美国学生人类历史第30期:苏美尔人(5)

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　　没过多久，他们被同样信仰沙漠大神阿舒尔的亚述人所征服。亚述人以首都尼尼微为中心，

　　and who made the city of Nineveh the center of a vast and terrible empire which conquered all of western Asia and Egypt and gathered taxes from countless³ subject races

　　建立了一个囊括全部西亚与埃及的恐怖帝国，并向统治下的无数种族征收赋税。

　　until the end of the seventh century before the birth of Christ when the Chaldeans, also a Semitic tribe, re-established Babylon and made that city the most important capital of that day.

　　到公元前7世纪，同为闪米特部族的迎勒底人重建了巴比伦，使它成为当时世界上最重要的首都。

　　Nebuchadnezzar, the best known of their Kings, encouraged the study of science,

　　迦勒底人最著名的国王尼布甲尼撒鼓励科学研究，

　　and our modern knowledge of astronomy and mathematics is all based upon certain first principles which were discovered by the Chaldeans.

　　我们当代的天文学和数学就是从沙勒底人发现的最基本的原理中发展而来的。

　　In the year 538 B.C., a crude tribe of Persian shepherds invaded this old land and overthrew⁴ the empire of the Chaldeans.

　　公元前538年，一支野蛮的波斯游牧部落侵占了这块古老的土地，推翻了迦勒底人的帝国。

　　Two hundred years later, they in turn were overthrown⁵ by Alexander the Great, who turned the Fertile Valley, the old melting-pot of so many Semitic races, into a Greek province.

　　200年后，亚历山大大帝击败了他们，把这块富饶的河谷、众多闪米特部族的大熔炉，变成了马其顿的一个行省。

　　Next came the Romans and after the Romans, the Turks,

　　随后又来了罗马人，罗马人之后是土耳其人。

　　and Mesopotamia, the second centre of the world's civilisation⁶, became a vast wilderness⁷ where huge mounds⁸ of earth told a story of ancient glory.

　　而美索不达米亚，这个世界文明的第二中心，终于沦为了一片广漠的荒原。只有那些巨大的土丘，在述说着这块古老土地昔日的光荣与沧桑。

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