Syria Land of Civilizations

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As was seen in the previous passages, a civilization may be said to be distinguished above all by a complex, structured social organization, based on a hierarchical order of social classes, the highest of which is constituted by a political elite, or even a single leader, in whose hands lies all political power.

Phases of Syrian history

To start with, society was organized around village life, based on farming and animal husbandry; all the members of the community were related by kinship and enjoyed equal status. Then, as agricultural techniques improved and the population consequently increased, there grew a need to ensure that all the members of the community had enough food to survive, and the best way to meet this need apparently was to adopt a more organized social structure. This structure would someday develop into a fully formed political system, but at this point the interests of the community were managed by a chief or a ruling class, whose members were usually related to one another.

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Once this embryonic politico-economic organization was in place, social structures began to become more definite. The farming village consisting of a few families grew into a populous trading city that was ruled by one leader, supported in the exercise of power by a class of civil servants. Some cities, like Mari and Ebla, dominated and exploited neighboring territories to ensure that their own citizens had enough food even though these people were engaged in specialized, non-agricultural tasks. As the sphere of influence of these agglomerations grew, they became city-states. The trade they engaged in brought prosperity but also required that certain members of the community become specialized in management.

Head of a statue

Later, Syrian lands, or rather various parts of this territory, were integrated, sometimes forcefully, into kingdoms that were usually controlled by some dominant ethnic group, whether Amorite, Assyrian, Hurrian, Hittite or Aramaean. These peoples were not necessarily newcomers to the territory they occupied, and their ways of managing society respected local interests. It was in this period that the first “Arab” populations appeared in Syria.

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Later still, the Syrian territory as a whole was annexed to immense political structures encompassing several other regions as well. These structures were the empires. One after the other, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic rulers imposed their centralized government control over the economy and politics. However, they also showed some flexibility in adapting to regional differences.