CHAPTER V.
CHALDEA AMD ARMENIA.
Seats of the first Chaldeans.—Division of Armenia.—Provinces , of Armenia,
according to Moses Choronensis.—Four Modern Subdivisions of Armenia.—
Appearance of the Country.—Vegetable Productions and Minerals.—Exports
and Manufactures.—Condition of the people.—Residences of the Armenian
Patriarchs.
T h e tract of country first occupied by the Chaldeans was
the mountainous district of the Chasdim,1 or Alybes, in .Central
Armenia, a little way northward of Erz-Rum. We also
find traces of this people in the names given to different
places at intervals, westward of the source of the Euphrates,2
as far as the banks of the Halys; and likewise in Babylonia,
a part of which, together with the whole tract of country
lying between the rivers, was designated Chaldea by some of
the oldest writers, and more particularly Berosus, who speaks
of a great resort in Babylon of the people inhabiting Chaldea.3
It is intended in the second volume of this work to give
some historical notices regarding the Chaldeans; and an
opportunity will then be taken to show that this people, or
rather the Sabean followers of Cush, are to be distinguished
from those descendants of Shem who, at a later period, occupied
part of the mountains of Assyria and the country westward
of the river Tigris; and to whom, though, perhaps,
erroneously, the Chaldean name has been more particularly
applied.4
1 Chalybes and Mosynceci, &c.; and the former are now called Chaldeans.
— Strabo, XI., pp. 528, 529.
2 Chalybeans and Chaldeans.—Expedition of Cyrus, lib. IV. Armeno-
Chalybes.—Pliny, lib. VI., cap. iv.
8 Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Chaldean, Egyptian, Tyrian,
Carthaginian, Indian, Persian, and other writers, &c. (p. 2 2 ); by Isaac
Preston Cory, Esq. London, 1832.
4 The earliest kings of Babylonia are designated Chaldeans. See Fragments
from Apollodorus, Syncellus, and others, pp. 30, 56, 67.