ASSUMPTION ASSYRIA 33 delivered, where a price has been agreed upon, then it is common assumpsit. ASSUMPTION, a festival of the Roman Catho- lic church, instituted to commemorate the as- cent of the Virgin Mary into heaven. From a very early period it has been a belief in the western and oriental churches that after her death the Virgin was taken up, body and soul, into heaven. This event is called in the ancient ecclesiastical writings the " assumption," " pas- sage," or " repose," and is mentioned by vari- ous early authors, among whom are St. Greg- ory of Tours in the 6th century, and Andrew of Crete at the beginning of the 8th. The date of the institution of the festival is un- known, but it is mentioned as having been celebrated with great solemnity before the 6th century, in both Greek and Latin churches. It falls on Aug. 15. ASSUMPTION, a S. E. parish of Louisiana, W. of the Mississippi river, having within its limits Lake Verret and a part of Bayou La Fourche ; area, 320 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 13,234, of whom 6,984 were colored. The soil is very fertile, and the parish is one of the most pro- ductive sugar districts in the United States. In 1870 it produced 246,929 bushels of Indian corn, 17,229 Ibs. of rice, 9,558 hhds. of sugar, and 499,135 gallons of molasses. Capital, As- sumption. ASSUMPTION, a city of South America. See ASUNCION. ASSUMPTION, one of the Ladrone gronp of islands in the Pacific ocean, lat. 19 41' N., Ion. 145 27' E. It is of volcanic origin, rises to the height of about 2,000 feet, and is nearly 10 miles in circumference. It produces cocoa- nuts, rice, oranges, and breadfruit. ASSURANCE. 1 See INSURANCE. ASSWAN, or Assura (anc. Syene ; in the Hebrew Scriptures, Seveneh), a town on the southern border of Egypt, on the right bank of the Nile, opposite the island of Elephantine, in lat. 24 5' N., a little below the first cataract, where the river is first navigable ; pop. about 4,000. The tropic of Cancer was anciently but erroneously drawn here. The surrounding country is sandy and desolate, and, with the exception of a few palm groves, is almost des- titute of vegetation. The inhabitants are Egyptians, Nubians, and the descendants of Bosnian troops garrisoned there by Sultan Selim I., the conqueror of Egypt, in 1517. Asswan has considerable commerce in dates, senna, wicker baskets, ivory, ostrich feathers, tamarinds, coffee, and slaves. On the S. side are the ruins of an ancient Saracen town, where during the middle ages 20,000 persons died by one visitation of the plague. ASSYRIA (Gr. 'Aaavpia ; Heb. Ashshur), an ancient country in Asia, lying upon both banks of the Tigris, the seat of one of the great mon- archies of antiquity, and now comprised with- in the easternmost dominions of the Turkish empire. The name conies from Asshur, a son of Shem and grandson of Noah, probably a leader in one of the great early migrations, who was deified and recognized as the tutelary divinity of the country occupied by the de- scendants of the clan of which he was the chief. In its earlier and most limited sense, Assyria was a narrow territory, mainly on the E. bank of the Tigris, including the triangle formed by that river and the Greater Zab (the Zabatus or Lycus of the classical writers), a district especially known as Aturia; the dis- trict of Adiabene, between the Greater Zab and the Lesser (the Caprus of the Greeks and Romans) ; and some regions to the southeast of the latter. Assyria was thus bounded N. by the snowy Niphates range, which separated it from Armenia, and E. by the Zagros moun- tains of Kurdistan, which separated it from Media, and on the S. and W. it bordered on Susiana, Babylonia, and western Mesopotamia. It was mountainous in the north and east, a rolling plain in most other parts, and east of the Tigris well watered. Later, when Assyria became the predominant power in the region, the name came to embrace also all northern Mesopotamia. Still later, and in the widest sense, Assyria denoted the entire plain wa- tered by the Euphrates and the Tigris, to- gether with the countries to the west, north, and east, which became subjects of or tribu- tary to the great Assyrian empire. There is no record of the time when the country was first peopled. Berosus, whose chronology from the commencement of the historic period is confirmed from various sources, makes a pe- riod of 36,000 years before the capture of Babylon by Cyrus (538 B. C.) ; but of this, 34,080 years belong to a mythical dynasty of 86 kings. This number is merely assumed to make up the grand Chaldean cycle of 36,000 years. His historic chronology begins at 2458 B. 0., a short period before the time when, ac- cording to the Scriptural narrative, Nimrod es- tablished his reign in " Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar," out of which land "went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah," all cities on or near the upper Tigris. From this time for fully 1,000 years there is no record of Assyria in the Hebrew writers ; and down to about 1850, when the inscriptions of Nin- eveh and Calah had been unearthed and deci- phered by Botta, Layard, and others, there was absolutely nothing known of the true his- tory of this great empire, which lasted more than 1,000 years, except as it was for a brief space connected with that of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The legends of Ninus, Semiramis, Ninyas, and Sardanapalus have no other foundation than that among the Assy- rian kings was one named Asshur-bani-pal, or similarly, and a queen Sammuramit ; that Nineveh was taken by a revolt in which the Medes took part ; and that the final destruc- tion of the great palace was by fire. The earliest known native document of Assyrian
