And wherever they went, into whatever land of exile they were carried by their conquerors, they would take with them those sacred writings, that record of their history, that story of the creation of the world, and that code of their laws and of their religious customs, which, with very much more that they had not got, we now mean when we speak of the Bible. Wherever they went they had this holy record assuring them that they were the chosen people of Jehovah. Among the influences which enabled them to keep so distinct from the nations into whose midst they came, we must surely place very high the influence of the Bible--that is to say, of so many of its books as had been written at that time. The might of Babylon, as I have said, must have seemed so great to the Jews, carried away into exile, that it never could be overthrown. And yet, within less than fifty years from the siege and capture of Jerusalem, Babylon itself was taken by a power of such overmastering strength that the Babylonians only once afterwards, and to no effect, attempted to regain independence. This extraordinary "judgment," as the Jews regarded it, was executed by the hand of the Persians under their great leader Cyrus. {110} CHAPTER VIII THE PERSIANS AND THE GREEKS The Persians are a people that up to this point come into the story hardly at all. Suddenly, out of the East, they come right into its very centre and are the principal actors in it for a century or two. After the break-up of the Assyrian power, the strongest nation in the alliance that had done that breaking was the nation of the Medes. The Medes and Persians were of the same race, different altogether from the Semitic. They were of that great race called Aryan, or Indo-European, that came from the high lands in the centre of Asia. Probably their numbers so increased that they had to find new country. They pressed down southward and westward, towards the sun and the more fertile lands. They were hardy and accustomed to moving about. It was no hardship to them to make migrations. They moved with their wives and children, flocks and herds, and all their small household goods. A great number pressed down into India. Another big stream flowing towards the west came as far as the Babylonian eastern border. These Aryan people from the north-west were great riders. It is thought that they introduced the horse to the Babylonians, and that from the Babylonians it came to Egypt.