(6) The Arameans.—The second great division of the Northern Semites, the biblical ‘Aram,’ had as its proper home a much larger range of country than any of the others. Within historical times the Aramzeans had their settlements at various points on both sides of the Lower Tigris, to the west of the Lower Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, and
in Syria south as far as Palestine. Indeed it is impossible to say with certainty what was their original centre. They seem to have been equally at home herding cattle for the markets of Babylon, driving caravans along the Euphrates, or holding bazaars in the crowded cities of Harran and Dam- ascus. A partial explanation of their ubiquity and versatility is found in their genius for trade and commerce. They were par excellence the travellers and negotiators of the ancient East. What the Pheenicians achieved by sea, they with almost equal enterprise and persistence attained on the land. To them was largely due the commercial and intellectual interchange between Babylonia and Assyria on the one hand, and the western States, particularly Pheenicia, on the other. They had their trading posts even in Asia Minor, through which the Greek cities appear to have obtained much of their knowledge of letters and the liberal arts.
It is possible to make certain restrictions of the general fact of the wide extension of the Arameans. Until the 12th cent. B.c. they are not found in large settlements west of the Euphrates, though doubtless many isolated expeditions had from time to time crossed the River. They ap- peared in great numbers, with huge herds of cattle, upon the grazing grounds within reach of the Bab. cities. They also formed numerous settle- ments on the upper middle course of the Euphrates, especially on the left bank, and between that river and the Chabor. Here was Mesopotamia proper, the Aram-naharaim (or ‘ Aram of the two Rivers’) of OT. Here also was Harran, a city of enormous antiquity, held in historical times principally by Arameans. After the fall of the Hittite dominion in Syria, Aram. immigration hither went on apace, and Carchemish, Arpad, Aleppo, Hamath, Zobah, and, last and greatest of all, Damascus, were colonized and enriched by them. In the time of David (c. 1000 B.c.) they are found firmly planted in Syria (2 8 8). From the 10th to the 8th cent. B.C. decisive importance attached to the role of the ‘ Aramzeans of Damascus’ (the ‘Syrians’ of EV). But their westward career did not end with the political decay of Damascus. By the 3rd cent. B.C. Palestine, which politically had become in succession Babylonian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Greek, spoke popu- larly an Aram. idiom. After the rise of Christi- anity and the complete destruction of the Jewish State, the Jewish church perpetuated one dialect of Aramaic and the Christian Semites another. The Euphrates was the general dividing-line be- tween W. and E. Aramaic, just as it had for many centuries parted the two main divisions into which the Aram. race had fallen. The vitality of Aram- aism is attested by the fact that, while the popular dialects of Syria and Mesopotamia soon yielded to Arabic after the establishment of Islam in the 7th cent. A.D., Syriac, the principal E. Aramaic dialect, flourished as a literary language till the 13th cent., long after all traces of Aram. political influence had completely disappeared. See, further, art. ARAM in vol. 1.
(c) Canaanites.—For want of a better term, we give this name to the pre-Hebrew inhabitants of Palestine and Phoenicia, with their descendants. We class them as Semitic by reason of their language, their civil institutions, and their religion, all of which reveal the purest type of Semitism. Itis true that the Phoenicians of the coastland differed surprisingly from the inhabit- ants of the interior in their pursuits and mental habits. But common to both are ‘ the language of Canaan’ (Is 198), and analogous forms of Baal- worship. As to their place of departure from the common camping-ground of the Semites we are
SEMITES
again left to the widest sort of inference.* Of interest is the question as to the direction from which the Canaanites came into their historical abiding-place. The answer is: from the north or east; for if they had come from the south the would have spoken Arabic, or some dialect of South Semitic nearly akin to Arabic. That they were not the primitive inhabitants of Palestine is clear from the Bible statements as well as other evidence. We may for convenience call the earlier residents ‘Amorites,’ a people whose antiquity may be inferred from the name ‘Land of the Amorites,’ given to the country in the remotest times by the Babylonians. The Amorites were possibly not Semitic. The most significant fact about them is that there is no indication that they ever occupied the lower coastland, though they had settlements on both sides of the Jordan. They survived as a community longest in the east, where they were finally absorbed by Moabites, Ammonites, and the invading Hebrews.
The most striking feature of the civic and social life of the Canaanites was their residence in small city-States, independent of each other, and only con- federated, if at all, under stress of common danger. This tendency to mutual repulsion was exhibited even among the Pheen. cities, which, however, partly on account of their foreign colonizing ex- perience, became more disposed towards voluntary federation. The pursuits of the two branches of the Canaanites were not more dissimilar than their fortunes. While those of the interior remained isolated, exclusive, and comparatively uncultured, those of the coastland became the most cosmo- politan, and, in a material sense, the most directly serviceable to mankind of all their race. While the one did not survive for more than a generation or two the Heb. occupation of Canaan, the other, in the political world yet not of it, utilizing and subsidizing the great world-powers in the form of tribute-giving, following their own way to opulence and commercial supremacy, survived not only the Heb. monarchy, but the Assyr., the Bab., the Pers., and even the Macedonian empire, succumb- ing at last to the Roman alone.