The first scenes in the drama of human history are laid in two
remarkable river valleys--the one formed by the Euphrates and the Tigris
in western Asia, and the other formed by the river Nile in northeastern
Africa. The Euphrates and the Tigris poured their waters into the
Persian Gulf, the Nile flowed north into the Mediterranean Sea. Both
these valleys were possessed of a rich, alluvial soil, that favored the
early development of industrial life among their dwellers. Along the
lower courses of the Asiatic rivers were the Babylonians, and later, by
conquest, the Chaldeans. In the upper reaches were the Assyrians. On the
banks of the Nile were the Egyptians. Such, according to our present
knowledge, is the first historic zone in which the real history of the
civilized world began.
In the basins of the Tigris and the Euphrates were several distinct
territories: Armenia, or the mountainous region between Asia Minor and
the Caspian Sea; Assyria proper, between the Tigris and the Zagros
Mountains; Babylonia, the great plain between the lower courses of the
Tigris and of the Euphrates, and extending westward to the Syrian
Desert; Chaldæa (in the narrower sense, as a province of the Babylonian
Empire), west of the Euphrates, at the head of the Persian Gulf;
Mesopotamia, between the middle courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates;
_Elam_ or Susiana, east of the Tigris, and at the head of the Persian
Gulf.