What did the war-loving, blood-thirsting Assyrians leave for future ages? At first the question seems not to be easily answered. One calls to mind their ravaging raids and unparalleled carnage, and remembering that their palaces and stores of inscribed tablets were recovered only within the last fifty years, their contributions are not so apparent. Yet, having studied the government enforced by Darius upon his empire, we are compelled to admit that he but improved upon the system evolved by the Assyrian kings, unknown before their time in Asia. Again, the very conquests themselves were helpful, in spite of their cruelty, for they brought the best civilization of their day to half-barbarous tribes who otherwise might have passed century after century before reaching the degree of progress so rudely thrust upon them. These conquests opened up routes of commerce, and trade has always exceeded all other factors as a civilizing force. To science the Assyrians appear to have made no contributions whatever. Coming to ancient Persia, we find a wholly different culture. The people of this country lacked the practical turn of mind so characteristic of the Babylonian, and his mercenary point of view was quite unknown to them. Persian literature, while scanty, embodied poetical conceptions, and several of the ancient poems possess much art. "The Persians had fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination. Yet we cannot justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual excellence. If the great work of Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of their ancient poetry, their efforts were but of moderate merit. A tone of exaggeration, an imagination exuberant and unrestrained, a preference for glitter over solid excellence, a love of far-fetched conceits, characterize the Shahnameh; and, though we may ascribe something of this to the individuality of the poet, still the conviction presses upon us that there was a childish and grotesque character in the mass of old Persian poetry, which marked it as the creation of moderate rather than of high intellectual power, and prevents us from regarding it with the respect with which we view the labors of the Greeks and Romans, or again, of the Hebrews, in this department. A want of seriousness, a want of reality, and, again, a want of depth, characterize the poetry of Iran, whose bards do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest and highest in our nature. They give us sparkle, prettiness, quaint and ingenious fancies, grotesque marvels, an inflated kind of human heroism; but they have none of the higher excellences of the poetic art, none of the divine fire which renders the true poet, and the true prophet, one."[2]