Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Mesopotamia

（Μεσοποταμία). A district of Asia, named from its position between the Euphrates and the Tigris, divided by the Euphrates from Syria and Arabia, and by the Tigris from Assyria. On the north it was separated from Armenia by a branch of the Taurus, called Masius, and on the south from Babylonia by the Median Wall. The name was first used by the Greeks in the time of the Seleucidae. In earlier times the country was reckoned a part, sometimes of Syria, and sometimes of Assyria. In the division of the Persian empire it belonged to the satrapy of Babylonia. The northern part of Mesopotamia was divided into the districts of Mygdonia and Osroëné. In a wider sense, the name is sometimes applied to the whole country between the Euphrates and the Tigris.