of Scythopolis,[14189] the invaders left no permanent trace of their brief but terrible inroad.

The shock of the Scythian irruption cannot but have greatly injured and weakened Assyria.  The whole country had been ravaged and depopulated; the provinces had been plundered, many of the towns had been taken and sacked, the palaces of the old kings had been burnt,[14190] and all the riches that had not been hid away had been lost.  Assyria, when the Scythian wave had passed, was but the shadow of her former self.  Her prestige was gone, her armed force must have been greatly diminished, her hold upon the provinces,